Today marks the full, official release of Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy set worldwide. This means those absurd pre-sale prices should start coming down, and players should actually be able to get their hands on the packs they want. It doesn’t mean the hype train for the set is over, however, not by a long shot. More bonuses and side-products are still being announced, including a lovely set of metal Final Fantasy tokens.
These look fantastic, using new artwork in a resilient form factor. Unfortunately, they appear to be exclusive to Asian WPN Store events for the time being. On the one hand, it’s great to see Wizards experimenting with new avenues for promoting a new set. On the other, the continued exclusivity of promotions like this is starting to grate a little.
New Metal Final Fantasy Tokens Incoming!
If you missed the reveal of these metal Final Fantasy tokens, that’s understandable. On Sunday, the official Chinese Final Fantasy Facebook page slow-rolled them, revealing new information gradually until we had the full picture. Now we know what the tokens are, if not exactly how they’ll be available.
There are three tokens total in the lineup: a Clue, a Treasure, and an Emblem for Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel. The first two have unique artwork that we haven’t seen on any other Final Fantasy cards so far. This comes via Toshiyuki Itahana, a legendary Game Director and Character Artist at Square Enix. The Emblem art is more familiar, being the same Tetsuya Nomura piece seen on the Borderless version of the main set Sephiroth.
Promotional tokens like this are rare, but we have seen them in Magic before. What’s really interesting here is the ‘Material: Metal’ text displayed underneath. Unless this is just an awkward translation error, it looks like all three of these tokens will be made of metal. That’s a big departure from the norm, and something really exciting for those who love collecting unusual MTG game pieces.
Unfortunately, the small print smothers a lot of the enthusiasm for this promotion in advance. The bottom-right text on the image reads “Promotional Rewards are only available in participating Southeast Asia, North Asia and China WPN Stores.” As with a lot of recent promo cards and other goodies, players in the US and Europe are out of luck here. Value-wise, this exclusivity means these tokens will likely end up quite expensive as time goes on.
A Bold New Venture?
The fact that these Final Fantasy tokens are made of metal is also largely unprecedented, and throws open the door to new financial possibilities. I say largely unprecedented, because we have seen something similar to this not too long ago.
Back in 2024, gaming retailer Beadle & Grimm’s partnered with Wizards of the Coast to create a range of Mana Token sets. These came in five flavors, one for each color of mana, and included a range of metal accessories, including dice and keyword counters. Most interestingly, each set also included 10 aluminum creature tokens. Several other similar products have been released by the company, most recently a Tarkir: Dragonstorm Token Set.
These are seriously premium products, with sets selling for up to $57. The individual metal tokens aren’t available on the secondary market, so it’s tough to gauge specific values for those. They’re clearly the bulk of each set, however, so something in the $3-5 range seems reasonable as an estimate.
These sets were a welcome, high-quality product from a respected third-party company. With these new Final Fantasy tokens, Wizards is taking steps towards establishing a metal token pipeline of its own. This may well be a one-off, flash in the pan idea that isn’t revisited again. The regional exclusivity certainly won’t help in proving the concept.
Alternatively, this could be the start of a movement that finally addresses Magic’s big token problem. Putting out sets of metal tokens could give players what they need without requiring a ton of noodling around with online retailers, after all.
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