For the most part, Magic: The Gathering’s Final Fantasy preview season is going swimmingly so far. Players are loving the mechanics and flavor of the new cards, and hype is even driving action on the secondary market. That said, not everyone is happy. Thanks to a number of spoilers from Final Fantasy VI, MTG players are being left puzzled at the conflicting meanings of the word “Esper” in the two IPs.
Responses to this issue are varied, ranging from confusion to annoyance to anger. It’s been a surprisingly widespread discussion over the last few days, to the point where Head Designer Mark Rosewater has actually weighed in. Whatever your opinion, it’s hard to see this as anything other than the first of many cross-IP conflicts that will inevitably arise in the new Universes Beyond era of Magic.
The MTG Final Fantasy Esper Problem
For those scratching their heads as to what the MTG Final Fantasy Esper problem even is, a quick recap. In 1994, Square Enix released Final Fantasy VI (III at the time outside of Japan). This game introduced Espers as a race of magical creatures, crucial to the plot in many ways.
Fast forward 14 years to 2008, and Magic: The Gathering’s Shards of Alara was released. In this set, Wizards established five three-color “shards:” Jund, Grixis, Bant, Naya, and Esper. From this point on, players running decks using three colors would use these names to refer to them. Esper, for reference, was the white/blue/black shard.
For 17 years, the two terms have peacefully coexisted in their separate IPs, but now that Magic and Final Fantasy are crossing over, confusion is afoot. Many of the Final Fantasy VI cards in the set feature the word ‘Esper’ in the title, but don’t make use of Magic’s traditional Esper colors.
“It bugs me as a non-FF player that Esper isn’t Esper colors.”
azurfall88, via r/MagicTCG
Players have been leaving comments like this on the reveal threads for the various Esper cards we’ve seen so far. The likes of Esper Origins, Esper Terra, etc. There’s a lot of confusion, particularly from those not already invested in Final Fantasy as a series. For those who do know, however, the response has been one of humor rather than annoyance.
“Can’t wait for the all caps thread for this set so I can do an all caps rant about what Esper means outside of mtg context.”
SwissherMontage, via r/MagicTCG
Many players are treating the issue as a bit of harmless fun, a coincidence similar to the one we saw with Sisterhood of Karn in the Doctor Who Commander decks. Just as many are responding to such claims by defending the sanctity of Magic as its own IP.
“And yet it’s on a Magic card, a game where Esper specifically means Blue/White/Black.”
Dragonfruit-Sparking, via r/MagicTCG
Rosewater Responds
Both sides of the MTG Final Fantasy Esper debate have valid points. Wading into the fray, Head Designer Mark Rosewater responded to a question on the topic on his Blogatog this past Sunday.
“steveheist: I have a friend who is quite upset about Esper Terra being a card that isn’t Esper. He said he sees it as an insult to the plane / Magic story… I know that this is a case of “happenstance lineup” between the two properties, but is there anything soothing that could be said to someone of that opinion?
Mark Rosewater: Having a Magic color or faction word in your name in a Universes Beyond property does not mean you are guaranteed to be in those colors. We will choose the colors that best match the character (at the moment in time the card represents).”
Via Blogatog
This is a pretty solid argument, and one you’d expect from a Designer’s perspective. Tying character color identity to words in their name is a slippery slope, and one that Wizards has steered away from before for flavor reasons. The Green Goblin card from the upcoming Spider-Man set is a great example. Just because some of the Final Fantasy cards represent Espers, that doesn’t mean they’re Esper cards color-wise.
It’s hard to argue with Rosewater’s logic here, honestly. The larger point, and one that many players expressed in the comments below this post, was that such crossovers existing in the first place is problematic. When you have two very different IPs with their own worldbuilding and lore, conflicts like these are almost inevitable.
“This once again shows the poor decision it was to corrupt Magic with outside IPs.”
theonetrueqriist, via Blogatog
For players like theonetrueqriist, the Esper confusion is merely a symptom of a larger disease. In Magic lore, Esper was a word with a meaning, and fans who grew to identify with it over time. In Final Fantasy, it’s something completely different. To them, bringing the two together is another instance of Magic’s worldbuilding being undermined by outside sources, and therefore a source of ire.
“It would be an insult to the Final Fantasy lore for a character that’s best represented to be RG to be the exact opposite colors just because MTG used an extant word for something else”
yellowpie, via Blogatog
On the other side of the coin, those who are invested in the Final Fantasy series have been coming out in support of Rosewater’s stance. In their eyes, representing each character accurately is far more important than adhering to a particular Magic term. There are a lot of Espers in the series, after all, so to make them all white/blue/black would be hugely restrictive.
A Long-Term Issue?
Whatever your take on the MTG Final Fantasy Esper situation, it’s worth noting that this isn’t a wholly new phenomenon. The flavor of Universes Beyond sets has rubbed a bit too close to Magic’s a few times in the past.
I mentioned Sisterhood of Karn above, and it’s a pretty perfect example here. In Doctor Who, Karn is the planet where the Eighth Doctor regenerates. In Magic: The Gathering, Karn is an iconic legendary creature turned planeswalker, with no less than seven dedicated cards. The two terms don’t line up at all, and yet Sisterhood was printed into a Magic product regardless.
More recently, players took issue with the introduction of Hero and Villain creature types in Spider-Man. Previously, these were silly types reserved for creatures in Un-sets, but now they’ll be part of mainline Magic, where their sweeping definitions may introduce some flavor problems. Again, an element that Magic handles one way and another property handles another splits the fanbase.
That said, there are examples of positive IP integration. Pretty much all of Lord of the Rings fit seamlessly into Magic, right down to the depiction of creatures like Orcs and Goblins. Granted, Lord of the Rings is a bit of an easy example, since it’s the progenitor of all modern fantasy, including Magic. It’s still an instance of Wizards reconciling the worlds of Universes Beyond and Magic, however, which is worth noting.
Going forward, more issues like this Esper situation are likely to arise. We’ve already seen players fretting about how Magic’s five-color system will handle Avatar’s four elements, for instance. In the end, these issues will probably stay relatively minor, even if a little bit of Magic’s identity is eroded along the way.