Magic: The Gathering - Final Fantasy & FF:Commander for Cube
It’s time for another cube review, this time about Final Fantasy!
In our Aetherdrift review and my Duskmourn post-mortem, two scales were used for rating cards: power and fun. The latter scale looked to encompass the non-power ratings that people use for rating cards. We decided to name it the “vibes” scale instead, since it encompasses the concept better. The power scale is based on how we think the cards are, power-wise, in a generalist nature (but may be in some way influenced by my own cube.)
Some recent examples:
Walk-In Closet: Power: 2, Fun: 4.5
The Aetherspark: “Power” Rating: 3, Fun Factor: 5
Fuel the Flames: “Power” Rating: 3, Fun Factor: 1
Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer: “Power” Rating: 1, Fun Factor: 4
The set’s a special one for me, since:
I’ve been playing the Final Fantasy games from the release of FF1 until FF12.
I’ve gone to more Distant Worlds shows (by myself and with my wife, a fellow FF fan) than I can remember.
One of my most vivid M:TG memories is playing multiplayer with some friends while listening to Kefka’s Domain (the name for the US release of FF6’s soundtrack, which wasn’t easy to get during the early days of the internet.)
For the sake of brevity, I’ll leave the rest of the talking about the references and lore to others like Paige Smith. Admittedly, this historical lens may influence my views on vibes, but I’ll do my best to be impartial in that vein. I’ll be italicizing the cards that I’ve been able to try out in my cube.
This version of the article will be without TrainmasterGT’s update, but we’re planning on syncing up with his thoughts as well as if any of mine changed between the time that goes out and now.
tl;dr - these are my 10 favorites:
Starting Town: Power: 5, Vibes: 4.5
Vivi Ornitier: Power: 4.75, Vibes: 5
Tifa Lockhart: Power: 2-5, Vibes: 3.5
Cecil, Dark Knight: Power: 4.5, Vibes: 5
Cloud, Midgar Mercenary: Power: 4.5, Vibes: 4
Sleep Magic: Power: 4.5, Vibes: 3
Yuffie, Materia Hunter: Power: 4.5 Vibes: 4
Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER: Power: 4.5, Vibes: 4
Opera Love Song: Power: 4.5, Vibes: 3
Summon: Kujata: Power: 4.5, Vibes: 4
White:
Power: 4.5, Vibes: 4
It goes without saying that this emulates Stoneforge Mystic as a way to get an equipment, with a harder-to-cast cost. In conversations about it, I’ve heard it seen as a bad cube card because it pales to Stoneforge Mystic, which I’ve talked about being an evaluative misstep when looking at cards with few existing analogues. You do miss out on the ability to cheat out equipment - useful for equipment like Batterskull and Kaldra Compleat - as well as in blue matchups where cheating it out is useful/wanting to interact at instant speed.
But that being said, it’s still very good as a 2-mana draw card. Lots of equipment like Cori-Steel Cutter, Chainsaw and Glimmer Lens represent more than being pure stat piles and have done a great job of replacing the Sword package. I never saw its ability to double up triggers matter, as I saw it in a recent deck with Glimmer Lens and Batterskull. The WW cost is real but I never found it to be too much of a problem and although white 2s are very strong, I was able to find a cut pretty easily (Intrepid Adversary.)
Summon: Good King Mog XII // Summon: Ixion // Summon: Yojimbo
Good King Mog: Power: 4, Vibes: 5
Ixion: Power: 3, Vibes: 4My initial thought was that I wasn’t sure how these were going to play out. They just read so weird, ya know? Similar to how the Omen cards required some mental rewiring to discover their true potential (namely Marang River Regent) by not looking at them as “this is a bad Adventure”, I found the following:
As chord_o_calls pointed out and as my findings echoed, the ones with 4 chapters played differently than 3, since they represented several attacks, and these have very real bodies to make that a factor.
They play closer to spells with a creature tacked on than a Saga. It’s easy to focus on the negatives and say “well, that just means that they’re bad” but these have their “spell” side front-loaded on chapter 1.
All of these played well, but the one that surprised me most was Yojimbo, as I tried him out on a lark and as I figured I had to be underestimating these saga creatures (I was right.) Both him and Mog have large creatures that represented a good clock on top of a good body and a good amount of the time, they just died in combat anyway. Ixion was solid too, even if it looked like a bad Banisher Priest, due to its boosting abilities too, although I wouldn’t be surprised for it to not last long.
