First Look at Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy is one of my all-time favorite game series. Like most 90s gamer kids, I fell in love with FFVII. While I only played a few others after, I played the FF MMO, FFXI for years and picked it back up for a while during the pandemic. For a bit, I also dabbled in FFXIV, the popular MMO, but it left me wanting to play more FFXI.

All that said, weirdly, this new MTG Final Fantasy set doesn't get me hyped for the set, but it gives me the itch to look back at some of my favorite old video games.

It's no secret I'm not a massive fan of these crossovers, and this one is aimed at me. While it doesn't hook me in like I thought it would, there are a lot of cards worth looking at once I can separate myself from Final Fantasy's lure.

First, I'll take a look at my nostalgic card from the set, Absolute Virtue.

Absolute Virtue

Absolute Virtue is tailor-made for Commander. Sadly, it doesn't appear to have any applications in competitive Constructed formats, however, there's a cool story behind the character in FFXI.

This boss was released when I first started playing FFXI. It was the most challenging boss in this, and potentially any, game. Absolute Virtue could heal itself to full after countless hours of fighting, making it frustrating and nearly impossible. Eventually, it was taken down. In the current game, it is much easier, as the level cap has been raised and, much like in Magic, power creep has ramped up over the past 20 years.

While the character and origin are cool in terms of FFXI, I plan to get a copy of this card just to look at and admire it, as it will have no practical use in Constructed environments.

Vivi Ornitier

Now, for the exact opposite. Weirdly, I don't know much about this character even though I've seen it a million times as the stereotypical image of a Black Mage in Final Fantasy. That said, the character is not what interests me here.

Vivi Ornitier is on the shortlist for best card in the set and would be my pick currently. On its face, it looks like you'll cast it for three mana, have it trade down on mana against a Go for the Throat, and you'll get nothing out of the exchange. When you account for the times this doesn't happen against a deck like Izzet Prowess, you will win when you use it to untap. You can chain spells, grow Vivi larger and larger, get more mana to grow it even more, and then close the game on the spot. This card goes into that same category as Sheoldred, in that you need to kill it immediately or the game is likely over. This also costs a full mana less, making it a narrower window.

Vivi gets the advantage of turning effects that pump it, such as Monstrous Rage, into Dark Ritual effects. Think about its potential applications in formats like Modern or Pioneer, where various Moxes and zero-mana spells are legal. You can play Vivi and immediately Mutagenic Growth it, which becomes a Black Lotus. Two Mutagenic Growths? Now we have six free mana.

Between Mox Amber, Mox Opal, Mishra's Bauble, and everything else, Vivi is a cracked Magic card and likely the best card we'll see in the set. I don't think the hype is exaggerated on this one. If anything, it's underrated. I can't wait to play this card, and soon enough, we'll be counting the days we don't have to play with this card anymore because it's potentially that strong.

Tifa Lockhart

I know more about this character as a FFVII enjoyer, but let's look at the card's substance. While Tifa is certainly no Vivi, they both benefit from pumping their power, and Tifa can kill the opponent with a fetch land and any number of pump spells, such as Become Immense or Might of Old Krosa. It's almost as if she has infect since she'd slot into an infect deck but without the keyword.

Tifa isn't groundbreaking or broken like Vivi, but there is a chance Tifa could see some play in a zoo-like deck that can use her to one-shot the opponent out of nowhere. At only two mana, Tifa has some potential, even if she does look tame for modern-day MTG standards. Tifa is playable, albeit deck-specific and not a card you'd want to build around, but it provides more redundancy as a two-mana threat that threatens to kill opponents who don't interact in her first attack.

Starting Town

Starting Town is a perfect example of gameplay tripping over the feet of flavor. Because it's a "starting town," it only comes in untapped during the early turns of the game, rather than as an early land of the game. This doesn't even make that much more sense to me, and it doesn't win me over as to why it needed to be designed this way. This flavor win is a gameplay fail because it makes little sense as to why this wouldn't be consistent with the original Kaladesh fast land cycle, like Blooming Marsh.

