Magic: The Gathering‘s Final Fantasy Set Looks Like a Match Made in Seventh Heaven

Magic: The Gathering‘s crossover epoch has been a divisive 1 for longtime players. Although there’s inactive plenty of archetypal expansions to the venerable paper game, the emergence of “Universes Beyond,” Wizards’ umbrella for what has go a swath of licensed crossovers with everything from SpongeBob SquarePants to Lord of the Rings, has go progressively prominent—and for arsenic galore intrigued fans of those different franchises it’s brought in, there’s pushback that Wizards has traded its archetypal worldbuilding for the paper crippled equivalent of a Fortnite match.

That dividing propulsion and propulsion among Magic fans and funny onlookers is connected the precipice of facing its biggest trial adjacent period with the merchandise of Magic‘s 105th expansion: Final Fantasy. It’s arguably Wizards’ astir ambitious crossover yet, a collaboration with a phantasy satellite arsenic vast, arsenic long-running, and arsenic as equipped with a voracious, opinionated fanbase as Magic‘s.

The archetypal Universes Beyond acceptable to beryllium made ineligible successful the game’s modular constructed format, the barriers betwixt what is simply a licensed crossover and what is “normal” Magic aren’t conscionable thin, they’ve been sliced unfastened with a buster sword. And it’s already proving to beryllium popular: pre-orders for the acceptable are present hard to travel by, arsenic genitor institution Hasbro anticipates that Final Fantasy could beryllium 1 of the game’s most lucrative sets ever.

But the unit isn’t conscionable coming from Magic fans. Final Fantasy is 1 of the astir celebrated video crippled bid of each time, 16 mainline games (and yet further myriad spinoffs, sequels, remakes, and re-imaginings beyond them) that person shaped the communicative of the roleplaying crippled genre for astir 40 years. That legacy, of course, includes its ain paper game, but a Magic crossover is similar gathering tabletop royalty: what’s included and what isn’t, however and wherefore this should each happen, and however overmuch Final Fantasy should beryllium successful it has been a hot taxable of debate ever since the acceptable was archetypal tentatively teased back successful 2023.

But the communicative of the acceptable has been successful the works for overmuch longer than that: Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix person been pondering a Magic/Final Fantasy crossover for 5 years, fundamentally astir arsenic agelong arsenic cognition of the Universes Beyond crossover format has been public.

“There were a mates of factors,” Zakeel Gordon, Magic Tabletop Product Architect astatine Wizards of the Coast, told property astatine a caller briefing up of the Final Fantasy set’s archetypal large nationalist preview astatine PAX East this weekend. “One is that we built this acceptable simultaneously successful English and Japanese for our partners astatine Square Enix—that included aggregate trips implicit to them for play tests, worldbuilding workshops, Final Fantasy mini-schools to fig retired what was important to them. We would travel up with plan iterations, alert over, and they would accidental ‘we truly similar these things, we would similar if you tweak this similar this.'”

“But this is besides the 2nd ever Universes Beyond tentpole merchandise [after Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth]. We wanted to marque definite we were doing everything correctly. We wanted to marque definite that the last merchandise met our expectation, and was done successful a mode that we truly deliberation would excite players… successful bid to bash each of that right, it conscionable takes immoderate time.”

Just arsenic the unit connected the Final Fantasy acceptable to unrecorded up to expectations is coming from Magic and Final Fantasy fans alike, passionateness for the task is echoed crossed Wizards and Square Enix. “It’s truthful fun, immoderate clip we get to enactment with different crippled studio, galore of them are besides truly passionate about Magic,” Gordon continued. “Our main producers [at Square] are besides lifelong Magic players. We would decorativeness up our meetings, and past we’d spell play Commander, oregon they’d speech to america astir Legacy and amusement america their collections.”

The passionateness connected some Square Enix and Wizards’ behalf doesn’t erase the information that the caller acceptable faces a daunting prospect: encapsulating 16 mainline games (sorry, Tactics, X-2, or Dirge of Cerberus fans, there’s nary spinoff practice here) crossed hundreds of cards, each 1 filled with celebrated communicative beats, locations, characters, spells, and creatures to gully inspiration from.

“One of the challenges of balancing the slots successful the set—what bash we request to fill, what is the mechanical request for a card, what is the spirit crushed that we request a card—was that we wanted to get a definite magnitude of cards per crippled successful the set,” Dillon Deveney, Magic rule communicative designer, explained. “We started there, and past we decided ‘well, however overmuch bash we expect to spot from this game? How galore fans of this game, that are going to privation to spot X, Y, Z? How large is this game, right?'”

Wizards modulated its attack for each crippled further beyond that into what it considered a benignant of tier system. After consulting internally among Final Fantasy fans astatine Wizards’ ain offices, and with Square Enix for penetration from developers who worked crossed the series, the Magic squad broke down imaginable inclusions crossed 3 tiers of fandom.

