Let's Talk About Cards: Cagnazzo (3-130R)

Hello, and welcome to Let’s Talk About Cards. The hope for these articles is to give players a concentrated insight into the usages of individual cards. This will include discussing a card’s synergies, a card’s role at different stages in the game, non-intuitive rulings or interactions, and counter-strategies.

Today, let’s talk about Cagnazzo 3-130R. Anyone playing in a developed metagame should be familiar with this archfiend, who typically resides alongside other cards with many lines of text in the Mono-Water midrange deck. Renowned and oft reviled for his resilience to damage, Cagnazzo’s walling abilities are improved by a good number of commonly-played cards. Furthermore, if you have not already been victimized by successive casts of Cagnazzo, I do not recommend the experience.

As a 5000 power Forward for 3 CP, Cagnazzo is moderately below the average Power-CP ratio. His abilities are what define him, and are unexpectedly synergistic. His first ability reduces any damage Cagnazzo receives during the opponent’s turn by 4000. It is important to recognize that this ability applies to every single instance of damage. If you want to one-shot Cagnazzo, you’ll need 9000 damage. If you’re hoping to use two sources of damage to kill Cagnazzo on your turn, you’re going to need 13000 damage. I wouldn’t recommend trying three sources. If you’re in the business of doing damage, killing Cagnazzo on your turn is going to require a lot of investment.

His second ability is dramatically different. When Cagnazzo enters the field, Forwards the opponent controls lose 1000 power for every 2 Water Character Cagnazzo’s player controls. Yes, when Cagnazzo comes down early, it likely does very little, knocking 1000 or 2000 power of their opponent’s Forwards for a turn. But in the late game, Mono Water will be looking for opportunities to play him twice in one turn, by means of returning him to his owner’s hand. If the Mono-Water player has established enough of a board presence, Cagnazzo is easily capable of doing at least -4000 power (8 Water Characters, including himself). When played twice,he is totally capable of annihilating the opponent’s board position to enable an alpha strike.

Synergies

The Mono-Water deck is a pile of synergies, and most of them improve Cagnazzo’s performance significantly.

Of all the cards in the deck, none are better with Cagnazzo than Minwu (1-171H). Minwu transforms Cagnazzo from a good blocker into, arguably, the best blocker. A 5000 power Cagnazzo can block 8000 power units without taking any damage if Minwu is in play. With so many great units having 8000 power or less, Minwu allows Cagnazzo to single-handedly wall entire boards from many common decks, giving Mono-Water much needed to time to develop their board and stabilize against aggression.

Wakka (1-180R) and Refia (5-141H) supplement Cagnazzo’s abilities with their anthem effects. A 6000 or 7000 power Cagnazzo can absorb far more punishment, and if our good friend Minwu is in play, 9000 and 10000 power units can be blocked with impunity.

Scholar (1-157C) and Bismarck (5-133H), enable Cagnazzo’s board-wiping functionality by means of their bounce abilities. Once the Mono-Water player has sufficiently developed their board, (between 8-10 Water characters), be on the lookout for opportunities when Cagnazzo might be returned to his owner’s hand to activate his enters-the-field ability twice in one turn and eliminate the opponent’s board.

Roles

Cagnazzo’s two primary roles spring from his two abilities. Most players are familiar with his first role: stalling out early aggression to allow Mono-Water the chance to develop a daunting board presence. This daunting board presence usually includes cards which improve Cagnazzo’s tanking abilities, allowing them to stall for even more time, turning on cards like Refia (5-141H) bounce ability, Cloud of Darkness’s (5-126L) enters-the-field and on-attack abilities, and his own second ability.

His second role is to end the game. After stalling the opponent into the late game, he’ll be returned to his owner’s hand or sacrificed to a strong attack, enabling the Mono-Water player to play another Cagnazzo, then bounce and re-play Cagnazzo, removing 8000+ power from the enemy team and opening the way for Mono-Water to deal damage.

Rulings and Interactions

Here are some things to bear in mind while playing with or against Cagnazzo.