Regardless, Starting Town is going to be a great land in Standard and Pioneer and will facilitate three-color decks in Standard for years to come. While many people may have never played with Mana Confluence or City of Brass, Starting Town tapping for colorless goes a long way. You can play four copies without having to be incredibly linear or aggressive. However, it will still work best in those strategies, as it mitigates both downsides of the card if you can end the game early.

While Starting Town isn't one of the better lands we've seen in Standard, it's one of the most flexible, so I wouldn't be surprised to see if this ends up being one of the most played cards, if not the most played, in Standard. It will be played in many multicolor decks and two-color decks as an additional pain land if necessary.

Starting Town is solid and definitely a future role player in Standard mana bases.

Summon: Primal Odin

Primal Odin is our first look at a Saga Creature, and while I didn't appreciate the flavor of Starting Town, Odin's flavor and design are on point.

I like the idea of Saga Creatures, as they have interesting gameplay where you don't want to get them into combat in many cases before you can capitalize on all saga chapters. This makes for interesting in-game decision trees, which I appreciate.

I must give credit where it's due, and Odin feels a lot like it does in the video games. Zantetsuken is known for one-shotting players in any version of Final Fantasy I've ever played and has required clever gameplay dodge. While you don't need clever gameplay to prevent being one-shot by Odin, on its face, it's at least a Noxious Gearhulk, a six-mana Nekrataal effect that can kill the opponent in one hit or draw extra cards if it's unable to connect.

Odin isn't a staple, or even all that playable, but it has a minor amount of potential because of the whole package. I wouldn't be surprised to see a copy in various midrange mirrors if creatures are dominant, but I doubt we will because six-mana spells these days have to do a lot up front, and Odin does just enough to potentially see play in swingy, creature-heavy matchups.

I love the flavor of Odin, but outside of Commander, I don't think we'll be seeing it in competitive Constructed formats.

Ishgard, the Holy See

Ishgard, the Holy See introduces a new card type, adventure lands. Much like a Bonecrusher Giant, we can play this as a land, or we can get maximum value by playing it as a spell and then playing it from the adventure zone as a land.

In general, I hate lands that are free spells because they end up almost always being too powerful or warping deck building in various ways. For instance, Spikefield Hazard is one of my least favorite cards because it had the Goblin Chainwhirler effect where one-toughness creatures were kind of banned while it was Standard-legal because the card was in all red decks. It felt bad to rely on a one-toughness creature when the opponent didn't have to even make deck space to interact.

These lands look too weak. Faith and Grief is a reasonable spell to get for free, but most of the time we won't want that effect, and we're certainly not building around it, so it's more of a way to add some value to our land. Unfortunately, this land comes in tapped all the time, which takes it out of the equation as a playable card. There may be some spots for it, but it won't be ubiquitous in all white decks because the cost is too punishing. One way they could have pushed this cycle was to have them come into play tapped from either the adventure zone or your hand, but not both.

From the three lands of this cycle I've seen, I'm low on these adventure lands, and unless the spell portion is highly desirable on any others we see, I don't think they'll see much, if any, play.

From what I've seen of this set, I'm enjoying the walk down memory lane. Ultimately, the set doesn't look overpowered, and it looks in line with most Standard sets, with the exception of a few outliers, which is normal. That makes me happy for a Universes Beyond set since I was worried they'd go out of their way to push cards like in Lord of the Rings.

I'm excited to see the rest of the set. It has some interesting mechanics that will make gameplay interesting.

Final Fantasy is the most hyped set we've ever seen in Magic, and I hope that brings a lot of new players to the game. Hopefully, those players are as intrigued by the game as we are and stick around for a while.

I'll be back next time to look at more Final Fantasy previews, as there is a lot to go over in this set and a lot more to be revealed. See you then.