Magic’s newest expansion takes us to the beloved Final Fantasy IP. A new set means new cards, and we’re kicking off our review with the multicolor cards that serve as signposts to let you know what direction each color pair is trying to build in.
Final Fantasy will release to Magic: the Gathering Online and Arena on June 10th, 2025, and to the tabletop on June 13th.
Last time we covered the mechanics, and this time as usual we won’t be looking at everything, but what we will be looking at we’ll be looking at primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play.
Absolute Virtue
BPhillipYork:Â Absolutely unplayable. Okay, actually not, but that was right there. So yeah, this is an 8 cost way to stop something from targeting you and could be a big part of a pillowfort deck, which it’s fine for. You could layer several of these things together to make your creatures untargetable and indestructible and your opponents can’t win, which I really kind of hate. It’s basically a way of not playing and not interacting with the game and it costs so much that it isn’t a temporary way to protect yourself while you win, it’s going to require a whole game plan to roll out. But it costs 8, so most of the time someone trying to use it will probably not get it out in time to really make much difference.
Saffgor:Â This card lacking protection itself means it probably doesn’t get there outside of reanimator, and the best reanimation available in these colors in formats where it might matter only targets Mana Value 3 or less. Timmy card without a doubt.
TheChirurgeon:Â If this had flash it’d be absolutely nuts as an answer. As-is yeah, it really wanted to have its own protection beyond being uncounterable but if you have the means to flash it in it’s a great tool to have.
Marcy: Starting the flavor notes off with a card that probably 90% of Final Fantasy players have never heard the name of nor know history of sure is a tough one. First of all, Absolute Virtue is from Final Fantasy XI: Chains of Promathia, but some people have possibly seen it in Final Fantasy XIV where it appeared as a boss in the Baldesion Arsenal (But then again, a lot of players of XIV didn’t / don’t do Eureka either, soooooooo…). You might be wondering what the lore of this character is, but it actually doesn’t really have any; it was just a boss, known as a “Notorious Monster”, and boy was it Notorious: It first appeared in 2005 and the dev team at SQE posted a video of how to beat it three years after it debuted while somewhat teasing players about reducing the difficulty and making it easier to defeat. The flavor at least transfers to the card, with it being uncounterable, granting you protection, and then beating your opponents in the face for 8.
Cid, Timeless Artificer
BPhillipYork: The fact they made like 20 different arts of this is awesome to me and I’ll definitely make a Cid deck in the near future. The fact it works from your yard is really something, and would fit nicely into an Esper deck with a solid way to put them there and then pump up the artifact creatures and heroes, and probably the most logical way is to use job select cards to create a bunch of heroes. Which is probably the joke.
Saffgor: It feels weird to say, but I actually think there’s a competent game plan available to a deck that plays 10 of these (in Commander). You have just enough that cards like Locket of Yesterdays that can get value, and artifact creatures can go quite wide. Can’t wait to see Cayth, Famed Mechanist skyrocket in popularity with Cid.
TheChirurgeon:Â Yeah I am absolutely here for a deck running a dozen Cids not to mention the synergy with cards like Urza, Lord High Artificer or [Urza, Lord Protector[/mtg_card].
Marcy:Â Cid is the iconic “tinkerer” of Final Fantasy, having appeared in every Final Fantasy since Final Fantasy II. The one shown here is his FFXIV version, and I like that there are card arts for his other versions to help give a lot of flavor to the ubiquitous-ness of the character.
Hope Estheim
BPhillipYork: Yeah this is not a good commander. Someone already asked me to make a deck around it and it just really kind of fizzles. It’s not that hard to gain huge amounts of life, it’s not that hard to do it on one turn and pop out your commander, but it’s such an obviously telegraphed Kamehameha that almost anyone is either going to cripple you the turn you try to bring it out or kill Hope herself. Or just see what you’re doing and not let you build up a bunch of life gain triggers.
Saffgor: Combining two of the durdliest, do-nothing game plans in one Commander makes me think this isn’t great, but being 2 mana and an outlet for infinite lifegain combos could get it there. If you’re a fan of not impacting the board, boy howdy is Hope for you.
TheChirurgeon:Â The fact that it’s “each opponent” gives this a little more bite, and it’s relatively easier to gain massive amounts of life than do massive amounts of damage… though no one is going to let you get away with either when Hope is on the board.
Marcy:Â Hey, it’s Hope. Yep. Okay, I won’t pick on him; I think FFXIII gets a lot of hate for weird choices but Hope really wasn’t that bad of a character nor were the games that bad. His card doesn’t really have a ton of flavor relevance to what he does in the story, except I guess you could maybe try and tie his boomerang-like weapon to ‘coming back’ with the mill off life gain? Kind of a reach I guess.
Tidus, Blitzball Star
TheChirurgeon:Â Another card that has great synergy with Cid, though I can’t imagine using him as a Commander. In Limited there are more than enough artifacts to make him work as a 2/1 for 3 with an interesting tapdown mechanic to push through damage.
