During PAX East weekend, Wizards of the Coast took the main stage for two hours to begin preview season for its newest, and biggest Magic: The Gathering set of the year in Final Fantasy. We had the opportunity to sit down with four of the developers of the Final Fantasy set, and asked all of our burning questions about how they managed to build a cohesive set out of over three decades of games, who the set is aimed at, and most importantly, whether people will be able to buy it when it releases.
Final Fantasy has already garnered the attention of plenty of non-Magic players, but seeing all of the cards reveals the sheer abundance of mechanics. The set certainly isn’t designed to be the same kind of onramp as last year’s new-player friendly Foundations or Bloomburrow. That’s by design, according to executive producer Zakeel Gordon. “Because of the audience and the IP is a video game, we get to kind of start the conversation of design two or three layers deeper. So the audience already knows what health, mana, damage, items, party configurations, and glass cannon versus tank. When you move that initial barrier of game design, we get to do a couple more things.”
Because Final Fantasy allows Wizards to do more, the set can introduce new players to more of the greatest hits of Magic: The Gathering than most Standard-legal sets. “We wanted it to be a place you could enter into because a lot of folks are going to enter into Final Fantasy, but then have enough of our like best mechanics to hook you and keep you there,” explains principal designer and set design lead, Gavin Verhey. Sagas are a very popular mechanic returning in the form of creatures featured on a series of Summon spells. Also returning are long-time favorites like Landfall, or slight modifications like the Living Weapon variant called Job Select, on top of a ton of transforming double-faced cards. There’s a lot going on, but the developers aren’t concerned. In fact, they decided to push the boundaries of Magic in a few special places, such as the cycle of rare Adventure lands, a new twist on the mechanic, or if capturing the essence of a fan-favorite character needs that extra push.
To Dillon Deveney, principle game designer and narrative lead on Final Fantasy, pushing boundaries is “is an emblematic approach” to how Wizards designed the set, mirroring how Square Enix develops each new Final Fantasy. “Every time a new Final Fantasy game comes out. It's a big deal,” says Deveney. “They are constantly, with every new release, pushing the boundaries of what cinematics look like, how RPGs are supposed to function, and how we even define the fantasy genre.” In turn, the development team often wandered into familiar yet new territory with Final Fantasy’s cards, especially with marquee characters.
Final Fantasy VII's big bad, Sephiroth, showcased in an utterly powerful card - and it's reverse side is even more powerful.
There is no talking about Final Fantasy as a whole without bringing up arguably the most memorable big bad of them all, Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII. His card is not only a double-sided creature, starting in his most iconic humanoid form and transforming into the deity-level final boss known as the One-Winged Angel, Safer Sephiroth, but he holds a vary rare ability as well. “We knew we wanted to do something really splashy for Sephiroth. I mean, it's Sephiroth,” Verhey chuckles. “We wanted to do something special and really pull out the stops.”
Sephiroth’s front half includes a powerful Blood Artist effect, draining opponents when creatures die. The backside, Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel, slams that ability permanently on the board by producing an emblem, an effect that only one other creature has had in Magic’s history, which, unsurprisingly, was also a Universes Beyond card. “Sephiroth is a character that always persists,” Verhey continues. “He's always lingering over you, no matter what's happening. The fact that once you got rid of him, there's still this Blood Artist emblem slowly sapping at your soul, that just feels right.”
While there are plenty of spectacular one-offs, especially depicting the main characters of each Final Fantasy, Wizards had the task of making a mechanically cohesive set. That’s a tough job with sixteen games that share thematic throughlines, but are increasingly different in how they play. To bring all of these games together in a way that makes sense, dots had to be connected to make it all work. For instance, the original Final Fantasy introduced the Job system, while Final Fantasy XIV is the most modern expression of classes and jobs in the series. Thus, both feed into the Job Select mechanic for Equipment.
Likewise, the Final Fantasy team had other pieces to fit together, namely how the main set cards would flavorfully work with the Commander decks based on four games in the series. For Final Fantasy X’s deck, everything fell into place nicely. The deck, called Counter Blitz is inspired by X’s Sphere Grid, where players use sphere items to beef up characters and bestow new abilities upon them. Like the Sphere Grid, Couter Blitz is all about manipulating various counters on your permanents. A big part of the main set is the inclusion of Summons, which also use counters, and are a big part of Final Fantasy X’s story.
Senior game designer, and lead game designer for the Final Fantasy Commander decks, Daniel Holt shed some light on how a game’s narrative meld with the new card mechanics perfectly for this deck. “I wanted to build on the flavor. The Saga Creatures, for example, use counters. The Final Fantasy X deck is all about the Summons in that game, going around collecting them; it's driven the whole story. So in that deck, you get to keep them around longer, because you're removing those counters, they're going to trigger their abilities again. It just plays into that theme more.”
My final question for the group of developers was less about the set itself, but it’s something people have asked me many times over the last couple of months. It’s a real concern for new players: Will fans of Final Fantasy and Magic even be able to get their hands on the cards when the set is released? Gordon had a quick and confident response on deck, saying, “It is a standard legal set, so we do want to make sure that it's available for players, so all the play-based products—Play Boosters, Commander decks, starter kits— As time goes on, those will be reprinted and made available.”
Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy officially launches on June 13, with prerelease events starting June 6, and the Magic Arena release on June 10. Make sure to check out the full set preview right here on MTG Salvation.
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