Regardless, a phenomenal cast of creatures.
Power: 3-4.5, Vibes: 4.5
In some limited set reviews, I’ve seen cards noted as being more build-around/synergy based. This is one of them, as it’s a clunky card when played fairly but solid when cheated out, since it has some removal resistance (it makes some knights) and pretty good board potential if it lives.
My initial thought is that it relies too much on being able to live, since a lot of premium cheat targets are buoyed by good ways to protect themselves and lasting impact even if they’re dealt with immediately (which is why cheaty decks have just gotten so much better - threats like Atraxa shrug off removal that much better than things like Myr Battlesphere.)
Usman:
Power: 2.5, Vibes: 3
Usually, these kinds of modal cards need a base rate that’s good in a deck to be considered for cubes. I tried this out but honestly, it just was in the sideboard often. My gut says that the 2/2 is where the juice of this is, and that the added flexibility is good for matchup spread.
Power: 3.5, Vibes: 2
I recently put Nurturing Pixie and Sunpearl Kirin in my cube, since there are so many good ways to abuse these and Ambrosia is a great addition to the party. Ambrosia generally was the worst of the 3, since it lacked evasion, but not strictly so since it punched for 3 often. It was still great for critical mass and helps reinforce strategies like blink in ways while still being just good cards. Combining with the Summons is likely an intentional design choice and they work incredibly well, too.
Power: 4.0, Vibes: 3
I was able to try out this rather unassuming card; it reminded me of a cross between Trinket Mage and Spellseeker - the latter because it isn’t gated to getting 1 or 2 MV cards. The aforementioned Glimmer Lens and Staff of the Storyteller are great in-color hits, but I found this not lacking for targets in the draft where this made an appearance (Staff of the Storyteller, Umezawa’s Jitte, Securitron Squadron.) It may have tough competition but I’m digging it so far.
Blue:
Power: 4.5, Vibes: 3
I’m hoping that people don’t sleep on this on a power level basis, since it’s much more of a 1-mana Pacifism than cards like Sensory Deprivation and Ringing Strike Mastery - cards that didn’t do much for truly removing something. Only really a drawback against red decks, I’m sure this’ll be good enough to crack lists for being such a good removal card.
Power: 4, Vibes: 4
Essentially, Sprite Dragon that trades flying and haste for the ability to move onto other things, although funnily, I found the “draw 3” mode came up several times during testing. The main concern that I found was that initially, it didn’t do anything when re-equipped onto something and can be slow to get going when put onto a new creature. It was seen as a kill-on-sight card because of what it represented, I didn’t think it was absurd. Merely good, which is still good.
Power: 3.5, Vibes: 5
Usually I have a card that I speculatively like in a set, and this set’s is Gogo, since the potential on it is sky high and it is an actual body, so it doesn’t just add nothing to the board. I ended up trying this late in the preview season and before I was able to add it, someone recently drafted a deck with 19 hits and Gogo would have been right at home. It being a vanilla 2/4 without help is annoying, but given how well it plays with a host of existing cube cards (even cracking fetchlands EOT), I’m cautiously optimistic on this, even outside of story equity.
Power: 3, Vibes: 3
When I looked at my own cube, I found a good amount of the legendary creatures costing 2-3 mana, but the issue was that most of them were more Baneslayer than Mulldrifter (which makes sense, since their bodies are usually pushed) aside from a few like Cloud, making the sacrifice a real cost. This may make this more of a build around with a fine-ish “fair” mode as a wonky Disallow that can randomly get people for U or as a legendary payoff.
Black:
Power: 4.5, Vibes: 5
I’ve been trying Cecil in my cube since it got previewed, and it never really had much of a home until a recent draft, since I’ve never really explicitly cared for Death’s Shadow as an archetype, given how much work it takes to make it work, since they don’t do anything until your life is low and being a ⅔ deathtouch is a very real body. Usually, the Flesh Reaver drawback meant that you had to be cautious of when you could attack, but the payoff of having a 4/4 lifelinker was worth it. This did mean that it played poorly with other’s “Death’s Shadows” like the namesake and The Last Ride, but YMMV if you’re explicitly supporting the archetype.
Power: 4.5, Vibes: 4
Sephiroth solves some of the problems that Blood Artist types of creatures have (their bodies are usually bad,) has immediate impact via its ETB trigger and has a very real body. Usually, he contributed to a lot of damage in a game - he never flipped over but it oddly played well as representing something if attacking with a lot of creatures.
