Magic: the Gathering – Final Fantasy Review, Part 4 of 4: Red, Green, and Colorless Cards

Magic’s newest expansion takes us to the beloved Final Fantasy IP. A new set means new cards, and we’re finishing our review with the red, green, and colorless cards.

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 white, blue, and black cards, 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.

 

Barret Wallace

BPhillipYork: There’s ways to get lots of Equipment, or make token Equipment, and there’s certainly scads of ways now to generate creatures via Equipment; the whole living weapon series, the rebel series, and now these Job selects. That all being said, the payoff is probably just not worth it. If you have a ton of small equipped creatures, you should be attacking with them, generally speaking.

Saffgor: There’s a Monored Equipment Commander in this set, it just isn’t this one. Fine stats, a flavor text keyword, and damage that doesn’t really scale well. Read on.

Marcy: A man whose message is timeless and always relevant, Barret rules. One of the cast of FFVII, great dad, and leader of Avalanche, Barret is committed to saving the planet from capitalist scum. Be like Barret.

TheChirurgeon: Planet’s dyin’, Marcy.

 

Clive, Ifrit’s Dominant / Ifrit, Warden of Inferno

BPhillipYork: These huge swingy transform things and then they transform back. Like it could be good, but you need to build around it. A bunch of card draw can be great if you have good devotion to red, and with haste and read ahead you could do dumb funny loops by just injecting a bit more mana like a Jeskai spell slinger deck, but it’s so many moving pieces to do something that’s not actually that great. I wouldn’t pay 12 mana for a 9/9 that causes you to discard your hand and draw equal to your devotion to red if you want. It’s just too much. If you’re cheating him out or flickering him and ignoring the backside that’s something else.

Saffgor: With access to Haste, this is almost always going to flip right back given the mana generated by Clive, so I don’t hate this as a stompy, removal piece courtesy of some reasonable equipment & removal. Looks fun, if not a bit fragile.

Marcy: We’ve seen Clive in a few other cards and other FFXVI characters, but here he is, the man with the impressive chest, Clive! He’s the protagonist of the game if you didn’t know that, and he’s very popular with people who like men with big hairy chests. This card actually kind of downplays that asset, which is sort of a shame. Anyway, he is able to summon Ifrit, but can he control it? Guess you’ll have to play to find out!

Bernhardt: The answer, as it usually is with modern Final Fantasy summon-adjacent plot and lore, is, “It’s complicated.”

 

Fire Magic

BPhillipYork: This is a great card; instant, scales well, good board clear.

Saffgor: I wrote this off a bit before, but I think this may be one of the best Pyroclasm-esque cards we’ve had yet. You can always pay enough to either preserve your board, or wipe out much of an opponent’s, and it’s solid across most of the game.

Marcy: FFIX’s Vivi is here to show off the very cool magic of ‘burn your enemies until they die’. I mentioned this a bit in the article talking about mechanics, but FF magic tends to scale, such as: Fire, Fira, Firaga, Cure, Cura, Curaga, etc., with the amount of enemies hit and damage dealt scaling, or healed, in the case of Cure.

FromTheShire: As someone playing a few different aggro decks in Standard right now including Goblins I hate this card already. Really good.

TheChirurgeon: These “X Magic” cards are just fantastic ways to model the tiered spells of Final Fantasy and the modal mode makes a lot more sense – and allows for a lot more flexibility – than just doing multikicker, where you can have nonlinear scaling.

 

Firion, Wild Rose Warrior

BPhillipYork: I like this cloning ability because if the Equipment copy you create creates a token such as a Rebel or a “hero”, that will stick around, which is kind of neat. There’s also lots of ways to double your triggers or more. Also giving haste to Equipment is decently solid on its own, especially for a Rebel. Honestly I would say this is big support for Neyali, Suns’ Vanguard rebel decks, and that’s how I’d use it.

Saffgor: I have every piece needed for a Firion deck in the mail, as we speak, and I am inexhaustibly excited to cover this fabulous swordsman in an article. Doubling Equipment seems strong, but it’s even stronger than you might think, with cards such as Skullclamp and Paradise Mantle going to Equip {0}. Couple that with a Polymorph subtheme, and you’ve got my favorite Commander from this whole set.

Marcy: Firion is the protagonist of FFII; as I mentioned in some of the other roundups, FFII is a really fun game with a cool cast and story, but often gets a little ignored by modern players because of how odd the game is about how you level up. I really suggest giving it a try if you’ve never played it!

TheChirurgeon: It also never saw a formal US release on the NES and didn’t see an official English language release until 2003, when it showed up as part of the Final Fantasy Origins release on the PlayStation in Europe and North America in 2003. Even then, that was well after the “best by” date on the original PlayStation, and so most of the people who played it probably did so with the Final Fantasy I + II Dawn of Souls release on the Gameboy Advance in 2004. Both versions feature updated graphics and are worth playing.

 

Freya Crescent

BPhillipYork: Is this in the right set, this seems like one of those Bloomburrow cards. Red mana dorks are kind of unusual, so it seems sort of okay as Equipment support, but not really that good even then.

Saffgor: Ragavan, she is not. This is just a bit too specific to be good, I feel, and even at 1 mana likely won’t make the cut unless you’re playing ~25+ Equipment.

Marcy: Freya rules; she’s a dragoon (as denoted by her ability to use Jump) that joins your party in FFIX. FFIX really had some amazing races that never really showed up ever again in other FF games, which is a shame. Freya’s a cool, stoic lady. This art is… kind of okay.

 

Gilgamesh, Master-at-Arms

BPhillipYork: This is like, too expensive. It’s a neat ability and would slot really nicely into Boros equipment decks, but 6 mana is way way too much.

Saffgor: Godo but fair, Godo but fun. If you know someone maligning Godo because of how easily he wins, or is a 1 card combo, introduce them to Gilgamesh.

