Even if you don’t play Magic: The Gathering, you’ve probably caught wind of its numerous video game crossovers in recent years, including Fallout, Tomb Raider, and Assassin’s Creed. But today we’ve got an exclusive first look at one of the most exciting yet: Final Fantasy. And not just one Final Fantasy – from Terra to Y’shtola, four different mainline games are represented across the preconstructed Commander decks headlining the set.
Flip through the image gallery below for a first look at the lead card and packaging for each deck, and read on for a conversation with Wizards of the Coast about what to expect inside them, why these four games were picked, and plenty more.
Set to launch this June, Magic’s Final Fantasy crossover will be a fully draftable, Standard-legal set accompanied by the four preconstructed decks in the gallery above. Each of those includes 100 cards made up of both reprints of existing cards with new Final Fantasy art and brand new cards designed with Magic’s most popular format, Commander, in mind. And while Commander precons are always themed around certain characters, colors, or strategies, the twist with these is that each one is built around a single Final Fantasy game – specifically 6, 7, 10, and 14.
“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,” says Senior Game Designer Daniel Holt, who is the Commander Lead for the set. “Approaching each deck as a single game also provided the opportunity to dive deep into the lore of each, capturing even more beloved moments from across the game’s storyline that we may not have been able to achieve otherwise.”
The team decided on these four Final Fantasy games based on a balance of what they wanted for the gameplay of each deck and how well known each story was overall. Holt says that while Final Fantasy 7 and 14 were clearer picks, 6 and 10 took more discussion to arrive at, but were chosen partially because they were favorites among the team. “This was one of those products where everyone in the building was invested in each stage of development, as we have so many passionate Final Fantasy fans in the building.”
Of course, even within those picks, there are some decisions you have to make about direction. For instance, Final Fantasy 7’s remake trilogy has been running alongside the development of this Magic set, so is its Commander precon telling the story of the original or its reality-bending reimagining? Dillon Deveney, Principal Narrative Game Designer at Wizards of the Coast and Narrative Lead for the set, says you’ll see a bit of both throughout that deck’s art, but the story itself will follow the 1997 classic.
“Our core approach to Final Fantasy VII was to capture the original PS1 game’s narrative, while using Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s modern aesthetics to push the fidelity of each character design, story moment, and memorable location to the next level,” Deveney explains. “With that in mind, if a scene existed in both games, we had our choice of showing it as the original game did, how the modern version interpreted it, or a unique fusion of both. Hopefully, this deck feels familiar and nostalgic to players of both the original game and the modern series!”
Speaking of nostalgia, Final Fantasy 6 is a trickier nut to crack in some ways as it lacks the more modern art references the other three games can provide. Deveney says they wanted to stick close to what fans would expect from its pixel art sprites and limited concept art while also expanding upon them, and hopes that “the character designs should feel like how you ‘remember’ them, despite being a hybridization of many different references and new ideas.” To help accomplish that, WOTC even consulted directly with the Final Fantasy 6 team as they updated these character to the standards needed for Magic art.
“We developed a workflow that asked concept artists and card artists to pull hallmark character designs from Yoshitaka Amano’s original (and legendary) concept art, the original FFVI sprites, and the FFVI Pixel Remaster character portraits, to synthesize the most consistent elements of each character’s design into something ‘new.’ We also encouraged our artists to punch up finer details and bsexplore elements where they thought they could push (fabric, patterns, textures, etc.) Then, we would meet with the Final Fantasy VI review team, and they would give us feedback on what core elements they wanted to preserve and what new elements they were excited about.”
So they had the four games decided, but when it comes to Commander, that’s only half the equation– WOTC also needed to figure out which characters would lead each deck. Cloud may be the obvious pick for 7, but Holt tells me the others involved some brainstorming. Celes was considered for 6 since the deck is focused around the World of Ruin and the second half of that game, while Yuna was considered for 10 as a fan-favorite. They ultimately decided to stick with the “lead” characters on those, but Final Fantasy 14 is an MMO, which presented its own problem.
“For Y’shtola, it came down to a mix of popularity of the character as well as being a spellcaster, her story and character development offered a wide range of abilities and moments to pull from to lead the deck,” Holt explains, going on to say this deck represents her specifically during her Shadowbringers arc. They did explore the concept of making a “Warrior of Light” commander players could make their own in some fashion, but Holt says those ideas had some “pretty in-depth executions,” and that your own personal hero still has plenty of moments in this deck even without being at the helm.
Now comes the question of figuring out how to fit an entire video game’s story, characters, and themes into a single deck and the carefully balanced restrictions of Magic’s five colors. “Building these decks called for us to decide color identity for the chosen game itself, but also the gameplay we desired from them,” says Holt, going on to point out that it’s no mistake all four include White, “for both theming and it helped cover the wide range of Heroes we wanted to include in each deck.”
As mentioned, the deck for 6 is centered on the latter half of that game – as such, it’s essentially all about rebuilding your party by bringing other creatures back from your graveyard. For 7, Cloud wielding a big sword lines up nicely with the equipment strategies of a white-red Magic deck, but Holt says that “adding green to the mix let us tie in the ‘power matters’ cards and cards that reference the Planet and lifestream.”
