One of the most satisfying feelings in Magic: The Gathering is uncovering powerful combo interactions with totally overlooked cards. With the pace at which new cards are revealed and released these days, more and more cards are getting lost in this shuffle. Ultimecia, Time Sorceress, for example, is an MTG Final Fantasy uncommon that was pretty much glazed over when it was revealed during the set’s Debut Showcase. Now, however, it appears she can enable some wacky infinite turn combos in Standard.
While she looks like bulk of the highest order at first glance, some obscure creatures from March of the Machine unlock Ultimecia’s true potential. With the right setup, she can stretch her time manipulation powers to the max and get you infinite turns. Combos like this aren’t always viable out in real games, but the fact that this one is available in Standard is a great start.
Ultimecia, Time Sorceress MTG
- Ultimecia, Time Sorceress
- Mana Value: 3UB
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Type: Legendary Creature – Human Warlock
- Stats: 4/5
- Card Text: Whenever Ultimecia enters or attacks, surveil 2. (Look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.)
At the beginning of your end step, you may pay 4UUBB and exile eight cards from your graveyard. If you do, transform Ultimecia.- Ultimecia, Omnipotent
- Type: Legendary Creature – Nightmare Warlock
- Stats: 7/7
- Card Text: Menace (This creature can’t be blocked except by two or more creatures.)
Time Compression — When this creature transforms into Ultimecia, Omnipotent, take an extra turn after this one.
Ultimecia, Time Sorceress is one of the many iconic flip legends from the Final Fantasy MTG set. She represents the final boss from Final Fantasy VIII, and her abilities mirror her in-game time manipulation nicely.
Once Ultimecia flips into her second stage, you get an extra turn for your trouble. That’s great by anyone’s standards, giving you an extra draw, extra attacks, extra upkeep triggers, etc. Unfortunately, that power is locked behind one of the more obnoxious transform conditions in the set.
To flip Ultimecia, you need to pay a whopping eight mana, four of it specific colors, and exile eight cards from your graveyard. That’s a huge investment, especially given that she costs five mana to cast in the first place. To top it off, you can’t just transform her whenever you want. Instead, like fellow awkward transform creature Jerren, Corrupted Bishop, Ultimecia can only flip on your end step.
This makes accessing that extra turn a bit of a nightmare since Ultimecia needs to survive until the end step, on top of everything else. It’s very easy to remove her before this happens, given her total lack of protection. Her opening Surveil ability helps out with the graveyard element, but the conditions here are still steep.
Looking at all this, it’s easy to see why most wrote Ultimecia off right away. She’s not an attractive proposition by typical Magic standards. With the right support, however, it turns out she can get some serious work done.
Infinite Time, Infinite Turns
Since Ultimecia’s extra turn ability triggers when she transforms, there’s a pretty easy way to abuse it in Standard. All you need is Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and one of the ‘pay to transform’ creatures from March of the Machine.
Soul Cauldron lets you transfer activated abilities to new creatures by exiling the originals from your graveyard. If you grant Ultimecia a ‘pay to transform’ ability, you can bypass her own ludicrous transform condition and do so by just paying a few mana at instant speed. The best part is that Ultimecia will retain the new transform ability once she flips over. This means you can pay more mana to flip her back, then do so again to take another turn.
The cheapest ‘pay to transform’ cost out there is three and one Phyrexian mana. A lot of creatures from March of the Machine have this ability, but Captive Weird and Blightreaper Thallid are the on-color ones. This means that, as long as you have six total mana available, you can take infinite turns by flipping Ultimecia back and forth each turn. Six mana isn’t much of a stretch, either, since Ultimecia costs five mana to cast initially.
This isn’t technically infinite right away, since you need to reach eight mana to stop paying two life per flip, but you should be able to do that within a few extra turns. You might not even need to, mind you. Ultimecia is a beefy 7/7 with Menace, which can finish your opponent off in just three swings if they lack good blockers. Either way, the game is probably over as soon as you get this combo online.
Building The Time Machine
With this combo in mind, Ultimecia, Time Sorceress becomes one of the more interesting legendaries from MTG Final Fantasy. That said, it’s still pretty unlikely that it’ll see any real play in Standard.
For the combo to work, you’d need Ultimecia and Soul Cauldron in play, you need Captive Weird or Blightreaper Thallid in your graveyard, and you need six open mana. These requirements are steep in Standard, where Gruul and Izzet Prowess can finish you off by turn four. Even with Weird and Thallid as early-game blockers, a deck running this combo will struggle in the format. It could see testing in a modified Dimir Midrange shell, or a Sultai self-mill list with Dredger’s Insight and Stock Up, but honestly, it seems unlikely.
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