FINAL FANTASY Review

There are other card art variants in the set. The “Through the Ages” cards feature reprints of classic Magic cards with artwork from FINAL FANTASY.

Borderless art takes up the entire frame of the card with a gorgeous portrait. Lightning, Army of One, and Moogle’s Valor are some of my favorites.

Extended art takes the regular version of the card and widens it to encompass more of the card. These read incredibly well, especially on larger scenes like Cecil, Dark Knight, or Zodiark Umbral God.

All three of these styles can be found in Play Boosters and Collector Boosters.

Sagas have received the biggest overhaul thanks to this set. There are two big changes: Saga creatures and a major rules change for sagas in general.

The saga creatures are the easiest to explain. These are creatures like any other. You cast them, they are affected by summoning sickness and can attack and block like any creature. The twist is the saga. Like a normal saga, these creatures will gain a lore counter every turn. When the last lore counter is added it is sacrificed.

Let’s take Summon: Bahamut as an example. For nine mana you get a 9/9 with flying. It has four chapters. In this case, Bahamut will only be able to attack twice. It will enter with summoning sickness, and on turn four it will die when the last counter is put on it.

The temporary nature makes these cards tricky to evaluate. Chapters one and two both destroy a non-land permanent. Chapter three draws two cards, and chapter four deals damage to each opponent. Many sagas only have three chapters. This means they will only have one opportunity to attack.

The second big change we need to understand how sagas work. We need two rulings:

714.2d A Saga’s final chapter number is the greatest value among chapter abilities it has. If a Saga somehow has no chapter abilities, its final chapter number is 0.

714.4. If the number of lore counters on a Saga permanent is greater than or equal to its final chapter number, and it isn’t the source of a chapter ability that has triggered but not yet left the stack, that Saga’s controller sacrifices it. This state-based action doesn’t use the stack.

Now suppose we play Summon: Bahamut. It enters with one lore counter. Normally it would not die until the fourth chapter. Our opponent casts Dress Down. Bahamut is still a saga, but they have no more chapter abilities. Their final chapter is now zero. Bahamut will now die thanks to 714.2d.

A new ruling addresses this. Sagas with no chapter abilities will no longer be subjected to the rule that sacrificed due to the number of lore counters. Additionally, Bahamut will no longer gain lore counters at every turn. Once the effect that is making Bahamut lose its abilities is removed, he will resume working as intended. E.g. when Dress Down is sacrificed in the next end step.

For Commander players, this is most relevant for the various saga creatures in the set. This includes the legendary creatures that turn into sagas. Terra, Magical Adept stands out.

It is strictly red-green on the front. For three mana, you get to dig for an enchantment. For six mana, she transforms into a four-chapter saga. The first three chapters make a token copy of an enchantment you control. Its final chapter adds two mana of each color. Specifically, it shows all five colored pips. That makes Terra a five-color commander! She is a great alternative to Tom Bombadil!

In the world of 60-card Magic, the rules update mostly impacts Modern and Legacy.

Urza’s Saga is a land and a saga. Blood Moon used to be a great way to stop Urza’s Saga. Previously, Urza’s Saga would become a Mountain Enchantment Saga with no abilities. No abilities mean zero chapter abilities, meaning it dies.

This is no longer the case!

In Legacy, Blood Moon is no longer a good sideboard card against Urza’s Saga. In fact, Urza’s Saga and Blood Moon might become best friends in the new Legacy meta-game! I won’t go into all the details. I recommend checking out ThrabenU‘s video on the topic for all the interactions and exciting opportunities this rule change enables!

Town is a new land type. It does nothing on its own. Being a Town offers no inherent benefit. Fans of FINAL FANTASY might enjoy the common cycle or tap lands. Those who played with the Ravnica Gates before the Baldur’s Gate Set know what I mean.

The exciting part of Towns is the rare cycle of Adventures! These are primarily lands, and an instant/sorcery adventure. I am fond of Ishgard, the Holy See. Returning two artifacts or enchantments from your grave to hand is a nice burst of card advantage in the right deck.

If you did not already play a land this turn, you can cast the spell and land in one turn.

The Adventure Towns work well with bounce lands. This lets you re-play the adventure side of these cards. It might not be the flashiest play, but it gives that bounce land some more potential especially if you need a mana sink!

Starting Town is the final land I want to discuss.

It enters tapped unless it is your first, second, or third turn. It taps for a colorless, or for one life it generates any color. I love the balance here. An untapped source of any color is amazing! Opening a two-land hand, missing your third land drop, and then playing this turn four feels miserable. I believe Starting Town is a great shoo-in for CEDH. However, in more casual environments it might not be worthwhile.

A handful of town synergy cards exist. There is one commander who specifically mentions towns. The Wandering Minstrel costs blue-green for a 1/3. Lands you control enter untapped. During your combat, you make a 2/2 elemental if you control five or more towns. For 3WUBRG you buff your creatures based on the number of towns you control.

