#Shadow and Interceptor | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

djgamek1ng · 2 months ago

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Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 11 (12/05/2025 - Revival Trance Pt. 1)

I am not covering any reprints. I'm sorry, but I just can't. It would make every commander deck like 5 posts, legitimately. Also, if things seem a bit short for descriptions, yeah, that's the point. There are so many cards to cover. 22 or 23 cards per deck, since aside from 1 card in this deck and the FF14 deck, all we knew was the main commanders of each deck. Aside from that, let's just dive in. Cyan, Vengeful Samurai first:

I'm not gonna cover color identities unless something is obviously wrong, because these decks have to deal with the color identities they are given.

7 mana for a 3/3 is bad, full stop. His abilities are:

He costs 1 less to cast for every creature card in your graveyard, which makes him potentially able to not be nearly as expensive.

Double strike, so strikes first and strikes twice, almost always a good thing

Whenever one or more creature cards leave your graveyard, put a +1/+1 counter on Cyan. Decent way to have him grow.

Very simply, this is a card in the 99 of a deck. You could run him as your commander, but that requires a lot of creatures to be in your graveyard for him to be reasonably costed and he does evade commander tax a bit, but he requires set up from something bringing creature cards back from the graveyard or exiles creature cards from your graveyard, ideally both incrementally. Really, just run him in the 99 of a deck, he will work way better.

Now for the art. Credit to Christian Angel. Link to their ArtStation. Definitely quite a gritty artstyle, but I can't say I hate it for Cyan. He's a troubled man and showing him like this shows that perfectly. Very good art, even if it isn't my personal favorite style!

Moving on to General Leo Cristophe

5 mana for a 2/2 is pretty bad, HOWEVER, his ability is that when he enters, he brings a creature with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard. Then put a +1/+1 counter on General Leo for each creature you control. So really, assuming you are bringing something back and don't have anything else on your board, he's at minimum a 4/4, since he also sees himself. That's already way better for 5 mana and it has the potential to grow.

Similar to Cyan, this is a card you take in the 99 of a deck, ideally as a late game threat. You can run him as your commander, but you would need to have your board filled and swing out pretty early to kill someone. Best in a tokens deck.

Now for the art. Credit to LEE Woo-chul. Link to their Instagram. This is pretty dope, quite bright and hopeful and also significantly less racist than the original art for him (those lips man...) So yeah, that is a pretty cool art!

2 mana for an artifact. When it enters, surveil 1 and for 4 mana and tapping it, exiling two creature cards from your graveyard and sacrificing this artifact. An opponent chooses one of the exiled cards, you put that card on the bottom of your library and return the other to the battlefield tapped. You become the monarch.

Very quick, the monarch is a minigame. Whoever is the monarch draws an extra card during their end step and you can become the monarch by hitting the monarch in the face. That's it.

Overall, meh. A lot of setup for what is not a great pay off. Unless you have only scary things in your deck, you let an opponent choose what comes into play and what goes into your graveyard. Monarch is nice, but there are so many different ways to gain the monarch that are way less involved than this and way less expensive on mana. Unless all your creature cards are horrifying, this is just taking 3 rights instead of 1 left for a bit of recursion and even then, it is still just taking 3 rights instead of 1 left.

Now for the art. Credit to Kotetsu Kinoshita. Link to their Twitter. This is pretty cool and I love that Edgar's armor is so shiny that you can see the reflection of him holding the coin in it. Very cool!

Moving on to Interceptor, Shadow's Hound

4 mana for a 4/3 is slightly below rate, but it is fine. This good boy's abilities are:

Menace, so it has evasion and will hit not too infrequently.

Assassins you control have menace, so your assassins have evasion and will hit not too infrequently.

Whenever you attack with one or more legendary creatures, you may pay 3 mana. If you do, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped and attacking. This is quite good, since this good boy is now pretty hard to get rid off permanently unless you exile it.

Surprise surprise, this is a good creature in the 99 of an assassin typal deck. However, unlike the previous 2, I think there is an argument to be made here to take this as your commander. It is hard to permanently kill and even if they exile it, you can just move it to your command zone and afterwards it is 3 mana to recast it. Do run some protection for it, since it is the obvious buff stick that is making your board scary. Overall, pretty good.

Now for the art. Credit to SANSYU. Link to their Twitter. Interceptor is the main character, Shadow is just pointing to something in the distance that he's spotted. Hell yeah, I love this art! Good doggy c:

Moving on to Shadow, Mysterious Assassin.

3 mana for a 3/3 is perfectly on rate. Deathtouch is always pretty great, even better on a higher toughness body. His ability is that whenever Shadow deals combat damage to a play, you may sacrifice another nonland permanent. If you do, draw two cards and each opponent loses life equal to the mana value of the sacrifice permanent. Honestly surprised this wasn't limited to just artifacts, since you're not throwing creatures in FF6... I mean, aside from when main character Interceptor comes in. But yeah, this is pretty good, all opponents draining.

Better in the 99, can work as your commander. Mainly need recursion for the permanents you are sacrificing and evasion so that Shadow does connect.

