You start off as a football player trying to get to the field from your fancy boat house but the fan horde is too dense. A guy on the radio keeps talking about your deadbeat and presumed dead dad who was EVERYONE'S favorite player. Like the whole country still talks about him.
Then the stadium gets blown up. A bomb? Did the fancy equipment break? Wtf, your head hurts.
You stumble out and run into your godfather. Guy's been a drunk bastard and wore the weirdest outfit as long as you can remember but whatever he's still a good guy. He said he was waiting for you instead of running to safety like a normal person. Okay, fine, probably just worried.
But as you rush through the broken streets you see a massive ball of water in the sky hanging like a new moon. But worse because it is way too close. Some weird... thing? Hits a skyscraper and a horde of fragment shells fly off and land in the streets, each as big as yourself and it's not like you're short so holy shit and they unfurl into monsters?!
Uncle Drunkass rambles something vaguely ominous and apocalyptic (is he in a cult...?). Gives you a giant fish hook that apparently your dad got you? You two fight your way to safety even as more of these giant murderspike things rain from the sky. In spite of never holding a sword before in your life but hey maybe that's the adrenaline and stress or maybe you're just a natural.
Then the road breaks and instead of helping you up, Uncle Drunkass says something about stories and destiny, grabs you by the throat AND the sphere of water turns into a HELLISH SPHINCTER OF FEAR AND DEATH and Uncle gets absorbed into it like it's a black hole made of light and meat and you go next because the bastard was holding tight onto you.
...
Then you wake up in a pile of ancient waterlogged ruins, rescued by weirdos on a ship, and then find out you're in the future and everyone thinks your home city is holy or something and you can't say shit about it because they all think that the hell sphincter which apparently is a giant doom monster has mindscrew toxins that you either got mega soaked in or somehow avoided for like a thousand years. So they all think you're nuts. And also your dad was here first and died sacrificing his life to save the world so you still have to live up to his legacy even in this weird maybe-future world.
I know that sora being nobody - the one who wasn't properly bequeathed the keyblade, the one who has no ties to keyblade wielders, the one who just happened to step up at the right time - is part of his narrative, but also his dad could have been perfect for Tidus parallels (of which he already has plenty)
Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy - Spoiler Season Part 16 (12/05/2025 - Counter Blitz Pt. 2)
Part 2 of the Counter Blitz deck, let's get to it! Starting off with Maester Seymour!
3 mana for a 1/3 is behind rate, so that's a bit of a bummer. However... His abilities are:
At the beginning of combat on your turn, put a number of +1/+1 counters equal to Maester Seymour's power on another target creature you control. Keep in mind you can consistently make 1 creature bigger, you don't have to spread this around. Just need ways to make him bigger. Speaking off!
5 mana: Monstrosity X, where X is the number of counters among creatures you control. Monstrosity is a once per instance spell, where if a creature isn't monstrous, they get X +1/+1 counters and become monstrous until they leave the battlefield. This is how you get him bigger. Have other creatures with a lot of counters walking around, pop this and Seymour is instantly a giant threat.
As with a lot of the monocolored creatures in these precons: good in the 99, not great as a commander. Seymour especially needs a good amount of set up to really pop off himself, so better to build him up with a better commander.
Now for the art. Credit to Norikatsu Miyoshi. Link to what I think is their Twitter? It is linked on their pixiv. That sure is Seymour. I do love the magic effects and the spirits surrounding him. They look really cool!
Next up, we have Tromell, Seymour's Butler!
3 mana for a 2/3 is very slightly behind rate, but alright. His abilities are:
Each other nontoken creature you control enters with an additional +1/+1 counter on it. Neat, this guy pumps up all your other nontoken creatures as they enter. Pretty solid.
1 mana and tap: Proliferate X times, where X is the number of nontoken creatures you control that entered this turn. You want to be playing very low mana value creatures to get the most out of this, mostly 1 and 2 drops, even better if they enter with even other counters.
Honestly, this is not bad as a commander. I still think he works better in the 99 of a deck, but you could make some small guy deck that suddenly starts turbo proliferating all the counters on the creatures it has placed and starts taking names with those creatures. Pretty solid all around, definitely wants to be in a counters deck of some sort though.
Now for the art. Credit to Kotetsu Kinoshita. Link to their Twitter. That sure looks like Tromell. I do gotta say, love the background. That's just very nice looking. Overall, pretty good!
Now we go to the only summon in Green, Summon: Magus Sisters!
