Fate Apo – Summoning Fafnir (Y/B) [03/02/2023]

In the Nordic legends, Fafnir was once a human who was punished for his greed and, as such, was turned into a dragon as punishment. It is said through the mythical legends that the legendary hero Sigurd eventually used his blade to slay the foul beast.

Sieg, the inheritor of Siegfried’s (Sigurd) will, summons the mighty Fafnir after paying his costs upon reversing his opponent. Fafnir is a healer that gives a selected character an on-cancel ping ability while also thematically sending itself to memory face-down at the start of your encore phase.

One of the requirements to use Sieg’s combo is to have the above Frankenstein’s monster (nicknamed Fran) sacked out of memory. Fran puts herself in memory with her own combo, which is coincidentally great to use as our early advantage engine. Fran gains power upon attacking with her climax, and at the end of her attack, she must send herself to memory as you mill the top three cards of your deck. If any of the three cards was a climax, you may salvage a character. Fran is rather random in regard to her plussing ability. However, she does come with a large amount of power to help burst through your opponent’s field if necessary. You can think of this as Fran’s noble act of sacrifice for her comrades. Keep in mind that Fran shares the same climax as that of Sieg, so feel free to mix the climax triggers as you wish.

Given the unpredictability of our early advantage combo, we will likely need pieces that can retain field or hand value. In the case of Sieg here, he’s a beater with a cheap single stock encore ability should he be the only character in your front row at the beginning of your encore phase. This is especially easy in the case of you using Fran’s combo as she will naturally leave the field as part of the cost of her combo, guaranteeing Sieg remains alone in the front row. Astolfo is a coinfip profile to potentially bounce back into your hand during your opponent’s draw phase. Astolfo on the right is similar to Sieg with a cheap encore ability; however, Astolfo’s ability only activates during your opponent’s turn and gives him encore for only a single turn, sacrificing him at the start of your next encore step.

Sigurd shown above on the left is a spawn Riki profile, saving you hand and getting you field at the same time. His 1/0 version on the right is a large beater with a demerit of coming in rested unless you have the spawn Riki profile on stage.

Another group of cards mostly to push our advantage is shown here. Firstly, the 0/0 Ruler support is a global assist that can also tap itself to unflip a card in our level zone. This is a rather rare and strange ability, but one major gimmick in Fate/Apocrypha is flipping cards in the level zone as a cost to pay for several abilities. Keep in mind that a flipped card fulfills no requirements including that of colour. The support acts as a constant way of reusing cards in level zone, allowing you to reuse certain card abilities over again. Ruler in the center has an ability to pump extra soul to all your other characters when she attacks (at a cost of a single stock and also flipping over a card in your level zone). Chiron is a free drop search that replaces the standard stock requirement with a level zone flipping requirement instead.

Both Fran and Jack the Ripper here can be great to boost your advantages in one way or another. Fran is a stock charger upon reverse whenever you use an ACT【起】ability. Jack lets you sack another blue character when she attacks to reveal the top card of your deck and add it to your hand if that card is a blue. This is great to sacrifice reversed characters or characters that are going to be sent to waiting room anyways like that of your Astolfo after it’s spent its one turn encore.

So then, right before we end this post, you may be asking which climax we should run alongside Sieg’s and Fran’s. I’ll be honest, this is completely open ended. Feel free to add a combo that generates extra hand like Astolfo’s or Jeanne’s. Alternatively, you can open climaxes without combos like those above. Jeanne’s climax here is great for the arc trigger. Sieg’s climax here is a two soul climax, perfect for pushing your opponent. Feel free to do whatever you’d like.

In terms of counters, Fran is a sack counter to get rid of early cheated threats. Achilles’ counter is an expensive money counter that also provides power to one of your characters for the turn.

For some suggestions, Siegfried is a large beater with healing. Astolfo with stars in his eyes is a free runner. Fiore Forvedge Yggdmillennia is a level one search brainstorm that also grants power in front. It is suggested to use Fiore because she is level one and increases the chances of your coinflip Astolfo succeeding in his bounce-back ability. Lastly, Fran’s monster is a Chiyuri profile when sent to waiting room. Note that you can force her interaction early through the use of Jack’s ability.

Through Fran’s noble sacrifice, Sieg lives on. In memory of her, he summons the almighty Fafnir to vanquish his foes, a remembrance and callback to the very same servant who nobly sacrificed himself to imbue the homunculus with power, Siegfried.