Now for the art. Credit to Wisnu Tan. Link to their Instagram. That sure is Shadow. He looks good. Gonna move on, since there isn't much to say. It do be kind of dark. Also, let's go, main character Interceptor in the background!

Next up Siegfried, Famed Swordsman

4 mana for a 2/2 is quite bad, however! Well, first he has menace. Moving on: when Siegfried enters, mill 3 cards. Then put X +1/+1 counter on Siegfried, where X is twice the number of creature cards in your graveyard. Yes, twice. Assuming you hit even a single creature card with that mill or it was already in your graveyard, Siegfried goes to be right on rate. More and he quickly becomes above rate.

Put him in the 99 of a more mill heavy deck, bring some recursion to pick him up out of your graveyard if he ended in there. Just don't bother with him as your commander, he's not worth it.

Now for the art. Credit to Crystal Fae. Link to her ArtStation. That sure is a dope looking Siegfried in the arena. Looking great, good amount of contrast too. Hell yea!

Now we move to Rejoin the Fight

6 mana sorcery. Mill three cards. Then starting with the next opponent in turn order, each opponent choose a creature card in your graveyard that hasn't been chosen. Return each card chosen this way to the battlefield. Very quickly, mostly just feel your graveyard with scary creatures to make the best use of this. This is a mana cost card, so you don't want them to bring back your 1 and 2 mana drops, go for 4 mana and higher creature spells in your deck so that when this pops off, you get 3 big creatures back.

Now for the art. Credit to Yasunari Hirasaka. Link to their website. That is a pretty dope art. Gritty and a bit heavy on effects, but it does emphasize this rawness of "oh shoot, I'm getting 3 people back into the fight." Very nice!

Next we got to Espers to Magicite.

4 mana to exile each opponent's graveyard. When you do, choose up to one target creature card exiled this way. Create a token that's a copy of that card, except it's an artifact and i loses all other card types. This is some big graveyard hate card and you can grab a good utility creature that furthers your board state, since they do retain their abilities, just their card types are gone.

Now for the art. Credit to AKAGI. Link to their Twitter. This is just such a trollish art for Kefka. Such a big smile on his face while he is flying away with having turned an esper into magicite. Very good, love this art!

Next we go to The Falcon, Airship Restored.

3 mana for a 4/3 vehicle is slightly above rate. Crew 2, so need creatures to a total of 2 power to crew it. Then its abilities:

Flying, so it has evasion and hits players pretty consistently.

Whenever The Falcon deals combat damage to a player, you may sacrifice it. When you do, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield. You can bring any creature card back, so that's pretty powerful with higher mana value creatures, so yeah, that's pretty decent.

5 mana to bring this back from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped. That's... not fantastic. Expensive and you can't even crew it on the turn it gets back to block with it, that kind of sucks.

It is somewhat hard to remove, but aside from being mana flooded, I don't think you will reanimate this too often and if your graveyard is exiled, this loses so much value. So it's good, but it isn't mindblowing. This could definitely be a card you could potentially cut from the deck, but it can still be good in heavy reanimation decks that gain benefit from things being removed from your graveyard.

Now for the art. Credit to Kotakan. Link to their Twitter. That sure is the Falcon. Interesting that it is that close to the water in the art. I guess that might be in reference to when you see that Setzer reactivated it and flies it right above the water. Either way, cool art.

Now we move on to Gau, Feral Youth

2 mana for a 2/2 is perfectly on rate. Then as for his abilities:

Whenever Gau attacks, put a +1/+1 counter on it. That's pretty good, though you mainly need some evasion on him, otherwise he just gets chump blocked for forever.

At the beginning of each end step, if a card left your graveyard this turn, Gau deals damage equal to its power to each opponent. That... can be good, but mono red recursion doesn't really exist, so...

Yeah. That last part sums it up. If you run this, put it into the 99 of your Rakdos or Boros recursion heavy decks. Don't run this card as your commander, mono red recursion isn't really supported as a deck.

Now for the art. Credit to Eglė Mosakaitė. I have no link, I couldn't find them and after the whole KOHEI YAMADA search taking literally 2 hours, I'm not gonna go on something like that. If anyone has a link, let me know! Regardless, that is a good Gau art. It is super realistic though, which does make it feel just a bit uncanny, but I do still like it a decent amount.

Now we move on Gogo, Mysterious Mime

4 mana for a 2/2 is pretty damn bad. However, his ability is that at the beginning of combat on your turn, you may have Gogo become a copy of another target creature you control until end of turn, except its name is Gogo, Mysterious Mime. If you do, Gogo and that creature each get +2/+0 and gain haste until end of turn and attack this turn if able. So, this means that Gogo's base power and toughness matters quite little, since he becomes a complete copy of the creature, just called Gogo, Mysterious Mime. He then also buffs both himself and the creature. They do need to attack, so definitely an aggressive flavor.

Honestly, this can work as an aggro commander. Get your cheap attackers early, then drop big stuff and double up on all of those with Gogo. Can even go for legendary typal, though that might be a bit restricted in mono red.

