Magic: The Gathering‘s newly-released Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set has sent me off the deep end. Since the release of the Lord of the Rings UB in 2023, I’ve been a fiend for all things Magic. But the Final Fantasy set is something altogether different. I’m no longer collecting because I’m trying to compete with my friends. I’m collecting for the beauty of the cards, and for how they evoke memories of my time with the Final Fantasy series.
This set, above all others I’ve had the pleasure of covering, has stolen my heart. With each new card reveal, it cemented itself as one of the prettiest recent sets, and finally getting to pull packs for myself, I discovered that beauty in nearly every new card – in full art cards, showcases, and particularly in those bright new surge foil variants. Some of the art is original, with character concepts and artwork by Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshitaka Amano featuring in rare pulls.
No matter what you’re getting, it’s wall-to-wall beauty – and to that end, it very well reflects Final Fantasy and its history of spotlighting cool art, and very cool babes. Wizards of the Coast was facing a tough ask with this particular set. There’s already a whopping 16 mainline Final Fantasy games, and dozens of spin-offs released across decades. How do you encapsulate that entire history in a card set?
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While naturally, there has to be some exclusions, the design team has done a phenomenal job of featuring nearly every beloved Final Fantasy game, giving more of a spotlight to arguably the most popular titles (FFVII, FFVIII, and FFXIV), but making sure the entirety of the franchise is well-represented.
Pulling certain cards, you’ll find funny easter eggs (a train suplex, for example) as well as heartfelt, memorable moments (Tidus and Yuna’s love story). It’s clear so much thought and consideration has been given to which parts of the series are represented, and how players may be rewarded for their franchise knowledge.
And even in parts where players are less familiar with the game’s story, the actual gameplay more than makes up for that gap, with powerful combos and synergy. Beyond introducing powerful reprints – like my personal favourite, Rise of the Dark Realms – the game also introduces a raft of strong new Equipment cards, more removal spells, and cards that provide great reward for slinging spells. (Please read this in the disdainful tone of someone who kept getting pinged for damage by one player slinging spells while using the Y’shtola Commander Deck.)
The ample synergy in this set, and the high bar for power, is most clear in these Commander Decks.
Magic: The Gathering: Final Fantasy Commander Decks – Review
As part of my review for Magic: The Gathering‘s new Final Fantasy set, I was handling the “Limit Break” Commander Deck headlined by Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER. This is an Equipment-focussed deck where your goal is to increase the power of your Creatures to 7 or beyond, with this magic number activating new abilities, like card draw and Treasure generation.
It’s themed specifically around Final Fantasy VII, and features plenty of familiar faces, from Cloud to Sephiroth, Aerith, Vincent Valentine, Barret, Cid, and beyond.
In action, this deck works like a treat. Beyond featuring beloved characters, a good card draw nets you plenty of early synergy – particularly as Equipment is based around attraction. When Cloud is played, you can automatically attach one Equipment card to him. Some Equipment is also automatically attracted to Legendary Creatures, so if you’re paying attention – and in one round, I was – you can play Cloud and have him enter with 2+ Equipment immediately attached.
For this particular card, having Equipment attached to Cloud or any other Creature lets you draw cards, per equipped Creature. Then if Cloud is power 7 or more, you can also create two Treasure tokens which can be used for mana down the line.
While I can see a need to put more Equipment in this particular deck, as there’s only 16 core Equipment cards and drawing cards isn’t always kind, it’s still a very well-rounded deck, with simple but powerful mechanics.
In one particular match with the Limit Break deck, I was able to play Cloud with two Equipment as he entered, and then spent the rest of my time dealing damage to players with Avalanche of Sector 7, and summoning SOLDIERs with the SOLDIER Military Program Enchantment.
With Cloud dealing high Commander damage, and my Enchantment continuously summoning cannon fodder to block attacks, I wound up with a pretty firm defence against the other players, who all had charge of their own Final Fantasy Commander Decks.
Of them, the biggest threat – as I begrudgingly mentioned – is the “Scions & Spellcraft” Commander Deck led by Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed. This FFXIV-themed deck is all about casting spells, with certain cards buffing players in this act, or pinging other players for damage. Y’shtola herself allows a player to deal 2 damage to each opponent whenever that player casts a noncreature spell of mana value 3 or greater. As an added bonus, that player also gains two life.
In addition, this deck also has Creature cards that compound the effect. If you manage to play Papalymo Totolymo, for example, he also deals 1 damage to each opponent, and you gain 1 life, whenever you cast a noncreature spell. As you’d imagine, this compounds very swiftly, so whoever ends playing Y’shtola is consistently draining the life out of other players, and gaining life in return.
At one point in my games, my Y’shtola opponent ended up with 50 health, as opposed to everyone else being in the low 20s. The tide turned quickly, as I wound up being able to inflict dangerous levels of Commander damage soon after – but it was scary for a brief moment.
While the other decks didn’t make as strong of an impression, they also had their moments in gameplay. The “Revival Trance” Commander Deck, starring Terra, Herald of Hope, had very annoying Flying capabilities that meant I had difficulty blocking attacks. It was pretty cool to see this deck’s graveyard mechanics come into play, though. This is essentially a zombie deck in disguise, with the player able to fill their graveyard with fallen heroes, and then resurrect them in turn. This deck also includes a Rise of the Dark Realms, which you’ll need to watch out for.
The “Counter Blitz” Commander Deck starring Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian is also just plain fun. It seems a lot more light-hearted than other decks in this set, as it’s themed around playing a game of “Blitzball” by generating counters, and then throwing them around to various Creatures for impactful buffs.
Overall verdict
Over the last week, I’ve become incredibly enamoured by the Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy set. As mentioned, part of that is to do with the beauty of the cards. I’m determined to collect as many of the Yoshitaka Amano art cards as I possibly can, to create a shiny new page in my collector folder. I also really love the full art surge foil character cards, which spotlight heroes and villains from across Final Fantasy history.
But it’s not only the art I’ve fallen in love with. This is, mechanically, a very tight set, with powerful cards across the board. From new, devastating Sagas that reflect the woes of FF, to character cards that conjoin to form terrible beasts, there’s a real sense of power, drama, and cinema in this set.
I already have fond memories of biding my time with Cloud, and then playing a giant meteor to strike down nearly the entire battlefield. Likewise, fulfilling cards requirements to unleash a massive summon feels very climactic. It’s hard not to get a smug look on your face as you realise what devastation you can cause.
No other Magic: The Gathering set has given me such satisfaction. No other set has made me want to collect cards more. Given how very sold out many of the components of this set are, it appears others feel the same. Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix have knocked it out of the park with this Universes Beyond crossover – and I’ve been completely caught, tangled up, in its web.
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy is out now in prerelease, and will launch in all stores on 13 June 2025.
Magic: The Gathering Booster Packs, Collector Boosters, a Commander Deck, and a Bundle were provided by Wizards of the Coast for the purposes of this review.