BPhillipYork:Â This seems fine, though a blue/white artifact-centric deck to pump your commander to one shot your opponents is just a bad plan. For Limited or whatever, fine. Can go kind of nuts with things like mass Treasure creation, looping artifacts, or Food and other sorts of tokens.
Marcy:Â Did you know that there’s a second sequel to Final Fantasy X other than Final Fantasy X-2, in which Tidus canonically dies by kicking an explosive on a beach that he mistakes for a Blitzball? Look it up. It’s real.
Golbez, Crystal Collector
BPhillipYork:Â Sort of a weird version of Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow, where you want to bury or otherwise dump big creatures to your yard, so as to bring them back to your hand. Could be interesting with the new extra end steps trigger, or just additional turns and a way to dump Draco or something else back into your yard.
Saffgor: This is an outlet for infinite artifact ETBs in the Command Zone, but I think playing into the second ability is a bit of a trap. You likely are better served with Silas & Ravos for what this wants to do.
TheChirurgeon:Â Golbez is my boy but he feels under powered as a 1/4 for UB. I agree that playing into his second ability feels like trying to do too much and not quite getting there.
Marcy:Â Golbez the Hype Moments and Aura guy is here, and his card is… kinda… whatever. Flavor-wise, in FF4, Golbez commands the Four Fiends (who have THE best theme in Final Fantasy history), which lends itself a little here in how this card works, allowing him to see what’s coming while fueling his abilities.
FromTheShire:Â This guy seems like a menace in 60 card, coming down super early and generating massive amounts of card advantage in the right deck.
Locke Cole
BPhillipYork:Â Basically just a really solid card selection ability that is bolted onto an okay costed Legendary. Deathtouch and lifelink are kind of nice because you’re not likely to be blocked and going to just keep eking out a little life gain can help in long games. Kind of a tepid commander.
TheChirurgeon:Â Locke is fine, I guess? I feel like he could have just been a reprint of Shadowmage Infiltrator.
Marcy:Â Locke’s a Thief by nature, so some sort of looting ability makes a lot of sense. FF6 really wants to sell you on the idea that Locke is also this badass dude that at least two female cast members kinda fall for. Eh.
Sephiroth, Planet’s Heir
BPhillipYork:Â This guy’s like the protagonist right? Look at that hair. Massacre Girl returns, with even longer hair and an ability that benefits off of it and also only hurts your opponents, so in many ways a much more solid, if limited, version. People will probably hate this commander as they don’t want to lose their precious mana dorks or utility creatures, and will probably want to blow him up in response to him coming in to teach you a lesson or something. But a great reanimation target if this isn’t your commander.
TheChirurgeon:Â Sephiroth’s ETB effect is nasty enough to make up for him being a 6 CMV 4/4, and that ability to proc counters off the deaths is cute. But not having any evasion or protection really blunts his ability to do more than just boardwipe your opponents’ stuff.
Marcy:Â The irony of Phillip’s comment is that Sephiroth may actually be THE ultimate Aura Farmer in Final Fantasy for a guy who actually does literally almost nothing in the game he’s iconic for. He’s not even really the actual villain, if you want to be really annoying about things. That hasn’t stopped him from being the poster boy for Guys Who Think Katanas Make You Badass and Women Who Want Pretty Men To Kiss Each Other, though. Remember that time he showed up in Kingdom Hearts as a nearly unbeatable secret boss? Yeah. Oh, right, flavor. Sephiroth is kind of responsible for nearly exterminating life on the planet*, making his Massacre Wurm style entrance fitting.
FromTheShire:Â You can definitely make an interesting Voltron deck here, though as pointed out you’re going to have to dome work on the evasion front.
Ultimecia, Time Sorceress / Ultimecia, Omnipotent
BPhillipYork:Â The ability to take an extra turn is a big deal, and there’s definitely ways you could repeat it at least some, though exiling eight cards and paying eight mana each time means you can’t infinitely do it. You could fairly easily loop this, though you’ll need more damage than that to close out the game. Also this is probably the protagonist; even crazier hair. That is hair, not wings, right?
TheChirurgeon:Â She’s definitely not the protagonist.
Saffgor: A 5 mana understatted body that just Surveils, then needs 8 mana to accomplish something? Of course, blinking this with a stacked graveyard could get you the necessary turns to win…but frankly this is a poor man’s Tivit cosplay.
Marcy: …Why is she not a SORCERESS, Wizards? It is LITERALLY IN HER NAME–anyway, whatever. The flavor of her transformation fits because Ultimecia is a Time Sorceress. It’s in the name.
FromTheShire:Â Primarily because Sorcerers/esses aren’t an established creature type, and everyone with a Warlock typal deck would be real mad if she was a one off. Those exist right? No? Well, but they might one day, and then you’d be mad!
Xande, Dark Mage
BPhillipYork:Â So piling up stuff in your yard is fairly straightforward; you can get a lot of artifacts in there very quickly with egg-style decks and that makes this fairly dangerous. Plus instants exist. Card draw instants and Rituals and stuff. But it costs 4 and if you are doing that your opponents will see it, and scaling this up with 18 things in your yard will obviously make people play attention, so if its a straight forward game plan like that you probably want a lot of protection and double strike and way to take more turns so once you hit critical mass you can just blow everyone out.