5 mana for a 5/5 is pretty good. Haste as well, so they will immediately be able to swing. All their lore counters do the same thing, which is choose one of these three at random:
Put three +1/+1 counters on target creature. Solid, pumps a creature up quite high quickly.
Put a shield counter on target creature. You gain 3 life. Also solid, psuedo-indestructible is also very nice. The lifegain is very much irrelevant, but the shield counters can be nice and with moving them around and proliferating them, they really become psuedo-indestructible.
This creature fights up to one target creature an opponent controls. This... is definitely the weakest of the options. I suppose it is small creature removal, but this is not the one you'd want to get 3 times in a row.
So this creature is incredibly hard to rate, since their ability is random. If you get the first three times in a row, pretty good. If you get the second three times in a row, pretty good. If you get the bottom three times in a row, meh. For a bit of chaos, if you are able to keep removing counters off of this, it becomes a bit better. So mainly use this in counter manipulation decks.
Now for the art. Credit to Rui Maruyama. Link to their Twitter. That sure is the Magus Sisters and they look good. Cool!
As for the alternative art:
Credit to Karo ARAI. Link to their Twitter. Let me just skip talking about the Magus Sisters themselves, this background is awesome. It is still relatively simple, but all the effects look so good and the flowers? Amazing. Also, yeah, the Magus Sisters looking on point.
We now move on Yuna's Decision!
4 mana sorcery for one of two effects:
Sacrifice a creature. If you do, draw a card, then you may put a creature card and/or a land card from your hand onto the battlefield. So you sacrifice a creature to draw a card, put another creature on the battlefield and put a land into the battlefield. This definitely works better for more token heavy decks to just cheat in a huge mana drop, but yeah. Honestly quite good.
Return one or two target permanent cards from your graveyard to your hand. Returning any permanent cards is also quite good, could be fetch lands or a big creature. Anything will do and you get to pick 2. Very nice.
Solid sorcery, honestly. The first definitely works better in token strategies, but ever so often you will also just have a creature that isn't doing much anymore, so sacrifice them to get a new creature into play. The second is just good if you have things to bring back, so yeah!
Now for the art. Credit to Yuu Fujiki. Link to their pixiv. This sure is the touching scene where Tidus and Yuna basically confirm that they have feelings for each other. It is pretty well captured though, this is very very nice!
Now we go to Yuna's Whistle!
3 mana instant to reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature card. Put that card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. When you reveal a creature card this way, put X +1/+1 counters on target creature you control, where X is the mana value of that card. So this is a lot and mostly used if at the end of the turn right before yours, you happen to have 3 mana open. You get a creature into your hand and you get X +1/+1 counters on a creature on the board. Not bad, but you'd want the creature revealed to have a huge mana value, which you can't guarantee unless your just running big spells.
Not a great card tbh, unless, again, you're just running huge mana creature and finding ways to cheat them in.
Now for the art. Credit to Norikatsu Miyoshi. Link to what I think is their Twitter? It is linked on their pixiv. That sure is Yuna whistling. Also, there is a Lulu in the background. Neat. Nice colors used though, pretty nice.
Up next: Sphere Grid.
2 mana for an enchantment that does:
Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature. Neat, but you want that creature to be evasive to be able to do combat damage to a player.
Creatures you control with +1/+1 counters on them have reach and trample. Good buffs for creatures with +1/+1 counters on them.
If I take this in a vacuum, not great. You only get evasion after you deal combat damage to a player with your creatures. However, when it is in a +1/+1 counters deck, like the FF10 precon is, you are probably getting that reach and trample before even getting your first counters from this, so that's pretty good.
Now for the art. Credit to KOHEI YAMADA. Link to what I believe is their Twitter, but I'm not sure, because it is impossible for me to confirm this. I found a Cardfight Vanguard wiki that listed this Twitter to the name 山田航平. I am putting that same disclaimer, since nothing has changed since I covered Ishgard. Anyway, that sure is the Sphere Grid. Moving on.
Let's move on to the multicolored cards of the deck and let's start with Kimahri, Valiant Guardian!
4 mana for a 3/3 is behind rate, but we'll get to it. Vigilance is nice, so he can attack without tapping. Also makes sense for Kimahri, always ready. His ability is:
At the beginning of combat on your turn, put a +1/+1 counter on Kimahri and tap target creature an opponent controls. Then you may have Kimahri become a copy of that creature, except its name is Kimahri, Valiant Guardian and it has vigilance and this ability. So, you do take over the stats and the ability of the target creature, but you keep Vigilance and Kimahri's original ability. If you can transform into something super scary from one of your opponents, that could be very very good. It can also make you the threat, so that's a bit of a double edged sword.