Black 3s are nowhere near as competitive as ones in white, but I’m happy to have this on board.
Power: 3, Vibes: 3.5
Bombardiers are an obvious comparison but we aren’t limited to only evaluating like-for-like when we don’t have many examples.
Deathtouch makes this hard to block, and found that he was usually removal bait. Think of it as more of a repeatable engine that does a Deadly Dispute thing than Bombardiers, since most of the juice with this is in him drawing cards, not doming the opponent. Like a less-good Sephiroth, he’s a nice way to get value out of things that are no longer useful and can make a nice backbone to black aggressive decks that sacrifice fodder.
Power: 4, Vibes: 4
Initially, I had thought of this as a weaker reanimation effect - which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (for me) as I’d been capping reanimation effects at 3 mana. But this ended up working out much better than I had thought, playing more to midrange strategies that recurred things for value and acting as a general power boost/evasion for things. I had also assumed that its 4B cost would be prohibitively high but it wasn’t difficult to bring back on EOT, to represent more damage. Look at this more as a “fair” card.
Power: 3, Vibes: 4
Another early preview that’s been playing pretty well. Being stunned for several turns made this a bad topdeck when you really need a blocker, but found that if the deck was able to keep it around, it wasn’t hard for it to start swinging shortly after and represent a clock. Because of it being stunned, it played differently than other traditional 1-drops in aggro, since it couldn’t be a guaranteed source of damage early on, but it usually punched above its weight class decently enough.
Because of Tonberry and Cecil, I’ve been including some more monarch cards and that’s a direction that could be taken, since deathtouchers work well to disincentivize blocking.
Red:
Power: 4.5 Vibes: 4
I’m a fan of this, not just in formats with a lot of artifacts although that definitely helps make it so that if this comes out on T2, she steals something. But that’s still fine, kinda like a bigger Manic Vandal/Thieving Skydiver that can’t hit robots, but also just gives you the thing. Forcing the opponent to crack untapped Treasure tokens isn’t useless either and 3-power is a fine rate. Even in games where she goes without stealing anything, I’ve been happy with how she’s been.
Power: 4, Vibes: 4
A lot of the takes I’ve seen regarding this compare this poorly to Abbot of Keral Keep, which works… to an extent, but it misses a lot of the nuances that make it better. Its Elkin Bottle mode isn’t gated to your first turn and when Brynhildir was played, it was pretty common for it to haste something up - which is one of the better keywords for helping red decks get more damage in.
As I mentioned with the white summons, this has the value front loaded which helps and like the other Saga summons, it oftentimes just traded in combat anyway, so it usually didn’t matter that the creature was temporary.
Power: 4, Vibes: 4
I found that this hits like a train and has good inevitability by being able to blitz from the graveyard, although I saw it hardcast more often than I would have expected, since it’s a 5-mana card without immediate impact on the board. It usually played like a stat monster ala Death-Greeter’s Champion.
When it was dead, usually blitzing it from the graveyard was a good play, even if it required discarding a card, and especially so if the board was cleared via wrath. I hadn’t seen him with equipment but that likely is just GG too. A big dumb beatstick, but efficient enough to do the job.
Summon: Esper Valigarmanda, Summon: Kujata
Power: 4.5 (Kujata)/4 (Esper V), Vibes: 4
I was initially more excited for Esper V as a Hellrider type of card that (usually) got a value spell and I still liked it even though it was annoying if it just died without being able to cast a spell (usually it got one from a graveyard, didn’t get 2 that often.)
But Kujata. Hoo boy.Traditionally, 6-mana finishers have some impact on the board but sometimes can be slow to get going. Kujata generally was the opposite - it usually killed a blocker or two and immediately turned the tide of combat, especially with its second chapter making it so that the opponent couldn’t block this 7/5 beatstick. Usually the opponent died before the third chapter mattered. The 6-mana cost means it’s not great for purely aggressive decks, but it’s a rock solid add for aggressive midrange decks.
Power: 4.5, Vibes: 3
Another that’s easily best in class, since it close games out and can do the “Elkin Bottle draw” otherwise. I’m such a fan of all of these great combat tricks recently and this one having flexibility makes me excited to play it more (its initial impressions were great.)
Power: 4, Vibes: 2
It’s going to take some mental rewiring to think of this primarily as a 2/2 for 2 (with upside!) that has X kicker, rather than as an inefficient X damage spell, since looking at it through the axis of an X spell makes it look terrible. It was drafted by my buddy Tom, who had a 3-0 midrange deck with it. It was usually cast for 4, which points to it being an X spell, but it wasn’t the type of deck that wanted a 2/2 for 2 anyway.
