Unless you’re playing competitively, Commander games have a habit of going long. Considering that you have three opponents instead of one who are all at 40 life, this should make a lot of sense. As a result, Commander decks need to create a different kind of value than constructed decks do. While value is a big deal in both types of deck construction, immediate value is more important in constructed, while exponential value reigns supreme in casual Commander.
That’s the main reason why cards like Doubling Season are so powerful. Gigantic replacement effect cards like this may not do much on their own, but they create incredible amounts of value over time in a focused strategy. In Commander, these cards must be removed as soon as possible.
Final Fantasy is introducing an entire cycle of artifact cards that look quite powerful in Commander, some of which have some powerful replacement effects for focused strategies. These have little promise in competitive formats, but these Crystals will surely find a home.
The Fire Crystal
The Final Fantasy Crystal cycle shares a lot of commonalities. There is one Crystal for each of the five colors in Magic: the Gathering – each of which will cost four mana. Each of the Crystals reduces the mana needed to cast cards in their respective colors by 1. Otherwise, each Crystal will have either a static or replacement effect, and an activated ability that costs six mana to use.
The Fire Crystal might be the most universally applicable of the cycle. Granting all your creatures Haste means that The Fire Crystal will be usable in most Commander decks that have predominantly Red spells. The activated ability further reinforces that this Crystal wants to work alongside creatures. Not only will you be able to swing in with your creatures immediately, but you can even create copies of them.
This could be an interesting card in Deadpool, Trading Card Commander decks. Just about any copy effect available to the archetype is viable since Deadpool wants to steal as many textboxes as possible. The Legend rule may kill your tokens, but it won’t stop them from taking opposing text boxes with them.
The Water Crystal
While The Fire Crystal is very versatile in Red strategies, The Water Crystal won’t go in every Blue deck. This card wants to help you empty your opponent’s library with its replacement effect and activated ability. This is a rather bizarre replacement effect as far as those go; I don’t think we’ve ever seen an ‘add four cards’ on an effect before, which makes it a bit difficult to assess, even in focused strategies.
The activated ability of The Water Crystal isn’t too interesting outside of a Limited format, but could lead to funny moments. Decks that just want the mana reduction effect can use Sapphire Medalion instead, so I wouldn’t expect this card to be too popular. If anything, outside of the obvious mill deck inclusion, this might just function as a second Sapphire Medalion in Commander decks.
The Earth Crystal
There are a lot of +1/+1 counters matter decks out there, and almost every single one will want The Earth Crystal. If an effect like Hardened Scales is an auto-include in these decks, a full-on counter-doubling effect is going to be a rather exciting prospect.
While the replacement effect and mana reduction effect offered by The Earth Crystal are interesting, its activated ability leaves something to be desired. Even with the counter-doubling effect, putting a total of four +1/+1 counters in play for six mana is disappointing. This is a great mana sink when you don’t have other plays to make, but if players cannot make the most of The Earth Crystal’s activated ability, then the Crystal is not worth playing.
The Wind Crystal
Like The Water Crystal, The Wind Crystal is only going to see play in very focused strategies. Unlike mill, however, lifegain is rather popular. Any Commander deck that cares about lifegain will want this card, but that’s about where The Wind Crystal ends.
Gaining double life is a mildly interesting replacement effect that we’ve seen before. Alhamarret’s Archive may be the stronger of the two cards offering this ability, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. The Wind Crystal’s other effect, however, means that this card will be instrumental in any creature-based lifegain Commander decks. Chances are that casual lifegain Commander decks will just run both of these abilities. They do stack exponentially, of course.
The Darkness Crystal
Compared to the other four cards in this cycle, The Darkness Crystal was revealed about a week prior. Black’s Crystal offers some rather unique effects that could go in a variety of different decks, but unlike some of the other Crystals, this doesn’t really create any exponential value. The Darkness Crystal instead screws up your opponent’s graveyard shenanigans and otherwise steals their cards from exile.
While it is possible to synergize with these effects, the value that The Darkness Crystal provides is more based on your opponent’s deck than your own. While this allows the Crystal to appear in various strategies, it also means that the value you get from this card will be entirely dependent on who you play with. As far as the individual abilities go, nothing is overtly powerful about The Darkness Crystal, either. As a result, I wouldn’t be surprised if this particular Crystal saw little to no play at all.
All in all, many of the cards in the Final Fantasy Crystal cycle look like great inclusions to specific Commander strategies. The Fire Crystal certainly seems the best of the bunch in a vacuum, thanks to offering effects that are interesting for a multitude of different strategies.
Don’t be surprised if your Commander table tries to remove one of these Crystals as soon as possible when they enter play. If left around too long, they can amplify a Commander deck’s capabilities, taking over the game.
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