Every Commander from the Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Decks, Ranked
Let’s start by admitting that the premise of this ranking is flawed. We can’t really judge the new commanders from the Final Fantasy X Magic: The Gathering crossover decks without seeing the decks first. However, we don’t know when we’ll get new information about what is in those decks. We know there will be a mix of old cards with new art and new cards also present in the Final Fantasy bundles and boosters. Another thing to note is that we’re only looking at the commanders in the four preconstructed commander decks. In other words, we’re ignoring the new Final Fantasy-themed legendary creatures available in bundles and boosters. This helps keeping the list focused on the commanders most players will actually use, but it sadly means we can’t talk about the pretty overpowered Cecil, Dark Knight. Terra, Herald of Hope Image via Wizards of the Coast Terra, Herald of Hope is a solid commander with a neat combo built in. As her Revival Trance deck puts it, “fill your graveyard and revive your fallen heroes.” Put simply, Terra lets you return a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield at the price of 2 mana whenever she damages a player. At the same time, her Trance ability lets you mill two cards at the start of your combat phase to gain flying until the end of the turn, moving two cards per turn to the graveyard and making her more likely to hit the enemy player. Of course, all this power comes with some caveats. Terra must deal combat damage to a player, not merely attack, to trigger her second ability. At the same time, she can only revive cards with a maximum power of three. Still, assuming the rest of the Revival Trance includes cards that support this ability, Terra seems like a powerful rehash of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, only with partial flying instead of first strike and integrated milling. Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed Image via Wizards of the Coast On the surface, Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed seems like a simple but efficient card. Even if her deck’s tagline is incredibly generic (“Be a master caster using card advantage and control”), we can imagine what Scions & Spellcraft will look like. It will likely have a lot of non-creature spells with a mana cost of three or more and some ways to deal direct damage to enemy players. There are two small but useful advantages to Y’shtola’s abilities that are hidden in the details. The keywords are “damage” and “lost life.” Y’shtola doesn’t draw a card when you inflict four damage on a player; she only needs a player to lose four life points. This means indirect damage (cards that say “player loses x life”) count towards this objective. The same effect also triggers when you are the player who lost at least four life points. At the same time, she doesn’t remove two life points from each opponent, but she deals damage, which triggers the effect of a whole lot of interesting cards. Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian Image via Wizards of the Coast Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian is another commander whose usefulness in his deck will be entirely decided by the accompanying cards, but it’s easier to imagine what that could look like. Fans have already pointed to Strixhaven Stadium as one pre-existing card that would work extremely well with Tidus’ Cheer ability. The fact that Tidus seems to be themed around Blitzball could make the presence of a stadium in his deck more likely. Tidus is all about moving tokens around and increasing their numbers, even though he can’t create tokens himself. A 3/3 creature with three mana costs, Tidus lets you move a single token from one creature to another at the beginning of your combat phase. Then, when at least one creature with counters on it deals damage to a player, you draw a card and proliferate, meaning that all your creatures with at least one token receive an additional token. Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER Image via Wizards of the Coast It’s very hard to judge Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER and his Limit Break deck before looking at the cards he comes from. This is because Cloud is themed entirely around equipment cards, especially his ability to attach one equipment to him for free when he enters the battlefield. Will the deck be stuffed with costly equipment cards and ways to attach them for free, like Sigarda’s Aid? Will it have living weapons? Will it revolve around collecting the pieces to build a Fusion Buster Sword? Probably not, but one can dream. As the Limit Break deck tagline puts it, Cloud’s ability lets him “equip weapons and raise stats past 7 power”. Following an attack, the player draws one card for each equipped attacking creature. That could lead to some fun combos, but again, it depends on which cards he can combo with. Then, if Cloud has power seven or more, he creates two Treasure tokens, each with the effect “Tap and sacrifice this artifact: add one mana of any color.” Useful but nothing too exciting. The post Every Commander from the Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Decks, Ranked appeared first on Des
Let’s start by admitting that the premise of this ranking is flawed. We can’t really judge the new commanders from the Final Fantasy X Magic: The Gathering crossover decks without seeing the decks first. However, we don’t know when we’ll get new information about what is in those decks. We know there will be a mix of old cards with new art and new cards also present in the Final Fantasy bundles and boosters.
Another thing to note is that we’re only looking at the commanders in the four preconstructed commander decks. In other words, we’re ignoring the new Final Fantasy-themed legendary creatures available in bundles and boosters. This helps keeping the list focused on the commanders most players will actually use, but it sadly means we can’t talk about the pretty overpowered Cecil, Dark Knight.
Terra, Herald of Hope
Terra, Herald of Hope is a solid commander with a neat combo built in. As her Revival Trance deck puts it, “fill your graveyard and revive your fallen heroes.” Put simply, Terra lets you return a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield at the price of 2 mana whenever she damages a player. At the same time, her Trance ability lets you mill two cards at the start of your combat phase to gain flying until the end of the turn, moving two cards per turn to the graveyard and making her more likely to hit the enemy player.
Of course, all this power comes with some caveats. Terra must deal combat damage to a player, not merely attack, to trigger her second ability. At the same time, she can only revive cards with a maximum power of three. Still, assuming the rest of the Revival Trance includes cards that support this ability, Terra seems like a powerful rehash of Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, only with partial flying instead of first strike and integrated milling.
Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed
On the surface, Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed seems like a simple but efficient card. Even if her deck’s tagline is incredibly generic (“Be a master caster using card advantage and control”), we can imagine what Scions & Spellcraft will look like. It will likely have a lot of non-creature spells with a mana cost of three or more and some ways to deal direct damage to enemy players.
There are two small but useful advantages to Y’shtola’s abilities that are hidden in the details. The keywords are “damage” and “lost life.” Y’shtola doesn’t draw a card when you inflict four damage on a player; she only needs a player to lose four life points. This means indirect damage (cards that say “player loses x life”) count towards this objective. The same effect also triggers when you are the player who lost at least four life points. At the same time, she doesn’t remove two life points from each opponent, but she deals damage, which triggers the effect of a whole lot of interesting cards.
Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian
Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian is another commander whose usefulness in his deck will be entirely decided by the accompanying cards, but it’s easier to imagine what that could look like. Fans have already pointed to Strixhaven Stadium as one pre-existing card that would work extremely well with Tidus’ Cheer ability. The fact that Tidus seems to be themed around Blitzball could make the presence of a stadium in his deck more likely.
Tidus is all about moving tokens around and increasing their numbers, even though he can’t create tokens himself. A 3/3 creature with three mana costs, Tidus lets you move a single token from one creature to another at the beginning of your combat phase. Then, when at least one creature with counters on it deals damage to a player, you draw a card and proliferate, meaning that all your creatures with at least one token receive an additional token.
Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER
It’s very hard to judge Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER and his Limit Break deck before looking at the cards he comes from. This is because Cloud is themed entirely around equipment cards, especially his ability to attach one equipment to him for free when he enters the battlefield. Will the deck be stuffed with costly equipment cards and ways to attach them for free, like Sigarda’s Aid? Will it have living weapons? Will it revolve around collecting the pieces to build a Fusion Buster Sword? Probably not, but one can dream.
As the Limit Break deck tagline puts it, Cloud’s ability lets him “equip weapons and raise stats past 7 power”. Following an attack, the player draws one card for each equipped attacking creature. That could lead to some fun combos, but again, it depends on which cards he can combo with. Then, if Cloud has power seven or more, he creates two Treasure tokens, each with the effect “Tap and sacrifice this artifact: add one mana of any color.” Useful but nothing too exciting.
The post Every Commander from the Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Decks, Ranked appeared first on Destructoid.