Marcy: It’s Greg! Wait, sorry. Gilgamesh is a boss that first appears in FFV, where you fight him alongside the best FF boss music of all time, Battle at the Big Bridge. Gilgamesh is a sort of “goofy” adversary who is often not really evil, he just tends to be in your way for some reason or other. Although Cid has been in every Final Fantasy game since II, Gilgamesh isn’t far behind, with many appearances as he (and his music) became fan favorites, showing up in just about any Final Fantasy product in some way or another. His personality is often portrayed as buffoonish and annoying, with the implication being that he doesn’t join your party because he’s intensely insufferable to be around. In FFXIV, Hildibrand Manderville (and everyone else) just call him Greg, which he doesn’t seem to try and stop. Any time Gilgamesh appears in games, he often does so with his theme, and some form of allusion to it; in FFVII Rebirth, it’s called “Battle Near a Big Bridge”, and in a secret appearance, his identity is revealed in a quest title, “Ohashi”, which is Japanese for, you guessed it, “big bridge.” The skill here referencing 6 cards is due to the fact that when Gilgamesh takes on his boss form (It’s Morphin Time!), he grows to have 6 arms, carrying a legendary weapon in each.

TheChirurgeon: Gilgamesh fits the “honorable warrior” archetype – he follows Exdeath but after Galuf is killed in a heroic sacrifice, Gilgamesh loses his appetite for what was previously fun, nonlethal clashes with your party. And so as punishment for his transgression, Exdeath banishes Gilgamesh again to the void. This has some cool implications, the biggest being that while you’re encountering a different Cid in every Final Fantasy game, you’re always encountering the same Gilgamesh, just traveling across dimensions, looking for cool swords, and occasionally being voiced by John DiMaggio (FFXII).

Gilgamesh’s transformed form has eight arms (or more), and he loves to wield all kinds of cool weapons and swords, including Excalibur, Odin’s Zantetsuken, Tournesol, and Excalipoor, a shitty knockoff version of Excalibur.

 

Haste Magic

BPhillipYork: This is good for like Voltron instant decks, Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest and stuff like that.

Marcy: Haste is probably one of the more iconic spells in FF games, which is a buff that allows your characters to act faster and more often.

 

Judgement Bolt

BPhillipYork: If you know you are going to run an absolute ton of Equipment or have ways of making tons of Equipment tokens like Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith this could be pretty solid.

Saffgor: Even in a deck that clones Equipment, this doesn’t do enough.

Marcy: FFXVI’s Cid’s famous line.

 

Lightning, Security Sergeant

BPhillipYork: This is solid value creature.

Marcy: Lightning Returns! (Sorry.)

 

Nibelheim Aflame

BPhillipYork: This is a nice board clear, especially if you’re doing some kind of deck that doesn’t run other creatures, like transmogrify then especially good (and your commander is big).

Marcy: The key memory of Sephiroth that we see over and over again as we gain context for it in FFVII, so giving this card flashback is a really cool touch to that.

TheChirurgeon: This is very solid one-sided board wipe, and having Flashback just gives it some great value.

 

Opera Love Song

BPhillipYork: It seems like you’ll basically always choose option 1, at least in Commander. In Standard this seems extremely solid for Red Deck Wins.

Marcy: One of FFVI’s most memorable scenes, the party infiltrates the Opera House where Celes takes on the guise of the star to perform. I always loved this scene when I first played the game, finding the music great and the way the SNES attempted to give it vocals blew my mind as a kid.

 

Prompto Argentum

BPhillipYork: I just don’t know what 4 cost non-creature spell people are going to cast over and over, other than maybe some kind of artifact centric deck including artifact cost reduction.

TheChirurgeon: I *think* the answer is some kind of affinity/cost-reduction shenanigans, but you don’t really need Prompto for that.

Saffgor: This is up there in terms of funny card arts, not gonna lie.

Marcy: I can’t think of any way to sum up Prompto’s personality that this card isn’t already doing. FFXV is really solid, give it a try.

 

Queen Brahne

BPhillipYork: I like this new theme of prowess legendaries that also create tokens that do things when you cast non-creature spells. There’s several of them now, and definitely worth glomming together to make spell-spammy attack decks.

Saffgor: This would be a genuinely interesting card at 2 mana, comparable to Balmor, but at 3 it’s way too slow to get in under most strategies.

Marcy: The evil queen and secondary villain of FFIX, Queen Brahne is as ugly as she is awful, and has almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Which is saying something, because even Kefka is at least entertaining; this lady just sucks.

 

Random Encounter

BPhillipYork: Obviously this would be broken if you could control what the 4 creatures were, but you also obviously can’t other than by like casting Doomsday. Sort of fun in a chaotic way, but not good.

Saffgor: I so wish this were another Polymorph/Scramble effect, but as it stands, this is probably fine in a deck already aiming to chuck out big dudes.

Marcy: Aside from the nod to random encounters in FF history, these are three iconic Final Fantasy monsters. From left to right: Malboro, Coeurl, Iron Giant.

 

Raubahn, Bull of Ala Mhigo

BPhillipYork: This is a solid enabler for Equipment decks. 2 mana is very reasonable to be attaching Equipment every turn.

Marcy: From FFXIV, Raubahn is an Ala Mighan who serves the Sultana of Ul’dah, one of the three major city states in Eorzea, and is head of the Immortal Flames. That’s a lot of nouns, so basically he is her right-hand man who protects her and the city, and often is the character that represents Ul’dah in many of the story quests. Raubahn’s a cool dude, and as a fun flavor note, the Lalafell in the right side of the card is his adopted son, Pipin Tarupin, a fierce warrior in his own right.

 

Sabotender

BPhillipYork: Oh cool more landfall damage triggers. Well, that is what it is.

Marcy: While Final Fantasy monsters are famous, Sabotenders are a little less well known, because Cactuars kind of existed first and stole a lot of glory from them. Sabotenders are often more gangly and tall, while Cactuars are smaller and more rare, but not all the time. Taxonomy in FF is a little complicated sometimes.

FromTheShire: With both this and Iridescent Vinelasher I want to see someone try something like a Jund landfall deck. Maybe you can fit in the Chocobos.

 

Sandworm

BPhillipYork: I wonder if this will be built around in the same way that earlier iterations of have been. It’s pretty clearly designed to allow you to destroy your own indestructible lands, and doesn’t include the caveat “opponent”. So pretty solid for that. I hate the art because I have no idea how big that thing is supposed to be, what is the scale there? And given power/toughness in magic are pretty uncorrelated to how big a creature is at this point, it’s just kind of, there.

Marcy: Not quite as iconic as other monsters, sandworms tend to show up in desert maps in the games, and in one occasion, require you to get sucked up into one for a secret dungeon.

TheChirurgeon: It’s still one of the more memorable designs from Amano’s art.

