Final Fantasy Commander Precons: Decklists & Spoilers

Are you a fan of both Commander format and Final Fantasy franchise? If so, you’re going to love what’s coming on June 23rd. That’s right, multiple Final Fantasy Commander precons are coming soon, and they’re already selling out like hot cakes.

In this article, you’ll find everything we know about them so far. All four decks were revealed on May 12th, so there’s a lot to talk about. Before we get to the actual decks, here’s a quick overview.

Final Fantasy Commander Precons Contents

There will be four different Final Fantasy Commander decks:

	Deck name	Colors
	FF6: Revival Trance	White Black Red
	FF7: Limit Break	White Red Green
	FF10: Counter Blitz	White Blue Green
	FF14: Scions & Spellcraft	White Blue Black

These decks have been insanely popular and quickly sold out. Most recently, they were restocked on May 10th and separate decks are already gone. However, you can preorder all five on Amazon.

This might be a good idea, as we don’t know how long they’ll be available.

Anyways, Each Final Fantasy Commander precon contains:

• 2 foil cards (main and secondary commander)
• 98 regular cards
• 10 double-sided tokens
• 1 Collector booster sample pack

This is pretty much standard stuff for Commander precons. It’s neat to see that the Sample Collector booster is still included. It does add some extra value, as it might contain a chase rare.

All cards in the precons are set in the Final Fantasy world. Yes, both new cards and reprints alike feature your favorite characters, items, locations and events from the FF franchise. Each deck focuses on a different installment, but let’s just take a look at them, shall we?

FF6: Revival Trance

• Colors: White, Black, Red (Mardu)
• Main commander: Terra, Herald of Hope
• Theme: Self-mill, reanimator
• Revival Trance Decklist & Spoilers

The first deck features various graveyard shenanigans (mill, discard effects) with the addition of the always popular reanimator theme.

If you’re new to Magic, self-mill is when you put cards directly from your deck into the graveyard. Why would you want to do so? Because you can then bring creatures from the grave directly into play. That’s called reanimating, and is often cheaper than simply casting the creature. (From card Reanimate.)

There will naturally be some twists to this theme, as you’ll see from the main commander below. As far as the flavor goes, Revival Trance precon focuses on the World of Ruin part of the story. Thus, you can probably expect a whole bunch of characters from the Returners group.

Naturally, that includes Terra, the main commander of the deck. Here’s the card alongside a quick review. (There’s one for each main and secondary commander of the deck.)

Terra, Herald of Hope Review

3 mana is as cheap as it gets for 3-color commanders, barring any hybrid mana and activation cost shenanigans of course. 3/3 are passable stats for the cost, but as always, we’re mostly interested in the text box.

The first ability triggers at the beginning of your combat. You mill two cards, and Terra gains flying. In a graveyard based deck, such as this one, milling is a form of card advantage. The flying part might seem a bit out of place, but it actually helps enabling the second ability.

It triggers when Terra deals combat damage to a player. (It’s easier to do so with flying.) At that point, you can pay two mana to return a small creature (capped at 3 power) from your graveyard to the battlefield.

The effect is cheap, but the power limitation is a real downside. On the other hand, it will make the deck feel more distinct, and not just another reanimator deck. You won’t be jamming Archon of Cruelty and Sheoldred, Whispering One, but something like Aurelia, the Warleader will be extremely powerful here.

It seems like Terra won’t be a busted commander, but still a perfectly playable one. It uses a popular theme, with a unique twist that provides some deckbuilding challenges. A truly neat design.

Celes, Rune Knight Review

The secondary option form Revival trance is one of those cards that can either be a solid support card in the 99, or a fascinating commander on its own.

Costing just a mana more than Terra, Celes is still a reasonably priced card. The first ability always comes in handy, as you can replace any card you don’t currently need with a new one. Plus, you always draw plus one card. Yes, you can discard 0 cards, then draw a card. This way, Celes always at least replaces itself.

This becomes even stronger once you account for all the reanimator synergies. Got a expensive card that you can’t cast, but could reanimate? Discard it with Celes!

Then the second ability works whenever you bring back a creature from your graveyard. When you do so, you put +1/+1 counters on all of your creatures. That can be strong, but it really depends on the situation. In order to maximize this one, you probably want to build around it. (With ways to get multiple creatures back in a single turn and by making a lot of creatures tokens.)

This is something to do if you pick Celes as your commander. However, even if you don’t do that, the card is pretty solid already. The first ability is strong, and the second one is also relevant.

