After months of speculation over what exactly it would contain, we finally got a proper look at the Final Fantasy Holiday Release last Friday. This isn’t a second wave of fancy Collector Boosters like we got with Lord of the Rings, but it is exciting in its own way. In addition to the shiny Chocobo Bundle, we’ll also be getting four Scene Boxes, with six brand-new cards each. That’s an awful lot to take in, so to help you out we’ve decided to break down the best new MTG Final Fantasy cards from the Holiday Release.
Before we start, a couple of caveats. Firstly, all of these cards can be found in both the Scene Boxes and the Chocobo Bundle. The latter distributes these cards randomly, however, so buying the Scene Boxes is more reliable if you want a specific card. Second, we’ll be looking at these cards through the lens of Commander play. While they’re all eternal-legal, the set as a whole is clearly aimed at multiplayer Magic. With that out of the way, let’s get into the list!
5 | Chaos Shrine’s Black Crystal
- Mana Value: 3B
- Type: Legendary Artifact
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: Whenever a nontoken creature you control dies, exile it.
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a creature card exiled with Chaos Shrine’s Black Crystal onto the battlefield under your control with a finality counter on it.
We already got five powerful crystals in the main Final Fantasy set, and now the Holiday Release is giving us a spicy sixth option. Chaos Shrine’s Black Crystal is a very nice value engine indeed, for a wide range of black decks. Exiling your creatures on death sounds like a downside, but getting to reanimate one for free every upkeep is massive. Even with the finality counter to keep things in check, there are still plenty of shenanigans you can pull off here.
For starters, this is great with Evoke, since you get the creature’s abilities up front, then again on your next turn. You can do something similar with Warp cards and a sacrifice outlet. If you want to really maximize your value, you can also invest in some self-bounce/blink cards to get rid of the finality counter problem. Even without these specific synergies, the card is just a solid grindy value engine, however, so the floor here is pretty high.
While you’ll need to be wary of artifact removal, Black Crystal should fit nicely into the majority of black decks in Commander. Much like the original five crystals, this is a low-key staple in its color, and one of the best new MTG Final Fantasy cards from this release.
4 | Search For Dagger
- Mana Value: 1W
- Type: Enchantment
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: Whenever your commander enters or attacks, look at the top six cards of your library. You may reveal a legendary creature card from among them and put it into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
Search for Dagger has a pretty specific niche, but in that niche it’s an incredibly powerful tool. You need to be playing a legendary-matters deck, with a cheap Commander that doesn’t mind getting involved in combat. If you can tick both of these boxes, it becomes a truly excellent two-mana draw engine.
Getting to dig six cards deep for a legendary creature is no joke. Even with the bigger deck sizes of Commander, you should only need about 20 legends in your deck to hit something reliably. With the rise of Universes Beyond, it’s easier than ever to run that many legendary creatures in your deck.
While triggering this draw effect seems tricky, there are plenty of ways around that. Running a pair of Partner Commanders, like Tymna and Thrasios, gives you double the triggers. You can also abuse blink or reanimation loops to bring your Commander in repeatedly, thus drawing a ton of legends in a single turn.
Search for Dagger might even be good enough to see play in cEDH. Sisay, Weatherlight Captain is an established deck in that format, and this card seems like a slam-dunk there. In a deck where you’re trying to tutor up legendaries anyway, getting more reach in that department is huge.
While it is undeniably narrow, the decks that want Search for Dagger will really want it. Keep an eye on this one when the Holiday season rolls around.
3 | Seifer, Balamb Rival
- Mana Value: 2BR
- Type: Legendary Creature – Human Mercenary
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: First Strike.
Whenever you attack a player, Goad target creature that player controls.
Whenever a creature attacking one of your opponents becomes blocked by two or more creatures, that attacking creature gains Deathtouch until end of turn.- Stats: 4/3
The MTG Final Fantasy Holiday Release features a number of exciting new legendary creature cards, and Seifer, Balamb Rival is one of the best. This is a card that can impact the game right away, wreaking havoc on combat while also keeping you safe.