Marcy:Â Xande is here to represent Final Fantasy 3, and as the big (human) boss of the game, this card is actually an okay representation of it. Xande’s deal is that he drains the Crystals of their power to fuel his own, so the idea of him using graveyards to make himself more powerful is really on brand.
FromTheShire:Â It feels like it wants to be in the Cruel Somnophage and Co. deck, but caring about non-creature, non-lands directly plays against that. Plus it’s kind of expensive.
Black Waltz No 3
BPhillipYork:Â Yeah I think these black wizards are awesome. Also this guy is probably the protagonist, look at that hair. This theme of making creatures that do damage when you cast non-creature (not just sorcery and instant spells) is great and there’s a lot to be done with it. I think it’s too bad this isn’t one of the prowess token generating prowess commanders though. If he made a black wizard token each time you cast a non-creature spell that would be a great deck that built itself, fun, interactive, and fair. This is, sort of mediocre.
Marcy:Â Vivi’s angriest oldest sibling, Black Waltz No. 3 strikes a cool boss battle pose here; probably the thing he’s best known for is making Vivi VERY mad by killing a bunch of Black Mages, so his card dealing group damage fits.
FromTheShire:Â Seems like a fun group slug commander, turning your punisher enchantments and artifacts into damage on cast as well as when they’re in play. I expect to do some tinkering with it, and right away it’s nice that it does the damage itself so if you put lifelink or infect in the mix things pop off.
Garland, Knight of Cornelia / Chaos, the Endless
BPhillipYork: Dragon’s Rage Channeler is a very commonly played cEDh card for a reason, triggered surveil like this is amazing. Having it on a commander means you can do really reliable bury/reanimate game plans. I think the whole commander thing is just kind of whatever, but the ability on the untransformed Garlan is awesome.
Marcy:Â Final Fantasy’s original villain, Garland is here with a very cool implementation of his theme. For those who never played it, Final Fantasy I involves a time loop, and Garland is also the very first boss you fight in the game, only to come back later and reveal himself to be far more powerful than you expected after defeating him 30 minutes into the game.
Saffgor: This is more of a shoutout for Standard, where a 3/2 for 2 that acts as a Dragon’s Rage Channeler is already reasonable, and if you flood out you can go for a large body.
FromTheShire:Â Absolutely a nice piece for Rakdos decks, though lacking flying is a significant downgrade from DRC, as is the dual coloration for non-Rakdos decks that might otherwise be okay with splashing red.
Kuja, Genome Sorcerer / Trance Kuja, Fate Defied
BPhillipYork:Â Okay so this is the guy to build the just cast non-creature spells deck around. It’s only making one on your end step so unfortunately it’ll still take a bit to get going. There’s other ways to get them though, and ways to copy tokens and abilities. These kind of spellslinger decks are super fun, and make the game end, and they don’t snowball out of control, but rather create fun nail biters. So glad to see a card like this, and the transformation is great because once you’ve got four that’s about where you’d want to go for broke and try to end it.
Saffgor: The fact this guy stops spawning Wizards when he flips, and has a mandatory transformation if conditions are met, makes me think there’ll be some bad play patterns here. It stands in contrast to a lot of modern card design that’s player-forward, and I have a hunch brewers will be frustrated by Kuja.
Marcy:Â You know, sometimes thinking about Kuja and Zidane and Vegeta and Goku too hard makes my head hurt for some reason. Anyway, Kuja is Final Fantasy 9’s Big Bad and so his churning out a ton of little Black Mage tokens to do his bidding certainly feels on brand, especially if once he flips, all of those Wizards get a lot scarier off you casting just about anything. Although, frankly? Didn’t make him hot enough in the art.
Bernhardt: Certainly more clothes on him than I remember the original article wearing. Now he’s just another pretty boy with no shirt, a small jacket, and pants; the series has quite a number of those.
Balthier and Fran
BPhillipYork: Finally, we get to see the protagonist, look at that hair. Awesome. Oh it’s a human rabbit pair creature that uh, cares about Vehicles and makes more combats. Okay, well that’s fun, even if it’s not “good” per se. There’s actually a crazy amount of Vehicles now, so you very much can make a Gruul deck that’s just fun mana dorks and Dwarves and Vehicles. Not amazing but it’ll pound on your opponents pretty effectively, and probably be relatively unique.
Saffgor: Gruul Vehicles, now there’s an unexplored archetype! While I don’t think this gets there competitively or anything, the chance to take a spin on Vehicles outside of Boros is exciting, and enough stax pieces could even maybe get there in fringe.
Marcy:Â Phillip is unintentionally hilarious again because frankly one of the biggest complaints you could lodge against Final Fantasy XII is that Balthier and Fran feel far, far more like the protagonists than Vaan and Penelo did from how the narrative treats them and a lot of the promotional material. Balthier is a Sky Pirate, so his piloting vehicles for profit makes a lot of sense, while Fran provides the martial prowess that’s signified by the second phase trigger.
