While at the Summer Games Fest, we were able to take a look at the starter kit for the Magic The Gathering Collaboration with Final Fantasy. As we noted in our Pax East 2025 coverage, this set has been in the works for five whole years. We got to see a lot of card art, but we were not able to play with the cards. Now at Summer Games Fest, I did a Magic The Gathering showdown with Gavin Verhey, the Principal Designer and Set Designer for the collaboration. There are two decks in the Starter Kit, a Cloud Red/White deck and a Sephiroth blue/black deck.
I chose to play with the Cloud deck since my main colors of choice in Magic The Gathering are Red/White. Gavin played with the Blue/Black Sephiroth deck. The strength of each deck is significantly different. Cloud has a lot of equipment and creatures that have a low mana cost. You want to enforce your army fast and quickly. At the beginning of the showdown, I was in the lead, having quick creatures on my field with the likes of Steiner, and even the job selection equipment like a Dragoon’s Lance that instantly summons a 1/1 hero token to equip the lance to.
Unfortunately, once I started to get a good selection of creatures, that is when the Sephiroth deck’s strength kicks in, creatures with larger mana costs and spells that help control the flow of the game. Having more land on the field, Gavin was able to move the flow of the game to his side. One thing I noticed at this point is that my land wasn’t a problem, but having a hand was. I used up all my cards each turn with getting my side of the field more robust. By the end of the game, I just couldn’t dish out enough damage, and I lost the game to a big streak of larger monsters attacking me.
What Is The Point Of Hands-On Discussion?
I detailed the general flow of the game in this Magic The Gathering x Final Fantasy Collaboration, but what can we learn from it? We learn about the two different strategies that are at play but also things we can do to improve the starter decks. Some of the best parts of getting into these collectible card games are the chance to edit and improve the decks you receive. For instance, one avenue I would suggest improving with the Cloud Deck now that I have had a taste of playing with it, is draw power. You will get a good chunk of land since the deck is balanced, but it might be worth it to add cards that let you draw from your library. Since most of the creatures in the Cloud deck cost only a small amount of mana, it can be very useful in adding numbers to your field faster. Since tokens are important to the deck thanks to the job selection system, getting support for tokens or even cards that let you clone tokens would be one way to help you grab a ton of creatures you can use on the field.
I saw the Sephiroth deck firsthand, but since I didn’t play with it, my ideas for improvement will be less impactful. One improvement would be to add cards that let you add land to your side of the field. A lot of the cards in Sephiroth’s deck seem to be mana-heavy.
Be sure to check out the unboxing video and article on our website!
The set will then fully release on June 13th. Preorders are now live right here.
