Final Fantasy has been my favorite game series since I got Final Fantasy 8 Platinum on PS1 many, many years ago. The four discs of goodness consumed hundreds of hours of my time before I went back and played 7, followed by playing every game since. I LOVE this game series. So you pair this with my latest obsession for the last year and a half, Magic: The Gathering, and surely you have a set that I will be obsessed with, right?
Well not necessarily, it still has to be awesome as if it sucks, I will be mad as a fan of MTG and mad as a fan of Final Fantasy. Thank god it doesn’t suck.
So much flavour
Normally, the first thing I talk about in an MTG review is the story. In the case of a Universes Beyond set, there isn’t a story to talk about. Instead, I can focus on the flavour. How do the card design and art represent the game?
Well they absolutely smashed it out of the park when it comes to the main set. The set is loaded with legendary creatures so that each game has a representation. Cards like Marlboro inflict your opponent with a bunch of effects which make the card so flavorful. Cactaur comes in with haste, attacks, then returns to your hand the next turn, so much flavour.
Seriously, the cards designed here are exceptionally creative to represent their roles in Final Fantasy, and make for interesting Magic cards.
The art
There is a lot to say about the art, so I will start with the normal set and cover the Through the Ages cards later. For the main set, all the art is uniquely created. This varies from recreations of iconic moments through to iconic characters, and they are stunning. Some look more anime, some look more magicy, but they are consistently beautiful cards. It was a treat as a long-time FF fan to crack cards and see cool designs.
Then there is alt art muttered through. Yet again, you can get alt art cards in things other than rare, so seeing some stunning uncommons in alt art is an absolute treat. The full-art character cards that are on a plain background with the FF game number behind it look AMAZING. These can be found in Play boosters, or surge foils can be found in Collector Boosters. Even Fang and Vanille, who are in the uncommon slot, can come in this treatment. I love these cards so much.
The Through the Ages cards are a mixed bag. These are reprints of older cards varying from commons worth a few cents to Mythics worth $100 or more. For the art here they have used a combination of original concept art through to screenshots or promotional material from the games. The concept art cards look fantastic, and I love cracking heaps of them. The screenshots are more of a mixed bag; some look decent, some look average. Screenshots from FF9, for instance, look a lot less great on the card. Garnet Til Alexandros for example, while it’s a great card, would have been way better as concept art. The other issue with them is the text doesn’t have a text box, making some of them hard to read. I like the reprints. I like most of the choices of art, but they can be hard to play with. Though having said that, some of the cards I thought looked awful online, like Rhystic Study, actually looked way better in person. And that’s not because I pulled one at my first prerelease.
But how does the set play?
Pretty cards that are thematically appropriate might be a major thing, but the biggest thing is how they play. It is a Magic: The Gathering set after all, and not just art cards. Well, I can say they are so much fun.
One of my favourite new mechanics is Job Select. These are equipment cards that come in but automatically create a 1/1 hero token they are equipped with. So equipment is immediately useful, and you can then move to another character when you see fit. It’s a fantastic mechanic.
Tiered spells are ones with options to beef them up like kicker. You can pay the base cost and get an effect, or pay more for the effect to get stronger. These are used on things like Fire Magic and are both a mechanical and flavour winner.
Saga creatures are a fun new mechanic which is used for summons. Here you cast the creature, but it is also a saga. So turn one it does something, and then each other turns until it’s final saga step where it gets sacrificed. For ones with three saga steps, you only get one chance to attack with the creature, but some are longer. It also means creature removal works on them, so it’s fun.
Then there are heaps of evergreen mechanics. Adventures return but on lands, so you can play the sorcery side, and then play a tapped land for turn. Transforming cards where you slip them over returns and can be super powerful, but hard to pull off. There is even a meld card where Vanille and Fang merge together, flip over, and are a big creature on the back. There are heaps more, even more so when you think about all the old cards in the Through the Ages sheet.
Constructed, Draft, and Sealed
It will be interesting to see how many of these cards make a splash in Standard, Modern, Etc. I am already planning to try Vivi out in my Izzet prowess deck, which will either pop off, or get removed on sight. I can’t wait to see how and if the meta changes now.
Drafting and Sealed are more interesting though. As the colour pairs have strong synergies, it feels a lot more like sets like Bloomburrow. Here, if you have the right cards for the right lane, they pop off. The problem is you can’t always mash red and white together and have a deck that works. That one relies on equipment, and your white cards that don’t use that should be in a life gain deck. This makes drafting way harder to do, but still fun as hell. The Through the Ages cards can put a real spanner in the works for this, and I love spanners in the works. Less predictable drafts are more fun.