It’s nice to see two such useful commanders from the first deck already.

Revival Trance Decklist

For the other cards, check Revival Trance Spoilers article.

FF7: Limit Break

• Colors: White, Red, Green (Naya)
• Main commander: Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER
• Theme: Equipment, 7+ power
• Limit Break Decklist & Spoilers

As any Final Fantasy fan knows, there’s no shortage of different weapons in the games, be it swords, greatswords, gunblades, rods and so on. They all provide different bonuses, and are a key part of the game. Thus, it’s not a big surprise that one of the four Final Fantasy Commander precons focuses on them.

In Magic, weapons are represented on Equipment cards. In this deck, there are a bunch them, and they showcase a ton of iconic weapons from the FF franchise.

This theme has appeared in numerous Commander precons so far. In order to make Limit Break synergies feel a bit more distinct, there’s a minor twist here also.

You’ll also care about high power, with the magic number being seven. You’ll see that on the face commander card, Cloud. Thankfully, with so many Equipment cards in the deck, reaching that threshold shouldn’t be too hard.

Flavor wise, the cards are set in the Final Fantasy VII, referencing the Planet and the Lifestream. While some cards might reflect Cloud’s struggling with his identity and trauma, but his card just seems extremely powerful.

Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER Review

At five mana, Cloud is the most expensive among the four main Final Fantasy commanders. Thankfully, the card does make up for it with its relatively high power level.

First, the combination of haste and free equip is incredibly potent. Imagine equipping something like Colossus Hammer. The iconic swords such as Ultima Sword and Buster Sword will almost certainly be included in the Limit Break precon. Equipping them for free will likely be powerful, as that would synergize well with Cloud.

When Cloud attacks, its second ability triggers. First, you draw a card for each attacking creature that’s equipped. Card advantage is always welcome, especially when you get to draw multiple cards.

But that’s not all! If Cloud’s power is at least 7, you also create two Treasure tokens. This requirement isn’t that hard to meet on the turn you play it. (Provided there’s a suitable Equipment in play.) This way, you’re essentially paying only three mana for Cloud.

As you can see, this makes for a very powerful commander. Providing both card advantage and “cheating” on mana is always a strong combination. Thus, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise that this was the first deck to be sold out on Amazon during the early preorder phase.

Tifa, Martial Artist Review

Tifa is a very combat-based card, which makes sense flavor-wise. A 4/4 for four isn’t the strongest participant in combat, but melee can help with that, by making it at least a 5/5 attacker or even a 7/7 in a 3-player game.

At that point, it counts for the second ability, which – just like Cloud – cares about 7+ power. If you deal combat damage to a player with such high powered creature, you get to untap all of your creatures and get an additional combat phase. If you can set things up properly, you can finish the game in one explosive turn, taking out multiple opponents.

Sure, that’s going to be hard to achieve and Tifa doesn’t provide any form of card advantage. It’s not the most competitive card. However, when you can make it work, it’s going to be truly awesome.

Limit Break Decklist

For the other cards, check Limit Break Spoilers article.

FF10: Counter Blitz

• Colors: White, Blue, Green (Bant)
• Main commander: Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian
• Theme: Moving counters
• Counter Blitz Decklist & Spoilers

Do you like using dice in your card games? Do you enjoy leveling up your creatures, making them larger and larger? If so, Counter Blitz might be the ideal deck for you.

As the name suggests, it’ll include a whole lot of counters, and there’s no shortage of them in Magic. In Commander, you’ll most commonly encounter +1/+1 counters. However, loyalty, keyword, -1/-1 and many other counters are present too.

Thankfully, this won’t be just another boring +1/+1 counters deck, which can most commonly be found in the green-white color pair. With the addition of blue, you’ll be able to do some fun and unique plays. You’ll be able to move the counters around, and get value from them in different ways.

This will probably reflect the FF mechanic of leveling up your characters. If you liked that part of the games, you’ll probably enjoy how Counter Blitz plays out too.

The deck is built around Tidus, and features characters from Final Fantasy X. It has been confirmed that the deck also contains Yuna, which you can find on Counter Blitz spoiler page. Perhaps that means that her guardians will also make an appearance in this deck? However, that’s still speculation, so why don’t we take a look at the face commander, which was already revealed.

Tidus, Yuna’s Guardian Review

Tidus is another three mana commander, so you’ll be able to cast it early, just like Terra, Herald of Hope. What do we get for three mana here?