Now for the art. Credit to LEE Woo-chul. Link to their Instagram. Man, Gogo is such a weirdo, but in a fun way. This art is fantastic, I really like it, love the scrolls floating around him.

Now we move to Sabin, Master Monk

5 mana for a 4/3 is a below rate and not insignificantly so. His abilities are:

Double Strike, so he strikes first and he strikes twice, pretty good.

Blitz for 4 mana and discarding a card to cast this card, give it haste and give it "when this creature dies, draw a card." Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step. This is nice if you just need an something that punches hard and can be used as sacrifice fodder before it sacrifices itself.

You may cast this card from your graveyard using its blitz ability. Now that... is really good. Since it doesn't exile itself, you can keep recasting it and punching with it. Only downside is that it is a pretty big mana sink every time of 4 mana every turn, but that does make it so you can keep swinging with this until it is exiled.

This is pretty good. You can cheat commander tax with the blitz ability, but it is... rough to run him as your commander. Mono red and he doesn't really do much but punch hard then sacrifice itself. It is a huge mana sink to keep on casting him, so unless you have cast triggers, I'd advice against it. If you really want to run him, I'd put him in the 99 of an aggro, recursion or sacrifice deck.

Now for the art. Credit to Kevin Glint. Link to their ArtStation. Gotta say, don't love this. This just looks like a generic guy. Doesn't help that there is almost no contrast in terms of the colors, just reds and oranges, a little bit of yellow and purple.

Next we have Strago and Relm!

3 mana for a 1/3 is below rate, though better if you just intend to block with them. Then their ability:

For 3 mana and tapping this creature: target opponent exiles cards from the top of their library until they exile an instant, sorcery or creature card. You may cast that card without paying its mana cost. If you cast a creature spell this way, it gains haste and "At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice this creature." Activate only as a sorcery. This is pretty decent, but does rely on your opponents having some good hits to be really good. If nothing else though, you can use this ability and just not cast the spell, therefore exiling it forever. Also, if your opponent is unlucky, they can be exiling a bunch of artifacts, enchantments and lands with this ability, since they don't get those back, so this is actually just a giant middle finger to people with decks light on instants, sorceries and creatures.

I don't think they will work well as your commander, though. They don't do anything on the first turn the come down, needing to be tapped for their ability and that not working unless you have a way to give them haste. Also, their ability isn't too pricey, but still has a price attached to it, so you'd probably not be able to pay that price on the first turn they come down anyway. I think they work much better in the 99 of a theft type deck and even then, I think there will be a large number of games you don't particularly care for having this in hand or not.

Now for the art. Credit to Darius Zablockis. Link to his Instagram. Bright, colorful, fun, almost cartoonish. This is perfect! I love all the creatures that surround them, as Relm has most likely drawn those and are using those to attack. Also love the magic effect. Just a great art!

Now we go to Umaro, Raging Yeti!

6 mana for a 6/6 is completely on rate. Trample is good, makes sure you will generally get through with at least a bit of damage. Then his ability is that at the beginning of combat, you choose one at random

Other creatures you control get +3/+0 and gain trample until end of turn.

Discard your hand, then draw four cards.

Umaro deals 5 damage to any target.

This being at random makes this incredibly unreliable. Got good cards in hands? Well, you now have to discard your hand and you have to draw four cards. Only have Umaro on the battlefield? Well, now you are adding +3/+0 and trample to no one. Only the 5 damage to any target is reliable, since you can just hit one of your opponents' face with it.

That then also goes into my recommendation for this guy: just don't. This card is unreliable and expensive. Aside from a "lol random" deck, I really don't see why you would want this card. Umaro is a super dope character and it is cool that the Berserker class is represented like that, but that doesn't make it reliable. Either in the 99 or as your commander, I cannot recommend this guy, as much as it hurts to say.

Now for the art. Credit to Norikatsu Miyoshi. Link to what I think is their Twitter? It is linked on their pixiv. Umaro charging through some poor fools. Dope, looks good!

Now we go to Snort!

4 mana for a sorcery that allows every player to discard their hand and draw 5 cards. Then Snort deals 5 damage to each opponent who discarded their hand this way. You can also use Flashback for 6 mana to get this effect one more time. Pretty solid. Less card draw than a Wheel of Fortune, but it also damages your opponents if they do decide to discard their hand and draw cards, it's solid. Not too steeply costed either at 4 (or 6) mana. Good for almost any deck.

Now for the art. Credits to ikeda_cpt. Link to their pixiv. Typhon unleashing his giant sneeze, Ultros looking as trollish as ever and Locke being the unfortunate visible victim alongside the Blackjack airship as a whole. Fantastic art, very great!

That's it for this part. The rest of the cards are the multicolored cards, so those will be put into one post that will be posted right after this one! Thanks for reading and have a nice day o/

Also, quickly, I didn't talk about Summon: Esper Valigarmanda in this part, since I had already covered that in my post about the Green and Red cards revealed during the debut stream! Link here! :D

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