While Tidus’ ability to pass counters around might lead you to think the deck for 10 is all about Blitzball, this classic white-blue-green strategy actually primarily came from the idea of that game’s Sphere Grid leveling system as a way to empower your creatures. Holt also admits that the theme for 14 was tricky to land on, but its white-blue-black color identity allowed them to lean into a noncreature spell casting theme while also including the characters they wanted to.
Last but not least, Commander might be all about your leader, but RPGs are often about your party as a whole, and WOTC won’t leave the supporting casts of these games hanging. “Final Fantasy games are full of loveable AND villainous characters and getting them in these decks was very important,” Holt says. “While I can’t talk specifics on who is included in each deck or their abilities just yet, fans can expect to see some of their favorite characters in the 99 of each deck as new legendary creatures and captured in action on other exciting spells.”
Magic’s Final Fantasy set will release on June 13, and if you don’t see your personal favorite Final Fantasy game or character here (or even if you do), don’t worry – Holt assures me that “all sixteen of the mainline games will have their moments to shine in the accompanying products.”
Returning to the same territory as the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks from 2022, all four of these decks will be available in both a regular version (MSRP $69.99) and a Collector’s Edition (MSRP $149.99), the latter of which will feature all 100 of the cards in each deck in a special Surge foil treatment.
Read on for the full, unedited interview with Wizards of the Coast’s Daniel Holt and Dillon Deveney:
IGN: Why did you decide to build each commander deck around a whole game this time?
Daniel Holt, Senior Game Designer: 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. Approaching each deck as a single game also provided the opportunity to dive deep into the lore of each, capturing even more beloved moments from across the game’s storyline that we may not have been able to achieve otherwise.
How did you land on these four games specifically? Were there any close runner-ups you considered?
DH: In exploratory design, before getting too deep into deckbuilding and card design, we brainstormed what games offered the most for what gameplay we wanted with the decks as well as being the more commonly known storylines among the audience. Final Fantasy VII being one of the more referenced games in media made it a strong first contender. Final Fantasy XIV offered a unique gamestyle, that of an MMO, and has SO MANY active players that we knew we could delight this group by selecting it as one of the four. After that, it became a bit more of a team discussion. Final Fantasy X is a favorite of mine and Zakeel, the FIN Product Architect, so we were a little biased in choosing it. Final Fantasy VI touched the pixel era of games and was a favorite of several other designers in the studio. So with that, we ended up with our four game selects! That said, all sixteen of the mainline games will have their moments to shine in the accompanying products.
Should we expect reprint art/lands/etc. within each deck to also be tied to each game?
DH: Absolutely! We want players to feel like they are entering the world of that game as they summon creatures and cast spells from it. This means that the nonland reprints are placed from within that deck’s game, while lands can appear from any of the four games included in the product.
Can you talk a bit about your approach to Magic’s color identities across these decks as it relates to Final Fantasy – why these colors for these characters/games?
DH: Building these decks called for us to decide color identity for the chosen game itself, but also the gameplay we desired from them. Being three colors each did help me have a wider range of options to apply to different characters and moments within the game. For example, you’ll notice all four decks include White in their color identity for both theming and it helped cover the wide range of Heroes we wanted to include in each deck.
Final Fantasy VI – This is a graveyard reanimator deck, so white-black-red was a great fit — gaining access to discard and mill effects in BR and ‘return from graveyard’ effects from WB. Thematically this deck rebuilds its large ensemble of characters in the World of Ruin, so the deck theme really plays into that section of the story.
Final Fantasy VII – As an equipment matters deck, white-red is well-known for that archetype in Magic and showcases this group’s iconic weaponry and battle prowess. Adding green to the mix let us tie in the ‘power matters’ cards and cards that reference the Planet and lifestream.
Final Fantasy X – White-blue-green counters are a classic staple in Magic deckbuilding and having access to all three here really let us build out a whole deck about moving the counters on the board and leveling up your team.
Final Fantasy XIV – This deck was tricky to land on, but by being white-blue-black, we had access to the colors we needed for the characters we wanted to include, but also be a noncreature matters theme, representing spell casting and ability usage you perform as the player while playing the Final Fantasy XIV game!
Terra, Cloud, and Tidus are the clear picks for their games, but how did you land on Y’shtola for Final Fantasy 14?
DH: I won’t deny that Cloud was a pretty obvious choice for the face commander of the Final Fantasy VII deck. The others went through a few rounds of brainstorming though! In Final Fantasy VI, since we were focusing on the themes of the second half of the game, Celes was actually a big contender for the lead. And with Final Fantasy X, we know Yuna is a fan favorite and could have led the deck to success. We ultimately landed on ‘the main protagonist’ character for each of these titles, resulting in Terra and Tidus filling those slots respectively; though Final Fantasy VI is an ensemble cast, Terra is often portrayed as the face of the series.
For Y’shtola, it came down to a mix of popularity of the character as well as being a spellcaster, her story and character development offered a wide range of abilities and moments to pull from to lead the deck.
