Top 10 Combos to try in Opus 3!

Right on time for Opus III!



Opus 3 has finally hit stores worldwide and players are working hard to brew the new best decks in order to compete in their locals, national or even international competitions! As a UK player, I have had a few weeks to test out a lot of the new cards and have come up with the top 10 combos I want to try going into Opus 3. Some of the cards on this list might seem strange to you however, it’s important to note that opus 3 brings with it a totally different meta from opus 2 and I am basing on my choices on the impression I have of that meta from playing with the top players In the UK. If you disagree with anything on this list, great! Let me know! I’d be interested to see what you think would be more appropriate. I’d be surprised if I didn’t miss something!

10) +

A simple combo to start, but effective! If your opponent only has 1-2 forwards on board you can use these 2 cards to dull both and freeze one, allowing you to setup a turn where you can dull the one not frozen for a much cheaper cost the next turn. Ice has a notorious history of not being able to setup a great backup line. This is mostly due to the fact that all the best ice backups break themselves for a powerful effect. Because of this, Kuja’s effect can be hard to get out and it can be tempting to just run Snow instead of him. If you play Shelke however, you are almost getting 2 backups in one because generally with ice you are attacking and trying to do points of damage to your opponent. Combining this effect with Kuja’s and you have a powerful dull engine which may be enough to sweep a few turns of free damage from your opponent!

9) +

Not a flashy combo at all but the effectiveness of Famfrit combined with the value of Yuna makes this something which I fully expect to be one of the most played combos on this list. There are a lot of cards in FFTCG that, when you read them, they don’t seem like they’d play that well. Famfrit is unique here because when you read it, it seems like it’d be pretty good. But, when you actually play it, you understand why it was the most played summon in chapters.There are so many ways to utilize this card it’s actually mind boggling. The ability to be able to play it just by discarding 1 card gives it the flexibility to be a 3 off in almost every water deck from now until at least opus 4. I could talk about Famfrit all day and maybe it will warrant it’s own video/article just to explain how useful this card really is.

8) +

Wind water was already the top dog in Opus 2. Balthier was already played as at least a 2 off in those lists. With the addition to Barbariccia to the deck the Wind Water deck becomes a powerhouse not only at out valuing your it’s opponents, but also breaking forwards! It’s hard to explain just how powerful it is to give wind the ability to remove fowards and all i can say is you need to go and have fun playing cards like Barbariccia and Dorgann in wind. It’s a huge tempo play to use Barbariccia with either balthier, valefor or Y’shtola because you are trading minimal resources to kill almost anything while you develop the board at the same time. It’s almost Al-cid levels of tempo!

7) +

Hello anti aggro! I distinctly remember loosing the semi finals of nationals due to a certain turn one Exdeath + Fleeting flash combo which put me on the back foot from the beginning. Well don’t I wish these two cards were playable at that time. The presence of Ephemeral Summoner in my deck now allows me to happily let my opponent go on the play so i can gain more value from drawing the extra card. If i play against anything cheesy (like two forwards turn 1) I can discard 1 card to give myself a blocker and a kill spell as a free ex burst. Sure, i’ll take a damage, but all my opponents tempo will be gone and the game will be won almost instantly. Ephemeral summoner is also a really good searcher because it doesn’t actually draw you the card, so it won’t thin out your deck (something water does a lot). It also lets you threaten ex bursts (which almost all water summons are) for your opponent on their next turn. There are also cheeky plays where you put this on top of your deck then use something cheap such as Fairy to draw a card which will essentially allow you to search for any 4 drop or lower water summon and add it to your hand for 3 mana (if you have yuna out, which you should anyway!)

6) +

How would you like to wipe your opponents board while advancing your own? sounds pretty good right? All you need is a krile in hand and in the break zone and phoenix and you can do 8k to everything your opponent controls. In opus 2 that may not have seemed like enough to kill a bunch of things but in opus 3 it seems like people are playing forwards at a much lower power because there are a lot of ways to punish inefficient cards now. Bonus points because if you’re playing earth you are playing Shantotto which allows you to pay the lightning to break 2 damaged forwards your opponent controls. If they do have big things you have an out to kill them with this combo as well!

