Yes, you read that correctly. MTG Final Fantasy has revealed its first wave of cards, and they include a creature that can attack for 10,000 damage. Oh, and it’s Standard-legal.
To be clear, that’s not a fudge. This isn’t a creature that can technically dish out this ridiculously high damage number if you pull off a multi-card combo or jump through some hoops. It’s actually very straightforward. Jumbo Cactuar is a 1/7, which gets a +9,999/+0 buff when it attacks.
It’s a very flavorful design, representing this Final Fantasy 8 boss monster’s move: 10,000 needles, which instantly kills any character. It’s also utterly absurd – for good or ill, Magic designs are slowly becoming indistinguishable from the meme-iest cards on r/custommagic.
Is this overpowered? Probably not actually. The MTG Final Fantasy creature costs seven mana, after all, and lacks any other abilities or keywords. But if your opponent plonks one of these down, you’re going to want to kill it off as soon as possible – you just know they’ll have some way to give it trample.
Personally, I’m just itching to run Jumbo Cactuar in Commander alongside Fling, or put it into my Anzrag deck for a 30,000 damage turn.
Alongside this big green guy, Wizards of the Coast has revealed that this Magic: The Gathering set features the first appearance of Saga creatures. Not to be confused with Sagas that flip into creatures, which appeared in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, these are cards that are both enchantment sagas and creatures at the same time.
They represent Summons, creatures that are summoned to take part in battle, which are a common feature of the Final Fantasy series. An example is Summon: Shiva, which plays like a normal Saga, starting with an immediate effect and getting a lore counter each turn, before getting sacrificed after the last one is placed. Summon: Shiva can also attack – but only gets to do so once, on the turn after she was played. It’s a bit odd – but a cool way of implementing the feature.
Finally, MTG Final Fantasy has double-faced cards, representing all sorts of stuff, from multi-stage boss monsters to minigames or key story moments. A fun example is Emet-Selch, a character from FF14 who eventually becomes a key villain. His card starts out as a simple looter, but get 14 cards into your graveyard (get it?) and he flips into Hades, a mighty avatar that lets you play cards from the bin.
More details on Final Fantasy’s unique cards and mechanics are expected in May. Until then, check out our MTG release schedule to guide to stay up to date. You might also enjoy our guides to all working MTG Arena codes, and the best MTG Arena decks.
Source: Wargamer