It’s another speculative card that I think is being underrated, but I got a good feeling about it.
Power: 3.5, Vibes: 2
I don’t see the last mode being a commonly used thing but being a split of Shock/Lightning Blast a creature ain’t bad to represent multiple axises of interaction, even if it may be clunky. The base rate of a creature shock might just be good enough but that may be very contextually dependent on the size of creatures in your cube meta.
Green:
Power: 4, Vibes: 4
A meat and potatoes green Ponder-ish effect in green, similar to Oath of Nissa. Green cards like this usually don’t get artifacts but hitting creatures and having the fail safe of land has made it a solid role-filler - a quiet performer that drafters don’t usually get hyped to draft, but one that helps decks tick. Meme potential aside, a solid card.
Power: 4, Vibes: 4
I’ve heard comparisons that this is a bad version of existing cheat effects but I’ve found it to be different, but not necessarily worse, because of its added utility - it would likely just be a middling card with the cheat mode only. But having the added utility of being a 2x Nature’s Spiral helps this have more use in the late game, like if you are empty handed or just need another 2-for-1 permanent to grind the opponent out/get some fetchlands.
It may just end up being more of a 2x Nature’s Spiral rather than a cheat card; I haven’t had enough reps to know which mode is better. But I know that it’s underrated.
Power: 4.25, Vibes: 4.5
I’d seen no hype for this card and it’s been absolutely phenomenal in my cube since I’ve been trying it out. I’m wondering if it’s because of assumptions of it hitting an elf, but I found that even in decks that had some mana elves - it was a possibility to just draw an elf and get a +1/+1 counter (which is still fine) but didn’t happen as often as people feared.
And sometimes, you just get to end the game by casting this on an unblocked creature and revealing a 6-drop. It’s happened!
Power: 2-5, Vibes: 3.5
My experience with her has been closer to bear/squire than a huge threat, but that would likely change if I was including multiples of fetchlands. I’ve been toying with the idea of using green landscapes from a suggestion that I heard in a discord, but I haven’t gone that far… yet.
Her power level band is extremely high with being able to represent a lot of burst damage with multiple fetches in play. In theory, she plays incredibly well with equipment since she doubles the buff, but I never saw the stars align that way. Still, without a lot of help, she’s just ok.
Power: 3, Vibes: 4
I’m lower on this than other cards like Courser of Kruphix, but it’s nice with surveil lands and landfall; that overall package may just be better than Courser’s lifegain, but I’m mostly on the “these are about equal on power level” train with this.
Artifacts/Colorless:
Power: 5, Vibes: 4.5
I’ve heard this compared to City of Brass and Grand Coliseum but this really just combines the best of both worlds - usually lands like City of Brass are a… dicey proposition in non-aggro decks because they cost so much life, but I’ve found this to be played in non-aggro decks fairly easily, since you can always just opt into taking damage. Grand Coliseum always just felt slow, clunky and worse than a Vivid land. Starting Town’s ETB drawback being limited helped with that too, since it usually just entered tapped if drawn later (and didn’t matter by then.) Easily the best in class.
Power: 3.5, Vibes: 3.5
Surprisingly not hard to get active since it mills, and usually just got active “by playing magic” - a phrase commonly used to describe how Tarmogoyf and friends got larger incidentally over the game, but it’s also nice as something that incidentally adds to the graveyard, since more cards care about that now.
Having flying and trample made it an actually relevant clock, and helped it to be an aspirational goal for decks to achieve, since it closes out the game quickly. It’s one of the better “expensive rocks” in recent memory, and I’ve liked it more than cards like Coalition Relic.
The Adventure Lands:
Power: 2, Vibes: 4
These adventure lands are closer to MDFC tap lands than adventure, as the “free card” that you get is… a tapped land, which ain’t great, but it’s something. Midgar seems like the best one, but it’s expensive and super clunky compared to existing sacrifice cards and Lindblum played pretty badly as a clearance bin Guttersnipe with flash.
One of these has to be good though… right?
Multicolor:
Power: 3.5, Vibes: 4
Hildibrand got drafted in a black white aggro deck and it played well - being an instant on the adventure side was great, although I found it was cast as a sorcery a good amount of times since it represented a play of making a zombie and then casting it.
