There’s been something in the air surrounding Magic The Gathering as a game in the last year or so. It feels like the sets have all come under fire from various different corners of the playerbase for multiple reasons, but one that keeps cropping up is that sets feel like they’re all over the place. Designers are wanting to make something that works in as many formats as possible, but they keep falling short of expectations. But with the upcoming Universes Beyond Final Fantasy set, it looks like that’s about to change.
Reveals for the set have been taking place over the last few weeks prior to the launch in mid-June, and it’s being received incredibly well - which is very good news since this is the first Universes Beyond set that’s being printed directly into Standard format. These releases are no longer just Commander releases, or releases for tangential formats - they’re now part of Magic The Gathering’s core DNA, for better or worse.
I think that’s very apparent too when you look at the previews themselves. Obviously a lot of focus has been put on the Standard and Commander products - they’re the ones that will make the most money, after all. But something that’s really stood out to me is that a lot of cards in this set feel almost tailor-made for the Competitive Commander format (cEDH). Cards like Vivi Ornitier and Clive, Ifrit’s Dominant could be really fun builds for that format, and there’s a massive series of reprints in the set that are utterly incredible not only in the Competitive commander format, but also in the Commander format as a whole.
Here’s a non-exhaustive list of reprints that will appeal to cEDH and casual Commander players:
- Bolas's Citadel
- Jodah The Unifier
- Tymna The Weaver
- Winota, Joiner of Forces
- Rhystic Study
- Atraxa, Grand Unifier
- Command Beacon
cEDH might not technically be a format governed by Wizards of the Coast like normal Commander is, but it can’t help but feel like with this set the designers have decided to throw a bone to fans of that format. These are all reprints that have been asked for by fans for years, these are all reprints that are going to shift boxes. Rhystic Study especially is such an interesting reprint considering that players in standard Commander are constantly complaining about Stax pieces in the game, yet here it’s one of the main reprints. It’s obviously a balancing act between what sells packs and what keeps the player base happy, and it’s a tightrope walk to do something like this.
There is a concern I have, I will admit, and this goes for every single format that this set is legal in - power creep. There’s cards in this set that are incredibly powerful, cards that in previous sets would have been the big chase cards but here that seem to just be another card that you might pull as pack filler. That stuff is fine when it comes to Commander - the entire purpose of it as a format is to be able to set your own rules, your own power bracket. But in, say, Standard? There’s no agreement there. It’s a primarily competitive format. So how bad is the power creep here actually going to be? Are we going to see several bans as a result of new cards released in this set? It’s impossible to say without some actual time in the format, but it’s worrying.
I think, as a Commander set, Final Fantasy might be the best in the last five years. There’s clearly a massive pressure on the set designers to get this right - it’s the first Universes Beyond set to be legal in standard, it’s already the highest selling set of all time based on pre-orders alone. Regardless of what people online might want you to believe, Commander IS the easiest format for people to get into thanks to the way pre-game discussions work and the relative ease of getting hold of a Commander deck, so this is Wizards of the Coast putting their best foot forward - and it might even make fans of the cEDH format, too.
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