1. His first ability reduces every single instance of damage he takes on your opponent’s turn. Many players are initially caught off-guard that he does not only reduce the first instance of damage.

2. His second ability only counts every two Water characters. If Cagnazzo’s controller has nine Water characters, his enters-the-field ability will reduce the power of enemy Forwards by 4000, counting each pair of Water characters on the board until there are no longer any pairs. It will count 4 pairs of Water characters, and ignore the 9th Water character, resulting in -4000 power.

3. Cagnazzo has received errata which specifies that his second ability’s power reduction lasts only until end of turn. As printed, the end of the ability is not specified.

4. Minwu (1-171H) is the very last effect that is checked when calculating how much damage will be dealt to a creature. All modifiers on damage are accounted for first, and once a final damage has been determined, Minwu checks to see if that damage is less than a Forward’s power. If the damage is less than the Forward’s power, that Forward takes no damage instead.

Counter-Strategies

So, how do you terminate this toothy turtle? Here, we’ll discuss options for pushing through him in the early game, making him manageable in the mid-game, and minimizing his late-game impact. I believe that curtailing Cagnazzo’s early game is the most critical component in any counter effort, because if he buys time for the Mono-Water player, he becomes more and more oppressive. These strategies are presented in roughly chronological order, in terms of when they become available to a player.

1. Party Attack - Not enough players party attack. Whether this is because of the perceived drawback of dealing less damage or fear of losing one of the party members, many players abstain from making attacks that place the Cagnazzo player in an awkward position. Because parties count as a single source of damage, you only need 9000 total power in a party to make some turtle soup on an unbuffed Cagnazzo. If the Cagnazzo player decides not to block, this also works in your favor: establishing a strong early damage lead can force a Mono-Water player to commit too many resources to defense, and leave them unable to win the late game. Few forwards are less than 5000 power, so Cagnazzo will only infrequently be capable of killing your partied units without the assistance of buffs from Refia (5-141H) and Wakka (1-180R). Please be mindful that Mono-Water plays tools to bounce or reduce the power of Forwards, so appropriately weigh the risk of Leviathans (1-178R) and (5-139C), as well as Bismarck (5-133H) before making such attacks.

2. Deal Damage on Your Opponent’s Turn - Cagnazzo’s first ability is only on half the time. If you’re in a color which has access to damaging Summons or Backups with damaging abilities, don’t hesitate to fire these off during your opponent’s turn. Be on the lookout for effects like Scholar (1-157C) and wary of Bismarck (5-133H) before committing resources to a kill.

3. Make Him Irrelevant - Wind, Fire, and Ice all have cards which can completely circumvent Cagnazzo. Wind has Forwards such as Black Chocobo (3-054C) and Yuffie (1-086C) which cannot be blocked by 3 CP Forwards such as Cagnazzo, and stronger cards such as Adelle (5-050H) which can become unblockable. Arc (5-052H) makes any unit capable of getting around Cagnazzo, and Koboldroid Yin (4-057R) is particularly attractive because of how well it dodges removal. Fire has access to backups like Red Mage (1-003C) and Ninja (5-017C) which prevent a single Forward from blocking. Ice can dull and freeze Forwards with too many cards to name. These represent significant hurdles to blocking with Cagnazzo, in the absence of cards like Astrologian (2-130C) and Fairy (1-170C). Earth, oddly, can use Cockatrice (5-081C) to render him unable to block.

4. Reduce His Power (During Combat or Otherwise) - In the presence of Minwu (1-171H), it’s not uncommon for Mono-Water players to block with extreme confidence. This is an exceptional time to shrink Cagnazzo’s power with cards like Cyclops (2-107C), Illua (5-099)’s Sheol ability, Bismarck (5-133H), Cuchulainn, the Impure (2-133R), and Tonberries (4-132R). Many other options exist in Lightning and Water which can do this during the Main Phase as well. Lightning has Black Waltz 3 (4-102R) and Black Mage (2-108C) to facilitate an easier kill or disincentivize blocking. Wind has Barbariccia (3-066R) and Diabolos (5-062L) which can set Cagnazzo’s power to 1000 for a turn, making him extremely easy pickings.

