Despite our first look at the set coming nearly three weeks ago now, it’s still about three months until we see Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy released. That’s a heck of a long lead time, though it makes sense for a set as widely-hyped as this one. As we’ve seen time and again, however, card reveals don’t always run on Wizards’ schedule. Yesterday, we got a leak for a new card from the MTG Final Fantasy set.
Actually, leak may be too strong a word here. What this really is is a photo of a couple of new cards from the set, cut up into crumpled pieces. “Jumbled card scraps that look like they were pulled from a dumpster” doesn’t have the same ring to it, however. In any case, there is actually information to be gleaned from the image. The most surprising thing? This isn’t even the first time we’ve seen such heavily-damaged leaks for a modern Magic set.
An MTG Final Fantasy Leak… Of Sorts
The MTG Final Fantasy “Leak” in question comes to us via AiharaSisters, who shared it in the r/MagicTCG subreddit yesterday. Where most leaks give us full cards to look at, this one only gives us small pieces of cards. That said, there are still things to unpack here.
Taking it from the top, we start off with a new card called Resentful Revelation. This costs one and a black to cast, and has some angsty Sephiroth artwork to boot. This is the extent of what we know about the card for certain. Words like ‘Revelation’ often signify card draw in Magic: The Gathering, so this could be a new two-mana black draw spell. The second scrap on the right of the image could also be part of it, but the third at the bottom isn’t so there’s no guarantee.
As for the second scrap, it appears to be a black common from the set that has an ‘unless its controller’-type ability. This wording is usually found on punisher effects, so this is probably some kind of burn/edict effect. If it is part of Resentful Revelation, we could be looking at a kind of punisher draw card. “Draw two cards unless target opponent sacrifices a creature,” or something like that.
The final scrap in the image is much clearer: this is the bottom edge of a full-art basic Swamp. While it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, it’s not surprising at all that this set features full-art basic lands. Looking at the small print this one looks to use artwork from Final Fantasy II, which implies the full-art basics will span different games in the series. With 16 mainline entries total, this lines up almost perfectly with each game having three full-art basics.
Not Our First Rodeo
Naturally, many players were quick to poke fun at this new MTG Final Fantasy leak. ChefXiru noted “Yeah, thats gotta be lightly played.” Butthunter_Sua took the joke even further: “A rat stopped mid way through its meal to send you this and you’re not even appreciative.” Safe to say, the condition on this leak isn’t too impressive.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Magic: The Gathering leaks like this. Back in The Brothers’ War, for example, we got the bottom-left corner of Myrel, Shield of Argive. We also got a full, slightly-torn version of the Retro Frame Mishra’s Bauble from the set. The latter was especially significant as it actually spoiled the nature of the Brothers’ War Bonus Sheet ahead of time. Up until that point, no one had any inkling that Retro Frame artifacts would be the theme.
This happened again with last year’s Assassin’s Creed set. About three months before the set released, an image showing half of a Reconnaissance from the set was leaked. This was a hugely significant leak, since Reconnaissance was a $14 card at the time and a reprint was big news. It was also very legible, and substantial enough to give players something to act on.
Looked at in the context of these other leaks, yesterday’s Final Fantasy offering feels even worse. Doolittle8888 puts it well: “Highest resolution spoiler there’s ever been and for what?” There’s hardly any information here, which is a shame given the high base image quality. When it comes to Magic leaks, it seems you can only ever have one or the other.