Magic: The Gathering’s next Universes Beyond set, Final Fantasy, has officially had its first cards revealed. We’re scheduled to get first looks for the set this Tuesday, but some cards have come a day early. The face Commanders for the MTG Final Fantasy Commander preconstructed decks have hit the internet.
Magic’s Final Fantasy release will include four different three-colored preconstructed decks. Each of those decks has an iconic Final Fantasy character at the helm. A ton of different themes are represented in these face Commanders, making them a really compelling reveal for the first MTG Final Fantasy cards.
Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER
As, arguably, the most iconic Final Fantasy character in the Final Fantasy franchise, Cloud’s appearance in the first reveals for the set almost feels like a requirement. Cloud is the Face Commander for the Naya Limit-Break Commander deck.
Focusing on an equipment theme, Cloud can equip something to himself on entry for free. Unlike most equipment Commanders, Cloud doesn’t reward you for building one gigantic creature. Instead, you want to attack with an army of equipped creatures which, admittedly, is a big ask. In exchange, you get card advantage and some Treasure if Cloud is big enough.
Being able to draw cards and potentially cast them is really important for an equipment deck. You need to spend so many resources making the Equipment theme work that it can sometimes become difficult to gain card advantage after a board wipe. Unfortunately, Cloud still requires you to jump through a lot of hoops to get some meaningful card draw. You need to be drawing more than one card per trigger for Cloud to be worth your time, which seems very difficult to pull off.
While Cloud’s abilities aren’t too impressive, his color identity has big implications for the secondary market. Notably, Cloud and Dogmeat share Naya color identities. The goodest boy from Fallout already helms a Commander deck with an equipment theme. Smashing these two universes together may be a popular way to upgrade either preconstructed deck.
Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian
Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian offers a series of abilities that threaten to scale games much quicker than Cloud. This Commander cares about moving counters around, meaning his Proliferate payoff creates a terrifying combination of effects.
The sky is the limit with a card like this. Use Tidus’s ability to move an Indestructible counter off of your Mondrak, Glory Dominus and use the Phyrexian Horror to create more. You can even Proliferate the counters and spread them across your creatures.
Similar to Cloud, Tidus also synergizes well with another Universes Beyond legendary creature. This time, Black Panther, Wakandan King can be a fun card to upgrade your Tidus deck with. Both cards move counters around, but Black Panther can create them. Other cards in the MTG X Marvel Secret Lair drop series, like The Ozolith, would also be fantastic inclusions in a deck with Tidus at the helm.
Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian is the Face Commander of the Bant Counter Blitz Commander preconstructed deck.
Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed
Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed is the most impressive-looking Commander of the four Final Fantasy Face Commanders. Not only can this card draw four cards per rotation of the table, but she directly fuels her own ability by draining opponents for two life when you cast larger noncreature spells.
Y’shtola doesn’t even necessarily want your noncreature spells to be instants or sorceries. Even though Y’shtola is the Face Commander for the Scions & Spellcraft Esper Commander preconstructed deck, you don’t necessarily need to focus on specific card types with this Commander. Cards like Smothering Tithe and Rhystic Study will trigger Y’shtola. This gives Y’shtola a ton of variation in how you build the deck, giving more room to include powerful cards, as well as allowing Y’shtola to be powerful in more 99s of other decks.
On that note, Y’shtola partners particularly well in the 99 of a Celestial Toymaker deck. The Doctor Who villain demands some silly things from your opponents that naturally cause you to run a lot of cards that trigger Y’shtola. The life drain directly supports The Celestial’s Toymaker‘s life loss ability, as well.
Terra, Herald of Hope
Terra, Herald of Hope has a really interesting color combination, but that opens her up to a unique reanimation plan that has a lot of synergies with cards from across Magic’s 30 years. Give Terra evasion and connect with her to resurrect smaller creatures from your bin.
We’ve already seen reanimation effects like Terras perform well in Commander. These decks generally want to assemble some sort of infinite combo utilizing a ton of smaller pieces and a sacrifice outlet. While the Mardu Revival Trance Commander preconstructed deck is unlikely to be quite that powerful, a lot of Commanders who may want to utilize Terra in their 99s are trying to accomplish exactly this.
As an example, Terra, Herald of Hope is a fantastic fit in Alesha, Who Smiles at Death decks. Both Commanders are trying to accomplish similar things with slightly different conditions. Using both of them to maximize your grave seems like a deadly plan.
Additional Information
The reveal of the four new preconstructed Final Fantasy Commander decks reveals one last thing. There will be Collector’s Edition Commander decks as part of this release. For reference, these are fully foiled-out versions of the Commander preconstructed deck that has traditionally featured an exclusive foiling technique. These are incredibly expensive, however, and singles prices have not aged well for value. While these will be fun for Final Fantasy super fans, they won’t be for everyone.
MSRP for the base MTG Final Fantasy preconstructed decks are $69.99. Collector Edition Commander precons are valued at $149.99.