 

Seifer Almasy

BPhillipYork: Well this seems designed to attack alone and get 2 free recasts of spells, but really it’s fine if you don’t get the double strike from his ability or get it another way.

Marcy: Squall’s rival and minor (misguided) antagonist, Seifer becomes a champion/pawn of Ultimecia, clashing with your party numerous times. I always kind of found him insufferable, but he has a decently large fanbase. I like that you can see Squall reflected in the gunblade.

Bernhardt: A good 70% of this guy’s popularity is due to dusters and to a lesser extent Wesker hair being very cool in 1999.

TheChirurgeon: I’ve got a soft spot for Seifer just for the way he absolutely disrespects the shit out of Zell early in the game.

 

Self-Destruct

BPhillipYork: This is a funny card to combine with things like Spitemare or Fiendlash, which I think is in and of itself a fun deck.

Marcy: Greg’s (Sorry, Gilgamesh’s) self-sacrifice in FFV… or is it? A fun detail about Gilgamesh is the implication that his self-destruct causes a tear in the universe, through which he travels to other dimensions through rifts. Sometimes these are controlled and others are not, but essentially the long-running theory is that every time Gilgamesh appears in a different Final Fantasy game, it’s the same Gilgamesh, the one that originally hails from FFV. In FFVIII, he even asks how he got there. The notable exceptions to this are FFIX and FFXI, whose Gilgamesh (Gilgameshes?) are totally different designs.

 

Sorceress’s Schemes

BPhillipYork: Weren’t her wings like a different color before. Anyway, uh, I guess returning a flashback card is kind of neat, presumably you’ve cast it twice before and really want to cast it again. I dunno, I don’t see what the use of this is unless you’re somehow looping it with itself and generating infinite mana.

Saffgor: This loops with itself, notably, in formats with multiple copies of this card. It also adds back the necessary mana to pay for its colored pip of cost, if you have the necessary discount via something like Vadrik or Mizzix. Really interesting design, and insane in decks with substantial discounts for Instants & Sorceries.

Marcy: Geez, someone at WoTC really likes Ultimecia; this is like her third card appearance. Yadda yadda Time Witch yadda yadda Villain yadda yadda Mommy.

 

Summon: Brynhildr

BPhillipYork: Uh, if it’s haste giver it should have haste right? If your deck is super curved out and you have a plan to drop something you really want haste on turn 2 and 3 it seems okay. There are some commanders that really want haste, so it’s a solid enabler for those. I’ve noticed WotC is really weird about only giving haste until the end of the turn, like I can’t figure out why all these haste’s disappear, it would make virtually no difference if it just got haste permanently.

Marcy: Brynhildr is an Eidolon (another word often used for Summon, all of which are essentially a term for a category referred to as “Avatars”) in FFXIII, where she appears as a motorcycle ridden by Sazh, and transforms into the form seen here when summoned.

 

Summon: G.F. Cerberus

BPhillipYork: Well doubling and tripling spells is somewhat dangerous. There’s also decks that care about copying but they frequently struggle to get critical mana to go off and double something the first time, so this very much could set you up to generate infinite casts of a spell.

Saffgor: The rate on this is solid, but I wouldn’t swing out with this dog; you want it to get to the last trigger, because boy things sure can happen. Could have some utility in Reanimator, as a means to play the midrange battle a bit better, copying a Stitch Together-like.

Marcy: Much like Eidolon, G.F. stands for “Guardian Force”, which is what Summons are called in FFVIII. This particular one is mostly notable for the fact that you can completely miss it two times in your playthrough.

TheChirurgeon: It also teaches you triple, which is one of the most busted spells in all of Final Fantasy, letting you triple cast a spell for only one cost.

 

Suplex

BPhillipYork: This is a less good Abrade really, which is fine, modal removal is good but it should be instant speed.

Saffgor: Abrade, but it exiles and is a Sorcery. At least the art is funny, lord knows this won’t see play.

Marcy: One of the most iconic moments of FFVI apocryphal lore, Sabin is a martial artist who has the ability to use various moves that are done by putting in inputs into the controller (think fighting game inputs). One of them, Suplex (more correctly known as Meteor Strike) became infamous for a boss battle, Phantom Train, in which Sabin can use the ability on it. It was often considered a bug, but it isn’t! Many bosses are susceptible to it; the bigger reason it is popular as a meme is probably due to the fact that it often can kill the boss instantly, and the idea of a man suplexing a running locomotive is fucking baller.

FromTheShire: This feels like it was definitely designed pre- The One Ring banning. Sorcery speed is a huge problem still, wonder if it used to be an instant.

 

The Fire Crystal

BPhillipYork: The red version of this cycle is probably the most abusable, and haste is a really important enabler so all around pretty solid card. Making temporary token creatures is also really solid.

Saffgor: Ah yes Red, the color that has trouble accessing Haste. Another disappointing crystal, but at the very least the discount matters more here, given the color’s proclivity to storm off.

Marcy: I mentioned this in the previous round up, but just to reiterate: Crystals often serve as plot devices / MacGuffins in FF games, and primarily there are four major ones: Wind, Water, Fire, and Earth. There are sometimes more, often Light and Dark, or Ice and Lightning.

 

Triple Triad

BPhillipYork: Weird variant of stolen strategy. Super expensive, but at the same time if you manipulate the top of your library you can set it up so you can cast your opponents spells for free, which is neat, if not really good.

Marcy: FFVIII’s card minigame that became so popular the FFXI launcher included a playable version of it and FFXIV also includes it, Triple Triad is a “simple” game in which players take turn laying down cards with number values. Higher valued numbers flip other numbers, and you can cause chains and other nonsense to occur; there are even rule variations and changes. There have been a few physical printings of the game, too!

TheChirurgeon: Triple Triad was just a fun game and it’s a shame they botched it so hard trying to make a more “complex” version in FF9, and also even forced you to play in that game.

 

Vaan, Street Thief

BPhillipYork: This is solid and fun. I wasn’t aware Scouts, Pirates, and Rogues were group but it makes sense, and is just a solid include. I’d mostly probably see this showing up in pure Pirate decks, and I think building around it would be rough, but it’s a solid value card for those decks.

Saffgor: This is far better than it reads, and it reads well. Growing the board, getting both card and mana advantage, and doing so under a wider umbrella than one might expect. Great card, and will likely go underplayed because it’s Monored.