You might have seen the word town a couple of times on this card. You might have even realized this works with any tap-land, not just towns. But, consider this is not just a Lands commander. This is a Lurrus companion Commander! Until now, we had Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an assassin kindred deck. We also had Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile, a commander who wants you to cast five color spells (very hard when our deck is all two drops).

The Wandering Minstrel feels like a truly viable Lurrus five-color deck. You can work with any budget of mana-base to make use of his first ability. This can then supplement all the nasty Lurrus shenanigans they enable. The town aspect of The Wandering Minstrel can be included in the deck too if you enjoy it, but it is not a necessity. I am really excited to see some Lurrus brews in EDH thanks to this commander!

Ever since Goldberry, River-Daughter in Lord of the Rings, I have been trying to build a mono-blue counters deck. In 2023 the support was not there.

Today that changes.

O’aka, Traveling Merchant and Rikku, Resourceful Guardian both let you manipulate counters in unique ways. O’aka removes counters to draw a card. Rikku makes creatures unblockable and can move a counter from an opponent’s creature to one of your creatures.

Depending on your vision, these commanders give some fantastic versatility. O’aka is more focused on any kind of counter on any permanent. You can remove loyalty from Planeswalkers, lore counters from a saga, or a counter off Dark Depths.

Rikku is more direct. They want you to put counters on your creatures and swing for damage. If you are willing to take the risk, you could even play Lulu, Stern Guardian to give your opponents stun counters then remove them with Rikku for a greedy unblockable turn.

I hope with this set we now have a critical mass of counter manipulation for a blue counters deck to work!

Prompto Argentum caught me off guard. It is worded strangely. “If at least four mana was spent to cast it” appears in the rules text.

This is an admission. Magic is an unfair game. If this card was printed ten years ago, it would simply read:

Whenever you cast a non-creature spell with mana value four or more.

But, Magic is silly, broken, and unfair. Whether it is casting a Frogmite for zero mana, cascading into four drops, or the entire delve mechanic, Magic players cheat on mana. Prompto Argentum wants you to cast a four-drop with mana. Honestly, it’s refreshing.

Professor Hojo is another example. He has the familiar ‘once each turn’ clause. We have seen this more and more lately as Magic designers push the boundaries of cards without breaking them.

I am in two minds about this kind of design. In one sense, it is wordy. Cards become paragraphs of text. Reki, the History of Kamigawa is clean and simple. Nadu, Winged Wisdom is an abomination of a text box. The desire to balance cards while keeping them legible is difficult.

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is powerful. This card packs a lot into three mana. He draws cards by sacrificing other creatures. He is a Blood Artist. That would have been enough on its own.

When Sephiroth’s Blood Artist ability triggers for the fourth time in a turn, he transforms. He becomes a 5/5 with flying. Whenever he attacks, you can sacrifice any number of creatures to draw that many cards.

Finally, he creates an emblem. Whenever a creature dies, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. We have seen an emblem once before without a Planeswalker, The Capitoline Triad. But, Sephiroth is much more castable and universally appealing than the Triad.

Sephiroth grants some amazing consistency once that emblem comes in. This pairs with The Masamune, the sword he wields. It also has:

If a creature dying causes a triggered ability of this creature or an emblem you own to trigger, that ability triggers an additional time.

Unfortunately, the only emblem that triggers this ability is Sephiroth himself. I scoured all the emblems and could not find a single relevant death trigger. Technically, you will double the emblem triggers of Liliana, Heretical Healer//Liliana, Defiant Necromancer, but good luck doing anything broken with that. The Masamune still gets extra triggers from creatures such as Blood Artist and Sephiroth himself.

In a 2023 blog post Mark Rosewater confirmed Planeswalkers are not part of Universes Beyond sets. He then reiterated this point in 2024. Planeswalkers see less representation in Magic. Standard sets have fewer Planeswalkers. Now with UB making its way into Standard, we could see even fewer Planeswalkers. It seems my Kethis, the Hidden Hand deck will have less frequent upgrades going forward.

Go to the end step, discard to hand size, and pass the turn. We do not usually think about the cleanup step. However, some effects specifically call for the cleanup step. Bounty of the Hunt‘s oracle text references cleanup. It is retroactively the first card to do so. Bounty of the Hunt has several wording changes. Alliances, Deckmasters, and Coldsnap all feel very different despite having the same name and art.

Going back to FINAL FANTASY, Ancient Adamantoise, “Damage isn’t removed from this creature during cleanup steps” is a bold line of text.

With 20 toughness, you can easily track this with a spindown. The turtle is exciting. Creatures having damage removed at the end step is core to Magic. It is a necessity of a paper card game. Digital games can get away with every creature behaving like Ancient Adamantoise. I love the thoughtful design here. Magic uses spindowns. Players will have an item available to track damage.

The last high-profile card to reference the cleanup step is Necromancy. This is seen in its Karlov Manor Commander deck reprint.

If we move to the digital world, Alchemy cards have been calling to the cleanup step since 2022. Patient Zero is the first reference I could find. It has shown up a couple of times since then, as recently as Alchemy Thunder Junction on Switchgrass Grazer. Un-sets have lost favor, and Alchemy has become the test bed for unusual mechanics.