Based on the handful of cards we’ve seen spoiled so far, the Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy set is looking very tasty indeed. Prohibitive pricing aside, the first Standard-legal Universes Beyond product has the potential to really get the initiative off on the right foot. On top of that, the Commander cards don’t look too shabby either. Among the early spoilers, Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed is a slam-dunk for the premiere MTG multiplayer format.
Pairing repeatable card draw with an uncapped source of damage, this is a serious contender for your next Commander. So much so that even players in the notoriously hard-to-please cEDH community are singing its praises. If you’re looking to test out the upper brackets of the new Commander system with some Final Fantasy flair, then this could be the Cat Warlock for you.
Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed MTG
- Mana Value: 1WUB
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Type: Legendary Creature – Cat Warlock
- Stats: 2/4
- Card Text: Vigilance.
At the beginning of each end step, if a player lost 4 or more life this turn, you draw a card.
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell with mana value 3 or greater, Y’shtola deals 2 damage to each opponent and you gain 2 life.
Much like Emet-Selch, Unsundered, Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed is an MTG legend that draws from Final Fantasy XIV. Also like Emet, it’s an absolute banger of a card. Four mana for a 2/4 is way below rate for 2025 Magic, but luckily Y’shtola has a weighty bag of tricks up her huge white sleeves.
First of all, drawing a card on any turn where a player loses four or more life is fantastic. This counts any player, and any life loss, which makes it hugely flexible. If you swing at an opponent for four on your turn, you’ll draw a card. If your opponents attack each other, you’ll also draw. The ability even encompasses your own life; if you pay four for effects on your turn, that’s an extra draw. It’s not difficult at all to engineer scenarios where this draws you four cards a turn cycle, which is great by anyone’s standards.
Y’shtola’s second ability plays into this nicely. Casting any noncreature spell that costs three or more will burn the whole table and gain you some life. Do this twice in a turn, and you’ll trigger the draw. You can also use it on a turn where someone only took two or three damage to round it up.
This ability is remarkable for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there’s no ‘once per turn limit. Second, it actually deals damage, which is rare outside of red. There are a number of unusual synergies that open up simply because this deals damage and doesn’t just cause loss of life.
Free As A Bird
One of the big reasons that Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed is exciting for high-level MTG Commander play is how she interacts with free spells. Much like Up the Beanstalk of Modern and current Standard fame, Y’shtola only cares about the printed cost of a card, not how much you actually pay for it. This means you can use the many, many free spells in Commander to dish out table-wide damage with ease.
We all know the classics of this genre: Force of Will, Deadly Rollick, Force of Negation, etc. These cards are all played regularly in high-power Commander decks anyway, so getting extra value out of them is excellent. That value is just a bit of damage on the surface, but it’s easy for it to convert into card draw with a little extra push. It’s also possible to turn a Y’shtola deck full of free spells into an instant-win engine.
If you slam a Necropotence or Necrodominance with Y’shtola in play, you can then draw around 30 cards on your end step. Many of these will be free spells whose conditions you can fulfill by discarding other cards from your hand. Before you’re forced to discard, you can cast these spells at instant speed and trigger the drain effect multiple times, rebuilding your life total after paying so much for your Necro effect. You’ll get to draw at least one card, too.
You’ll likely only need to repeat this process once to wipe every other player out of the game. Free damage spells like Soul Spike and Snuff Out help speed things along further. This is a similar strategy to that of the Mono-Black Necrodominance decks in Modern. That Y’shtola enables plays in this area in Commander is very scary indeed.
Specific Synergies
Free spells aside, there are plenty of other synergies that make Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed worth considering for MTG Commander. Quite a few of these, interestingly, are enchantment-based.
Curiosity is a classic card draw piece that usually wouldn’t work with a Commander like Y’shtola. Since she deals in damage and not life loss, however, it does. This means that, with Curiosity attached, every three-or-higher noncreature spell you cast will draw you three cards. That certainly makes the combo I described above easier to pull off. Helm of the Ghastlord does the same thing but with added discard, in case you’re worried about disruption.
Several players in the r/CompetitiveEDH thread on Y’shtola noted these synergies and their potential in the format. They also pointed out how great she was as an enabler for Bloodchief Ascension, a brutal instant-win combo piece alongside Mindcrank.
These explosive synergies aside, players in the thread also noted how well Y’shtola plays with many of the existing cEDH staples. As WackaFrog put it:
“I think people are underestimating how easy it is to get the draw effect. Ancient tomb, shock lands, necro, ad naus (ok, maybe not that one) all drain, and are seen in a lot of decks.”
WackaFrog
This is a great point. Tap an Ancient Tomb and play an untapped Shockland on your turn, and that’s an extra card from Y’shtola. Pay four for Necropotence on an opponent’s turn, same thing. A lot of the best cEDH cards use your life total as a resource, often at instant speed too. Even just as a pure good stuff draw engine, Y’shtola has potential.
Few cards even get discussed in cEDH circles, and fewer still get positive reception when they are. That Y’shtola has the toughest critics in the format interested is a great sign. At this rate, maybe Final Fantasy will justify those absurd pre-order prices after all.