Marcy: The protagonist of FFXII finally makes his appearance! Vaan is a plucky rogue who gets swept up in his dreams of being a sky pirate into something far, far bigger than himself. FFXII is a really fun game, and if you like Star Wars, it is very difficult not to see a lot of comparisons between it and FFXII, but that’s okay; not everything needs to be the most original plot in the world. FFXII’s biggest issue is that Vaan, unlike Luke, isn’t quite a secret Jedi Master or anything similar, and he often gets a little overshadowed in the plot by characters like Balthier.

TheChirurgeon: Vaan sucks. He feels like a teen protagonist marketing shoehorned in at the last minute to avoid making characters older than 20 the main focus.

Bernhardt: The best part of this character design is that his abs look just as painted-on here as they do in the PS2 game.

FromTheShire: Crazy good for Pirate decks, which already are doing the same kind of thing.

 

Zell Dincht

BPhillipYork: Ah, the additional land plays with land recursion tacked on is an interesting thing. If you’re deck is winning through landfall this can be really good, because you can easily run out of lands to play, however it can also be pretty rough because at times you just want the incredible ramp that landfall decks often generate. Fits nicely with all the weird chocobo cards though.

Saffgor: In formats with access to Zell and Blue, you can loop a Mystic Sanctuary and turn spell, which is pretty strong! As a Commander though, not so much, and this is likely to see play in the 99 of decks looking to do funny things with lands.

Marcy: FFVIII’s resident himbo, Zell is the party member that focuses on punching things really hard and then often falling on his face for somewhat comedic relief. He’s fine.

Bernhardt: Less annoying than Seifer for whatever that’s worth, and mostly remarkable for looking like a Japanese artist’s interpretation of what the front-man of an American nu-metal band looks like.

TheChirurgeon: The best thing about Zell in the plot is that Squall finds him as annoying as we do for most of the game.

 

Ancient Adamantoise

BPhillipYork: It’s a super weird card. I like the idea of reanimating it or using one of the spells that will cause a creature that dies to come back onto the field. You get the Treasures and it doesn’t get exiled since it’s not a conditional trigger, it’ll just look and fail to find. 8 mana is uh, a lot. Sort of okay for a 8/20 with a weird ability. Anyway it’s a super unique creature in any case.

Marcy: A huge, huge monster from FFXV, known as a ‘superboss’, as part of the hunt system. FF games love secret super bosses (Omega, you might remember, is one of the first ever), and in later games (especially in XI and XIV) they appeared as hunt targets to challenge yourself with.

TheChirurgeon: The 8/20 bit comes from the fact that this guy has over 5.6 million HP in the game and takes 30 in-game days to kill, or about 15 hours of real-time gameplay. On the upside, there’s a sick custom animation you can trigger of the Earth summon Titan punching this guy right in the dome.

 

A Realm Reborn

BPhillipYork: Wow, that’s uh, fun, Treasures that don’t go away etc. It’s sort of a win more type thing though if you have 6 mana do you really need a lot more mana? For what? But even so kind of a fun thing.

Saffgor: Paradise Mantle for everything, which is mostly for your artifacts and enchantments. Suddenly having pieces which otherwise wouldn’t need to tap, like equipment and stax pieces, provide mana, is great. This is especially noteworthy as a Scramble target in GR Background decks, with artifacts such as Winter Orb and its ilk.

Marcy: 

The literal name of the revamp of FFXIV after the unfortunate mess of 1.0 FFXIV, depicted here are the three representatives of FFXIV’s major city states: From left to right, Raubhan from Ul’dah, Elder Seedseer Kan-E-Senna of Gridania, and Merlwyb Bloefhiswyn of Limsa Lominsa. Depending on where your character starts, you’ll interact with one of these three for a good portion of A Realm Reborn’s main story quest.

 

Bartz and Boko

BPhillipYork: Really too bad there’s no obvious contender for a Naya bird deck, maybe Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer or Atla Palani, Nest Tender eggs at least make sense for birds. This is pretty dangerous if you have a lot of birds when it comes out, and fits nicely into a typal deck but doesn’t have legs outside of that.

Marcy: Bartz is the protagonist of FFV, also known as “Butz” in Japan (and thankfully localized to not that in the US). He and Boko are a fun pair, and one of the first instances of a Chocobo having “personality”. In some of the spin-off games, such as Dissidia, there’s a running joke that Bartz says he can talk to Chocobos, but other characters tend to doubt if that’s true, or if he’s just crazy.

FromTheShire: I’m beyond stoked to get all of this new Bird support. Always a plus when you can play an on type card that does something you want aka offer creature removal. It effectively gives you two types of card in one slot.

 

Blitzball Shot

BPhillipYork: Well this is a fine way to pump and give trample at instant speed or use to protect your creature from damage.

Marcy: Another FFX party member, Wakka gets some time on a card here playing the pre-eminent sport of the world, Blitzball, which is kind of like underwater soccer, and somehow also a major and constantly plot relevant thing in FFX.

FromTheShire: It’s no Monstrous Rage but I could see this being tried in the existing RG versions if that actually eats a ban. Still makes blocking basically impossible at least.

 

Cactaur

Marcy: The iconic Cactuar appears. An elusive and evasive creature, Cactuars reward players with huge amounts gil and magic points or AP (at least in FFVI)… if you can defeat them. They have high evasion and run away after a few turns, meaning high damage and sure to hit attacks are required. As mentioned previously, Cactuar and Sabotender are kind of used interchangeably for a while, but in recent years, Cactuar often denotes these specific little guys, while Sabotender tends to denote the different shaped variations. To make it even more confusing, they used also be called ‘Cactrots’.

 

Chocobo Racetrack

BPhillipYork: This is more expensive than other “create a token upon landfall” triggers, it’s a slightly better token, and so the consistency is probably there if you want a landfall -> tokens -> go wide deck.

Marcy: Making a debut in FFVII, Chocobo racing became a mini game in Final Fantasy often associated with the casino known as the Golden Saucer. That thing they’re running through is supposed to be a moogle, according to FFVII. Yeah. I dunno either.

TheChirurgeon: Man, fuck Teioh

 

Clash of the Eikons

BPhillipYork: Removing saga counters is actually really good, though it’s not at all reusable. Would’ve been nice to have flashback or something, having a modal fight or a saga thing is pretty nice.

