Magic: The Gathering’s latest crossover is full of new goodies for Commander fans. Whether you’re looking for a crazy pseudo-tutoring combat trick or a new way to punish card draw, Final Fantasy is bringing tons of new interesting toys to the world of MTG.
Recently spoiled among those new toys is a new staple for colorless Commander decks and a true home for players wanting to give Bird Typal a go. These cards are rather specific, but they can change an entire game in the right deck.
Ultima, Origin of Oblivion
While Ultima is powerful, it doesn’t actually do much. Besides doubling your colorless mana, this creature has a wordy ability that, essentially, turns lands into Wastes. Not only can this be used to turn your lands into Sol Lands, but you can also use it to strip your opponents of their colors.
Notably, while mana-screwing your opponent can be exciting, the blight counters that Ultima puts out will stop doing anything once Ultima leaves play. Ultima being easily removable doesn’t exactly help the situation. Flying aside, Ultima has no evasion whatsoever.
This, alone, basically rules Ultima out of constructed play. This creature will often be an understatted flyer that doesn’t accomplish much of anything in 1v1 Magic. Even outside of that, there isn’t much in the way of colorless payoffs for Standard. Older formats would choose to use Forsaken Monument instead.
That means Ultima, Origin of Oblivion will solely be a Commander upgrade for colorless decks. This easily fits into both the Eldrazi Unbound and the Eldrazi Incursion precons. Outside of this, and maybe some Lands Matter decks, Ultima probably won’t see much play. This is an incredibly exciting card, but only for one archetype.
Choco, Seeker of Paradise
- Choco, Seeker of Paradise
- Mana Value: 1GWU
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Bird
- Card Text: Whenever one or more Birds you control attack, look at that many cards from the top of your library. You may put one of them into your hand, then put any number of land cards from among them onto the battlefield tapped and the rest in your graveyard.
Landfall – Whenever a land you control enters, Choco gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
Choco, Seeker of Paradise is the Bird Typal Commander that players have been waiting for. Choco gives a reason for you to load up on Birds in Commander, and to play the Chocobo-related cards in Magic’s Final Fantasy crossover.
The only issues with Choco are that it doesn’t create value on entry and requires lots of attacking Birds to truly shine. If you’re not ramping and putting cards in hand with every Choco attack trigger, you’ll fall behind what your opponents are doing.
Fortunately, there are a lot of cards that create Bird tokens in MTG. Alrund’s Epiphany, for example, sets up a massive combat phase by granting two Birds and an extra turn when Foretold. Battle Screech and Migratory Route are both token creators that are uniquely powerful in this deck. Creating Bird tokens for four and five mana usually isn’t exciting, but Choco should easily be able to recur the value loss quickly. Migratory Route can repurpose itself as a land, so there’s little reason not to play it in a casual setting.
Murmuration from Bloomburrow Commander, and Tawnos, the Toymaker may particularly become more popular as ways to go wide with Birds. In addition to being a Bird-specific Anthem, Murmation is capable of creating tons of Storm Crow tokens. Tawnos, on the other hand, copies your Bird spells, allowing you to go wider for Choco’s triggers.
You may find you want a Haste enabler to make Choco work to the best of its potential. If that’s the case, it’s tough to beat Concordant Crossroads. This one-mana enchantment gives everyone Haste, but you’ll want to be crashing in with Choco anyway, so helping players tap their creatures isn’t a bad thing.
Powerful Cards for Specific Decks
Both Ultima, Origin of Oblivion and Choco, Seeker of Paradise will get certain MTG players excited to try them. Ultima has obvious appeal, and Choco gives a niche archetype a solid home.
Despite so many strong spoilers appearing already, there are still lots of Final Fantasy MTG cards to come. Even a series of Final Fantasy Secret Lairs was recently announced. We’re eagerly awaiting to see what comes next.