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djgamek1ng · 2 months ago

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Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 2 (10/05/2025 - White and Blue cards)

So the debut stream has happened and I have a lot of things to cover. In this part, I'll be talking about the mono colored White and Blue cards. We have a good amount to talk about, so let's get into it! We'll be going White first and in order of rarity, so common > uncommon > rare > mythic rare. Let's start with White Mage's Staff and a new mechanic: Job select.

I had already talked about this card in the starter kit leak (which we now know for sure is legit). So, uh... I'm just gonna copy-paste my thoughts, since they haven't really changed. Small spoiler for Hero token art, since that hasn't been shown yet: So this is the start of a new type of equipment for this set, the "Job select" equipments. This mechanic works similarly to Living Weapon or For Mirrodin, except instead of creating a black 0/0 Phyrexian Germ creature token or a red 2/2 Rebel creature token, it is a colorless 1/1 Hero token. The hero tokens of this set seem to just be based on the FF14 character races, as we saw an Au Ra depicted on one and a cat person behind them (possibly a Miqo'te from FF14), though I could also imagine FF11 might get some representation with its races.

Anyways, to cover the equipment itself: this is solid. 2 mana for a 2/2 Hero Cleric that gains you 1 life when they attack is pretty good and even after they get destroyed, the equipment is still there to be equipped to someone else for 3 mana. This might see use in incremental lifegain decks as another way to pump up an Ajani's Pridemate for example. I'm not blown away by it, but it will do its job. Also works with the party mechanic where you need a Cleric, a Rogue, a Warrior and a Wizard.

As for the art. Credit to Kim Dingwall. Link to her ArtStation. That sure is a nondescript White Mage in front of a nondescript golden circle. It is very nice art though, genuinely I really love it and kind of wish this was a creature instead. Also love the magic effect being so gentle, as is common for healing effects in a good amount of fantasy. I love this art, it's very nice. Just wondering with the nondescript golden circle is, I don't recognize that.

Let's talk about another card that was leaked in the starter kit: The Crystal's Chosen.

This is definitely meant as a game ender in heavy "go wide" strategy decks. 7 mana is steep, but the pay off is huge. 4 2/2 (since they also get the counters!) colorless Heroes alone is not bad, but getting +1/+1 counters on all other creatures you control means you can suddenly do like 30-40% more damage and that can genuinely end a game. To be fair, as it should for 7 mana. Solid, but not ultra reliable. Mainly good in Limited or Commander to end games. This will not see play in 60 card format games, it is just too steep a cost to justify using it, especially at risk of a counterspell.

As for the art. Credit to Kotetsu Kinoshita. Link to their Twitter. This is a great piece of art. Seeing all the Onion Knights before the crystal, as they have been chosen. I just love this, this is fantastic. I also love how the light is almost overwhelming, which feels apt for a crystal of life altering destiny. Also a good detail that the Onion Knights are color coded, which they were in the original as well.

Next up is yet another card spoiled by the starter deck leak: Dragoon's Lance.

This one is purely saved by its mana cost. 2 mana for a 2/1 Knight Hero with flying on your turn is just alright. The second you have to re-equip this, this will feel significantly worse. Only real thing I can imagine is that if the flying is the difference maker between winning and losing, but otherwise, very mediocre equipment. Does get better if you are able to cheat the equipping cost, but even then... eh. You have better ways of getting flying, so unless you really need the Knight subtype on a creature...

Credit to Josephine Chang/Jo Cordisco. Link to their BlueSky. This is very nice art. It is definitely a nondescript Dragoon posing somewhere in what I do believe is Ishgard, just based on the surrounding buildings. It's a soft coloring, broken up by the harshness of the blue dragon aura surrounding them. The background is also very nice, if a bit... well, I hate to use it this often with the Job select equipment, but nondescript. The building definitely make me think of Ishgard, so there is at least something!

Now, finally, a card that I haven't talked about before. Let's talk about Aerith Gainsborough

Very quick for color flavor: did you really think Aerith was gonna be anything else? At most she would've been Green/White, but she was always gonna have White in there. Red might've been an argument, but she isn't really as chaotic as Red characters usually are. Also doesn't help that she is definitely the dedicated mage for a lot of the game, specifically the white mage for a lot of people.

Anyway, let's get to the card's mechanics. 3 mana for a 2/2 is below rate and to a point it does kind of hurt. 3 power and 3 toughness is an important benchmark and she hits neither without help. Speaking of which, she has Lifelink and she gains a +1/+1 counter every time you gain any amount of life. That's nice and allows her to be on rate or above rate the turn she enters, provided you have ways to gain life.

Then her final ability. When she dies, you put X +1/+1 counters on every legendary creature you control, where X is the amount of +1/+1 counters on Aerith. So first, of course she has a death trigger. Secondly, this soundly places her to be best in a legendary tribal deck, where most/all your creatures on the board are gonna be legendary and benefit from Aerith.