Saffgor: Whoa, this is removal spell and Saga trigger all in one. Definitely best in slot for fight spells in a deck with Sagas, and up there for removal in general.

Marcy: With Eikons (Summons, Eidolons, etc.) being such a core part of FF games, FFXVI really ramps that up with the huge Eikon battles, depicted here. It’s kind of bananas to see Clive (as Ifrit) here against Titan Lost, which is pretty true to the game itself.

 

Commune with Beavers

BPhillipYork: Wow this reminds of Natural Selection though it works a bit different, and is sorcery. It’s a solid enough selection card, but generally there’s just better things to do with slots and mana.

Marcy: I’m telling you. Play FFII. It rules.

 

Diamond Weapon

BPhillipYork: Is that thing like a mech or what? I am having a hard time even resolving that image into something meaningful. The card seems pretty good, because permanents in your graveyard include fetch lands, so it should get pretty solid cost reduction for a damage immune 8/8.

Marcy: FFVII took “secret bosses” to a whole new level. While Diamond Weapon is fought as part of FFVII’s main story, the game hints at and then allows you to fight three other superbosses from the same “family”: Ruby, Sapphire, and the ultimate, uh, Ultimate Weapon. Ultimate isn’t really a stone, but don’t tell it I said that.

 

Esper Origins / Summon: Esper Maduin

BPhillipYork: This seems super complicated, but I guess it’s meant to go into a mill deck and then flashback it, then you get a 4/4 for a couple of turns. It doesn’t even given itself trample, seems kind of too much for too little.

Saffgor: This is a solid role player in a Standard BG graveyard deck, as a 4/4 from the yard that probably draws 1, adds mana to make a board, and then pumps said board, across 3 turns. Casting it from hand is fairly miserable though, which could hold it back.

Marcy: As mentioned in another overview, Terra is the female protagonist of FFVI, who is half-human, half-esper. Maduin is her Esper father; the woman you can sort of see on the first card is her human mother, Madeline.

 

Jumbo Cactuar

BPhillipYork: A meme card. Obviously if you light this up with Chandra’s Ignition that’s game.

Saffgor: If you die to this, it’s your fault.

Marcy: The other thing Cactuars are known for is their ability, 10,000 Needles, which in almost all instances will instantly kill your characters (or party). The funnier part missing from this card is that the ability is often called 10,000 Needles?, because it only does 9999 damage.

 

Quina, Qu Gourmet

BPhillipYork: Okay yet another replace a token with that token and an additional token. But this time it’s frogs. It’s great if you want tons of creatures being created in something like Chatterfang, Squirrel General.

Marcy: FFIX’s Blue Mage, Quina Quen is great, and again a cool touch of how interesting and weird the races in FFIX were. Quina is interesting because unlike other Blue Mages who simply need monsters to use their abilities on them to learn them, Quina literally “Eats” them. I appreciate that they gave her the “Qu” type, even if she’s the only one.

 

Reach the Horizon

BPhillipYork: There’s a lot of these cards, it’s almost like a default card. Four mana; get two lands, includes the set’s new weird land sub-type. I dunno, it is what it is. I guess it’s a 4 mana non-creature spell you could run all of these to trigger your “cast a non-creature spell of 4 or greater mana.”

Marcy: A scene in FFVII that signaled the ending of the first chapter of the game; leaving the city and seeing how large the game actually was is an iconic part of FFVII, although we’re missing out on the prompt to then insert the next disc.

TheChirurgeon: Pfft. That’s because you don’t hit disc 2 until Aerith dies.

 

Sazh Katzroy

BPhillipYork: It’s fodder for chocobo deck. The secondary trigger is also pretty nice, it’s going to add minimum 2 +1/+1 counters to a creature, but if your deck really cares about counters it has the potential to be duplicating a big number. Also, you could use this with perennial favorite Sage of Hours.

Marcy: Sazh is one of your first and longest party members in FFXIII, made to play a bit of the buffoon against the very stoic and down to earth Lightning. I think he gets a little bit of a bad rap for that, but FFXIII was over scrutinized on release for sure. He’s the pilot of / summoner of Brynhildr, and keeps the baby Chocobo in his afro.

 

Sazh’s Chocobo

BPhillipYork: It’s a cute bird.

Marcy: Here is where I tell you that the cute bird is actually super plot relevant, but, uh, no. It’s just a cute baby Chocobo that Sazh carries around… right? Well… Actually, it gets really, really weird, so let’s just say that if you play the FFXIII trilogy, you might encounter the adult version of this Chocobo, and not in the form you expect.

TheChirurgeon: I mean it is plot relevant, but in the dumbest way.

 

Sidequest: Raise a Chocobo / Black Chocobo

BPhillipYork: It is what it is, land and chocobos, but there’s not enough of them.

Saffgor: This is the bird payoff card at a reasonable mana value, but I honestly don’t see it.

Marcy: You may recall in the previous round-up (linked here) that I discussed how to get the summon Knights of the Round in FFVII. Part of that quest is obtaining a Black Chocobo, which you get by breeding Blue and Green Chocobos, and then having them breed, resulting in a Black Chocobo, which you then have to breed with a “Wonderful” Yellow Chocobo. This card is honestly way, way easier than that was!

 

Summoner’s Grimoire

BPhillipYork: Dumping out huge creatures is actually pretty nasty. Anytime you can cheat out an Archon of Cruelty or some other huge swingy creature, that’s good. 4 mana isn’t that much, and then it’s just super threatening. A lot of big creatures now though have caveats like cast triggers or if you cast it triggers, to make cheating them out less good, but even so huge creatures just getting dumped out is fairly scary.

Marcy: A little bit of a cop out in this set is showing all of the Jobs as their FFXIV incarnations, but I do suppose it has the widest amount of them in ‘modern’ forms, so that’s fine. Summoners are those that can summon on or call on the Summons/Primals/Eidolons etc. in the FF universe, and their iconic ‘horn’ is part of their costume. This Summoner is an Au’ra, a race in FFXIV that, despite appearances, are not draconic or reptilian, but supposed to be similar to demons(!). Au’ra come in two types: Xaela, a nomadic people who live on the Steppe (basically, they’re Mongolian) who have darker, bluish horns and scales, and Raen, who have white scales and horns and are more integrated into Eorzean cultures around the planet.

