Somewhat unsurprisingly, given the franchise contains so many games, the Final Fantasy MTG set contained a lot of legendaries. As the best-selling MTG set of all time, too, the vast majority of these are fairly widely known. That isn’t the case for every legend, however, as cards like O’aka, Traveling Merchant still somewhat slipped through the cracks.
Released as part of the Final Fantasy X-themed Counter Blitz precon, technically, O’aka, Traveling Merchant’s natural home is Commander. Thanks to this precon’s popularity, O’aka technically does see decent play; however, its potential as a Commander is untapped. Considering it can create some wild infinite combos, however, this feels like a real shame.
MTG O’aka, Traveling Merchant
Admittedly, O’aka, Traveling Merchant isn’t a MTG card that you’ll want to play without support on the field. With weak stats, no protection, and no immediate impact, O’aka definitely gets started on the wrong foot. Thankfully, if you’ve got a couple of creatures, things get a lot more exciting once you’ve cleared summoning sickness.
The best synergies that O’aka can unlock are undoubtedly with Sagas, since O’aka, Traveling Merchant keeps them around forever. By removing one counter per turn, you can ensure that at least one saga keeps repeating the same step. Naturally, this is fantastic with high-power sagas like Kiora Bests the Sea God, as well as the Final Fantasy summons like Summon: Bahamut.
Alternatively, you can use O’aka, Traveling Merchant to keep Age Counters off Cumulative Upkeep cards. Essentially, this lets you keep Mystic Remora only costing one mana, ensuring your opponents have no escape from it. Failing that, O’aka can help remove Stun and -1/-1 Counters, depending on what your opponents are playing.
While these synerties have tons of potential, they’re admittedly held back by O’aka, Traveling Merchant only activating once per turn. Thankfully, there are plenty of ability doublers in MTG to fix this problem. Cards like Lithoform Engine, Illusionist’s Bracers, and even Gogo, Master of Mimicry all help extend O’aka’s reach for reasonable cost.
Alternatively, you can use untap engines like Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Freed from the Real, or Mind Over Matter. Thanks to O’aka drawing cards while removing counters, in fact, this latter option even unlocks infinite combos.
Infinite Sagas, Infinite Turns, Infinite Looting
Essentially, since O’aka, Traveling Merchant fuels Mind Over Matter all you need is a source of counters, and you’re off to the races. Technically, The Millennium Calendar could fill this role in a pinch, but Ominous Seas is a much more sensible option. With O’aka, Mind Over Matter, and Seas in play, you can easily draw your entire deck.
Between on draw effects like Psychosis Crawler and the ever-effective Thassa’s Oracle, winning the game from this point should be trivial. If you want to take things in a different direction, however, you can get infinite turns with O’aka instead.
To get infinite turns, you’ll need The Mirari Conjecture, which lets you bring back any instant or sorcery from the grave each turn. Since you can keep it locked at its second chapter, you can play and bring back Time Warp consistently.
Admittedly, while these combos are very powerful, O’aka does become a must-kill target once the pieces are in play. Thankfully, should it get struck down by removal, there are backups like Nesting Grounds and Power Conduit. Hell, even Chisei, Heart of Oceans can facilitate this infinite turns combo in a real pinch.
Fun Now, Better Later
As much as it has potential, O’aka, Traveling Merchant is undeniably a bit of a strange Commander option. There’s combo potential, and a fair bit of synergy too, but you do have to work to make it happen. Regardless, this card is fairly compelling right now and should only get better with time.
Since Sagas are meant to be fleeting by design, O’aka can easily break any future cards. The only slight trouble is that these hypothetical future sagas will have to be mono-blue, which does limit things somewhat. Still, even until those cards come along, if they do at all, O’aka, Traveling Merchant isn’t a bad Commander at all.
That being said, O’aka, Traveling Merchant is arguably better suited to the 99 of Commander decks right now. Judging by the card’s play rate on EDHREC, this is definitely the popular opinion. While O’aka only helms up 147 decks right now, it’s in the 99 of over 37,000.
Thankfully, even while O’aka, Traveling Merchant is popular in the 99 of saga-focused decks, it’s an incredibly affordable MTG card. On TCGplayer, you can pick up near-mint copies of O’aka for just $0.22, and extended art cards are under $1, too. Thanks to this, O’aka, Traveling Merchant definitely seems like an MTG that’s worth picking up, whether you want to build around it or not.
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