During Final Fantasy MTG spoiler season, a lot of players (us included) felt like the set was a bit underwhelming for Constructed. While a few standouts received a lot of hype, such as Vivi Ornitier, most of the rares and mythics seemed specifically geared for Commander play.
Yet, Final Fantasy MTG has only been out on Magic Online and MTG Arena for a couple days, and a multitude of unexpected cards are making waves in Standard already. There are even overlooked all-stars like Astrologian’s Planisphere, which is seeing play from Standard down to Legacy right away.
Today, we’re going to highlight some specific cards that are impacting Standard despite not getting the recognition they deserved during spoiler season. A multitude of top tier archetypes in the format have received potent buffs. Kicking things off, let’s take a look at one neat addition to Gruul Prowess that gives the deck a better shot at competing with its Izzet counterpart.
Opera Love Song
The sweet upgrade for Gruul Prowess in Standard is none other than Opera Love Song. This powerful uncommon appeared as a four-of in the top four of a recent Magic Online Standard Challenge, and its versatility is what makes it a great inclusion.
This particular Gruul configuration blends two strategies together. The creature base is very similar to that of mono-red, maximizing the Mice package with Heartfire Hero and Manifold Mouse. Meanwhile, you’ll also find a playset of Cori-Steel Cutter, which rewards you for playing lots of spells.
What makes Opera Love Song so intriguing is that it rewards both styles of draws. Against midrange decks, jamming Cori-Steel Cutter and then utilizing Questing Druid and Opera Love Song as sources of card advantage goes a long way. Both of these cards do a good job ensuring you don’t run out of gas and thus can keep triggering Cori-Steel Cutter at will.
Against decks like Azorius Omniscience combo where you need to be quicker out of the gates, though, using Opera Love Song to buff two of your creatures goes a long way. Opera Love Song triggers Valiant, triggers Prowess, and pushes tons of damage with Manifold Mouse giving Double Strike. It’s hard to go wrong when your new spell works double duty.
Cecil, Dark Knight
Up next, we have Cecil, Dark Knight. Cecil did spark some discussion during spoiler season, but its immediate addition to multiple different midrange shells means the card has overperformed.
The most common archetype where Cecil is starting to pop up is Dimir midrange. As a one-drop with two power, Cecil does a reasonable job applying pressure versus combo and control decks. Thanks to Deathtouch, it’s not easy to block Cecil profitably, which helps you get value out of cards like Kaito, Bane of Nightmares and Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor.
Where Cecil gets an edge over Spyglass Siren is that it’s also a good defensive card versus the red decks. It outsizes Burst Lightning and can easily trade with an opposing attacker. Even if you topdeck it later in the game, it can still help stabilize. The threat of transforming the card is real at that stage in the game, too.
Beyond Dimir midrange, Cecil’s power partially opened the door for mono-black midrange to thrive. Mono-black made it to the finals of the most recent Standard Challenge, boasting a playset of Cecil alongside three copies of Dark Confidant.
Alongside a slew of removal and discard spells, mono-black does a good job keeping the opponent on the backfoot, something that would be more difficult without a premium one-mana option like Cecil. Expect to see more of Cecil in the coming weeks.
Ultima
Ultima is another card that received a bit of hype early on, but there were questions surrounding its power level. After all, beating out Sunfall and the more efficient Day of Judgment isn’t an easy task.
Yet, initial iterations of Azorius control seem to be favoring Ultima as the primary board wipe of choice. Ultima is a surprisingly big upgrade mainly due to the fact that some of the top decks in Standard make use of elite Artifacts. Blowing up Cori-Steel Cutter is essential, otherwise your opponent will easily be able to rebuild.
Now, some Izzet Prowess decklists are starting to utilize Astrologian’s Planisphere as well. Ultima once again cleans up the token and the equipment just fine. The “end the turn” clause isn’t that important, either, since most of the time any excess mana you have left over after resolving the board wipe would be used to interact during the opponent’s turn.
Ultima is the ultimate board stabilizer in a world dominated by Izzet Prowess. If Azorius control gets more popular, there’s a good chance Ultima plays an important role.
Tifa Lockhart
Lastly, we wanted to give a shout out to Tifa Lockhart. Tifa Lockhart is one of the scariest cards to see across the table if you don’t have removal at the ready.
Alongside a pump spell and Fabled Passage, Tifa Lockhart is fully capable of dealing lethal damage by itself. We’ve already seen the Gruul Leyline of Resonance shell adopt Tifa Lockhart as a result, using protection spells like Snakeskin Veil to keep Tifa in play.
Tifa hasn’t broken out in a big way yet, but the upside is too high to ignore a card like this. There are plenty of other archetypes worth exploring where Tifa might shine, such as Gruul Delirium. Even if Tifa Lockhart doesn’t break out in the competitive scene, you should at least be prepared to fight against it on the Arena ladder.
Overall, it’s cool that a set like Final Fantasy MTG that looked pretty weak from the get-go is making a firm imprint on Standard immediately. There’s still a ton of room for exploration within the format, and it’ll be cool to see what other Final Fantasy cards break out moving forward.
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