Hello everyone. This is FFTCG Producer Tarou Kageyama. Today I wanted to announce a few changes that will be made to the deck composition rules for “L3 composition”— a format that has been hardly used in official tournaments due to the fact that it was announced right before the COVID-19 pandemic— as well as the more recent “L6 composition” format, as we plan to adopt this format for tournaments around the world from 2023. One is regarding the time period of when players will be able to start using cards with the “L6 composition”, and the other is regarding the treatment of certain cards that will not be usable for the “L3 composition” cycles.
【L3/L6 composition】Starter exclusive cards and promotional cards
The FFTCG starter sets always include cards with an “S” on the tail end on its card number. For the Standard format, these cards can be used from the point the starter set has been released. These cards may be unusable for a week or two depending on the tournament grade, but normally, they can be included in decks right after the release of the starter set for general tournaments like shop tournaments.
However, up until now, starter exclusive cards were not usable for “L3/L6 composition”, which uses a designated number (3 or 6) of the latest sets, until the booster pack with the corresponding card number was released. For example, for Noctis [18-139S], which is included in “TWO PLAYER STARTER SET Noctis VS Ardyn”, players will have to wait until “Resurgence of Power” is released to use it for “L3/L6 compositions”, since “Resurgence of Power” starts with [18]. Our goal was to make the usable cards comprehensible by managing cards by card numbers, but since the criteria was different from the Standard format, it ended up being rather difficult to understand.
As such, we will revise the rules for starter set exclusive cards with an “S” on the tail end on their card numbers, included in starter sets releasing after 2023. For these cards, they will be usable right after their release, similar to the Standard format. (Depending on the tournament grades, there will be a set period of time before these cards can be usable, like booster packs.) For the exclusive cards included in “Custom Starter Set FINAL FANTASY XIII”, which is scheduled to be released in February, players can use this for “L3/L6 composition” without waiting for the corresponding booster pack, “From Nightmares”, set to be released in March.
Additionally, for promotional cards that were previously usable since the beginning of the “L3/L6 composition”, and only has “PR” for its card number such as Sephiroth [PR-001] and Squall [PR-108], they will also have a set period of time before they are usable, similar to cards from booster packs.
Setting the release date for “Anniversary Collection Set 2022” (which includes the latest applicable cards) as a standard, all “PR” number cards up until Yuna & Tidus [PR-111] will not be usable for “L3 composition” and “L6 composition”. “L3 composition” will be aligned with “Dawn of Heroes”, which is scheduled to be released in Summer of 2023 (which will also be more than a year after the release of “Anniversary Collection Set 2022”), and “L6 composition” will be aligned with the booster pack that is scheduled to be released in Summer of 2024. Future [PR] cards will also have a set period of time before they are usable; 1 year for “L3 composition” and 2 years for “L6 composition” as a basis.
【L3 composition】Backups that generate crystals
One of the fun things about “L3 composition” is that the meta changes each time a set gets released, since it only uses the booster packs from the 3 latest sets. However, because of this system, depending on the timing when sets get replaced, certain cards and sets become difficult to use. The timing where “Resurgence of Power” is introduced is exactly that moment. With “Resurgence of Power” replacing “Crystal Dominion” for “L3 composition”, cards that stably generate crystals are removed, and building decks that use crystals will become difficult. We did not think that this would be an issue, as the meta would quickly change again. However, cards that use crystals will continue to appear in future booster packs, and we thought that it would be a waste to make these cards difficult to use as well. Because of this, for the Backups that generate crystals listed below, we will establish them as usable cards for “L3 composition” even after the release of “Resurgence of Power”.
・Samurai [15-007C]
・Knight [15-038C]
・Dragoon [15-058C]
・Geomancer [15-080C]
・Ninja [15-095C]
・Oracle [15-123C]
However, since we can’t give special treatment to these cards forever and more importantly, since they can be confusing, these Backups will be reprinted for “Dawn of Heroes”, which is set to be released in Summer of 2023 as the second booster pack to be released following “Resurgence of Power”. We are also planning to reprint subsequent cards as necessary.
”L3 composition” is an exciting format that allows players to enjoy the meta changing in short spans. We plan to adopt this format for big tournaments in the future, so please take this opportunity and try out this format for yourselves.