You probably have heard it time and time again,
"There's a Final Fantasy Trading Card Game?"
The early days of this game didn't have much in the form of advertisement or public image so was an all too common statement. I remember starting this game only a month after it first was released back in October, 2016. It was just from a random facebook scroll that I saw a trading card of Yuj.
I nearly skipped right by it, but being such a huge Final Fantasy nerd, I recognized the character. After Googling for an hour to pinpoint the source of where it was from, I discovered this trading card game that was only being released in the United Kingdom at the time! I was ecstatic and started to find any and all information I could. With little to no FFTCG forums at the time, and none of our local shops carried any product, was hard times for the game.
Eventually I found a small group of people on Reddit interested in the game, then an even smaller amount of people from Canada. After some planning, we finally had our first meet-up of a whopping 2 people!!! Being my first Trading Card Game, there was a lot of trial and error. The other player was well experienced in magic and really helped me learn how to play. It was nothing but misplays and card swapping for our favorite characters, rather than any real strategy. Soon we grew to 4 and then were an average 6 to 10 players over the course of the next year. Product was scarce in the beginning all across North America. Your options were to convince your local shop to get in product of this card game they never heard of before, over pay for boxes from the UK, or cave into people on Facebook charging two to three times more than they should have, in my personal opinion. (I still remember the one guy on amazon selling a box of Opus 1 for $700...) Eventually we lucked out convincing our local shop to finally start getting the product in so we could keep playing. If anything, this is a message to keep talking to your LGS! If there's a demand, they'll get it in!
I'm still convinced that most people who start this game come from there Nostalgia of growing up with the video games. Everyone has their favorite Final Fantasy and the first thing most people want to do when they join the trading card game is to get all the cards of their favorite character. Even now 2 years later you can still find people who are surprised to find out that there is a final fantasy Trading Card Game. It's come a long way to now being spread out across all the world and has grown such an awesome community of passionate players. I always hear about other card games communities having their toxic players and constant bickering amongst one another, but I've never seen that in excess in this card game. Sure as we grow we will probably get the odd few, but for the whole of it, I have to say I love this community and all the people in it!
As Opus 8 arrives in a week, it's hard not to look back at the different sets that came before and all the experiences we gained. I for one can't wait for what comes next!
So to conclude this very first blog post for our new website, my goal will be to keep up-to-date with the latest trends and events, and also bring you new content from myself and the other players at Breakers corner both here and on our YouTube channel.
Borrow from one of my favorite final fantasies,
May you ever walk in the light of the crystal.
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