If you want to run this as your commander, I'd just abandon the counter strategy and just go full on voltron. Copy into the biggest, most dangerous creature your opponents have and start smacking them around. He can still work with counters (and therefore in the 99 of counters decks), but I'd just also slap some Equipment and Auras on him.
Now for the art. Credit to Christian Angel. Link to their ArtStation. Again, very gritty artstyle from Christian Angel, but I think for Kimahri, it works perfectly! It shows off just how fierce and dead serious he is. Fantastic artwork!
Next up: Shelinda, Yevon Acolyte!
2 mana for a 2/2 is perfectly on rate, good job. Lifelink too, so we're looking at some lifegain when she attacks or blocks. Her ability is:
Whenever another creature you control enters, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature if its power is less than Shelinda's power. Otherwise, put a +1/+1 counter on Shelinda. Good, means you're getting a counter either way when another creature enters while Shelinda is on the battlefield. With a token strategy, you will get a pretty wide and strong board, pretty quick.
Overall, solid. Definitely counters focused, but can also spec into tokens (getting them a bit swoller as they all enter and get checked if they are less power than Shelinda or not) or lifegain via her lifelink. Both as a commander and in the 99 of such decks, neat.
Now for the art. Credit to Shiren. Link to their Twitter. That sure is Shelinda trying to convince people and probably failing. Actually a nice art and probably the best representation of how FF10 looked in-game. This is very nice!
Now for Sin, Unending Cataclysm!
7 mana for a 5/5 is pretty bad. We'll get to it though, since not really. It also has flying and trample, also known as flample. Double evasion! Its abilities are:
As Sin enters, removal all counters from any number of artifacts, creatures and enchantments. Sin enters with X +1/+1 counters on it, where X is twice the number of counters removed this way. This can get out of hand QUICK. If you are against another counter deck, you will see Sin enter with like 50 counters and it is gonna be hard to stop it if you have any kind of way to protect so you can swing out.
When Sin dies, puts its counters on target creature you control, then shuffle this card into its owner's library. This makes it so that if Sin dies, you still haven't dealt with the issue of its counters. Sure, it might be put on something that is relatively less scary due to lack of flying and trample, but that's still a huge creature you will have to deal with.
Don't run this as your commander. You want this to be a finisher late in the game, casting this early will just do nothing. Casting this later will allow you to flip the table on people. Run it in the 99 of a deck if you want to run it, just don't run it as your commander. 7 mana is so much and if it gets removed twice, you're now paying 11 mana. Aside from that, this is strong, but at 7 mana, it has to be and you need to protect it from exile effects. Bring hexproof and counterspells.
Now for the art. Credit to Aldo Dominguez. Link to his Facebook (yes... I hate it too). That sure is Sin. I do like that the artstyle and color choices give it this majestic feeling instead of the horrible monstrosity that it actually is. It is a very nice way to show Sin.
Last but certainly not least, let's talk about Wakka, Devoted Guardian!
4 mana for a 4/4 is perfectly on rate, very nice. Reach and trample too? Damn, good keywords to have to be able to both hit opponents and block those freaking birds that will come your way. His abilities are:
Whenever Wakka deals combat damage to a player, destroy up to one target artifact that player controls and put a +1/+1 counter on Wakka. This is going to ruin someone's day. Oh boy, I can't wait for Wakka to come in and destroy all my mana rocks one by one. Like, holy, this is actually quite good, especially since Wakka has trample and he will slowly get bigger to become the issue.
At the beginning of your end step, if a counter was put on Wakka this turn, put a +1/+1 counter on each other creature you control. So uh... if Wakka gets bigger, his whole "team" (aka your board state) gets bigger. Alright, that will definitely not get out of hand.
Ding ding ding, we have a winner! Probably the best card to brew around for a separate commander deck. Only thing you would really want is ways to increase the amount of counters you put on Wakka via something like Hardened Scales or Doubling Season, which also works on the counters you put on everything else. This is quite a good card, either as your commander or in the 99 of a +1/+1 counters and "I hate artifacts" deck.
Now for the art. Credit to Kieran Yanner. Link to his Instagram. That sure is Wakka. The small bits of energy lines look a bit out of place with how little there are, but they aren't bad looking. Still a nice art!
AND THAT'S THIS DECK DONE, ONLY ONE MORE TO GO! Next up, FF14's Scions and Spellcraft and oh boy do we have quite a few scions to talk about... Anyway, thanks for reading and have a nice day o/
