Wizards of the Coast has revealed the hotly anticipated Magic the Gathering cards for both Sephiroth, the iconic villain of Final Fantasy VII, and Aerith Gainsborough, the beloved healer who he famously murders partway into that epic adventure, for its upcoming Final Fantasy Magic set. There’s a mechanical synergy between the pair that strongly incentivizes you to recreate Sephiroth’s most infamous act, and use him to sacrifice your own copy of Aerith.
With the MTG Final Fantasy release date just over a month away, Wizards of the Coast has let slip a whole livestream of card reveals. Sephiroth and Aerith are both part of the main set for Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy, rather than the Commander Precons, so they will show up in drafts and, possibly, Standard.
Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is a 3/3 Legendary creature Human Avatar Soldier that costs two generic and one black mana. When he enters or attacks, you can sacrifice another creature you control and draw a card. He also has a Blood Artist effect: whenever another creature dies, you gain one life and target opponent loses one life.
But wait – there’s more! If you trigger that Blood Artist effect four times in one turn, you transform Sephiroth to his reverse side, Sephiroth, One Winged Angel. The transformed Sephiroth is a 5/5 Avatar Nightmare Angel with Flying, and whenever he attacks, you can sacrifice any number of creatures and draw that many cards. And as you transform Sephiroth, you create an Emblem with his Blood Artist effect on.
Yes, this goes in Aristocrats. There will be cute things to do in EDH if you can blink Sephiroth repeatedly to reset him. And if Mobilize decks gain any kind of traction in Standard, Sephiroth is going to be trivial to transform. However his three toughness puts him well in range of most removal, so he’s not at risk of becoming a Sheoldred-style threat that you have to tech around.
Aerith is the polar opposite. A 2/2 Legendary creature Human Cleric with lifelink that costs two generic and one white mana, whenever you gain life you place a +1/+1 counter on Aerith Gainsborough. If she ever dies, you get to put X +1/+1 counters onto each legendary creature you control, where X is the number of +1/+1 counters on Aerith.
Jodah, the Unifier players are already salivating, as are Counters players who have noted that the counters never move off Aerith when she dies, so they can be moved onto the Ozolith. But in Standard it’s hard to see a three mana 2/2 performing, at least not while Izzet Prowess is burning everything to a crisp. She’s just too slow and expensive.
But if you open these two in your Sealed pool, you’re laughing. If you have other creatures to sacrifice to Sephiroth, you can pump up Aerith into a very chunky lifelinker that your opponent doesn’t want to kill. And then you can swing with Sephiroth, kill Aerith anyway, draw a card, and dump the counters onto him.
One thing is becoming clear for the Final Fantasy MTG set: it’s an absolute flavor win. Sephiroth’s transformation is triggered by four deaths in a turn, a reference to his tendency to wipe out your party of four heroes. Aerith giving all your other Legendary creatures counters represents her death galvanizing the party to complete their quest. Great stuff.
Excited to sleeve up a Sephiroth deck? Which Final Fantasy characters are you most excited to see? We’d love to discuss them with you in the official Wargamer Discord server!
Make sure to check out our guide to the MTG release schedule so you know exactly when these cards will be available, and what’s coming up next!
Source: Wargamer