Gladiolus Amicitia
BPhillipYork:Â Okay this does not replace Golos. I do like land-centric commanders, but this guy only has 2 colors in his identity, and a stupidly big sword, which I don’t see how that’s represented by his land ability. This guy just seems… way too expensive and like, what Gruul lands? Pass.
Saffgor: Is Golos, Tireless Pilgrim okay in just Gruul? Wizards seems to think so, and while I would agree, tutors in the Command Zone always tend to be less fun than one thinks unless they’re the best thing to do in their color(s)… Magda. There’s no immediate combos at play here, and you’re not in the colors to blink, reanimate, or otherwise loop Gladiolus, but there are ~11 Gates in Gruul so that might work.
Marcy:Â Gladiolus is one of the Bros of Final Fantasy XV, and as the brawny, reliable guy of the bunch, he provides… a big body and buffs your other creatures. Nothing spectacular but it is on brand at least!
Rydia, Summoner of Mist
BPhillipYork:Â The built in rummage on land playing is absolutely nothing to sneeze at, and plays really well with the summon (but actually reanimate) ability. Dumping out Sagas is neato, and this works really well with transforming Sagas, since they will lose the finality counter, go back to your yard, and be ready to be “summoned” again. Also pretty solid with the new line of Saga creatures.
Marcy:Â As the de facto Summoner of Final Fantasy (first appearing in FFIV), Rydia’s card ability is extremely on brand here by allowing her to interact with Sagas, since those are the cards WotC chose to represent the iconic summons of Final Fantasy.
TheChirurgeon:Â Rydia rips and I love how they’ve implemented her ability. This is really good for building a sagas/summons deck and I love the way they’ve implemented summons so this is a slam dunk for me.
Terra, Magical Adept / Esper Terra
BPhillipYork: This card has generated some interest as a Food Chain commander, since it’s 5-color and Food Chain is usually though not always run as a 5-color deck. You can also put together a package where she will generate infinite mana using Barbara Wright so long as you’ve got haste, which will also mill out your deck allowing you to win with Thassa’s Oracle. So there’s a lot chance this sees competitive play in various versions trying to get the most out of it, but it’s probably too expensive to pull off consistently quickly enough.
Saffgor: Tom Bombadil found dead in a ditch. Milling 5 is already relevant (that’s a lot of cards!) and the fact your payoff is more immediate once she flips, compared to Tom’s psuedo-cascade makes me think he’ll be quite a bit less merry from here on out.
Marcy:Â The actual protagonist of Final Fantasy VI makes her appearance and wow does she stun. Terra is a soldier who was experimented on, creating the unstable but extremely powerful Esper form that she has; the card having her go back and forth represents that a bit, especially since you have little choice but to revert her due to how Sagas work.
Garnet, Princess of Alexandria
BPhillipYork:Â I really like this ability, grabbing counters off Sagas means those Sagas stick around doing the same thing over and over and over and over. Some of them are fairly nasty, so if you get to keep looping a Saga where you want, that’s powerful. This scenario is probably using her not as a commander but just as a support for a Saga deck.
Saffgor: Looping Fall of the Thran or the second chapter of The Restoration of Eiganjo every turn seems like a reasonable basis for a hatebear or stax deck, and the fact Garnet comes down early and gets just big enough to likely survive most early blockers means you have the capability to get under a lot of value strategies. I’m bullish here, she looks like a stand-out way to play Sagas in a meaner way than most have seen.
Marcy:Â Although not the first (or frankly last) woman in Final Fantasy to be gifted with the ability to commune with and control Summons (honestly, it’s kind of almost a stereotype), the way they represent that with Garnet’s card here is pretty cool by allowing her to remove a counter from Sagas.
TheChirurgeon:Â This is another cool interaction with summons and I like how they’ve found different ways to do this for all of the summoners.
Rinoa Heartilly
BPhillipYork:Â So she makes a dog, that if you attack, you are meant to bump, okay. But you don’t have to you could just ignore the dog and buff something else, but you’d really want to buff your Commander, and you can’t.
Marcy:Â Rinoa got done dirty by this card, frankly. Yes, Angelo is real, and yes, Angelo Cannon is an actual ability she has, but come on, that’s really all you could give the gal?
Serah Farron / Crystallized Serah
BPhillipYork:Â Erm what, like they’re crystal but they’re still alive? I don’t understand that, flavor text. But okay, buffing legendary creatures is okay, for Sisay, Weatherlight Captain it’s not great because she just dumps them into play and doesn’t care about cost reduction, but it’s a great card for Jodah, the Unifier 5 color goodstuff legendary beat down decks.
Marcy: Damn, that card doesn’t pull any punches. To answer Phillip, FF13’s plot is pretty bleak and weird and a little confusing, and the L’Cie being forcefully crystallized is one of the weirder parts of the game. Shout out to Snow’s hand for making the cameo here. Basically, the fal’Cie are a race of beings that give L’Cie a “Focus”, and when you complete it, your reward is… being turned into a crystal. No, it’s not consensual.
