Final Fantasy: Initial Cube Thoughts

It’s funny that I, in a post that I shared from Jake Browne talking about Aetherdrift

#26 - Aetherdrift

…and how set reviews could look at expanding on what they cover, I’m doing a meat-and-potatoes dump of initial thoughts for Final Fantasy for cube. One of my earliest M:TG memories was playing Kefka’s Domain in the background, while playing huge multiplayer games in the mid 1990s, having gone to many a Distant Worlds show with his wife - this all feels like it’s coming together, even if FF12 was the last FF that I actually played.

Like most face commanders, these don’t really do much for me for cube. They’re tri-color and don’t really do much for their weird mana restriction, although Tidus could potentially do something by virtue of proliferate being a pretty strong mechanic, as well as card drawing.

Sin’s body’s pretty good as a 7 mana 7/7 flier that can… potentially get something back at a rate that’s good for the cost. It at least rerolls on fetchlands, which certainly helps. Getting back a 3-mana card is likely the floor of where I’m happy to get something back? I’ll likely give it a whirl.

Likely much more a commanderer than a cuber, but it may just be a card that works best in decks that make a bunch of incidental junk like blood, treasures, 1/1 dorks, etc - as that trade isn’t too bad for a card for any one of those. Another card that I’ll likely try out and be super middling on, but hey, could get there.

I think these are… other face commanders? I honestly have no idea. Both of these look pretty middling as well, but Sephy may be *fine* as an easier-to-cast Massacre Wurm. The body’s pretty weak, though, for the cost.

Likely gets there as a little beater that really likes fetches. I never bothered with the Landscapes in my regular cube, but if the whole theme of Chocobos is landfall, there’s certainly some payoffs for going deep on that. Another “I’ll try it” card.

This might just get there on virtue of it being a small looter that has an absurd late game potential, since it should just win you the game if it ever somehow flips. May be more of a self-mill archetype thing ala Sultai than a Dimir card, but requiring double threshold is ROUGH.

Sadly, poor Garland got knocked down in power but… I’m not sure why, but I wasn’t surprised - maybe because FF1 felt like it didn’t get the respect that it deserved (even if it admittedly hasn’t aged well at all, with the amount of grinding required and some things that got improved vastly in later games in combat and inventory.) 7 mana’s a lot and I think that makes it a hard sell, but the front side isn’t awful. Another card that I want to be good, given the hilarity of the flavor text.

This wasn’t what I expected Cecil to end up being, and another game that I felt never got the respect that it deserved, given how ground-breaking it was at the time. It’s interesting seeing this and Tonberry being cheap deathtouch creatures, but there isn’t much of a payoff for that in my own cube, since the Swords aged out. I guess Enduring Curiosity? I don’t think this one necessarily requires a Death’s Shadow theme and I *think* this gets there on pure rate, even with its annoying Flesh Reaver drawback, since the rate’s good enough on a 1-drop. It’s a nombo with other Death’s Shadow creatures but I’m much more excited about this than The Last Ride.

This is terrible on defense but like Cecil, I’m cautiously optimistic that this gets there on pure offense mode - it takes 2 turns to do that, but I have a feeling that its ability to win in combat should make up for it being slow to get going. If we have another good saboteur payoff or a pushed equipment, I’m even more excited. Given Cloud being an equipment-matters type of card, I’m hoping for a good Materia Blade (maybe it gets modes/counters based on what color is used to cast it) or something else that works well alongside him.