Wizards of the Coast made a massive mistake during the Tarkir: Dragonstorm prerelease weekend. While most of the world got Tarkir: Dragonstorm as intended, Brazil accidentally got Final Fantasy product instead. That means there’s a massive chance that a majority of this set will be leaked ahead of spoiler season.
So far, both of the MTG X Final Fantasy Structure Decks have been leaked, and there are a surprising number of new cards in these decks. Here, we’ll look at the cards for the Dimir half of the starter deck product featuring Sephiroth, Planet’s Heir.
As a reminder, because this isn’t an official reveal, there is a chance that these cards could be fake. If you would rather wait for proper reveals, consider this your spoiler warning. The flip side of the massive potential for leaks also means that fakes will become more believable.
Sephiroth, Planet’s Heir
Sephiroth, Planet’s Heir was officially revealed during the first look of the Final Fantasy crossover. This creature isn’t the most exciting, which is typical for most Starter Kit cards. While they won’t be stealing your Commander games, Sephiroth does have a decent ability that’s a bit reminiscent of Massacre Wurm.
Sephiroth should be killing a few things upon entry and growing to become a decent threat, but this card is still overcosted for what it offers. -2/-2 to your opponent’s creatures is an interesting effect, but six mana is incredibly expensive. Sephiroth needs to kill two creatures even to have on-rate stats for this mana value. This isn’t the most impressive boss monster we’ve ever seen.
Artemis, Menace of Time
- Mana Value: 4UU
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Human Warlock
- Stats: 4/4
- Card Text: Whenever this creature enters, tap all creatures your opponents control. Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to an opponent, draw a card.
Artemis is yet another overcosted creature with a somewhat interesting ability. If you have a wide board when Artemis comes into play, you can essentially draw a ton of cards. Tapping your opponent’s creatures and drawing a card for each creature that connects is a powerful combination of abilities, but you need a decent board to get an appropriate amount of value out of Artemis, Menace of Time.
Unlike Sephiroth, some EDH decks might want this card outside of ‘Universes Beyond character decks.’ Sephiroth seems far too weak to see much play, but there is a niche that might want to try Artemis out.
Seymour Flux
- Mana Value: 4B
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Legendary Creature – Spirit Avatar
- Stats: 5/5
- Card Text: At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay 1 life. If you do, you draw a card and put a +1/+1 counter on Seymour Flux.
For five mana, Seymour Flux is far from impressive. Essentially, you get a Phyrexian Arena on a growing body. While this is an interesting effect for some decks, creatures are a lot easier to remove than enchantments. This is technically an interesting value piece that some EDH decks could try, but I cannot imagine players will allow Seymour Flux to live long enough to gain a reasonable amount of value.
Deadly Embrace
- Mana Value: 3BB
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Sorcery
- Card Text: Destroy target creature an opponent controls. Then draw a card for each creature that died this turn.
Deadly Embrace would be much more impressive if it were an instant. As a five mana sorcery, this card is likely far too clunky to be considered playable. The one deck that might want a card like this is an Aristocrats Commander deck. While killing a ton of your opponent’s stuff, then spending five mana for this is difficult, using sacrifice outlets and drawing cards off that seems much more realistic.
Unfortunately, Deadly Embrace has yet another fatal flaw: if you lose your target for the destroy part of the effect, you won’t be able to draw cards, either. This means that granting a creature Hexproof, or killing the creature in another manner, like with Swords to Plowshares, will completely invalidate your card draw. Since you need to kill creatures ahead of time in order to make this work, you stand to lose a lot if this goes wrong.
Xande, Dark Mage
- Mana Value: 2UB
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Legendary Creature – Human Sorcerer
- Stats: 3/3
- Card Text: Menace. Xande gets +1/+1 for each noncreature, nonland card in your graveyard.
Similar to Artemis, Menace of Time, Xande Dark Mage is far from good, but there may be a specific niche that is interested in this card. Xande can become incredibly large in the right Commander deck. If you can manage to grow this card to a point where it’s threatening players, it could be a decent pick.
Magitek Scythe
- Mana Value: 4
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Type: Artifact – Equipment
- Card Text: When this equipment enters, you may attach it to target creature you control. If you do, that creature gains first strike until end of turn and must be blocked thus turn if able. Equipped creature gets +2/+1. Equip 2
Magitek Scythe is a clunky removal piece that can put pressure on opponents who don’t have a bunch of tokens to throw away as chump blockers. The card seems fine in an equipment or Blink deck that can take advantage of a strong Commander, but Magitek Scythe will similarly need a lot of support to make it worth running. Most of the time, a simple removal spell will do a better job than this card does.
Relm Drawings
- Mana Value: 2UU
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Sorcery
- Card Text: Menace. Create a token that is a copy of target artifact, creature, or land.
Relm Drawings may be the most interesting card in this Final Fantasy Precon. Creating a copy of a target permanent for four mana is rather standard, but having the flexibility to copy any land, artifact, or creature in play is unusual. Needless to say, this Sorcery might become rather popular in Commander.
Imagine making a copy of Field of the Dead with Relm Drawings. Even if it’s part of your opponent’s game plan, you can start creating a constant stream of Zombies just by dropping lands into play. The same goes for powerful creatures that they may have cheated into play.
