Limit Break - Final Fantasy X Magic: The Gathering Is Here

If you’ve seen the Magic: The Gathering Roadmap for 2025 already, this wont be as big of a surprise: Magic: The Gathering has partnered with Final Fantasy to bring us one of the most anticipated sets of the year. After we received the first spoilers, we finally got more news: We are getting not only four commander decks for Final Fantasy, but also a fully fleshed out standard legal set due to release on June 13th!

Previously Spoiled Commanders

We’ve recently been shown the four face commanders of the upcoming decks with Terra, Cloud, Tidus, and Y’shtola representing Final Fantasy VI, VII, X, and XIV respectively.

We already know this is not the only Cloud to be in the set as there is also the Starter Kit version as well, and we can hope that there will be even more representation of these characters and others from their titles in the main set as well.

Let’s dive into what has been spoiled so far!

Alex Kivitz

Party of Four

We are getting four fully curated commander decks filled with existing cards given new Final Fantasy art treatment, as well as entirely new cards based on the world of Final Fantasy. As referenced by IGN, senior game designer Daniel Holt said “Final Fantasy games are so rich with flavor, beloved characters, and unique settings that choosing a single game as the theme provided more than enough material to design a full deck of cards around”. We can probably expect that each individual deck will be an homage to the title those decks came from.

Limit Break

Let’s start off with the wielder of the Buster Sword himself. Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER is a five mana 4/4 Legendary Creature, Human, Soldier, Mercenary with Haste. On entering, you can attach up to one target Equipment you control to him, and you just know this set is going to have the Buster Sword as a card to equip.

Additionally, whenever Cloud attacks, draw a card for each equipped attacking creature you control. Then, if Cloud has power 7 or greater, create two Treasure tokens.

I love this ability because it provides a different take on the usual equipment decks. Instead of equipping one creature in a Voltron style deck, you now want to be equipping many equipment cards across a variety of creatures. Already you may want to go with cards with expensive equip costs like Colossus Hammer. But there are some fun combinations like Helm of the Host to trigger Cloud’s ability multiple times, or Excalibur, Sword of Eden the Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond set which is bound to be cheaper with all the other artifacts you’ll have in your deck.

Counter Blitz

Next up we have Tidus himself representing Final Fantasy X in a unique counters matters deck. Tidus is a 3 mana 3/3 Legendary Creature, Human, Warrior. At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may move a counter from the target creature you control onto a second target creature you control. Additionally, Whenever one or more creatures you control with counters on them deal combat damage to a player, you may draw a card and proliferate. Do this only once each turn.

While I love Final Fantasy X, I do personally feel in a vacuum this is one of the weaker commanders of the four that were spoiled. I feel the proliferation after moving the counters makes it difficult to spread shield or flying counters, for example, across multiple units. He also does not make them on his own and he has to connect to trigger his second ability. That being said, there are some fun synergies here and some funny flavor wins you could achieve.

Not entirely synergistic with Tidus but very much a flavour win, you could play Strixhaven Stadium in the deck to finally play a game of Blitzball in Magic: The Gathering. You would have to turn it into a creature to move its point counter to Tidus but then the points would really start coming in. Some cards with much more synergy would be Myojin of Cryptic Dreams or Arwen, Mortal Queen from The Lord of the Rings Universes Beyond set, and her innate Indestructible counter that can be proliferated and moved to Tidus and friends. Agent’s Toolkit is another beautiful card to give Tidus that extra bit of evasion as well as get the engine started on moving counters around.

Scions & Spellcraft

Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed is our face commander at the helm of the Final Fantasy XIV themed deck. Y’shtola is a four mana 2/4 Legendary Creature – Cat Warlock with Vigilance. At the beginning of each end step, if a player loses 4 or more life this turn, you draw a card. I love that this can be your opponent losing life, or just yourself losing life as well. Additionally, 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.

My mind immediately goes to noncreature spells with the Phyrexian mana symbols. Dismember will only cost you 1 mana to play and will net you only minus two life after your lifegain and replace itself with Y’shtola on the field. Norn’s Annex is a great way to protect yourself a bit and it also triggers Y’shtola’s abilities. Lastly, cards like Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose make it so Y’shtola’s second ability will always turn on her card draw ability after a single trigger.

Revival Trance

Terra, Herald of Hope helms one the Final Fantasy VI based deck and looks to be a very fun deck to build and play. Let’s start with her second ability. Whenever Terra deals combat damage to a player, you may pay 2. When you do, return target creature card with power 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. Not having these creatures be restricted by cost is amazing, and gives us access to some amazing creatures. What I think makes Terra powerful is that he helps get her engine online all on her own. At the beginning of combat on your turn, mill two cards. Terra gains flying until the end of turn. Not only does she fill your graveyard, she gives herself evasion to push connect with an opponent.

The first thing I think of when seeing a restriction is how can you break that restriction? Karmic Guide is a 2 power creature that when it enters you may return a creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield, allowing you to bring back any creature you want. Sister Hospitaller from the Warhammer Universes Beyond decks does the same while also gaining you life. And if you want to continue playing out spells for cheap, there is always K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth.

But Wait! There’s More!

On the same day we also saw the drops of so many more cards to expect in the Final Fantasy set! We were shown the first Chocobo that’s set to symbolise a landfall subtheme for the Chocobo archetype. We have seen our first ever Saga Creature in the form of Summon: Shiva hinting at all the summons being Sagas. Players can go on sidequests like going fishing. And we even have everyone’s new favourite card, the 10,000/7 Jumbo Cactuar!

I know for many of us at Fanfinity, June 13th can’t come soon enough and we hope you all are as excited for Final Fantasy X Magic: The Gathering as we are.