Yuna, Hope of Spira
BPhillipYork:Â Well that’s like a stronger version of the other Selesnaya reanimator, though it’s interesting she gives ward to enchantment creatures but not enchantments. Straight up reanimating huge enchantments is pretty solid, could do a pretty fun reanimate and flicker huge enchantments deck (to rid the finality counters and redo and or get their ETB’s again) with a lot of land ramp to smooth things out, since she costs a fairly pricy 5 to get going.
Marcy:Â FFX’s female protagonist (and, you might argue, actual protagonist) once again is a Summoner, so her card interacting with enchantments makes a lot of sense. Yuna is also a person who “Sends” the dead, so her finality counter shenanigans is also a cool callback to that part of her character as well.
FromTheShire:Â Very solid set of buffs to hand out, though not protecting herself on other people’s turns is problematic. Definitely feels like some shenanigans can be had here.
Judge Magister Gabranth
BPhillipYork:Â I guess artifacts are dying now instead of being destroyed, which is fine, it always was kind of redundant. There’s plenty of ways to get lots of artifacts out and pump this guy, but this is like the same as another card in this set, basically 2/2 for 3 with an ability that gives it counters and basic evasion, which is pretty same-y.
Marcy:Â Gabranth was a secondary antagonist to Final Fantasy XII, but the Judges were so iconic that they basically outlived the game quite a bit and their designs showed up again in Final Fantasy XIV’s Garlean Empire. Flavorwise, there’s really not much to say; he’s kind of just ‘a guy’.
TheChirurgeon:Â I don’t know if this guy’s a good commander (he’s not), but he’s absolutely a guy you want to slam into a knights deck.
Rufus Shinra
BPhillipYork:Â Shouldn’t Darkstar be attacking. Like, that seems pretty clear from the whole thing. I mean I guess 3 for a 2/4 that dumps out a 2/2 that’s attacking would be too much, but it seems strange.
Marcy:Â Nepobaby Rufus is from Final Fantasy VII, a game that already has far too many people trying to be the Main Antagonist and all failing against Sephiroth. This card is a reference to Rufus’ fight and… that’s kind of it. Frankly, like Rufus, this card is kind of whatever.
Squall, SeeD Mercenary
BPhillipYork:Â Returning permanents costing 3 or less is awesome because it means returning cards like Animate Dead and thus another huge creature. This has potentially to be really rough and aggressive, quickly flipping out cards like Archon of Cruelty very early and threatening your opponents whole board state. Bonus points if you manage to slap double strike on this bad boy for two reanimations per turn.
Marcy:Â Mister Whatever makes his appearance, wielding his iconic Gunblade to… return permanents from your graveyard? Squall is the protagonist of Final Fantasy VIII, by the way; don’t let the color pie confuse you.
Bernhardt:Â Every time he lands a blow, he summons a new retconned kid from the orphanage.
FromTheShire:Â Handing out double strike is really powerful, and if you pull off the double reanimate in 60 card it could be backbreaking. Still feels like a lot has to go right to get there, though at least he’s 4 toughness to dodge a bunch of removal.
TheChirurgeon: I like the theme of Squall having the Knight type as a representative of him being Rinoa’s knight. That also means he’s a great add to knight decks, where his ability is relevant for being able to return most of your smaller 2-cmc utility creatures to play.
Shantotto, Tactician Magician
BPhillipYork: You could pretty easily just storm off and the annihilate all your opponents with this and Chandra’s Ignition, which truly seems about the best thing to do with a 3 cost 0/4 Dwarf Wizard. Though there’s also just casting a lot of spells that cost 4 for card draw, but that’s not very good card draw.
Marcy:Â The Tarutaru of Final Fantasy XI rhyme when they speak, and Shantotto not doing that in her card would be an extreme crime, so glad to see they nailed the flavor there. Shantotto is also an insanely powerful mage, but I feel like her power doesn’t exactly represent that? By the way, one of the funniest and iconic Shantotto moments is that after turning in a quest to her, if you elect not to pay her, she actually just straight up kills your character.
Tellah, Great Sage
BPhillipYork:Â Okay, so again, cast a non-creature, do a thing, if 4 or more, then do a thing, if 8 or more he blows up and you deal X to each opponent, X=casting cost. You very much can build around this. If this had black in the identity this would be bonkers, but even with blue red, the pretty obvious solution is to make X=40. Generating 40 mana is hard but not that hard, with blue and red there’s lots of rituals and cast triggers, so really just a bog standard storm deck, with built in triggers to do stuff when you cast a lot. Fun.
Marcy:Â A bit of FF4 spoilers, but Tellah and Golbez have one of the more epic fights in the game, in which Tellah dies. I like seeing that represented in the card, because as mean as it sounds, Tellah’s death is probably the thing he’s most famous for, except for the Final Fantasy IV localization on the SNES (Final Fantasy II) in which he utters, “You spoony bard!” at Edward.
TheChirurgeon:Â What this is missing is a “Meteo” spell that costs 8 mana.
The Emperor of Palamecia / The Lord Master of Hell
BPhillipYork:Â This is a super cheap commander that will flip fairly quickly if your deck is designed to do it, and then if your yard is filled enough you can kill off your opponents. If the point of your deck is just to fill your yard so X=40, that’s not hard to do, at all. Really this is a super fast deck, and will probably be a cEDH commander.
