Release date: June 13th 2024
Set code: FIC
Throughout my set reviews I use '~' to denote the subject card.
To save time I only list the cards which I believe are playable.
THE CARDS
Celes, Rune Knight
Awww, I was expecting some support for Runes.
The big rummage trigger is handy for fueling delve, discarding Reanimate targets and turning on delirium. Also nice with Proft's Eidetic Memory, Rielle, the Everwise, Marauding Mako.
~'s second ability goes infinite with a Persist creature and a sac outlet. That is a ≈turn4, 3card, creature reliant and graveyard reliant combo. Another downside is you're probably 4 colours. The more I think about it the less playable it seems...
The upside is there's a lot of redundancy. Also, most of the good sac outlets are noncreatures, and the Persist creatures...have Persist, so there's some resiliency.
The ≈6 Persist creatures are practically Grizzly Bears and Scathe Zombies, except for Murderous Redcap. Admittedly Kitchen Finks can gain infinite life but that's not a definitive win against every deck. So, with Murderous Redcap being the only Persister with a good trigger I think the best approach is to use the sac outlets which win the game when you go infinite, i.e.:
Phyrexian Altar (dumping your hand is probably a win, especially if you run a companion)
Evereth, Viceroy of Plunder (vulnerable to removal but close enough to a win)
You probably also run Carrion Feeder and Viscera Seer because they allow you to go infinite turn3, which is fast enough to make up for the indefinite kill.
Shelinda, Yevon Acolyte
Another 'persist resetter' to help Celes, Rune Knight.
~ doesn't work with Kitchen Finks until she gets a +1/+1 counter but all the other persisters are fine.
The original persist resetter was Melira, Sylvok Outcast. ~ is an upgraded 2drop option for Green Sun's Zenith over Melira.
Tromell, Seymour's Butler
Yet another 'persist resetter' to help Celes, Rune Knight. Three in one set has gotta be the record.
G'rahna Tia, Scion Reborn
Terra, Herald of Hope
Obviously she only goes in decks with high creature density.
Ardbert, Warrior of Darkness
What it says on the can.
Particularly good with legendaries that are black and white.
Cait Sith, Fortune Teller
Strong threat for a red Mishra's Workshop deck.
The trigger says "play", so you can play lands with it.
If you're running some 'affinity for artifacts' spells, then you might get a huge power buff, e.g.
Kappa Cannoneer is another biggen'.
Gau, Feral Youth
However, ~ triggers each endstep, which is a lot of potential damage. Imagine turn3 attacking with ~ and casting Become Immense. 18 damage, pretty crazy.
I think the most likely home for ~ would be an aggro deck with high power yet fragile threats, which die easily and then a bunch of reanimation effects to bring them back.
Scavenging Ooze type creatures are able to trigger ~ in the opponent's turn. There's also Keen-Eyed Curator, Deathrite Shaman and Lion Sash.
Hildibrand Manderville
A worse Mosswood Dreadknight.
I think you'll need a lot of synergy for ~ to work, i.e. mass tokens or legends or powerful effects which require a creature to sacrifice, otherwise ~ is too weak by himself.
If you're a legends deck with lots of incidental discard, ~ is great value. I'm imagining the below suite:
Interceptor, Shadow's Hound
and the following two:
Sabin, Master Monk
Too slow to hardcast but straight up value if you rummage/loot him into your graveyard.
Sephiroth, Fallen Hero
Too slow to hardcast but straight up value if you rummage/loot him into your graveyard...not as simple as Sabin obviously, you'll need some counter placement and maybe an equipment that can rummage/loot, e.g. Pip-Boy 3000.
There's less elegance in design with these commander precons. They don't have to consider how the cards work within a large set.
Sephiroth's lore is a rabbit hole too deep for me but 'Fallen Hero' implies he's become a bad guy at this point, so it's weird they gave him Boros colours. Every other fallen creature in Magic is black or Phyrexian:
Krile Baldesion
Definitely not black or Phyrexian yet perfect for a Lurrus control deck.
You need lots of 1 and 2 mana creatures which demand removal, or are able to discard other creatures themselves, so that ~ can bring them back.
Noncreature spells with 'X' in their cost get a little bit better with ~ in your deck.
Regardless of which third colour you choose, you get the following staples:
Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student*
Ledger Shredder
Esper and Jeskai have good removal, so realistically you won't be Bant. Without going too deep, here are some Jeskai and Esper staple options:
Jeskai:
Dragon's Rage Channeler
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer*
Fear of Missing Out
Slickshot Show-Off
Esper:
Tinybones, the Pickpocket (not a staple but I think it's underplayed)
Deathrite Shaman*
Orcish Bowmasters*
Dark Confidant
Psychic Frog*
Dauthi Voidwalker
Esper only because you need cantrips to trigger ~ enough.
Everyone had the same reaction, "WTF, they did Nadu again?!". No, no, they got it right this time. Still powerful though.
Emperor of Bones
...and perhaps the following little guy:
Papalymo Totolymo
Late game looping with Lurrus is nice.
Professor Hojo
If you have an equipment you draw a card on each of your turns, which is pretty crazy (and ~ does look crazy). Naturally ~ pairs with white for the equipment tutors.
Getting a trigger on your opponent's turn is a lot harder, but if you're drawing 2 cards on each of your turns that's probably more than you can play out anyway, so it doesn't matter.
'Scientist' is a sneaky new creature type. The Dr. Who set had the first Scientists. There are currently 19 total yet there is zero tribal payoff. Free the Scientists!