 

Summon: Fenrir

Saffgor: Having spoken about Esper Origins, this is another card that goes in that Standard deck, in theory. It won’t see play in Commander though.

Marcy: Fenrir (and a few other Norse figures, as you may have noticed) exist in FF often as Summons, Bosses, or Named Things. Fenrir has been a few of those, first appearing as a summon in FFVI, but this version of his appearance as an Avatar in FFXI. Since he’s often not that big of a presence, FFXI gave him more time in the sun, which was cool.

FromTheShire: Yeah it’s early yet but I am already seeing this fairly frequently on the ladder, usually in a Gruul shell, and it seems pretty solid. Like not a tier 1 deck but something you’ll win your share of games with and it will be super fun when it pops off.

 

Summon: Titan

BPhillipYork: 5 mana for a 7/7 for a couple turns is okay. No haste of course, the dumping all your lands back into play is potentially something if you have a way to get rid of your lands, then suddenly that’s fairly nasty. That really is a very different deck than one that cares about a 7/7 or trample and +X/+X though.

Marcy: This is FFXV’s Titan, which, sort of like I mentioned with Fenrir, is an Avatar who doesn’t often get a lot of screentime or to do anything super cool. FFXV’s Titan does, and FFXVI’s also, so he’s finally gotten some time to shine with the ability of games to render Big Man becoming a lot better.

 

The Earth Crystal

BPhillipYork: Well counter doubling can be good, and it really has lots of support for counters, the doubling, and then the ability to distribute them, which inherently gets doubled. Also cost reduction is usually good, green doesn’t go as crazy with as say red or blue, but for sure if you are doing +1/+1 counters this is a solid add.

FromTheShire: Yeah this is going to get jammed in every counters deck in Commander immediately.

 

Tifa Lockhart

BPhillipYork: Okay, obviously you need to hit about 4 land drops and suddenly this gets scary, 2, 4, 8, 16, but even then you’d need to hit 5 land drops to one hit kill someone, which, that’s really quite a bit.

TheChirurgeon: I mean you get a lot of mileage out of dropping any buff on her before you start the doubling process. But yeah, it’s a lot to get there.

Saffgor: Please ban Monstrous Rage. Joke(?) aside, this could be part of a fragile combo-esque RG Prowess deck but is otherwise unexciting.

Marcy: The primary female protagonist of FFVII and part of the main trio of Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa, spunky and sporty Tifa is FFVII’s martial artist character. Much like Aerith, her personality is a lot more interesting than the initial translation really allowed for, and her rendition in the remake alongside Aerith is really great. Yes, I ship them. Who do you think I am?

FromTheShire: I wouldn’t even call the Gruul Rage decks fragile, they’re not quite as optimal as the Boros builds but like… that’s the best deck in the format so… We’ll see how things shake out going forward but I would be 0% surprised if this was a player.

 

Tifa’s Limit Break

BPhillipYork: These modal instants are solid; the ability to use it for what you need it for depending on how the game is going is really solid.

Marcy: As if on cue, here’s Tifa’s signature ability. Tifa’s abilities unlock the more she uses them and learns them, scaling upwards in damage and ability. Of note is that Final Heaven is her final Limit, which has to be obtained by playing a piano at a certain point in the game by inputting a specific command string.

 

Torgal, A Fine Hound

BPhillipYork: Humans and dogs certainly makes sense, really seems like it should have partner with humans or something but oh well. Also that is a really big dog.

Saffgor: Good boy.

Marcy: Torgal got a lot of press leading up to FFXVI’s release, as it was during the height of ‘can you pet the dog’ stuff in video games. You can indeed pet Torgal, and he is a good companion to Clive throughout the game.

 

Traveling Chocobo

BPhillipYork: Playing lands off the top is pretty solid in and of itself, and land-harmonicon is also pretty nice, and this doesn’t require you to be playing bird typal, it’ll help that but it’s really just a land deck card.

Saffgor: Bird typal has historically been in just UW, and adding another color to that pile would be difficult without enough payoffs. That said, this is a phenomenal payoff, and your birds are going to get big, fast.

FromTheShire: This is Derevi, Empyrial Tactician erasure and I won’t stand for it. The actual card is phenomenal.

Marcy: Since this is from FFVII, I’m debating if this is a reference to the ‘Wonderful’ Chocobo you have to catch to get a Golden one. The fact that Golden Chocobo chase cards exist based on this card make me think that’s the case, but it could be a reach.

 

Aettir and Priwen

BPhillipYork: So, in Commander this is obviously quite dangerous. Expensive, like very expensive, but you can easily just blow people out with it.

Marcy: If you’ve never played FFXIV, this card probably doesn’t do as much psychic damage to you as it might. This is a Relic weapon, specifically from the Anima set in Heavensward. After clearing the MSQ of FFXIV expansions, players can undertake quests to obtain powerful “Relic” weapons, if they are willing to put in the time and effort. One of the comedic parts of the game having been around for so long now is that many of these quests are pointless if you keep playing the game, as only the latest expansions’ Relic weapon is often worth having, and the quests are often grind-y, meaning the amount of labor you have to expend for them doesn’t decrease as the game gets older. These weapons suck to complete, plain and simple, and are absolutely traps for completionists. Also that shield is NOWHERE near that big in game!

 

Blitzball

BPhillipYork: Well 3 mana to tap for 1 of any color is like, fine, and having a weird sac trigger on it if you don’t need it is nice. But there’s just better rocks around.

Marcy: The most iconic thing from FFX besides Tidus’ laugh, the Blitzball itself is here. Sadly, they didn’t make an exploding version…

Bernhardt: Blitzball is the most-maligned of the PS1/PS2 era Final Fantasy card-like minigames, and not without reason, but I had fun with it. Mainly because I was a sports nerd kid and the conceit was around building your roster of sports dudes, and also because the majority of the time I spent with it was during a three-day fever dream while home sick from school.

 

Buster Sword

BPhillipYork: This is potentially something fairly dangerous and fits nicely into Boros. Not that hard to get double strike, getting a 5 or 6 thing for free is great, doubling it etc.. Expensive but if you’re are doing like Boros Equipment, pretty solid.

Saffgor: Yeah this is obviously very good in Commander, but probably still worse than one of the main Sword of X&Y cards.

FromTheShire: Due to not giving protection I’m inclined to agree.

