Previews for Magic: The Gathering’s long-awaited Final Fantasy set are now in full swing. We’ve seen a huge number of new cards, including all four of the set’s accompanying Commander decks, yesterday alone. Amid all the exciting new mechanics and characters, it’s nice to take a moment to enjoy some more traditional Magic elements. Yesterday, we saw a number of new Final Fantasy cards that support the MTG Surveil mechanic.
These cards all help you sift through your deck or reward you for doing so. In the current era of Magic, where cheap interaction is king, cards like this can really smooth out your game plan. They also, like everything in the set so far, pack some truly iconic characters and references. Anyone who doubted that a Final Fantasy set would ‘feel’ like Magic has a full serving of humble pie waiting for them right about now.
Matoya, Archon Elder
- Mana Value: 2U
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Human Warlock
- Stats: 1/4
- Card Text: Whenever you Scry or Surveil, draw a card. (Draw after you Scry or Surveil.)
While this card represents Matoya as she appears in Final Fantasy XIV, the character actually dates all the way back to the very first game in the series. There, you had to cure her blindness by returning her crystal eye. Here she returns the favor, letting you see much more of your deck when you use card selection effects.
Scry and Surveil are both incredibly common keywords in modern Magic. They’re easy, near-incidental effects to tack on to otherwise fair designs, so we see them a lot in pretty much every set. They’re generally pretty unexciting, especially at low values, but Matoya turns that dynamic on its head. When every Scry or Surveil also draws you a card, suddenly you can afford to run a lot more of these cards in your deck.
Cantrips like Consider and Preordain suddenly become massively efficient draw spells with Matoya in play. You can also nab free cards from the likes of Torch the Tower and the ever-popular Surveil lands. Basically, it’s not hard at all to turn Matoya into a powerful draw engine with only minor modifications to your deck.
She even enables some infinite combos, too. If you end your turn with Matoya, Curator of Mysteries, and a full hand, you can discard at cleanup, Scry 1, draw a card, then repeat. Both of the effects here are mandatory, so if you pull this off, you’ll draw your whole deck and discard most of it to the graveyard. You won’t deck out since you can’t Scry with an empty deck, but you will go right down to the wire. Have a plan to win right away if you go down this road with Matoya.
Esper Origins/Summon: Esper Maduin
- Esper Origins
- Mana Value: 1G
- Rarity: Rare
- Type: Sorcery
- Card Text: Surveil 2. You gain 2 life. If this spell was cast from a graveyard, exile it, then put it onto the battlefield transformed under its owner’s control with a finality counter on it. (If a creature with a finality counter on it would die, exile it instead.)
Flashback 3G (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its Flashback cost. Then exile it.)- Summon: Esper Maduin
- Type: Enchantment Creature – Saga Elemental
- Stats: 4/4
- Card Text: (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
I — Reveal the top card of your library. If it’s a permanent card, put it into your hand.
II — Add GG.
III — Other creatures you control get +2/+2 and gain Trample until end of turn.
Esper Origins has a ton of text on it, but at first, it’s really just two mana to Surveil 2 and gain two life. You’d expect an effect like that for one mana, so it’s not off to a great start. Cast it later with Flashback for twice as much, however, and you also get a spicy Saga creature.
Esper Maduin immediately lets you draw if you have a permanent on top of your deck. With two instances of Surveil 2 necessary to reach this point, you can easily set it up so you do. After that, it ramps you so you can cast your drawn card, and provides a mini Craterhoof Behemoth effect as it leaves. For good, by the way, since it gets a Finality counter as it flips over.
There’s a lot to unpack here. For the most part, I see this as a new option for self-mill decks in Standard. Casting Esper Origins for two is pretty inefficient, but milling it and immediately getting to Esper Maduin should feel a lot better. It is nice to have the option of an earlier cast, mind you, especially since it can help fill your graveyard for other self-mill synergies.
A deck playing Matoya could certainly benefit from running Esper Origins, but for the most part, I see it in Golgari brews. You need to interact with the graveyard and play a reasonable number of creatures to get the most out of this one, whereas Matoya pushes you more towards tempo-driven play. In any case, it’s a very interesting card, and one that will likely prove impossible to memorize given its sheer volume of text.
Valkyrie Aerial Unit
- Mana Value: 5UU
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Type: Artifact Creature – Construct
- Stats: 5/4
- Card Text: Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs 1 less to cast for each artifact you control.)
Flying.
When this creature enters, Surveil 2. (Look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them into your graveyard and the rest on top of your library in any order.)
Yesterday, we saw a card with Affinity for Birds, which was already wild. Today, Valkyrie Aerial Unit is here with honest-to-God Affinity for artifacts, which is ever so slightly better. In a dedicated artifact deck, that starting mana value of seven will be down to two before you know it.
Once you’re at that point, two blue for a 5/4 Flier that Surveils 2 on entry is an excellent deal. You can set up your next draw and even get it right away if you decide to run Matoya. Five is a lot of artifacts, granted, but even in Standard, there are ways to make it happen. The Azorius artifacts deck that’s been bubbling away since Thunder Junction would certainly appreciate a piece like this, given the huge synergy it has with Simulacrum Synthesizer.
Standard seems the most likely home for the card overall, but we shouldn’t totally rule out Modern just yet. Affinity has been bobbing up and down in the background of the format since the Mox Opal unban last December. It has a decent meta share, but hasn’t made it into the big leagues just yet. Valkyrie Aerial Unit could actually change that, unlikely as it seems.
It’s probably worse on average than the likes of Thought Monitor and Kappa Cannoneer, but it could definitely edge out the Memory Guardians some lists have started playing. More power and Surveil is probably enough to balance out one extra blue pip in the cost. Modern is a high bar to reach, of course, but Affinity is a mechanic you always have to treat with caution.