So, how good is she? Eh. Aerith is not bad, don't get me wrong, but she is below rate and even more so, she is slow to start to get growing. As your commander, she will feel like just an extra thing in your already existing mono white legends decks... which is nice, but ultimately just an extra thing. As something in the 99, she will feel better, since she is just part of a (persumably) legendary tribal deck, allowing her to grow easy, then be thrown to the wolves or sacrificed to put counters on all other legendary creatures you have. This also does make her a psuedo protection piece for your legendary creatures if someone wants to get rid of them via damage or stat based removal. Just need a way to sacrifice her at instant speed.

For 60 card formats... hate to say again and again, but she's too slow. Again, she best supports legendary tribal, which is an uphill battle to begin with in 60 card formats that are best when playing repeating cards, at least a bit, which legendary creatures do not jive with much. So she doesn't feel like she will have much of a place in 60 card formats.

As for the art. Credit to Nakamura 8. Link to their pixiv. Very anime, but not in a bad way. It is the scene where Aerith gives a flower to Cloud in Midgar. Very nice art honestly, bright in all the ways it should be and Aerith herself looks great. Not much for details on Aerith, she is relatively simple, but she still looks great! Just overall a great piece of art.

As for the alternative art:

Credit to Syutsuri. Link to their Tumblr. This... somehow is a bit less anime. It is the exact same scenario, just without the background... sigh. Anyway, I love this one a lot. I think the slightly less wide open eyes and the shading just does a lot for Aerith. That said, no background makes me enjoy it a lot less, so it's a give and take. Still great art though.

And now for the last White card shown off today: Cloud, Midgar Mercenary.

Mr. Strife's 3rd card. Alright. White as his only color feels wrong. I suppose this is to contrast against Sephiroth's card being mono Black, but I don't know. It just feels wrong.

Anyway, moving on to his actual mechanics. 2 mana for a 2/1 is slightly behind rate and not ideal either, but you can manage. Then his ability:

When Cloud enters, search your library for an Equipment card, reveal it, put it into your hand then shuffle. This is obviously good, you get to search for any equipment. Go for a lot of equipments in your deck and you will never have a lack of target to search.

As long as Cloud is equipped, if an ability of Cloud or an Equipment attached to it triggers, that ability triggers an additional time. The part of Cloud's ability triggering multiple times mainly impacts if you are playing with ways to give him abilities, like Backgrounds in commander, in your deck, but that's not super relevant. The fact that all abilities on equipment trigger twice definitely makes you want to pivot specifically into equipment with triggered abilities. Stuff like Sigiled Sword of Valeron or Inquisitorial Rosette will make twice as many tokens (...so two).

And that's it. Just immediately: equipment based have always struggled in 60 card formats, so don't bother with this card in 60 card formats. For commander though, Cloud can be an excellent equipment based commander or part of the 99 in a equipment deck. Being able to tutor an equipment every time you are able to put Cloud on the battlefield is very nice, though definitely don't slack on running protection based equipment on him if he's your commander. If he is your commander, you probably want to go voltron with him, though probably with a sprinkling of ways to make equipment costs cheaper, since this Cloud notably doesn't have anyway to make equipment costs cheaper. So good card in commander, absolutely not worth it in 60 card formats.

As for the art. Credit to Kazto Furuya. Link to their Tumblr (they haven't uploaded in years). Cloud looks on point, the sparks aren't distracting and the background is simple, while still being detailed enough to make out that this is somewhere in Midgar, probably towards one of the reactors. Very good art, not much more to say, I really like it!

As for the alternative art:

Credit to Maji. Link to their Twitter. This sure is Cloud. No background again. Very detailed and shaded Cloud. It is quite nice, I like it. Feels like it could've been official art for the Remake honestly, which is just a good thing. Also makes it hard to talk about it, since it is just me going "yeah, this is good." But yeah, this is good!

Onwards to the Blue cards! First up, FFXI gets a card with Dragoon's Wyvern:

A 3 mana 2/1 is certainly behind rate, though Flying is nice. Also, I lied, it is actually a secret 3 mana 3/2, since you also get a 1/1 colorless Hero token when it enters. It is not a bad little common, good for token synergies and even as an evasive early attacker.

Also, just need to point this out: I'm not gonna talk about color flavor too much for things that aren't characters. Blue is here because the wyvern is blue. That's it.

As for the art. Credit to Jason Kiantoro. Link to their ArtStation. This is a very cute wyvern! I love that you see the person's whose wyvern it is in the background. Aside from that, not much to say for the background other than it is nice and colorful. Great art!

Moving on to Ice Magic and our second new mechanic of the set: Tiered!

Let's go over Tiered first. Tiered is a variant on kicker, but where kicker does a thing and then does an additional, usually different, thing if you kicked the card, Tiered becomes a modal spell. You can just cast it for its base cost to get an effect, then you have 2 additional costs to pay to get the effects listed in them, but you can only have 1 effect of them all. This is to simulate the magic in Final Fantasy being... well, tiered. The base spell is the weakest form, then the -ra suffix gets added and it is the medium level (usually) and when the -ga suffix is added is when it is at the strongest level (usually).

