Wizards of the Coast have only gone and bloody done it. In the lead-up to the Final Fantasy debut, countless MTG players requested one rather meme-y suggestion over and over again. To celebrate their role throughout the entire franchise, many MTG players wanted 16 mechanically unique cards for Cid.
Remarkably, Wizards of the Coast has almost done exactly that. Within the Final Fantasy MTG set, Cid is technically getting 15 different cards. Admittedly, Cid, Timeless Artificer is just one card with fifteen different art variants, but that’s still a whole lot of Cid. To make things even better, a deck can contain any number of this card, which is always an exciting effect.
Cid, Timeless Artificer
While they’ve been giving a great flavorful nod from Wizards, Cid, Timeless Artificer is a weird MTG card. As you can see above, Cid is an Artificer who is unsurprisingly good at buffing Artifacts and Heroes you control. What’s strange, however, is that Cid doesn’t do this by having a bunch of themselves in play.
Instead, Cid, Timeless Artificer cares about the number of other Artificer cards in your graveyard. Thankfully, you don’t need to jam a bunch of Artificers and self-mill into your deck to get the most out of this ability. Thanks to having Cycling, Cid can flood the graveyard all on their own.
Cid’s buff will scale for the numbers of Cids in your grave, but this card technically isn’t capable of buffing itself, at least without some help. If you can give Cid the Hero creature type, or turn him into an artifact, he will begin to compound.
While it is definitely an option, self-mill seems like a risky angle for Cid in Commander. Instead, loading up the 99 with cheap artifacts and Affinity spells seems like the best bet right now. Should there be any crazy Hero token-generating cards, then those could easily be thrown into the mix too.
Considering Aftifacts decks are the most popular archetype in Commander, according to EDHREC, Cid, Timeless Artificer should have no end of support. The only question is how many copies of this card do you run in your deck? Sadly, thanks to the strength and support for this archetype, the answer to this question may be surprisingly few.
A Collection of Cid
As mentioned at the start of this article, Cid, Timeless Artificer is getting fifteen different art variants in the Final Fantasy MTG set. While all of these cards are uncommon, they’re bound to sell for slightly different prices. After all, this one card cycle is a way for players to celebrate their favorite Final Fantasy game, so some are bound to be more desirable than others.
Personally, my money is on the Final Fantasy VII and XIV variants, since those are the most popular franchise entries. Whether or not this will end up being the case, however, remains to be seen for now. Right now, it’s unclear how much any variant of Cid will cost, let alone the most expensive variants.
Looking back at the past ‘Relentless’ cards, there’s quite a range in possible prices. Templar Knight, for instance, sells for around $1.75, while Nazgûl cards are $12 a pop. Given the popularity of Artifact decks in Commander, Cid could potentially sell for even more, but that’s hardly guaranteed.
Ultimately, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens with the price of Cid, Timeless Artificer once he’s released. If this card ends up seeing play somewhere, then it could end up being particularly pricey. Given the current speed of Standard, however, I wouldn’t hold out much hope for this card outside of Commander.
