First Dive Into Final Fantasy Draft

While I eagerly awaited the early release of Final Fantasy Limited and was slated for early access on MTGO, the set was abruptly canceled. I was left waiting a few more days, but at least so far, it has been worth the wait.

Final Fantasy is a unique set. There are lots of overlapping synergies and decisions in the gameplay and, most importantly, the drafting portion. While I only have at most ten drafts under my belt (as of writing), it's going to be a challenging format to master, and I'm all about this prospect.

Usually, after this many drafts, I have a strong opinion on where I want to be in a draft, but I find there's a solid balance with Final Fantasy. You want to let your rares and powerful uncommons steer you, much like you would in a set like March of the Machines. The format is high-powered, and you want to be working towards something.

Mana curve and affecting the board are extremely important. The creatures hit hard, but are also easy to trade off with or brick off in combat. Between job select and chocobo tokens, creatures usually end up with higher power than toughness. Additionally, this means you don't want to miss land drops or keep loose hands that are missing mana colors, so you don't end up with bad turns that are too slow.

It feels bad to trade with job select tokens, but bear in mind that the equip costs tend to be taxing. While the equipment will be left in play after a trade, it will usually be a while before the equipment affects the game in a meaningful way.

To that note, keep in mind what your deck is trying to accomplish. There are so many synergies in this format, and my decks have usually been very focused. It is almost the opposite of Tarkir: Dragonstorm, which was mostly just good-card soup and removal. You want to get the additional value of having your cards work together. Try to stay focused with your strategy, but don't be afraid to branch out when circumstances dictate. Sometimes you'll have a Gruul-all-Chocobo deck, but you might also end up with a Gruul deck that's more focused on self-mill and putting Diamond Weapons into play for cheap. This is not atypical in Limited, but archetypes are more fluid than usual in this set.

Because of the complexity of the cards in this format, I'm still piecing it all together. Rather than give hard instructions on what to do, let's take a look at some of my decks and talk about what I have learned.

Final Fantasy Draft 1

This was my first draft of the format. I started with a pick-one-pack-one Ardyn and wanted to sculpt my deck so I wasn't only exchanging resources. I wanted my cards to provide additional value so I could continue to make land drops and find Ardyn to close the game quickly. Ideally, I'd have Town Greeters and additional ways to bring back Adryn from the graveyard. Since my deck lacked the self-mill I'd normally want, I filled it with cards that helped me put permanents in graveyards and allowed the Clouds of Darkness, my deck's backbone, to carry me into the end game. People are currently undervaluing Summon: Anima, as it's similar to a slightly more expensive, larger Mulldrifter. If they kill it, they're still down a card in the exchange. If they don't, it continues to provide raw cards.

The major thing I learned from this draft was that eight mana isn't too much as long as you can build your deck to survive the mid-game through explosive starts. My deck was capable, and I cruised to seven wins, mostly on Adryn's back.

Final Fantasy Deck 2

I keep getting pushed into green at the start, usually for gold cards. However, this deck was interesting. I overloaded my deck with creatures and Ride the Shoopufs. Looking back at my build, I wish I had made a couple of small changes, specifically playing my second Shinra Reinforcements and probably the copy of Resentful Revelation. The reason I didn't start them was that I didn't understand how good The Final Days would play out in this deck. My deck would almost always come out fast, hitting hard, and then get stopped in its tracks. Then I was either grinding out the opponent with large creatures, such as Balalmb T-Rexaur or the transformed Ride the Shoopufs, or in most cases, closing the game with The Final Days for four to eight tokens.

As a lover of Spider Spawning, the Final Days is an awesome example of that effect type. It's not great defensively when cast, so don't be fully on the back foot when you get to your endpoint. By having an aggressive pivot on my build and deck, I could leverage the Final Days to the fullest. I will definitely be looking to draft around it again and hopefully push it even further. This deck surprised me with a 7-1 trophy. I thought it had holes, but it played out much better than anticipated.

FInal Fantasy Gruul Chocos

I decided to embrace my inner chicken with this deck and go full press on the birds. My deck was full of two-drops and only played downhill. I had to make sure I was on the front foot, which meant mulling aggressively to ensure I had a solid two-drop to leverage. If you fall behind, Chocobos are much worse at blocking than attacking. 

Terra was obscene in my deck and carried me when I drew the card. Otherwise, the deck was mediocre. I often missed plays, flooded out, and wasn't able to recover when anything went wrong. The deck went 5 and 3, but I’m not swearing off the archetype yet. It makes me realize how important it is to get your archetype's signpost gold uncommons. I saw zero in this draft. I realized I like Self-Destruct more than I anticipated because of its synergy with the sagas. The sagas are balanced in how they provide enough value to fade away and not leave you too far behind, but they also give you a free target for your self-destruct.

This is a solid deck, but it’s not my favorite archetype so far because of how one-dimensional this deck ended up.

Mono Red Equipment

The last deck I'll discuss is this surprising masterpiece: Mono Red Equipment. This is something that seems to happen now and again, and it's a nod to the format's depth. Occasionally, you don't need a second color.

This deck had a great curve, removal for virtually anything I encountered, and it closed out well. Thunder Magic is on my shortlist for best common because of its combination of early efficiency and late-game utility. Gilgamesh was hit or miss, but several times it put multiple equipment in play when it entered and completely swung the game. I attacked with it once, and the game ended on the spot. Firion looked mopey, but the one time I curved it into a Warrior's Sword, I realized it's a strong rare worth spending early picks on. The deck's only, if any, issue was its inability to draw more gas. Summon: Brynhildrs helped, but it wasn't particularly strong, just a bit of cardboard to cast that often played out like an elvish visionary that would fade away and die in a couple of turns. Because of the inability to give job select tokens haste, it didn't fit into the deck and is not a card I'd take highly in any circumstance.

This deck cruised to a 7-1 trophy, and most of my games weren't close. Either my opponent couldn't keep up, or one of my equipment-focused rares took over the game.

I've drafted a few more decks, and next week, when I flesh them out, I plan to focus more on specific archetypes. For the first week, I'm focusing on trying as many cards as I can and finding the Limited shells where they fit best. This set is incredibly unique in that there are many cards that are great in the right archetype but fall short elsewhere. Knowing these differences is a pivotal part of staying ahead in this Limited environment.

Until then, I'll keep jamming games. I highly recommend this set for Limited so far. The bonus sheet is the best thing to happen to Limited in a long time, and Final Fantasy's sheet makes the drafts extra enjoyable.