Magic: The Gathering‘s upcoming Final Fantasy set will feature special Through the Ages showcase cards with classic game artwork by Tetsuya Nomura and Yoshitaka Amano, amongst others. Two such cards were recently revealed as part of the early preview for MTG x Final Fantasy, and it’s fairly safe to say they’re likely to be amongst the most coveted cards in the entire set.
As shown off, these particular showcase cards reprint existing Final Fantasy artwork, and in both cards revealed, they also feature characters starring as traditional MTG cards. FF7 hero Yuffie Kisaragi stands in for Yuriko, the Tiger’s Shadow, and Dragon of Mount Gulg stands in for Ancient Copper Dragon.
As with other “reskins” both retain the abilities of the original cards. Dragon of Mount Gulg is a flying 6/5 Elder Dragon Creature, and whenever it deals combat damage to a player, you’ll need to roll a D20, then create that number of Treasure Tokens.
Yuffie Kisaragi is a 1/3 Human Ninja Creature with Commander ninjutsu, and whenever a Ninja you control deals combat damage, Yuffie allows you to reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. Each opponent will also lose life based on that card’s mana value.
Read: MTG’s Final Fantasy Commander Decks revealed
While the cards are ultra-powerful on their own, and I can see both being staples of meaner games of Magic, what’s most appealing is the artwork. Throughout the years, Square Enix has prided itself on creating fantastic artwork for Final Fantasy, and it makes all the sense in the world to reuse this in a new format.
Personally, I gasped a bit when I saw the Yuffie Kisaragi card, because I immediately recognised Tetsuya Nomura’s character artwork for Final Fantasy 7, and I imagined how cool the Vincent Valentine version of this variant would be, or the Sephiroth version, or the Cloud version.
It’s also fantastic to see Yoshitaka Amano’s artwork spotlighted in this set. Amano has previously contributed to MTG, with his Liliana, Dreadhorde General being one of my all-time favourite cards, as both a fan of Liliana and Amano’s Vampire Hunter D. Even with the Dragon of Mount Gulg artwork not being strictly new, it’s still great to see the artist included.
As with most new Magic releases, I have resigned myself to the fact that rarer cards are harder to get, and these may elude me as I go on my personal collecting journey – but I will be sitting on the sidelines, coveting these cards, regardless.
In the lead up to the release of this Final Fantasy set, there will be plenty more card reveals like these, and I can only imagine (for now) how wild and beautiful this art will be. So far, every individual card revealed has looked absolutely gorgeous. In fact, this might end up being one of the prettiest Magic sets of the year (and perhaps all time, although this is very, very subjective).
Those keen to see more of MTG‘s Final Fantasy set can expect plenty of neat reveals in the lead up to its release on 13 June 2025. In the meantime, there’s a bunch of other new cards to browse on the Wizards of the Coast website.
