Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 3 (10/05/2025 - Black cards)
Yes, this is a part solely dedicated to Black cards and that's precisely because 1 silver haired swordsman with a way too long katana needed to be a flip card and have 4 versions, so that's already 8 images of Tumblr's max of 30 per post. Anyway, let's immediately hop in, starting with Malboro:
An absolute staple of the franchise and the nightmare of a lot of people when you see the words "Bad Breath" appear on screen. Black seems about right for it, maybe Black/Green, but it's alright. Let's talk about its stats first. A 6 mana 4/4 is pretty badly behind rate, but it isn't really breaking or falling short of any thresholds, so it is somewhat okay. Let's talk about the abilities.
Bad Breath. Yes, this is the first time I'm acknowledging the flavor words, but that's how iconic that ability is. When this creature enters, every opponent discards a cards, loses 2 life and exiles the top 3 cards of their library. This is just a giant "screw you" to all your opponents. This compensates for the bad statline compared to mana cost, since discarding a card can be a bad thing, losing 2 life is always a bad thing and straight up losing the top 3 cards of your library for the rest of the game sucks. Now, if you are able to blink this thing, you will make people hate you as you slowly chip away at their libraries.
Swampcycling for 2, where you discard this card and then search your library for a Swamp card, reveal it, put it into your hand. Solid if you either draw it too early to cast in a reasonable time or when you draw it too late to make a difference.
So, despite my early tone when talking about its stats: DAMN. That's a cool ass common card. When flickering this thing, you definitely get a lot of mileage out of that entering effect and it is not a bad combatant either. For a common, this is surprisingly pretty great. The only bad thing about it is the fact that it is 6 mana and below rate for stats, but that's workable. Good way to show Bad Breath too. In the games it is about giving you every status effect, but for a card game, messing with your life total, cards in hand and cards in deck gets pretty close. Maybe it should've tapped a land and added a stun counter on it, but for a common that would've been much.
Now for the art. Credit to Dan Watson. Link to his ArtStation website thing. Simple is definitely not the word I want to use, since the Malboro is highly detailed. However, it is one of the only things to see. Also, holy hell does it look disgusting... I LOVE IT. This art makes it seem like if you encounter this thing, you are screwed and that's the proper horror that Malboros inflict. Fantastic job.
Now for another equipment: Black Mage's Rod. First equipment we'll talk about that we haven't seen already in the starter kit leak.
So in essence this is a 2 mana 2/1 that you create that leave the equipment behind. That equipment gives equipped creature +1/+0, "whenever you cast a noncreature spell, this creature deal 1 damage to each opponent" and makes it a Wizard in addition to its other types. So... its a Firebrand Archer on an equipment. Not bad, but also not great. You'd have to get some way to pump this damage up for this to really be worth it in any deck. A commander like Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin can use it, since that cares for dealing exactly 1 damage to people somehow. Aside from that, kind of a hard equipment to make much use of. It can be used to make something a Wizard for the sake of the party mechanic, though.
Now for the art. Credit to Nino Is. Link to their ArtStation. That sure is a nondescript Black Mage in a nondescript cave or tunnel using magic. I kid, but it is funny just how nondescript these characters have to be. It is good art, a bit more of a realistic interpretation of FF1 and not in a bad way either. I really like it, it is nice. I wish there was a bit more going on with the background, but it's a cool art.
Let's talk about some villains. First up, Ardyn, the Usurper
Ardyn. Mono Black makes sense for him. A manipulated, twisted man. I wouldn't even add a color to him to be honest, because by the time we meet him, he's already so far gone that just hatred remains.
Let's talk about his mechanics. 8 mana for a 4/4 is awful. Genuinely really bad. His abilities are:
Demons you control have menace, lifelink and haste. This is the first mono black card that cares about Demons, which is really weird. Anyway, those are all really good buffs to give, so he's at least a good buff stick for a Demon tribal deck
At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may exile a creature card from any graveyard. If you exile a card this way, make a token copy of that card, except it is a 5/5 black Demon. So this is what makes his first ability so important: you can start exiling and copying creatures out of other people's graveyards that then come in, have menace, lifelink and haste and are 5/5s that they have to deal with. This is great, this will end games and friendships
So, that's the entire card. I have to still say that 8 mana for a 4/4 is laughably bad, but the abilities on this card make up for it, mainly because it means that this card isn't a dead drop on the turn it comes in. If that second ability was even slightly more restrictive, I would've definitely been super down on this card, but because it is like that and can make even the smallest creatures in graveyards a pretty big threat to deal with, I will give props to Ardyn. The main thing against him still is that for commander, you have to protect him. Even getting him shot off the board once is awful, 10 mana is so much to just recast him once.