Perhaps Scientist tribal will be a theme in the upcoming Spider-Man...gotta say I'm quite disgusted by how Disney has jammed their shit down everyone's throats. I started typing "s-p-i-d-e-r" into Google and Spider-Man was suggested before actual fucking spiders. Capitalism sucks so bad dude.
Locke, Treasure Hunter
Lyse Hext
Very vulnerable but she's so scary that she's worth it. A couple removal spells for their blockers and she hits for at least 8 damage. Or maybe a cantrip + Monstrous Rage for 14 damage.
Setzer, Wandering Gambler
Although not castable on turn1 with Mana Crypt, ~ can trigger from the coin flips.
~ rewards you for running Vehicles. All signs point towards Rakdos Artifact Aggro. There's a cap on how many Vehicles you can run because you need enough actual creatures to crew them. The 'living metal' Transformers are a cool way to slightly increase your Vehicle density for ~ without cutting crew members. Flamewar, Brash Veteran and Starscream, Power Hungry are especially suitable because they're on colour and have evasion to trigger ~. They're also legends, so there's a possibility of Mox Amber.
I'm not sure how this one goes with the judges but ~ goes 'infinite' with Frenetic Efreet; You can activate Efreet 1,000,000,000 times by holding priority and if you lose a flip and sac the Efreet you don't care because you still have 1,000,000,000 - n coin flips on the stack that you can win. Resolving that many flips would go to time, so I'm not sure how many treasures you get. The combo may be illegal. Chance Encounter and Tavern Swindler also combo with Frenetic Efreet but they're too poopy by themselves to be playable.
The combo is too fragile and slow to be worth all the tutors. Realistically it's probably not playable. Maybe...maybe, there's a Pillar of the Paruns deck that can Glittering Wish for Frenetic Efreet if you happen to have ~ lying around.
Shadow, Mysterious Assassin
Decent in Hogaak decks. You're already running a bunch of expendable cheap creatures to sac and occaisionally you can throw Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis or Gorex, the Tombshell at their face.
~ can be Lightning Bolt'ed but the risk may be worth it.
Snort
Good curve topper for Sligh/Burn. Save that deck for a nonBarrowgoyf meta though.
SOLDIER Military Program
Easy to dismiss this one because it has a commander clause but that second trigger is very good for Soldier tribal. Admittedly, the Soldier tribe are a few payoffs short right now, but the standalone creature quality is there.
Summoner's Sending
Strong with the Lord of the Rings landcyclers, or any ≥4mana cycling creature. Other cards that reward you for running those cyclers include:
If you run a bunch of 1drops that your opponent will kill on sight, that helps ~ trigger turn2. Running Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek can also help ~ trigger turn2.
You don't need to trigger ~ every turn for it to be good. If you can get 4 power out of it you're pretty happy.
Summon: Esper Valigarmanda
Woah, ~ is very powerful.
If you get the second chapter trigger then you're also getting the second attack and that's probably enough value to win the game.
Flying haste is good for snatching Monarch/Initiative or donking planeswalkers.
Summoning Materia
If you've got a deck full of cheap creatures, cheap removal and you're running Skullclamp, the equipment tutors and ~, I can't imagine how you lose to control.
~ is similar to The Reality Chip, which has been overlooked. I do remember McCormick running it though.
Summon: Kujata
You need acceleration to cast ~ before you die to aggro or combo but if you do manage to cast ~ it will likely win the game by itself.
Yuna's Decision
Annie from Melbourne top8'd consecutive PoG monthlies early this year with her Sultai Oath Reanimator list and since then it has been picked up by several other players.
If you can find ≈12 decent ≤3 mana noncreature ways to incidentally make creature tokens, then you could transform Annie's list to run Natural Order and ~ to cheat in the big creatures.
Polymorph effects are also an option but I advise against them because they expose you to removal.
SIDEBOARD CARDS
Avalanche of Sector 7
A lot of combos rely on artifact abilities:
- Time Vault + Voltaic Key ─ They take 2 damage a turn until they find removal.
- Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Brain Freeze ─ They probably already have a removal spell in the graveyard, in which case they will probably take 1 damage to LED + Brain Freeze once and then another 1 to LED + removal spell, so I suppose ~ is pretty poopy here.
- Storm ─ I'm not a Storm player so I don't have a good idea of how much damage ~ will deal on average but if I had to guess I would say 4???; They run ≈11 artifacts with activated abilities and they often double up with Yawgmoth's Will and Doomsday. Bolas's Citadel and Doomsday also put presure on their life total making ~ more effective.
- Shuko + Nadu, Winged Wisdom ─ eventually they'll hit an en-kor creature to replace the Shuko, or they'll hit a removal spell for ~, but ~ will deal about 8 damage.
Having said all this, most of these combos have the potential to kill before turn3, so you really want a 'sol' mana base to get ~ down quickly, i.e. Ancient Tomb, City of Traitors, Mana Crypt/Sol Ring, Chrome Mox, etc.
Summon: Good King Mog XII
CONCLUSION
I gotta say, there were a lot of warrior characters with swords in these two Final Fantasy sets, and wayyy too much perfect skin. If you use a sword for a living, your body is gonna be worn out, you do not have a moisturising routine and a ring light.
Here are my picks for most powerful cards in the set:
Ok, now for me to complete the Edge of Eternities set review before the prerelease! Which is something I've never done.
See you on the glorious field of battle,
Mulch
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