Sealed, like drafting, does rely on being able to get some synergy. The difference is you don’t need to pick lanes and hope you get the cards. Instead, you have what’s available in front of you, and can look for the best synergy available at the time. I definitely struggled to make synergy decks in my sealed pools, but that’s the luck of the draw. That’s Magic sometimes.
It is definitely a fun set.
Commander Decks
I have managed to play with three of the four commander decks. As usual, they come with a full 100-card deck plus tokens, a Collector Booster sample pack with two fancy random cards, and a thin cardboard deck box. The commanders aren’t full-art, which is disappointing, but they are foil. What isn’t disappointing is the art. Each deck is based on a game, and every card, except lands, is based on art for that game. That means each card that is a reprint is unique, and each of the four sol rings are all unique art. I love them. I even managed to snag one of the collectors’ editions. This is the same as the normal deck except every card, including the tokens, is surge foil. It is gorgeous, but not essential, which is the best kind of fancy option.
Revival Trance is a FFIV deck that is led by Terra. She is a commander that has you milling cards, and then trying to bring them back from the graveyard. This comes via her ability where she does combat damage to a player. You can pay two and return one to the battlefield, or other spells in the 99 that can bring characters back. The alternate commander, Celes, buffs characters with +1 counters if they come back from the graveyard. So similar game plans.
Counter Blitz is a FFX deck led by Tidus. Tidus lets you move counters around characters, and then when you do combat damage to a player you get to draw cards and proliferate. If left unchecked, this deck will get out of hand and quickly. The alternate commander is, unsurprisingly, Yuna. She is a mana dork that lets you add a couple of +1 counters to the creature you use her to cast. Then, when creatures die, you get to distribute them to other creatures. This is the commander deck I got the Limited Edition for, and I don’t regret it, as it is fun as hell.
Limit Break is the FFVII deck led by Cloud. Limit Break is an equipment deck, with Cloud allowing you to attach equipment to him for free. Then you get payoffs for other attacking-equipped creatures. If you aren’t feeling Cloud, then Tifa is your alternative Commander. She gets extra +1 counters for each opponent you control. If you deal combat damage to a player with seven or greater power, you get to untap and have another combat. She doesn’t necessarily synergise as well with Cloud’s plan, but the big equipment in the deck, if you get that stuff attached, then she will.
The fourth deck, Scions and Spellcraft, is all about FFXIV, led by Y’shtola. I haven’t played this deck yet. She is all about dealing damage to other players, letting you draw cards if you dealt four damage to a player in a turn, and letting you do damage to players by casting noncreature spells with three or more mana. I am waiting for this deck to arrive, as it looks fun as hell.
Of the three decks I have played, they are absolutely exceptional. From the art and gameplay, they are both flavor wins, and fun as hell to play. Some serious care has been put into these decks, and it shows. You should be happy picking up any of these decks!
So how can you buy Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy?
As always, there are Play Boosters that are fun to crack or use for drafting. There are Collector Boosters that are eye-wateringly expensive, which didn’t stop me buying a bunch. They come with more Rares and Mythics, as well as more of the alt art cards. In the scheme of things, the Collector Boosters aren’t “worth it” unless you like alt art and shiny things. I do, and given my love of the franchise, I got some value from cracking and enjoying them.
Then there is the bundle and gift bundle. The Bundle comes with a cool spin down dice with a moogle face on it, a bunch of lands, nine play boosters, and the card box that it comes in. Normally, bundles come with a specific alt-art promo card, but this one comes with two legendary creatures of any rarity. This confused a lot of people, as it doesn’t say “any rarity” on the box, which is not ideal. Either way, they are fun to open. The gift bundle has different dice, different art on the box, and a collector booster. It was the cheapest way to get collector boosters at launch, so I may have bought a few. I always loved bundles, and I still do.
Then, of course, here are the Commander Decks in either the standard or Collectors Edition. The Collectors Edition is a single print run, so if you want one, nab it now. But if you just want to play with them, they are the same deck and the standard versions will be reprinted and should be readily available. The decks are all awesome and easily worth the MSRP prices.
Then there is the Starter Kit. This comes with two 60-card decks and an instruction manual to walk you through your first game. These decks are simple and fun to play, with unique cards in them, you can only get in the Starter Kits. One has a super-cool cloud, and the other has a super-cool Sephiroth, among other cards. The Starter Kits are super fun to sleeve and use for quick casual games, and I rate the two you get here.
Should you play Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy?
I was worried that, with my love of MTG and FF, this set was going to be a let-down, but it wasn’t. Except for a couple of minor criticisms, this set is an absolute banger. The Final Fantasy fan in me loves it, and the MTG fan in me loves it! Now pour one out for my wallet as I keep spending on his wonderful set.
As a Final Fantasy and MTG fan, my fandoms for both are happy. Fun to play, fun to collect. The only issue is the popularity has it hard to find.
