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Each of Magic’s crossover sets has adapted its source material to the rules of Magic: The Gathering in a different way. One of the ways the Final Fantasy set will do that is with double-faced cards that represent bosses and other characters becoming their final form. Cecil, Dark Knight becomes Cecil, Redeemed Paladin, for instance, while Garland, Knight of Cordelia becomes Chaos, the Endless, and Emet-Selch, Unsundered becomes Hades, Sorcerer of Eld.
Also, the fishing card can transform into a camping site.
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It turns out that not even venerable old Magic: The Gathering is immune to the lure of the fishing minigame. Thanks to Final Fantasy 15’s boy-band road trip, we’ll be able to play Sidequest: Catch a Fish, a card depicting Prince Noctis demonstrating why women love him and fish fear him that lets you “fish” the top card off your deck each turn. If that card’s an artifact or creature you get to keep it, and get a free food token you can use to heal. After that you flip Sidequest: Catch a Fish over to become Cooking Campsite—a land card you can tap for white mana and use to give all your creatures +1/+1 at the cost of an artifact.
The other mechanical twist revealed so far is summons. Given that summoning monsters to fight for you is the original conceit of Magic: The Gathering it’s funny to see it highlighted thanks to Final Fantasy almost 32 years later, but the way summons work here is quite different to what we’ve seen before. Final Fantasy’s summons borrow the saga mechanic, previously used for cards that have changing effects on the turns after they’re played, normally used to represent a developing plot. In the Middle-earth set, for instance, the saga There and Back Again represents the story of The Hobbit and, on the third turn after it’s played, lets you bring out Smaug.
Final Fantasy’s summons likewise have different effects on subsequent turns and vanish once they’re done, but also get to act as creature cards the entire time. Summon: Shiva uses Heavenly Strike to stun a creature on each of the first two turns after being played, then activates Diamond Dust on turn three to let you draw a card for each of your opponents’ tapped creatures. At the same time she’s a 4/5 creature you can attack and block with.
This crossover has apparently been in the works for four years, so clearly a lot of thought has gone into converting the essence of Final Fantasy into the game mechanics of Magic: The Gathering. There will be cards based on all 16 mainline Final Fantasy games (no sequels or spin-offs, though), including more than 100 different creatures. Wizards of the Coast is calling it “the largest collection of Final Fantasy artwork ever in a single game”.
It’ll be out on June 13 and will be standard-legal, as well as having four preconstructed Commander decks themed around different games in the series. The Final Fantasy 6 deck has Terra as its Commander, Final Fantasy 7 has Cloud, Final Fantasy 10 has Tidus, and Final Fantasy 14 has Y’shtola, whose card has the pleasing description “cat warlock”.
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Kurt Indovina
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