He doesn't exist in 60 card formats. 8 mana is like genuinely like turn 6 area, at which point this card isn't enough of a momentum changer to matter. I hate to say it, but this is just not a card you will see in serious 60 card formats.
As for the art. Credit to Russell Lu. I did not find any accounts they might have. I did find someone called Russell Dongjun Lu, but he has a separate credit on Kain, Traitorous Dragoon, so I cannot confirm whether this is the same person, especially since Russell Dongjun Lu doesn't post as much. Ardyn looking as disheveled and messy as always, in the ruins of... some place. I should remember, but I do not, my bad. Honestly, while a bit simple, it does do the job very well. Only thing: where hat? :( Great art, this is fantastic. I also really like the chains, shame they aren't really visible on the normal version of the card.
As for the first alternative art. Yes, you read that correctly, we're now talking first alternative arts and no, this isn't a case like the Cids where they are different characters.
Credits to Rorubei. Link to their Twitter. That sure is a good art of Ardyn and nothing else. Sorry, bringing up the blank backgrounds again. No, but really, I really like this art of Ardyn. Not my favorite, that is the next one we'll talk about. I do love how he looks like he is just greeting you. This is very very good, I like it.
As for the second alternative art:
Credit to Roberto Ferrari. No links, since he's an official artist and character designer at Square Enix. That also makes this very easy to talk about this art: yes, this is obviously the best one and looks phenomenal. The only wish I had is that the background was a little less nondescript, but this is fantastic. This looks like an official FF artwork for FF15, because it was done by a official character designer for FF15.
Moving on to FF4, Kain got a card: Kain, Traitorous Dragoon.
So Kain got done when he was mind controlled and betrayed the party. In that case, Black makes sense. He isn't in control, but the things he does while mind controlled are definitely Black aligned on the color pie.
As for his mechanics. 3 mana for a 2/4 is on rate. 1 toughness higher and 1 power lower than completely on rate, but that evens out to be entirely on rate. On your turn, Kain also flies to emulate the Jump mechanic Dragoons in Final Fantasy have, meaning he is pretty evasive to do damage with.
Then his main big ability: When Kain deals combat damage to a player, the player that was dealt damage by Kain gains control of Kain. If they gain control of Kain, you draw X cards, make X tapped Treasure tokens and lose X life equal to the damage you deal with Kain. This makes Kain a political piece in games and that... makes him very situational. He can absolutely give you some great ramp and card advantage, but he can also do that for your enemies, since the "you" refers to his current controller, not his original owner.
I wouldn't recommend you run him as your commander. He's cool, but he will also stack up your commander damage on yourself and if you kill a person with him, you actually don't get the card draw and Treasures, because they will die as a state based action before the trigger can resolve. In the 99 of a political deck is where he works best in my opinion, since you can trade him out to someone while causing symmetrical life loss to happen and giving someone cards and Treasure in exchange of not hitting you or anything. This makes Kain a lot better.
In 60 card formats, he's alright. The main issue is that you'll need to finish the game fast or accept you are just swinging with Kain once to get the card draw and the Treasure and after that blow him up, since he will also be collecting card draw and Treasure for your opponent. So strike hard, strike fast or just be ready to immediately murder him.
Now for the art. Credit to Russell Dongjun Lu. Link to their ArtStation. It's looking very nice. Kain when he betrays the party, ready to kill Cecil. Overall, very nice. The background isn't too busy, but still detailed enough. Kain himself is looking very good and properly ready to backstab the party. I really really like it, good job.
Next up, a giant spoiler for FF14. No, seriously, what the hell. Zodiark, Umbral God:
I'm gonna try and walk around all the spoilers as much as possible and not acknowledge certain things, but yeah, Black makes perfect sense for Zodiark, if for nothing else that he's the god of Darkness. Even then, he was hugely destructive.