For those who love the Goad mechanic, Seifer is one of the easiest ways to make use of it we’ve seen yet. If you spread your attacks out across all three opponents, you can Goad three creatures a turn with no real resource investment. Your opponents still have a chance to block with their Goaded creatures after you attack, but Seifer’s other ability makes that less likely. With a combat bonus for swinging at your opponents, players are likely to take the opportunity to get some hits in.
If you really want to protect your chaos plan, you can run unblockable creatures like Changeling Outcast, or enchantments like Bedlam. With all the Goad Seifer offers, it’s pretty easy to stop your opponents from interacting with you at all this way. Throw in cards like Strionic Resonator and Kardur Doomscourge, and you can just sit back and watch your opponents duke it out.
Whether you’re running it in the 99 or the command zone, Seifer is a great new Final Fantasy legend. It’s also powerful in a way that encourages combat and real boots-on-the-ground Magic gameplay, which is nice to see in an era where combos are more prevalent than ever.
2 | Flash Photography
- Mana Value: 2UU
- Type: Sorcery
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: You may cast this spell as though it had Flash if it targets a permanent you control.
Create a token that’s a copy of target permanent.
Flashback 4UU.
Flash Photography joins a very elite Magic: The Gathering group, specifically cards that can copy any given permanent. We’ve seen a couple in the past, like Mythos of Illuna and Will of the Temur, but overall, it’s an incredibly rare effect. Most cards like these only hit creatures, or nonland cards at most. Flash Photography hits whatever you need, and it can even do it at instant speed to boot.
The biggest advantage over other copy effects here is the ability to duplicate lands. Blue doesn’t really get access to ramp, so this is significant in itself. Being able to target opposing lands can also help with fixing, or let you nab powerful utility lands like Shifting Woodland.
Outside of this option, Flash Photography is also notable for coming down at instant speed when it targets your own stuff. This makes it a decent combat trick from the hand, and potentially even from the graveyard thanks to Flashback. Your opponents will likely forget about the card as it sits in your graveyard, giving you room to spring a blowout when they swing in.
While it is fairly pricey on both halves, the flexibility on Flash Photography more than makes up for it. There are very few situations where this is a dead card. In blue decks that aren’t running green especially, this is an easy include.
1 | Noctis, Heir Apparent
- Mana Value: WUB
- Type: Legendary Creature – Human Noble
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: Whenever a creature you control enters during combat, you may attach target Equipment you control to target creature you control.
Warp-Strike — 3: Exile Noctis. Return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control tapped and attacking at the beginning of that player’s next declare attackers step. It can’t be blocked that combat.- Stats: 2/3
The best new legend from the Final Fantasy Holiday Release is also the best of the new cards overall. Noctis, Heir Apparent is one of the most interesting Esper Commanders we’ve seen in a while. I’m including the just-revealed Ghost of Tsushima legend in that, too.
Both of Noctis’s abilities are very unusual. The first cares about creatures entering during combat, which isn’t exactly a common occurrence in most games. There are plenty of ways to make it happen, however, whether it’s just playing creatures with Flash or bringing in creatures via Ninjutsu abilities. Each time you do this, you get to attach an Equipment free of charge, which makes Noctis fantastic with the likes of Colossus Hammer.
Noctis can also power itself with that second ability. Blinking out at any time is great built-in protection, and getting to attack unblocked next turn is even better. You can easily engineer sneaky wins using this ability and Equipment like Grafted Exoskeleton, if you don’t mind losing a few friends along the way.
Equipment decks in Commander are nothing new, but Noctis offers an exciting new way to build them. Whether you want to go deep on Ninjas or Flash creatures, you’ll find it plays unlike the usual suspects for the archetype. On top of that, it’s also very powerful, which is the ideal combination as far as I’m concerned.
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