“Tier 1 was ‘we person to see this, it’s evergreen, it’s the baseline expectation,’ similar Chocobos and Moogles,” Deveney said. “Tier 2 is for a instrumentality of a circumstantial crippled that would spell ‘Oh yeah, I wholly retrieve that’… these could beryllium iconic minigames, sidequests and almighty weapons, oregon a ace brag you retrieve struggling against. Tier 3 is the superfan, diehard Easter ovum infinitesimal that’s similar ‘no way, they got this successful the game, that’s crazy!’ We wanted to usage that arsenic a strategy to marque decisions and choices to fig retired what from each the games would acceptable into our game.”

That sorts retired the Final Fantasy constituent of the set. But astatine the extremity of the day, this is inactive a Magic: The Gathering expansion—an important 1 too, arsenic the archetypal Universes Beyond acceptable to beryllium officially ineligible successful the modular play format. The acceptable doesn’t conscionable person to execute connected a referential standpoint, it has to propulsion Magic mechanically, and see a wide swath of paper archetypes to marque it entreaty to regular players.

Thankfully, it seems similar Final Fantasy volition present connected that facet too, from what was shown to property of the acceptable truthful far. The acceptable includes evolutions of certain Magic mechanics, similar Job Select, a riff connected For Mirrodin oregon Living Weapon that creates leader tokens that players volition past connect instrumentality cards to inspired by Final Fantasy jobs from the archetypal crippled (and ones added down the line, similar those included successful Final Fantasy XIV). There’s besides Tiered, an wholly caller mechanic that reflects Final Fantasy‘s ain magic system, wherever spells turn successful powerfulness crossed 3 levels of strength, letting players wage much mana to amplify the card’s damage.

It includes clever uses of Magic crippled mechanics to retell flavorful crippled beats from assorted games, similar Kain, Traitorous Dragoon swapping subordinate power connected harm and creating treasure tokens, reflecting the infinitesimal in Final Fantasy IV wherever he’s brainwashed by the villainous Golbez and turns connected the party. Or, for fans of Final Fantasy VII and generational trauma, Aerith Gainsborough’s paper gaining counters whenever her subordinate gains life… lone to walk those counters astir to different legendary creatures you power erstwhile she dies.

The full acceptable is littered with details similar this. A regular mechanic passim the acceptable is Transform—used to some amusement villainous transformations of iconic characters similar FFVI‘s Kefka, IX‘s Kuja, or XIV‘s Emet-Selch arsenic they spell from their superior forms to their last brag identities, but besides to bespeak a character’s agelong arc implicit the people of their respective games, similar FFIV‘s Cecil being capable to power from Dark Knight to Paladin, or FFVI‘s Terra being capable to alteration to her Esper signifier for a constricted time. There’s besides the usage of the Saga paper archetype—a paper that enters the battlefield, progresses done a bid of “chapters” crook aft turn, and past expires—to correspond the assorted Summons from crossed the franchise, similar Bahamut oregon Valigarmanda.

Not each of the references are conscionable for Final Fantasy fans, either. Throughout the set, fan-favorite Magic cards volition beryllium re-printed with classic artwork from across Final Fantasy to bespeak the transportation betwixt the set’s root worldly and the games, like FFIX‘s Zidane being utilized to re-flavor Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer; FFII‘s Firion re-flavoring Sram, Senior Edificer; oregon FFVII‘s Yuffie taking connected the almighty Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow.

And immoderate are conscionable plain goofy, similar multicolored variants of the Traveling Chocobo paper to bespeak the rainbow of options seen successful Final Fantasy VII‘s Chocobo racing minigame, oregon the information that determination are 15 variants of the Cid, Timeless Artificer card: each with the aforesaid rules (including 1 that lets you tract arsenic galore versions of Cid successful a platform arsenic you’d want), but each with antithetic artwork celebrating each mentation of the quality that existed from Final Fantasy II each the mode done to XVI.

Suffice to say, it’s wide looking astatine the cards Wizards person shown disconnected truthful acold that the Magic team’s passionateness for the root worldly is shining done clearly, possibly much than immoderate of the Universes Beyond worldly we’ve seen from the crippled truthful far.

“If determination was thing awesome we wanted to bash [in the set], we got to bash it,” Gavin Verhey, Magic‘s rule crippled designer, said. “You’ll spot each kinds of amusive surprises arsenic you spell done the set, it’s truly special.”

“We precocious got the archetypal booster boxes successful the offices, and we got to get the squad unneurotic to bash a draft, and aft years of moving connected it, conscionable sitting astir a array the mode each our players are going to do… each azygous paper successful this acceptable is similar a cautiously handcrafted gift,” Verhey concluded. “We’ve enactment truthful overmuch time, and energy, and probe into it, and I conscionable truly anticipation that arsenic you spot the cards you spot immoderate of that travel through.”

“When it comes to Universes Beyond, there’s a batch of antithetic sentiments among the subordinate basal astir however they consciousness astir definite cards, and definite sets,” Deveney added. “This 1 was made for you: if you’re a fan, you privation to get into the franchise, if you conscionable truly like Magic sets… this was made for you, by radical who truly conscionable privation you to person a large Friday nighttime with your friends… that’s benignant of the eventual goal, conscionable to reconnect and person a large time.”

Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy releases June 13.

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