Let's move on to the mechanics. 5 Black mana for a 5/5 is on rate. I do want to emphasize that it is specifically 5 Black mana, meaning that you will have to play a deck that is primarly or mono Black to make this work or you need to have excellent color fixing.
As for his abilities:
Indestructible, so it can't die to destroy effects and damage. It can still die to being reduced to 0 or below toughness by effects that just reduce that number and he can be exiled, but it is gonna be tough to remove him generally.
When Zodiark enters, every player sacrifices half of their non-God creatures they control rounded down. They choose which creatures to sacrifice. So a partial board wipe for anyone not playing God tribal is interesting. Can potentially backfire if you aren't playing God tribal either, but can also be a huge way to swing a game.
Whenever a player sacrifices another creature, you put a +1/+1 counter on Zodiark. So this goes well with the second ability, since all those creatures count for this. So, in a board state of 20 creatures on board, you drop Zodiark and you're going to get 10 +1/+1 counters on him, making him a 15/15. This makes him very scary in Limited game formats, since it is already hard to remove him.
So this card is pretty solid. Honestly, it's only problem is that it requires 5 Black mana pips to cast. If that wasn't the case, this card would've been very very good. For God tribal decks, this would be an asymmetrical partial board wipe. However, in those types of decks, you are definitely running him in the 99 and not as your commander, since there just aren't enough God cards to begin with, let alone in mono black. That makes it then harder to cast him. Honestly, I'd put him in an Aristocrats deck, where you sacrifice your creatures to gain benefits, since the third effect just cares about any sacrificing. As your commander, he's not too bad, somewhat tough to remove and he will grow quite quickly, especially against token decks.
For 60 card formats... eh. If you are playing mono Black, being a half board wipe that gets bigger with each sacrifice is decent, but that's kind of it. You won't be using him in a deck that has 2 or more colors due to his casting cost being 5 Black mana pips, so unless you have insane colorfixing, you will often times not be casting this thing until turn 10 at the earliest, which is horrifically slow.
As for the art. Credit to Akagi. Link to their Twitter. Another fantastic art by Akagi, who did Hildibrand Manderville in the FF14 commander deck. This is great. I can't talk too much about it, since it will spoil things, but yeah, this looks great. Even having the magic circle breaking up his body and the green lasers. Good color choices as well.
As for the alternative art:
Credit to Hisashi Momose. Link to their Twitter. Again looks fantastic. This time Zodiark is bringing down meteors. Can't really talk about too much, because spoilers, but damn. That's a dope art. I love the colors used in this one and the style is fantastic. Very much a big fan.
Now onto another summon, Summon: Primal Odin!
Black feels apt for Odin in FFXIV, it is just kind of a corrupting force that makes anyone who touches the sword into a new Odin. So mono Black makes sense.
Now for the card itself. 6 mana for a 5/3 is definitely behind rate, this statline would've been fine on a 4 or 5 mana creature. Then his abilities.
Lore counter 1: Destroy target creature an opponent controls. That can be a good way to get in some damage on turn 2 of this summon, especially if it is the last or only creature an opponent controls.
Lore counter 2: This creature gains "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player loses the game." So uh... get some evasion and this can genuinely be a wincon. If you only have 2 opponents left, evade past one of your opponents with Odin on his second lore counter and immediately make them lose the game, then do everything else on the other opponent to kill them. If you can somehow get multiple Odins on the second lore counter at the same time, even better if you are able to put evasion on them.
Lore counter 3: Draw 2 cards, each player loses 2 life. This is just solid if you didn't win off the 2nd ability, drawing 2 cards is always a good thing.
So this isn't bad, but it requires some setup to be a legitimate wincon. However, even just knocking out a singular opponent can be huge. The other thing holding it back is the higher mana cost, 6 mana is pretty steep and you can have more efficient ways to win games. However, it will be pretty cool if you pull it off. For commander, give it a spin in a more aggressive Black deck where you can give it evasion of some kind.
In 60 card formats, and say it with me: it's too slow. It is also too telegraphed. For commander you can get away with it since it becomes a political piece as to which opponent to kill and what you get in return for killing them. In 60 card formats, which are 1v1, this thing will get blown up 10/10 times before you can swing with it. Even then, 3 toughness isn't hard to blow through with damage or to reduce. I think it is an interesting experiment, but I don't think much success will be found with Odin.