Marcy: Cloud (and, technically, Zack) wields the Buster Sword, a weapon that became iconic for the FF franchise and 00s anime convention cosplays and dealer rooms.

 

Excalibur II

BPhillipYork: Charge counters making a creature big is solid. You definitely can make this big really fast in a white deck, lots of life gain triggers is fairly easy to arrange.

Saffgor: The counters going on this card means it’s closer to an Ozolith-style effect than an Ajani’s Pridemate, and if anything gets lifegain there in 60 card, this is probably it.

Marcy: I feel like this could have been a much cooler item than it is, and doesn’t really play into or explain the flavor behind it. To get the Excalibur II, players had to essentially beat FFIX in a speedrun, clocking in at 12 hours or less when they got to the room in the final dungeon holding the sword. Doing so would then award them the sword if they checked in a specific spot (thus the comment about ‘forged in another world’), and is Steiner’s strongest weapon.

TheChirurgeon: My favorite bit of Excalibur II lore is that if you played the PAL version where the game ran at a slower framerate but used the same clock, you’d have to get to the same spot in ten hours.

 

Genji Glove

BPhillipYork: Double strike is solid and generating additional attack phases is really solid, it’s quite expensive but I’d say this can definitely pay off pretty quickly.

Marcy: Gilgamesh, my beloved! He’s back one last time in this set for something else he’s famous for: The Genji set. In FFV, players can steal pieces of the Genji set from Gilgamesh during every encounter with him, and each piece of the set is a very powerful piece of equipment worth the time in obtaining. The Genji Glove is specifically famous for giving wearers double strike, so it was a slam dunk to do so in MTG.

 

Lunatic Pandora

BPhillipYork: It’s really too expensive, though getting tons of colorless mana isn’t hard, and there’s definitely ways to get artifact recursion going that would allow you to keep re-using this.

Marcy: While presented as an artifact here, Lunatic Pandora is more of a location than an item, and entering it triggers the end game of FFVIII.

TheChirurgeon: There are literal pages of lore behind this thing and you only even get a whiff of any of this and the history of sorceresses in FF8 if you talk to one specific goober on the White SeeD ship at a specific point in the game.

 

Magitek Scythe

Marcy: HE SAID THE THING!

You can tell I write these in sequential order, dear reader, because in the previous round-up, I discussed that I was a little dismayed that Zenos didn’t have his well known line, but here we are! When you encounter Zenos in a late game battle in Endwalker, this iconic voice line preceded many players finding their reflexes were, indeed, lacking. As a little bit of extra Marcy lore, I primarily play tank in FFXIV, and my Gunbreaker invulnerability macro was “A TEST OF YOUR REFLEXES!” accompanied by a goofy noise, because I love stressing out my healers (who are my friends, I’m not a monster).

 

Relentless X-ATM092

BPhillipYork: I guess it’s a big… robot thing, I mean a 6/5 with a weird sort of evasion is neato. It’s not really big enough to be really big and it’s still plenty expensive, the ability to dump it out yet again is nice value if you have absolute tons of colorless mana and nothing to do with it.

Marcy: One of the more memorable fights in FFVIII, X-ATM092 was essentially unbeatable, as players were forced to fight it until it would repair itself and then continue chasing them. This segment was honestly one of the cooler moments of FFVIII and I like the way they recreated it on the card here.

 

Ring of the Lucii

BPhillipYork: It’s a bad mana rock, but also a worse version of Icy Manipulator.

Marcy: An extremely important plot point in FFXV, this ring serves as a symbol of Noctis’ right to the throne but also as a font of and source of his abilities by linking him to the previous rulers of Lucis. Before you ask, there were Queens, but the game just calls all of them “Kings”.

 

Summon: Bahamut

BPhillipYork: I like this. I like colorless decks, though mostly 5 color colorless, this fits really, really well into like just big dumb Eldrazi decks. It’s also a huge enchantment creature you can reanimate in many different ways which is definitely a scary clock.

Marcy: I mentioned in previous articles that the Summons often have something of a hierarchy, and Bahamut (generally) sits atop that hierarchy as the strongest or most powerful of them. Often times Bahamut is an adversary to the party, in others a reward for a job or secret quest well done; his signature ability is Mega Flare, which is generally the most powerful ability in the games he’s in.

TheChirurgeon: It’s really cool that Bahamut is colorless, as one key thing about Mega Flare is that it often deals non-elemental damage, making it distinct to fire/ice/lightning magic in terms of how it’s handled with regard to resistances.

 

The Masamune

BPhillipYork: This is really just an enabler for aristocrats decks that you’ll almost never attack with, and it’s good for that. Unconditional death trigger doublers are quite rare.

Saffgor: This is often a removal piece that can go off multiple times, and on top of that, it doubles your death value. Insane card in the right deck, but certainly only a Commander card.

Marcy: Sephiroth’s signature huge sword appears. As far as an equipment goes, I guess this is fine. It isn’t even really stated that that Masamune has any special abilities other than being exceptionally long and very sharp, but it is also the thing he uses to kill Aerith with, so the dying trigger is kind of funny.

TheChirugeon: I’m kind of sad this doesn’t give you Reach, just because it’s so damn long.

 

The Regalia

BPhillipYork: This seems like a neat ramp card, 4 for a 4/4 that has crew 1 and haste and instantly starts getting you lands is reasonable enough. I really like the idea of crewing this with like Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Saffgor: With extra combats, this is very quickly going to get out of hand, and for that reason I see it as an absolute slam dunk in most Rx decks that have that game plan. Outside of that, if you’re just getting one land per turn, 4 mana is fairly frontloaded.

Marcy: FFXV’s iconic car and fifth party member, the Regalia is here! The opening scene of FFXV is still one of my favorites in a game, and the Regalia features heavily in it. If you have played FFXIV for a long time, you may even have the Regalia as a mount, which can carry 4 people and has unique music, a very cool little treat.

 

Ultima, Origin of Oblivion

BPhillipYork: Another solid enabler for Eldrazi decks, and also lets you just mess with people’s lands and screw up their colored mana. Kind of gross with the Tron lands.

Marcy: I mentioned that “Ultima” is often the most powerful spell in Final Fantasy, and in a lot of cases, “Ultima” is used to denote something of exceptional power. In FFXVI, that’s this guy, who is (as you probably can figure out), the big bad of the game. A lot of games have had “Ultima” bosses too, or “Ultimate”.