This is a very flexible copy effect- far more than what we’re used to. As a result, there’s a decent chance that this will appear in a variety of different blue Commander decks.
Sahagin
- Mana Value: 1U
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Creature – Merfolk Warrior
- Card Text: Whenever you cast a non-creature spell, if at least 4 mana was spent to cast it, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature and it can’t be blocked this turn.
This seems like draft chaff to me. Sahagin can become an annoying threat in a deck specialized to take advantage of it, but this card will not be able to do much in the Commander format.
Fairy of Il Meg
- Mana Value: 1U
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Creature – Faerie
- Stats: 2/1
- Card Text: Whenever this creature attacks, surveil 1.
This is a bit more exciting than Sahagin, but Fairy of Il Meg also isn’t doing much. Surveiling 1 isn’t the biggest effect in the world, but the evasion this card has at least makes it a bit more reliable. Faerie Typal decks might want to consider this.
Go For the Esper
- Mana Value: 3U
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Sorcery
- Card Text: Create a 3/3 blue Robot artifact creature token. If this spell was cast from a graveyard, put two +1/+1 counters on that token. Flashback {5}{U}
Another rather unexciting card that plays well with the self-mill subtheme present in the deck, Go for the Esper isn’t something you’ll want to play in constructed Magic. The spell always creates bodies that are under rate. This might be the worst card in this entire article.
Laguna’s Dreams
- Mana Value: 1U
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Instant
- Card Text: Surveil 1 and then draw a card. Flashback {3}{U}
Laguna’s Dreams is an overpriced Consider that can be Flashed back. Consider is still going to be better a majority of the time. There’s a massive difference in cost between one and two mana, especially in competitive formats.
Still, this card isn’t the worst thing to be doing, and could see some experimentation as a result.
Aqueduct Rat
- Mana Value: 1B
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Creature – Rat
- Stats: 2/2
- Card Text: Rat Tail – When this creature dies, create a Treasure token.
Acqueduct Rat isn’t doing anything exciting, but it’s not a bad addition for Rat Typal Commander decks. Being able to create a Treasure on death while supporting other synergies may be a fine addition to the 99, especially if aristocrat synergies are included in your deck. Outside of this very specific niche, I would expect Aqueduct Rat to be draft chaff.
Shinra Reinforcements
- Mana Value: 2B
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Creature – Human Soldier
- Stats: 2/3
- Card Text: When this creature enters, mill 3 cards and gain 3 life.
Another rather uninteresting creature, Shinra Reinforcements offers some self-mill combined with an on-rate body and a bit of life gain. If you care about your graveyard and need to set up a roadblock, Shinra Reinforcements does the job but won’t overdeliver.
Sephiroth’s Intervention
- Mana Value: 3B
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Instant
- Card Text: Destroy target creature. You gain 2 life.
Sephiroth’s Intervention probably won’t see play past Limited (if it’s legal), but in that context, this is a decent removal spell. Sadly, four mana is far too expensive for an effect like this in two-player formats, and Commander requires more flexible removal spells for four mana.
Walking Cie’th
- Mana Value: 2B
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Creature – Mutant Horror
- Card Text: Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, you may pay {B}. If you do, return this creature from your graveyard to your hand.
Walking Cie’th offers an interesting effect that could go the distance in a control deck. Unfortunately, as you may notice, this card’s stats have been cut off. This makes it a bit difficult to assess just how effective this card really is.
Al Bhed Rescuers
- Mana Value: 2B
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Creature – Human Artificer Warrior
- Stats: 2/3
- Card Text: Whenever this creature or another creature or artifact you control is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.
Al Bhed Rescuers is likely going to see Commander play. Aristocrat effects that drain an opponent already see play in multiple formats, but a card that triggers on both creatures and artifacts is unusual. This means that Rescuers will trigger from Treasures being sacrificed since tokens hit the graveyard for a brief moment before disappearing. Any deck that is routinely creating artifact tokens in Commander may be interested in this.
Extermination
- Mana Value: 2B
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Instant
- Card Text: Target creature gets -0/-9999 until end of turn.
The effect of Extermination is rather quirky. -9999 will kill even the beefiest indestructible creatures. Aside from its novelty, Extermination is rather on-rate for a removal spell. There could be some interesting synergies with some cards that care about the -9999, but it’s unclear what those cards are at the moment.
The Return of Evil
- Mana Value: 4B
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Sorcery
- Card Text: Return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters on it.
The Return of Evil, our final new card for the Dimir Starter Kit precon, is another on-rate spell with an effect we’ve seen before. This will likely see very little play outside of Limited and Final Fantasy-themed decks since Zombify is the superior Standard legal reanimation spell. Zombify may not buff your reanimated creature, but it does cost one less mana, which is far better.
Not the Strongest Cards
As many players may have expected, the vast majority of the unique Starter Kit cards are not too powerful. That said, this could still be worth picking up, even for experienced players. Notably, all of the Basic Lands in this precon are extended art. Exclusive cards are also occasionally worth a pretty penny in these products, regardless of their effectiveness. This is almost always due to how little they’re opened.
For the time being, we have no idea which cards are exclusive to the Starter Kit, but there’s a good chance that Sephiroth is. This is, notably, only half of the new contents in the Starter Kit product. The other half of this Kit contains a Boros Deck that reveals a new Job Change mechanic.