As for Ice Magic itself. Instant speed spell, so that's already nice.

2 mana to get an Unsummon effect.

4 mana to make a creature go back to the top or bottom of player's library, the creature's controller chooses

8 mana to shuffle target creature into its owner's library.

So, just to say immediately, this is definitely behind rate for the equivalent effects. For example, actual Unsummon is 1 mana while Stay Hidden, Stay Silent is 8 total mana but split between 2 effects of the Aura entering and the activated cost, while this costs 2 mana and 8 mana respectively. That's because the flexibility of this card needs to be taken into account. It is definitely playing it safe a little bit, but the flexibility cannot be understand. Early game, you might only be able to Unsummon, but late game, this is a card that can do any of those, while Unsummon is still just Unsummon. Overall, I rate this card to be fairly good. It's not mind blowing or will be replacing anything in your deck most likely, but it is a solid little common instant card.

As for the art. Credit to Masateru Ikeda. Link to their Twitter. Hey, it's Lulu from FF10 and her plushie! She is casting a big freaking ice spell at something. Aside from that, not much to point out. The art makes it very clear that this is a big freaking ice spell coming someone's way and that's perfectly fine, it still looks great!

Now we're immediately going to a rare. It is time for FF16 with Jill, Shiva's Dominant and Shiva, Warden of Ice:

Blue for Jill makes sense. She is a calm, solitary person. I suppose, if anything, there might've need to be some White splashed in, since she is fiercely loyal, but Blue makes sense. Also, she's Shiva's Dominant... so yeah, Blue was practically inevitable.

As for the card. A 3 mana 2/2 is definitely behind rate and nothing to really compensate for it, like Flying or something. She does have 2 abilities:

When Jill enters, return up to one target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. Unsummon, but for any nonland permanent. That's pretty dang solid, allows you to mess with an opponent's artifacts and enchantments as well.

For 5 mana and tapping Jill, she transforms. Only at sorcery speed. Let's talk about Shiva, Warden of Ice.

Shiva, Warden of Ice is a 5 mana 4/5. That's very slightly below rate, but no longer that it really matters for thresholds. She is a Saga, so let's talk about her abilities

At lore counters 1 and 2, you target a creature and that creature cannot be blocked this turn. Good to get some guaranteed damage in, especially if that creature has a "deal combat damage to a player" trigger.

At lore counter 3, you tap all lands your opponents control, Exile Shiva and return it to the battlefield as Jill. This is... evil. Mass land denial is big, since you can use that turn it goes off to make the final play. The only issue is that because lore counters get added during the start of your main phase, they can tap all their lands for mana and have that mana to play with to disrupt your way to get play your game winning push. Then you can do it again.

It does have to be noted, for this transformation mechanic you will be dealing with summoning sickness for every time you transform to one or the other, since both start in exile, then get brought into the battlefield as a new "instance" of that spell. However, that also abuses enters the battlefield effects, since it does count as entering the battlefield. Just to be noted.

As for the entire card. The front side is painfully mediocre. The nonland permanent bounce effect is good, but her just being a 2/2 for 3 mana is rough. The back side is better, but still has issues. You are only capable of using that 4/5 statline for 1 block and 1 attack or 2 blocks in 1v1 formats, since she exiles herself at the start of your main phase when she gets her 3rd lore counter. That said, all the abilities are pretty damn good, so no complaints there. For commander, she could be a fun addition to the 99 of a stax deck. As the commander, she definitely still goes stax-y, but I don't think she does it well enough that you want to consider it, especially since you're stuck in mono Blue. Admittedly, that is a stax color, but still. Definitely have ways to protect her, because that 3rd ability on Shiva is telegraphed and will be the the reason why she will get removed.

For 60 card formats... hmm... I think her main body is fine enough for 60 card formats, but her transformation is too slow. At best you'd have her on the battlefield turn 4, so you can immediately flip her turn 5, but even then, you're waiting for turn 7 for tapping all lands, which isn't great. I'd probably say she is too slow for 60 card decks, though she might be a decent tempo piece to just draw out something from the opponent due to the inevitable threat.

Now for the art. Credit to Arif Wijaya. Link to his ArtStation. The backgrounds are a bit simple perhaps, but they still look quite nice. The spell effects are beautiful and not too overpowering. The ladies look fantastic. Just a very quick review, since my opinion on both are essentially the exact same. This is just great art, absolutely fantastic.

As for alternative art:

Credit to Rika Suzuki. Link to their Twitter. If you told me this was official FF16 art, I'd believe you. This is a 10/10. The ladies look perfect. Only thing to complain about isn't this art's fault, but rather the fault of the alternative arts not having backgrounds. Genuinely no notes, these are awesome.

Now to briefly talk about Y'shtola Rhul again. I already reviewed her and I have edited the post with her regular arts. Link to that post here.

With that said, that's it for this part! Next part is just Black cards, because some silver haired prick needed to have 4 versions and be a flip card. One of those is just the extended art version, but still. Anyway, before I lose my mind: thanks for reading and have a nice day o/

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