5) +

Now, I know that one day, Feral Chaos will be worked out and his effect will be totally busted. I know it. Breaking things in this game is NOT a downside. There are many things that want to be broken. To name a few: Fusoya, Rinoa, Golbez, Emperor Xande… the list goes on! He has a lot of keywords and I can totally see a deck being built around his ability to break things. I may be wrong (and I kinda hope I am) but we’ll just have to see!

4) +

Okay, i’ll be upfront about this. Garnet is my favorite card in opus 3 and in general favorite card in the game. I am bias here. But, I think she is totally busted and I am just trying to come up with ways to abuse her (not in that way…). One of my favorite methods so far is to splash Cyclops in any deck that runs her, regardless of if i’m running Lightning or not (I also have a history of splashing lightning cards with no way of casting them in tournament decks..). The reason is due to her ability to cast ANY 3 drop summon for just 2 water you can splash anything when you are playing Garnet, Hecatoncheir, Titan, Cyclops, Belias e.t.c. Cyclops is especially great because for just 2 water (or discarding a card) you are making a 4k power change across the board. That is huge. There are not many forwards of yours that will lose to forwards of your opponents after a 4k power change (-3k to your opponents fowards and +1k to yours for casting a summon). Worst case scenario, you see this card when you don’t have a garnet out and just discard it for a generic 2 cp. No problem!

3) +

How would you like an 8k and a 9k forward for 5cp? or an 8k and a 7k for 3cp? (assuming you have wakka and only 3 backups). Lenna has quickly become the most efficient and powerful way of playing multiple forwards in the game. There are more powerful interactions you can do to play multiple forwards but, nothing beats Lenna for actual value. Most of the time cheesy combos such as Vanille + Yang + Ursula or Exdeath into Fleeting flash are either way too situational that they will only happen once every 1-3 games or they would only be useful (or sometimes even possible) turn 1-2 of the game. Lenna is happy to be played at any point in the game and will always be powerful. Turn 2 (with 1 backup, discarding a card + knight) she is a huge tempo play. Turn 28 she is a powerhouse threatening a bunch of really strong forwards to come back with her enter ability and Arise. When I first saw Lenna I was disappointed, after playing her I see that she is possibly one of the strongest Legends in the set.

2)

Behold! Your new lord and savior, Exdeath! Why is there not another card here to combo with him? Because Exdeath only needs Exdeath to destroy mortals! In all seriousness though, Grand Cross has got to be one of the most broken special abilities in the game. It’s just a huge NOPE to your opponent. There are a LOT of decks that will never be able to recover from loosing everything on the board and break zone, it’s not even funny! He also doesn’t need to tap to use his ability so super late game you can play him with enough resources to resolve Grand Cross that turn. Sure, you’ll lose your entire hand and likely won’t be able to win but, if it’s super late game your opponent likely doesn’t have many cards left in his deck and, since you are playing mono lightning you will be winning the mill race most of the time because you draw very few cards. I expect this card to warp the format, have an answer to him in your decks or prepare to lose to a well timed grand cross!

1) + +

I know, i’m sorry. The number 1 spot was supposed to be this really edgy new tech that no one had worked out yet. Unfortunately, I am practical and when I make a list I list to be right about it. I am 100% sure that at least for the next few months, the FF9 Package will the most played combo in the game. I haven’t seen a single water deck that doesn’t run it yet and water is running rampant everywhere (just look at this list to see!). The FF9 package is so efficient at what it does it’s really hard not to put it in my decks. All 3 of these cards are extremely versatile and rarely are a bad draw. I’ve searched for about 5 different cards with Steiner, 3 different cards with Eiko and used all 3 modes with Zidane, Consistently. You can play this aggressively turn 2 pumping out 2 forwards to threaten your opponent or you can play it ultra late to take resources out of your opponents hand or just as a value play in the mid game. When a combo can be used in any way, at any time, that’s when they go from being just good to a must play. Consistency in this game is important, I’ve always said it and the FF9 package is the most consistent and versatile combo we’ve ever seen in FFTCG.