A 3/3 creature that lets you move a counter from one of your creatures to another at the beginning of your combat. Cool effect, not particularly strong, but it can do some work if you build around it with proper synergies.

The second ability “cheer” packs more power. If you can deal combat damage to an opponent with at least one creature with a counter on it, you’ll get a nice bonus. You get to draw a card and proliferate.

That’s somewhat reminiscent of Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice, one of the most popular commander of all time. Sure, losing black, a bunch of keywords, and having to deal combat damage are real downsides. However, Tidus makes up for it by being a mana cheaper, providing card advantage, and doing some fun stuff by moving counters around.

It seems like this could be a very popular commander in the future, given how much play Atraxa has seen. With the right build, it could also be a viable competitive option, which is great if your playgroup is more cutthroat.

Yuna, Grand Summoner Review

It’s a bit weird to see Birds of Paradise effect on a four drop, but obviously Yuna does much more than that.

First, whenever you activate that ability, you get to put a couple of +1/+1 counters on the next creature you play. A useful effect in a deck that cares about counters. (Plus, you could pair it with Pemmin’s Aura for an infinite combo.)

Then, whenever another permanent you control is destroyed, you get to put its counters on a creature in the form of +1/+1 counters. Most of the time, this will simply move some +1/+1 counters, but there are other synergies with it. One example would be The Millennium Calendar, which could be responsible for a whole bunch of tokens.

All in all, Yuna looks like a cool card, that will allow you to do some sweet plays. It is a bit on the slower side, and perhaps better in the 99, but you could build a whole deck around her too.

Counter Blitz Decklist

For the other cards, check Counter Blitz Spoilers article.

FF14: Scions & Spellcraft

• Colors: White, Blue, Black (Esper)
• Main commander: Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed
• Theme: Card advantage, control
• Scions & Spellcraft Decklist & Spoilers

The Esper deck is built in a typically Esper fashion. This means that it wants to control the game, and get a lot of card advantage. If you like to be in the driver’s seat and respond to what other players are doing, this deck might be the right one for you.

Among the four decks this is the least specific one, and quite open-ended. Its focus is on Y’shtola, and Final Fantasy XIV. There are also some scholars from the Scions of the Seventh Dawn included.

Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed Review

The fourth and last main commander from Final Fantasy Commander precons is fairly open-ended compared to the rest of them. While the previous ones show a clear direction, Y’shtola gives you multiple options on how to build around her. Let’s see what we mean by that.

At the beginning of each end step, you’ll draw a card if a player lost 4 or more life during the turn. You can enable that by attacking players or paying life for various effects. Or you could encouraging opponents to attack or force them to pay life. As you can see, there are a bunch of directions that one could take.

Second ability is a bit more specific. It rewards you for casting noncreature spells with mana value 3 or greater. When you do so, each opponent will lose 2 life, and you’ll gain 2. But once again, there’s no shortage of spells that fit this criteria.

As you can see, there’s a lot of freedom when building around Y’shtola. It’s not an inherently strong commander by itself, and a lot of its power depends on the other 99 cards in the deck.

G’raha Tia, Scion Reborn Review

The secondary commander also offers you deckbuilding freedom, but gives you a more clear direction. You want cast noncreature spells, and gain some life.

When you cast a noncreature spell, you can pay X life. (X being the spell’s mana value.) If you do, you get a 1/1 Hero token, and put X +1/+1 counters on it.

You can do this only once per turn, but you can do it in your opponents’ turns if you were to cast some instants.

Truth be told, G’raha probably isn’t one of the most exciting of the Final Fantasy precon commanders. You need to do so work, but your reward is just a vanilla creature? Seems like a low payoff compared to the other options in this lineup.

If you’ll want to maximize its potential as commander, you’ll probably want to get more value from the fact that you’re potentially making a token every turn. Think cards like Caretaker’s Talent, Bennie Bracks, Zoologist or Idol of Oblivion. There are certainly are some options here, if you’d like to play with G’raha.

Scions & Spellcraft Decklist

For the other cards, check Scions & Spellcraft Spoilers article.

Final Fantasy Commander Decks – FAQ

Now you know what each deck is about. Before we wrap up, here are the answers to some questions players frequently ask about these precons. If you still won’t find an answer to your question, feel free to leave a comment below, and we’ll get back to you soon.

Conclusion

That’s all about Final Fantasy Commander precons! How do you like them? Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments.

Additionally, you can find more details about all Commander precons here or perhaps explore what’s inside Final Fantasy Starter Kit.

Until next time, have fun, and may your favorite FF character get a powerful card in this set.