5. Play Huge Dudes - A fully-buffed Cagnazzo sits at 7000 power, requiring him to take 11000 damage to die in a single hit. Certain decks are capable of doing this easily, with Yang(2-090R)-focused Earth decks and Ramza (5-118L) Lightning decks hitting these numbers after a while. (A Ramza 5-118L who is big enough to eat a maxed-out Cagnazzo can also just kill him on attack declaration, but whatever.) Sometimes, bigger is just better.

6. Use Hard Removal - Hard removal is most attractive in the early and mid-game, before the Mono-Water player has a critical mass of mitigating resources. Few cards in the Mono-Water deck warrant the usage of hard removal as much as Cagnazzo. Mono-Lightning, with its reliance on Al-Cid, can suffer against Cagnazzo, but has the option of playing cards like Odin (1-123R), Odin (5-100R), Edea (2-099L), and Seymour (1-137R).  In Mono-Earth, decks playing the Vincent suite can use Death Penalty on Vincent (2-077L) to annihilate a good portion of a Mono-Water players board. In Mono-Ice, Mateus, the Corrupt (5-044C) can potentially kill Cagnazzo, if the attacking creature isn’t removed.

7. Accept Combat Trades with Other Forwards - While the first few entries have been concentrated on actually killing Cagnazzo, it’s important to remember that his purpose is to give the Mono-Water player enough time to develop a board and kill you. If you see a Mono-Water player making attacks and providing you the opportunity to trade your Forwards for theirs, it can be acceptable to take the trade, even if you haven’t taken much damage. The reason for this is that Mono-Water needs a huge board to be at its most effective, and if you can cull some of their units in the mid-game (particularly Refia), their late game is delayed. Taking chances to keep their board under control also gives you more time to win before Cagnazzo can be bounced and replayed. A major caveat to this comes in the form of Bismarck (5-133H), who can win combat from the hand for only two mana.

8. Attack His Synergies - Sometimes, you may not have the tools to deal with Cagnazzo. Perhaps your Mono-Water opponent has Wakka (1-180R), Refia (5-141H), Minwu (1-171H), and a Scholar (1-157C) for backup, and he looks impossible to deal with. In these cases, becoming focused on Cagnazzo isn’t a good plan. Instead, it behooves the player to look for card-efficient ways to deal with Cagnazzo’s enablers. Refia (5-141H) will likely never be larger than 8000 power, and in the late-game, is a huge problem: taking her down will not only make Cagnazzo more manageable, but also deny them a method of bouncing Cagnazzo. Backup-breaking abilities can be very powerful in addressing Minwu if you find yourself struggling against Mono-Water in Wind or Earth. Archer (1-088C) and Hecatoncheir (1-117R) are good cards in their own right, and can be considered as deck-building options.

9. Board Wipe - Sometimes, everything has to go. Cards like Shantotto (1-107L), Valefor (1-062L), and Cloud of Darkness (1-158H) all enable a person to push the reset button on a Mono-Water player’s board who has gotten out of control. If you have access to these cards, they present an expensive but devastating answer to Cagnazzo’s board wipe. Much better to remove everything than to have only your own field be annihilated.

Conclusion

Cagnazzo is a powerful card, which places much of the decision-making burden on the player across the table. It can be daunting to account for all of the different possibilities that Mono-Water brings to the table, and Cagnazzo’s utility at all stages in the game requires opponents to adapt their choices to the stage of the game. Thankfully, thoughtful party-attacking presents a simple, consistent answer to Cagnazzo’s early game across all colors, and each color has tools to circumvent his dominant defensive prowess. Careful control of a Mono-Water player’s board and persistent application of offensive pressure will allow you to prevail.

About the author: Joe Giallo's favorite archetype to play in FFTCG is Mono Water. His favorite Final Fantasy game is V.