Now for the art. Credit to Nino Is. Link to their ArtStation. So this looks cool, it is unfortunate in the same situation all Summons will be: because it is a Saga card, the art is really small and pushed to the right of the card. However, with that said, man does Odin look threatening in that art and like he has come from the more swamp like areas of the Black Shroud to murder some people. Very dope art, good amount of details as well.
As for the alternative art:
Credit to Tomohito. Link to their Twitter. This definitely takes a bit of the menacing vibes away, but instead shows a better look at Odin and Sleipnir. This is also very very good, I think it looks great. I could've believed if this was promotional artwork used for an event or something from the FF14 team. Very cool!
Now, second to last card to talk about in this part, The Darkness Crystal:
DAHKNESS! Anyway, this will be part of a cycle of crystals, one for each MTG color. All of them will have "<x color> spells you cast will cost 1 less to cast." So moving on from that, which is already a good ability btw. Its other abilities:
If a noncreature token an opponent controls would die, instead exile and you gain 2 life. This alone makes it so you have a huge target on your back in a multiplayer game or that this is one of the biggest things to immediately be removed. It will gain you a good amount of life if left unchecked, but that's not the scariest part.
For 6 mana and tap, you can put any target creature card that was exiled with The Darkness Crystal into the battlefield tapped under your control and with 2 additional +1/+1 counters on them. So your board state gets bigger, while your opponent's becomes smaller. Interesting to note that whatever you resurrect does go to the graveyard of your opponent's, so they actually have good incentive to not kill The Darkness Crystal before you put their big thing back on the battlefield. Also wild that this will allow you to pay 6 mana for otherwise huge creatures, only with the disadvantage of summoning sickness and them being tapped, but both of those are solvable.
For 4 mana, this is quite the good artifact to put on the table. Cost reduction, exiling creatures and being able to resurrect exiled creatures is kind of crazy. Main thing is that this will definitely be a target for removal, so if you have ways to protect it, definitely consider running them. It also can be a good distraction piece for something even more devious!
Now for the art. Credit to Pablo Mendoza. Link to his ArtStation. It sure be a dark crystal. Nah, but for real, this is nice. A bit monotone with all the purple, but it does fit for The Darkness Crystal. Also like the grabby hands on the right, they do add a sense of foreboding and mystery to the place. Overall, pretty good.
As for the alternative art, which this thing got for some reason but not Kain:
Credit to Kei Satsuki. Link to their Twitter. Second verse, same as the first, only with other crystals instead of grabby hands. Also, the environment is a lot less detailed. Just kind of a floor and smokey effects and not much else. Still looks nice though!
And now... the silver haired prick. Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER and Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel and his f**king 3 variations, holy sh*t.
Black is completely fine for Sephiroth. I'd argue he should almost always be Blue/Black, but mono Black is fine. This isn't the worst color pie misalignment we will see for this man, believe me.
Sephiroth is a 3 mana 3/3, which is perfectly fine and on rate. Then his abilities:
When Sephiroth enters or attacks, you may sacrifice another creature. If you do, draw a card. This is fine, kind of leans into an Aristocrats playstyle. We will get to that... soon, but yeah, this is cool and even somewhat thematic for how Sephiroth is willing to sacrifice anything to get to his goal of complete annihilation.
Whenever another creature dies, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. If this is the fourth time this ability has resolved this turn, transform Sephiroth. Again, this leans into more of an Aristocrats playstyle, where you sacrifice your creatures a bunch to get benefits. In this case, you get to make someone lose 1 life and you gain 1 life. Also, your transformation.
Which brings us to the backside, Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel. 5/5 Flying is pretty solid. Then his abilities are:
When this creature transforms into Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel, you get an emblem with "Whenever a creature dies, target opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life." Emblems are passive effects that cannot be interacted with at all. This emblem gives you Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER's second ability at all times, really leaning into the Aristocrats playstyle.
Whenever Sephiroth attacks, you may sacrifice any number of other creatures. If you do, draw that many cards. Again, really going into the Aristocrats playstyle. This is also really really good if you have a whole bunch of tokens, since that can be massive card advantage.