Saffgor: While Vivi is the most talked-about spellslinger option from the set, this guy isn’t bad either, as you can readily threaten a table kill if allowed to swing out with The Lord Master of Hell. Moreover, in 60 card formats, this is a reasonable mana dork that grows well, potentially serving as a prowess sideboard piece for grindier matchups.
Marcy:Â Final Fantasy 2’s antagonist is here in all of his David Bowie-esque glory, which is completely on brand for the pompous Emperor. In versions with voice acting (Such as Dissidia or Stranger of Paradise), the Emperor is voiced by Koyasu Takehito, whose deep voice really lends a lot of personality to the Emperor. He’s also the voice of Dio from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, and both characters have a lot in common.
Vivi Ornitier
BPhillipYork: This guy is bonkers; well, this card anyway. This is basically a 3 mana cost Niv-Mizzet, Parun but 3 is half of 6. Slap Curiosity on this bad boy (thing) and you are drawing cards whenever you cast, and the 0 ability generates mana. I’ve already made 2 decks around this guy, one just spellslinger basics and one with artifacts, and then there’s Quicksilver Elemental which instantly gains infinite mana. The only real problem with all that is Ornitier is basically blow up on sight as it’s way too dangerous a commander to leave on the table, especially as good as blue is at counter magic and protecting stuff.
Saffgor: There’s a great number of ways this goes infinite for the win, and in competitive circles Vivi has been the talk of the town for some time. Don’t leave your Cursed Totems at home.
Marcy:Â Final Fantasy IX’s adorable killing machine, Vivi is exactly as strong as he could potentially be, starting out seemingly not as dangerous as he could become.
Cloud of Darkness
BPhillipYork:Â This is a nasty removal ability, of which there are now quite a few, on a commander it’s a bit meh, but if you want to just kill something every time your commander enters, this is a great way to do it.
Marcy:Â Final Fantasy 3’s actual antagonist (or at least, world ending threat), Cloud of Darkness is a malevolent entity summoned by Xande that threatens to consume all life. I… don’t really know if I can say her card does that level of world ending threat justice, frankly.
Exdeath, Void Warlock / Neo Exdeath, Dimension’s End
BPhillipYork:Â I don’t know what the logic of this card is. It’s kind of baffling to me, there’s no real internal synergy; I’m sure the mechanics are just an in-game reference of some sort, which is, you know, fine.
Saffgor: Mycotyrant’s anemic brother.
Marcy:Â An Evil Tree (not a joke), Exdeath is one of the cooler villain designs. Hailing from Final Fantasy V, I like how his card’s major ability makes use of the graveyard to power him up, leaning into the idea of his desire to consume all things.
Jenova, Ancient Calamity
BPhillipYork:Â Making Mutants is cool, and drawing off of them is cool. Sadly some of the best natural Mutants are blue/green, so this would be a lot stronger and more reasonable as a Sultai commander but here we are.
Saffgor: Now here’s an interesting option we’ve not heard much buzz on. Jenova can of course turn your big creatures into potential draw engines, but she’s also a fantastic way to make use of some underplayed tools from Fallout. Coupled with the necessary stax pieces to get to enough combat phases, I actually think this could get there in both high power and fringe cEDH circles, kind of like Belbe.
Marcy:Â This is the other Not Actually The Antagonist of Final Fantasy VII. That title actually belongs to Hojo, a Guy Who Sucks. Her ability here is a cool callback to how she effectively consumes and takes over other beings, as a sort of malevolent space parasite.
Cloud, Planet’s Champion
BPhillipYork: Well equipment is okay, this is kind of a meh commander in my opinion, yes you can pretty much slap equipment on him and go to town, but Voltron decks are rough, and he has no built in natural protection. Frankly for an anime protagonist I expected more impressive hair.
Marcy:Â The protagonist of Final Fantasy VII, a character who frankly got totally character assassinated by the somewhat bad translation of the game and the holes/flaws of the original title, Cloud is a character that is both iconic and a little bit fan-canoned into being a lot cooler than he actually was in the game. Anyway, the master of the Omnislash is always with his giant buster sword, so making him use equipment makes sense. Would have been cooler if they made it stacking to call back to his transforming sword from Advent Children.
FromTheShire:Â It’s not a bad suite of abilities, in fact it can get pretty nasty, but Boros Equipment commander isn’t exactly breaking new ground here.
Giott, King of the Dwarves
BPhillipYork:Â This is, okay. Discard draw isn’t bad per se and red has some solid ways to benefit off discarding as well as Boros having some ways to reanimate stuff, especially creatures and artifacts, or else give instants and sorceries flashback. So all in all you can turn your yard into a resource and treat his ability like card draw. But slamming out equipment early to get card draw going is kind of a rough game plan, especially on a 1/1 with no ward or anything like that.