Bernhardt: “Legendary Creature — God” is always a fun creature type. In the mid-range of big bads in the series; he’s not going to make any top five lists, but he’s a real dick and he loves to talk so much, so it’s very satisfying once Clive finally gets his hands on him.

 

Ultima Weapon

BPhillipYork: Yeah I’m not paying that much to kill a creature.

Marcy: Ultima weapons are generally the “best” weapon a character can get in the game, with each class having a specific iteration of their Job’s version of it. Sometimes they look kinda goofy and weird, but they’re always powerful. Not to be confused with Ultimate Weapon, which is the recurring secret boss, or Atma, a different thing often confused with Ultima.

TheChirurgeon: That said, the Atma weapon in FF6 and the Ultima weapon on FF7 are linked mechanically – they both vary their attack power based on your current total HP, doing more damage when you’re at full health, and with a higher max HP value.

 

World Map

BPhillipYork: This is great, cheap ways to tutor for any land are fairly rare, and it’s really nice that it has the built in cheaper mode if you just need a basic.

Saffgor: A sidegrade to Expedition Map is fantastic, and in decks already running that card, it’s a slam dunk. In particular, my beloved Beza is salivating at the notion of more consistency in kickstarting that part of its gameplan.

Marcy: I suppose this is self-explanatory, but most FF games have a map, because RPGs and maps go hand in hand, right?

TheChirurgeon: The world map was actually kind of a secret in the first game. You’d only learn how to access it from a talking broom in Matoya’s cave.

 

Ishgard, the Holy See

BPhillipYork: I really like the adventure lands, conceptually. 5 mana to return to artifacts or enchantments is like, fine.

Saffgor: This is the best Adventure land in Commander, and 5 mana isn’t a massive cost for this effect. Getting back multiple combo and/or value pieces is great, and in decks that aim to sacrifice or mill themselves, it’s doubly good.

Marcy: Ah, Ishgard. I’m a big Heavensward Enjoyer, and I always liked Ishgard as a location in FFXIV. It is essentially Fantasy Catholic France, in that it is filled with racist Elezen (FFXIV’s word for elves) who hate everyone who isn’t them, especially dragons, and who are ruled by an Elf Pope. The city also overlooks a giant chasm filled with deadly Dark Aether. It rules. 10/10 location. Making it to Ishgard is a big moment for most FFXIV players, as it marks their exiting A Realm Reborn for the first expansion.

 

Jidoor, Aristocratic Capital

BPhillipYork: Well if you want to mill someone out this is a super great way to do it then get a land.

Saffgor: The Adventure being a Sorcery is my concern here, as one of the best ways to make use of an effect like this is to sacrifice your own creature in response to a removal effect.

Marcy: The Auction House is located in Jidoor, which is how/why most players know it and why it is so famous. Players can liberate Espers from the auction house here, as well as some other very important and lucrative items, and this is a step on the path to the Opera House quest that’s referenced earlier in this article.

 

Lindblum, Industrial Regency

BPhillipYork: Okay I think these counter 0/1 black wizards are great and I love to see more sources of them.

Marcy: Cid is the ruler of Lindblum, and the city serves as a safe haven for the party for a section of the game until it is sieged by Queen Brahne and her army of black wizards, which is the other half of this card!

 

Zanarkand, Ancient Metropolis

BPhillipYork: This seems like the worst of these adventure town lands.

Marcy: As the card implies, Zanarkand is a ruined city, and also the ultimate location of the game. “Zanarkand” is probably the most famous musical piece from the game as well.

 

The Town Cycle

FromTheShire: These are fine but will mostly see use in budget decks and the occasional deck forcing Towns, basically the same as Guildgates.

Marcy: Wow FFXIV, how come WoTC lets you have TWO lands? Anyway, Sharlayan is a place often heard about but never seen until Endwalker. It is a city of academics, many of whom are insufferable. It has a really cool restaurant and some very funny food lore/culture, including the loathed “Archon Loaf”, a “bread” made to be nutritionally complete that contains things like fish and other things that should never be in a bread and is universally reviled.

 

Balamb Garden, SeeD Academy / Balamb Garden, Airborne

BPhillipYork: This is okay; land fixing that lets you turn it into card draw when you don’t need so many lands. Slow though. Which maybe makes sense for a man land.

Marcy: Balamb is the first location in FFVIII where the SeeD cadets study. It is only after a while that you learn the city is capable of flying, and that is usually when FFVIII starts to really kick off for a lot of people, in my opinion. That or the assassination scene.

 

Capital City

BPhillipYork: This is okay, probably only playable if you really need to mana fix or want to cycle it into your yard then get it back somehow, or really care about Towns.

Marcy: The “big” city in XVI, I find that it kind of suffered from Modern Game City Problem, which is that it is a little bit too big and empty, where a smaller, tighter town map would have done a lot of good.

 

Clive’s Hideaway

BPhillipYork: Could be really really good in legendary matters decks, otherwise a tough condition to satisfy.

Marcy: The second FFXVI land, this is where Clive’s ‘base’ is.

 

Eden, Seat of the Sanctum

BPhillipYork: This just seems unusable.

Marcy: As I mentioned, FFXIII has a really involved and complex plot, and the fal’Cie play a big role in that complication. While this is indeed the capital city, a lot more is going on here than it first seems.

 

Starting Town

BPhillipYork: This is a super playable new 5 color land. Really solid.

Marcy: A very cute representation of the first town in FF ever, I love the quote from the prophecy underneath it. This place is called Corneria, or Cornelia, depending on translation.

FromTheShire: Really love this in Standard, especially in aggro decks.

 

The Gold Saucer

BPhillipYork: Well if you just want to be flipping coins it’s a useful way to generate flips, and it’s also a mana dump, and also a way to draw presumably with token artifacts, so all in all it’s a pretty flexible toolbox card, which I like.

Marcy: The Gold Saucer, home to mini games, dates, and chocobo racing! After FFVII, the Gold Saucer became a repeat location, most notably lately in FFXIV, where it houses, once again, chocobo racing, mini games, and mahjong. You thought I was going to say dates, right? Well, bring your own maybe.

 

That wraps up our look at the cards of Final Fantasy. Join us next time as we begin return to our regular articles!

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