Having the adventure mode from the graveyard as an instant made it play pretty differently than Mosswood Knight, since it could always just be cast during the opponent’s end step (this made it so that people usually didn’t want to kill it.) Hildibrand pumping creature tokens ain’t flavor text either, and found that it helped the cost to make a 2/2 zombie for 2B to be more palatable.
Power: 4, Vibes: 4.5
I’ve played Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit in my cube and for a while, it was solid but eventually got powercrept by other things in white - but she was still a solid performer who punched well above her weight class in terms of how much power she added to the board.
In theory, Shelinda’s a much better Anafenza - she has lifelink and you aren’t beholden to the Bolster text for what to boost, and this isn’t gated to non-tokens either. I hadn’t had a lot of reps with her but initial impressions were that her floor was fine as a 2/2 lifelink for 2 and that, if she boosts one other creature, she’s more than paid for her mana’s worth - kind of like a souped up Thunderous Velocipede - an underrated token booster. The Uber Cube podcast recently talked about Selesnya and this easily could have been one of the fan favorites discussed.
Power: 3.75, Vibes: 4.5
Another early preview that I was able to get a lot of reps in with, it played like a beefier vigilant Tomebound Lich as a looter that could attack decently well and accrue value over the game. It played pretty well in midrange decks and the flip side was - surprisingly - not flavor text as it could be done if a deck really wanted to. (Unsurprisingly, flipping it usually meant that the game was over.)
Hardly amongst the busted tier of Dimir cards and one that may not survive long-term, given how it’s mostly a fair card (a good one, though) and that I’m not going super deep on reanimation, but cards like Resentful Revelation (a card that I didn’t include but I think that it’s solid) do some heavy lifting to get to double threshold.
Power: 3.5, Vibes: 4
For a color pair that leans midrange and aggressive, Garland in midrange isn’t going to knock anyone down on pure power level, but a 2 mana 3/2 that surveils on non-creature cards can add up quickly, especially in aggressive decks packing a lot of “this is actually a creature but not really” cards like Cori-Steel Cutter, filtering dead draws. I do like how it can return from the grave, even if the cost is expensive, since it represents a very real 5/5 flying threat - even if it’s cost inefficient to get a threat, it’s big and better than nothing when you’re drawing dead.
That actually may make it have a home in midrange, since it can reward a player for going to the long game, but I never saw that happen. I want it to, though.
Power: 3-4.5, Vibes: 4
On pure rate, this was fine as a 4/2 that would usually, but wouldn’t always draw an enchantment, as I’d seen it whiff a decent amount of times. It was still live a good amount of times, especially in decks that also had white. Working well with the Tarmogoyf family by incidentally milling 5 was a big help too. The backside was mainly good with Sagas but relatively middling otherwise, but it’s just free upside if you have nothing else to do.
Power: 4.75, Vibes: 5
I’m hesitant to make this a 5 since it can just die without doing anything, but found this to be incredibly good in decks since it grows and - I’ll be honest, most of the time, I forgot to dome the opponent with this, and it was STILL great.
Vivi combined a lot of elements: generating mana while being able to attack, being able to passively grow and contribute a clock even if it can’t attack, eventually getting so large (4+ power) where it usually had to be respected and allowing low-to-the-ground decks to be able to have access to a lot of mana even with a lower land count. It’s likely the most generically powerful card in Izzet now.
Power: 3.5, Vibes: 3.5
Kefka feels like a clunkier riff on Nicol Bolas, the Ravager since it’s an extra mana on both sides, but comes more utility on the front side, since he works incredibly well with/against artifact and Saga creatures, and other cards that double dip on card types. Attacking with either half is likely going to swing the game in Kefka’s controller’s favor. Unfortunately, it was unplayed, so I can’t vouch for its play experience, but given his stature as the series’ arguably greatest villain, I assume they wouldn’t have done him dirty.
Power: 3.75, Vibes: 4.5
Sin is another card that I’ve been trying out in my cube and in another more low-powered cube and I’ve found him to be a pretty decent ramp target, especially if you can sculpt the graveyard to be hits, which isn’t hard with countermagic - but even without being able to perfectly sculpt the graveyard, usually it came down and copied something from the graveyard (and was nice when it randomly just got a fetchland.) It was somewhat similar to Ardyn, the Usurper, which I didn’t really dig.
I’m unsure how much I like it against other Sultai cards, but the color trio’s surprisingly thin.
Thanks for reading! You can find more of my Cube thoughts and my recently updated cube list on my Linktree.