Marcy:Â Giott is from Final Fantasy IV, and Dwarves have always had a pretty big role in Final Fantasy games, even more so than Elves often did (or do). That said, this is sort of a “okay, sure, I guess?” character, since he’s an NPC. I actually wanted to take a moment here to rant about the fact that this set reduces all of the diminutive Final Fantasy races to “dwarves”; while there are a lot of games with Dwarves in them, Final Fantasy XI’s race are called Tarutaru, an extremely tiny race of beings that resemble Brownies or Fairy Tale dwarves, and Final Fantasy XIV’s version are Lalafells, who are twice the size of Tarutaru but don’t tend to have most of the features one associates with “Dwarves” in fantasy fiction. Also, XIV HAS Dwarves, but we don’t need to get into that right now.
Joshua, Phoenix’s Dominant / Phoenix, Warden of Fire
BPhillipYork:Â If you give this bad boy haste and read ahead you could loop this with Cathodion and Priest of Urabrask which is kind of fun. You’d need a sac outlet also, which is presumably how you’re winning the game – it’s a perfect respectable Impact Tremors deck combo, and there’s nothing terribly wrong with the built transformation into a phoenix, hit for a couple of turns, and do it all again.
Saffgor: Joshua is hewn from the same great oak as Seasoned Pyromancer and my beloved Tersa Lightshatter, but with a midrange bent. I think this is a phenomenal 60 card staple, and a ‘just-okay’ card for Commander. That two damage ping really isn’t doing much, and the reanimate is maybe a bit too telegraphed.
Marcy:Â Our first and so far only FFXVI card in the set, XVI featured characters who embodied or contained the summons we often saw in previous games and then transform into them, to sum it up kind of sloppily. Joshua is the younger brother to protagonist Clive Rosfield, so I’m sure we’ll see Clive in our next previews.
Lightning, Army of One
BPhillipYork:Â This is like the best kind of ability for getting your stuff blown up. Oh, I’m going to do something dangerous to you. Later. Cards like this make me kind of crazy, like, because playing this as your commander is just asking for it. Probably solid for like Limited and such, and fine if you want to play this as a commander, might really be better as just a color identity commander that rarely pops out for a damage doubling deck with lifegain.
Saffgor: Obligatory mention of how this works with Double Strike, but wow does this put a hit out on one opponent at a time. If you want someone to be curbstomped in Commander, Lightning paints a pretty big target for the turn cycle.
Marcy:Â Lightning sometimes gets rough treatment from Final Fantasy fans, and while FFXIII wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, the games that made up that trilogy were… okay, they were pretty weird. The true ending of Lightning Returns remains one of the most baffling endings in all video games to me, and I’m pretty sure her creator Motomu Toriyama designed her as a tulpa to manifest in the real world or something. What were we talking about? Oh, right. Card flavor. Honestly, this is pretty on brand; Lightning is a devastating warrior and this presents her as a real threat.
FromTheShire:Â Seriously nasty damage booster, can’t wait to see the Monstrous Rage targeting whatever is following in her wake. Or just competing for one of the 3 drop slots in Boros Energy in Modern.
Zidane, Tantalus Thief
BPhillipYork:Â So trading stuff is pretty fun, stealing stuff is funner, and getting Treasures for giving it back is interesting, though generally taking and and trading is not good enough to build around. It’s getting to where there’s enough of these random effects around, Blim, Comedic Genius and stuff like that that it’s pretty doable, they just tend to involve red and then almost every other color in the game, which is kind of frustrating.
Saffgor: Zidane is a Threaten themed Commander in all the right ways, with synergy from blink effects and other donates, which you certainly have in his colors. The issue stems largely from being a 5 mana value Commander in Boros, which means your engine is getting online pretty late, and the mana advantage you’d see from that second effect might not be enough.
Marcy:Â A thief and the protagonist of Final Fantasy IX, I think this is a good and fun way of representing Zidane’s Job on a card, although it isn’t as representative of him as a character as other cards so far have been, like Terra’s.
Ignis Scientia
BPhillipYork:Â Okay, I mean, I guess this is just a card that had to be made. I would not build around this unless you’re really into the character or something and just want to force it, because what even do you do, flicker him for lands I guess?
Marcy:Â One of Noctis’ crew from the Bro Brigade of FFXV, Ignis is all about cooking and looking very dapper. I like that he has land card interaction to play off the previous card’s use of Landfall, and his tagline ability is a fun reference.
Omega, Heartless Evolution
BPhillipYork:Â Big artifact creatures are kind of fun, this one taps a bunch of stuff down, in the proliferate colors where you can also do some flickering, so this could be fairly annoying, probably not a commander this is something you’d much rather cheat out in various ways at 7 mana.
Marcy:Â Much like Cid, Omega is recurring encounter in the Final Fantasy games, although not nearly as omnipresent; there are quite a few games without it. This particular version is that seen in Final Fantasy XIV, but Omega has been around since the very first Final Fantasy. Fun fact: Cid didn’t appear in FF1, but Omega did! Wow! That was fun, right? Anyway, Omega often appears in lore as a representative super threat (if it has lore, anyway), often as a secret boss to test your skills against.
TheChirurgeon:Â From a flavor standpoint, this guy is too easy to remove.
