Final Fantasy is coming to Magic: The Gathering – combining one of my favorite video game series with my absolute favorite trading card game.
We’ve already seen a few spoilers for the upcoming set, but at a PAX East panel, we just got a mega dump of new cards to sink our teeth into, and folks, this set couldn’t be more exciting.
We haven’t talked much about Magic: The Gathering here on TechRadar before – outside of my yearly board games recommendation list which came out in January – but I’m taking this opportunity to showcase some of those new cards, and to tell you why fans of long-time Final Fantasy will want to get in on the MTG action.
Armed and dangerous
The Final Fantasy set is an unapologetic homage to the iconic gaming series, and that’s no clearer than in one of the collection’s most prominent mechanics: equipment.
Just like the core FF games, these are powerful artifacts and weapons that buff your heroes with better stats and abilities, and there are plenty of cards that will help you build a party around your items and go digging through your deck for the best ones.
Final Fantasy II’s Firion, Wild Rose Warrior, gives equipped creatures haste (meaning they can attack immediately) and creates short-lived copies of your equipment when you play it. He pairs perfectly with the new job select artifacts like White Mage’s Staff and Black Mage’s Rod, which create a Hero token creature equipped with them when they enter – simultaneously building and buffing your party with just a single card.
Then there’s Cloud, Midgar Mercenary, from Final Fantasy VII. He can search your library for an equipment card when he enters play, and pairs well with the Commander deck version of himself – Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER.
Commander decks are pre-built 100-card decks that you can pick up and play with right away. There’s one for each of Final Fantasy VI, VII, X, and XIV, with Final Fantasy VII being all about making Cloud stronger with powerful items.
This will include the iconic Buster Sword, though Wizards of the Coast has yet to tell us what it’s capable of. For now, we can just marvel at the blank card and its artwork.
Summoning sickness
Besides equipment and min-maxing builds, you can’t think of Final Fantasy and not think of the series’ splashy spells.
There are plenty of heroes which care about you casting non-creature cards like Final Fantasy IX’s Vivi Ornitier. His MTG card gets stronger whenever you cast such spells, with a second effect that allows Vivi to generate mana equal to his power so you can cast even more magic and buff him further. He looks like an excellent spell-slinger commander.
You’ll also find the new ‘Tiered’ modal mechanic on cards like Fire Magic. Based on the amount of mana you spend you can choose one tier of spell – in this case Fire, Fira, or Firaga – to generate a more powerful effect just like you would in the video game.
Though for me there’s nothing more iconic than Final Fantasy’s splashy Summons – powerful spells which bring forth a monstrous ally to fight alongside you until they perform some big finisher.
In Magic: The Gathering these are represented by something we’ve never seen before: saga creatures (we’ve seen sagas and creatures combined before but with one transforming into the other, we’ve never seen a card be printed as both a saga and creature at the same time before).
We had already seen Shiva, but the panel gave us a peek at two more: Esper Valigarmanda, and Bahamut. The latter is, just like in the games, an intimidating dragon with a suite of powerful effects including its Mega Flare finishing move which could wipe out your opponents in one go.
Host of the panel Ben Starr was excited to showcase his Final Fantasy 16 character’s card – Clive, Ifrit’s Dominant – which can transform into an Ifrit summon, but if you’re after a true summons-matter commander you’ll want to check out my favorite card of the reveal: Terra, Magical Adept.
This Final Fantasy VI hero can become Esper Terra, a saga creature which lets you copy your other enchantments – such as your other summons – and she puts counters on them instantly so you skip ahead to their most powerful effects right away.
While she costs only three mana – one red, one green, and one of any color – because her saga side’s final effect generates 10 mana spread evenly across all five of Magic’s colors, her color identity is also all five. So you can cram her Commander deck with all of your favorite summons, and other sagas.
A Final Fantasy fan’s dream
This set is just jam-packed with references to the games.
Lightning, Army of One, calls back to Final Fantasy XIII’s stagger mechanic – which in combination with her first-strike and trample effects will allow you to deal double damage to your opponents and their creatures. Kain, Traitorous Dragoon, has an effect that sees him change to your opponent’s side to mimic his Final Fantasy IV betrayal.
Aerith Gainsborough gets stronger when you gain life to match her role as Final Fantasy VII’s ‘white mage’ – before spreading that power among her allies when the card dies, an homage to not only one of FF VII’s most iconic moments, but one of gaming’s most well-known scenes.
There’s also a fantastic reference to one of the series’ recurring characters in Cid, Timeless Artificer. Different iterations of Cid have appeared in every title from Final Fantasy II onwards, so his card has 15 alternate arts – one for each appearance. Though functionally, every Cid card is identical.
Though you’ll notice only the core games – Final Fantasy I through XVI – have had cards spoiled. That’s because, as the design team explained during a briefing before the panel, there just isn’t space for every spinoff.
Even with just the core titles this is already going to be Magic’s biggest set ever.
You may have also spotted that outside of the Commander decks, alternate art treatments, and the Through the Ages showcase reprints (which give classic Magic: The Gathering cards reprints with Final Fantasy artwork and names), every character only gets one card.
Again this was due to space. Every character that gets two cards means some other hugely popular figure gets none.
As a massive Kingdom Hearts fan I’m disappointed because this all but confirms those characters won’t make an appearance – which was already unlikely given Kingdom Hearts’ connection to Disney which has its very active Lorcana card game – but I’m nevertheless stoked for this set.
The new equipment support cards will slot perfectly into my Captain America and Lara Croft decks, all the new non-creature synergies might convince me to rebuild my Veyran, Voice of Duality deck, and outside of constructed formats the breadth of mechanics and fantastic designs has me chomping at the bit for Draft and Sealed events.
Speaking of, if you’re looking to experience Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy the release date is June 13, but many local game stores will run prerelease events the week before.
Here you’ll be able to enter beginner-friendly competitions where you can open packs and play with the new cards right away.
Best of all because Draft and Sealed (the most common prerelease formats) only use cards people open in packs at the event you don’t have to come with a deck, or worry about some decades-long MTG veteran walking in with a super powerful deck. For these events you’re all in the same boat on as level a playing field as is possible.
I already have my tickets to go, and if you want to join in you can use Wizard of the Coast’s official events finder to locate your closest game store.