So how to rate this card? Well, obviously, it's good and when you transform it, you are always passively getting those damage pings and lifegain. Fun fact, you can get that Emblem multiple times and therefore enhance your pinging potential. This also makes it so there is serious consideration to be done to at least kill Sephiroth yourself once, then recast him and do it all over again. This is probably the card I have the least ways to say that there are flaws. It is genuinely insane. I also hate Emblems because of how busted they are with not being interactable at all. This card is really good and can work great as either your commander or in the 99 of an Aristocrats deck. Both will work very well.
In a 60 card format... eh. Certainly not the worst card we've seen so far, probably even the one with the most potential, but it does require a good amount of time or setup, because especially in 1v1s, your opponent will be more than happy to just take 3 damage than let you transform. While untransformed Sephiroth is still good, he isn't as good, so eh. You might be able to have some success with him, but it is a good amount of setup to do so.
Now for the art. Credit to Wisnu Tan. Link to their Instagram. The first of three amazing artworks. Yeah yeah, let's cut to the chase and just say that all of the artwork for this prick is great. Regular Sephiroth here looks fantastic and the background is great, even having the little bit of fire below him is such a good touch. Safer Sephiroth looks majestic and the background, while relatively simple, fits him perfectly. These are great.
As for the first of the alternative art:
Credit to Maji. Link to their Twitter. Yup, still looking great. Good call to have the person who did Cloud's alt art do Sephiroth's first alt art as well. Basically what I said for the art before still counts here, though I should say that the posing for Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is a bit more bland in this one, but it isn't bad.
As for the second of the alternative art:
Credit to Tetsuya Nomura. No link, because y'all know who Tetsuya Nomura is and I refuse to explain things further. Anyway, no, it wasn't a mistake to put it like this, because this is actually a big continuous art. It is young Sephiroth from Ever Crisis at the bottom, then regular Sephiroth there, then we get to Bizarro Sephiroth until finally we once again get to Safer-Sephiroth. The only critique I have of this art is that this continuous story isn't really readable with the card border and rules getting in the way. The art itself is so obviously godlike that I don't have to really say much else, it is fucking Normura's art! Actual gigantic favoritism, but man, fair enough. This is awesome.
And that's it. Yes, technically I forgot one mono Black card, but I'll get to her and her girlfriend during the multicolored section, since there is genuinely 0 reason to run the lesbians separated from each other. But yeah, that's all the Black cards. Next up should be both Green and Red, then off to like 2 parts of multi colored cards. With that said, thank you for reading and have a nice day o/
This is a piece of an au of mine related to this drawing where Ardyn becomes a Knight of Etro rather than Besithia's lab assistant and eventual chancellor (and therefore avoids a lot of problems for himself and everyone else)
Ardyn: Etroverse au
Nobody saw him coming.
Between the confusion and the chaos, that was somewhat logical, but Regis still couldn't help the instinctive thought that the stranger had warped into the road.
Had he come to help? To save them? Or was he an enemy?
Regis dragged himself forward. Noctis was up there, alone with the marilith. Alone. He'd heard the nursemaid scream. He knew death when he heard it. He already had his Armiger ready, preparing to warp, when the stranger beat him to it.
"Odin!" shouted the raggedy, flamboyant figure, "Give me a boost, won't you?"
Odin?! Regis felt his mouth drop open as the ancient messenger of the Astrals was suddenly just there. Not that he materialized, or stepped out of some fold in space; he was simply there where he had not been before.
The horned warrior lifted the raggedy man, and Regis glimpsed armor beneath the long coat. Odin launched the man at the marilith, and the man plunged a gleaming red blade into the daemon.
"Best get your little princeling to a doctor, young man," the warrior called nonchalantly, even as he ducked so that Odin could jab at the daemon with a monstrous spear. "I don't like the look of those wounds. I'd heal him myself but- Oopsie-daisies!"
He dodged so quickly that his hat was left behind, then just as rapidly reached back to snatch it back to his head.
"As you can see, I've just the teensiest bit of a full schedule at the moment."
Regis gathered his son into his arms. He's too still- he's much too still! Please, please, I can't lose him too! He gritted his teeth.
"Hold on, son," he whispered, "Just hold on."
Seconds before warping away, he looked up at their rescuer.
"Who are you?"
Not that he truly expected an answer when the man was in the midst of a life and death struggle.
"Oh," the man made a slightly bitter laugh. "Just a man of no consequence."