The Wandering Minstrel
BPhillipYork:Â I really like land commanders, this is pretty meh. The Towns are not really good, the adventure ones are interesting, but this is just, bleah. Kenrith, the Returned King is frankly a much much stronger goodstuff commander. There’s things you can do with creatures of all colors, but they’re not super good.
Saffgor: This is unfortunately in the cEDH conversation as a 5 color commander with a mana outlet, along the same lines as Kenrith. Both are boring, and the Towns in this set are one of the most milquetoast land subtypes I’ve seen, up there with Caves.
Marcy:Â Fun fact, the Wandering Minstrel is based on FFXIV’s director Naoki Yoshida (YoshiP), and his primary job in the game is to allow you access to harder versions of iconic bosses from FFXIV’s main story quests. He also tends to appear during holiday storylines, and in one of the anniversary event, sends you on a quest in which you meet… the actual Naoki Yoshida, whom you have the option to comment looks familiar.
FromTheShire:Â Letting lands enter untapped is super powerful, perhaps you’ve heard of a bit player in Modern called Amulet Titan? I could even see this cracking those lists now that Green Sun’s Zenith is unbanned and can fetch this.
Noctis, Prince of Lucis
BPhillipYork:Â Esper recast artifacts is fine. Fun to do eggs with, burns a lot of life but plenty of ways to gain life in black and white, and with white and blue could flicker to get the counters off of them in various ways. A pretty toolboxy commander, solid butt to avoid all the 2 damage to all creature spells, so perfectly serviceable.
Saffgor: The hilarious combo with Mox Diamond aside, Noctis is a solid combo Commander that has the right colors to tutor for his wincons, or play a longer game with Solemnity on the table. I expect to see him quite a bit, but probably only in a proxy-friendly context, per Diamond’s pricetag.
Marcy:Â Kinda weird to get a Tekken character in this set. Is this a misprint? Noctis is the protagonist of FFXV and leader of the Band of Bros, of which we are only missing one of so far (and will probably see in the next preview article). Embodying the Job system in a somewhat abstract way, Noctis’ ability was to summon and change weapons on the fly, which is represented here in his art and by his card ability.
Kefka, Court Mage / Kefka, Ruler of Ruin
BPhillipYork:Â I like this commander for like, getting up in people’s face and making them do something. Damaging, gains value, and can end the game through your card draw and punishment, just really feeds into a group slug deck which is an archetype I kind of like. But one that’s generally not liked, and you tend to be the table enemy. Also finally someone with crazy enough hair to be a protagonist, but obviously a villain from his art and his face and really everything. Imagine wearing your hair in a topknot when your hair is also like 6 feet long, and then you’re using some crazy hook, thing. Also there’s a bird.
Saffgor: The sequel to Bolas, Kefka has the chance to draw quite a few cards with the right discards, as we have Enchantment Lands and an Artifact Planeswalker now. You will absolutely never get to successfully flip this guy though, trust me.
Marcy:Â SON OF A SUBMARINER, it’s FF6’s iconic Joker himself, Kefka Palazzo. That SNES soundchip laugh and his theme Dancing Mad will be forever legendary, and frankly his card form is PRETTY spot-on with flavor. A murderer of massive proportions and a self-made god, I think this does a good job of bringing him to life on the table.
Choco, Seeker of Paradise
BPhillipYork:Â This is fun; not really good but like, Bird land deck sounds fun. It’s like a Chocobo right I sort of remember those. They were uh, Birds. But big you could ride them, even though you really can’t ride birds, they are very fragile and their bones are hollow. Maybe you could ride a terror bird.
Marcy:Â Chocobos are one of the iconic animals of Final Fantasy games, serving as your trusty companions and major form of land transportation in most games. They’re giant yellow birds (primarily) that don’t fly (mostly). Each game envisions them slightly differently; this one here is Choco, a Chocobo that you used to play a game similar to “hot or cold” with.
FromTheShire:Â Awwww yeah, another solid Bird commander, you love to see it. This has the potential for some ridiculous ramp and landfall fun, plus you probably want some kind of a graveyard recursion twist which we don’t see often in Bant. I dig it.
Sin, Spira’s Punishment
BPhillipYork:Â It’s big. And it does a thing, which is possibly good, and funny if it ramps you like crazy, though as a commander you have to pay 7 which sure is a lot. Cheating this out with a yard full of lands and duplicating them all seems really strong to me.
Saffgor: As an avid advocate for Tersa, exiling cards at random from the graveyard is better than you think. With the tools to prune your own card, and a huge variety of effects that benefit from cards leaving your yard, I think Sin has the capability to really shine in lower-powered environments, given the permanence of its effect and high mana value.
Marcy:Â Sin is the sort of antagonist of FFX, in that it is a giant, malevolent whale-thing that you have to fight. At the end of the game it creates copies of Aeons that you need to fight and defeat, so the ability references that (sort of) ability of Sin.
Next Time: The Set’s White, Blue, and Black Cards
That wraps up our look at the multicolored cards of Final Fantasy. Join us next time as we begin reviewing the monocolor cards, picking out our favorites, and talking about the future build-arounds.
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