Was using the Warrior of Light as the lead ever on the table, perhaps with some sort of background/class system to let players customize their precon?
DH: You caught me! We did explore card designs and themes around the Warrior of Light with some…pretty in-depth executions, before ultimately landing on Y’shtola as the commander. That said, there are still plenty of ‘Warrior of Light’ moments in the deck!
7, 10, and 14 have plenty of modern references when it comes to Magic-style art, but you’re pulling from a comparatively smaller pool for 6. Did you feel like there was more freedom to define your own look for those characters, or did you try to stick as closely to what was out there as possible?
Dillon Deveney, Principal Narrative Game Designer: I love this question! We wanted to stick closely to what fans remembered about these characters, while looking to merge the two major aesthetics of FFVI: the concept art and the in-game sprites. There was a lot of freedom in this approach, while trying to stick closely to the original designs. We worked directly with the Final Fantasy VI team to determine the aesthetics, designs, and costumes of the FFVI characters and world. To do that, we developed a workflow that asked concept artists and card artists to pull hallmark character designs from Yoshitaka Amano’s original (and legendary) concept art, the original FFVI sprites, and the FFVI Pixel Remaster character portraits, to synthesize the most consistent elements of each character’s design into something ‘new.’ We also encouraged our artists to punch up finer details and explore elements where they thought they could push (fabric, patterns, textures, etc.) Then, we would meet with the Final Fantasy VI review team, and they would give us feedback on what core elements they wanted to preserve and what new elements they were excited about. Ultimately, it’s our hope that the character designs should feel like how you ‘remember’ them, despite being a hybridization of many different references and new ideas.
Conversely, was there more pressure to get a character like Y’shtola exactly right when fans know so precisely what she looks like?
DH: From the game design side for each of these popular characters, this was one of those products where everyone in the building was invested in each stage of development, as we have so many passionate Final Fantasy fans in the building. At every playtest of the decks, I would get feedback about coworkers’ favorite characters, story moments, etc. that they wanted to make sure got included and implemented properly.
Some characters, like Y’shtola, have such deep character development throughout portions of their game. Each card that depicts one of those types of characters needed to capture them at a specific point in time of their story. For the Final Fantasy XIV commander deck, we have Y’shtola in the Shadowbringers arc where she has become a talented spell caster.
For the Final Fantasy 7 deck, did the recent remake series influence or impact your thinking/designs much, or were you mostly looking toward the original here?
DH: We had the fortunate overlap of some of the remake game series releasing WHILE we worked on this set. So it was a really cool experience getting to leave work, go home, and play games featuring the characters of cards I was designing in a ‘new’ video game.
DD: Our core approach to Final Fantasy VII was to capture the original PS1 game’s narrative, while using Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s modern aesthetics to push the fidelity of each character design, story moment, and memorable location to the next level. You will see a mix of classic FFVII moments and modern FFVII visuals in the deck, but generally, the product is intended to follow the original game’s story. With that in mind, if a scene existed in both games, we had our choice of showing it as the original game did, how the modern version interpreted it, or a unique fusion of both. Hopefully, this deck feels familiar and nostalgic to players of both the original game and the modern series!
It’s super cute that Tidus is all about passing counters around like a ball. Did you know this was going to be a counter deck already or did counters come from exploring Blitzball as a concept?
DH: Everyone loves Blitzball! People in the office got a ‘kick’ out of every time we mentioned it or referenced it somewhere in the product. But when starting the Final Fantasy X deck, the actual theming of counters came from the Sphere Grid experience system used in the game. This system is visually portrayed as a board where you add colored markers on the tracks to gain new abilities. In commander, I wanted to capture that idea by filling the deck with +1/+1 and other counters and then moving them around your team for added abilities!
Commander is all about your leader, but what is an RPG without a party – was it important to y’all to also highlight the folk supporting these leads within each deck?
DH: Of course! Final Fantasy games are full of loveable AND villainous characters and getting them in these decks was very important. While I can’t talk specifics on who is included in each deck or their abilities just yet, fans can expect to see some of their favorite characters in the 99 of each deck as new legendary creatures and captured in action on other exciting spells.
I assume a popular character like Cloud is going to be on more than just this card in the same way Frodo or Galadriel were in the Lord of the Rings set – I know you can’t get into main set spoilers here, but is there anything about designing around these characters for a commander-only product that you enjoy getting to do differently from a product that has to be in Standard?
DH: I think it’s safe to say you’ll see some characters making multiple appearances in the product and each is appealing to different kinds of players. With the ones we see here, they are all ‘commander-sized’, meaning they are aimed to be exciting in the commander format, both in and out of the precon. All the legends in these decks have a unified goal of working together within their deck’s theme and it’s fun building cards like this to have that creative team synergy, whether that’s say…interacting with counters in Final Fantasy X or playing with the graveyard in Final Fantasy VI. On the other hand, legends in the main set can be designs built around the character independently of other cards to spark new archetypes of decks.
Tom Marks is IGN’s Executive Reviews Editor. He loves card games, puzzles, platformers, puzzle-platformers, and lots more.
