Magic: The Gathering has a great 2025 ahead. With several impactful collections, it is expected to be one of the biggest years in its history. One of the reasons for this is that this is the year where its new strategy begins: more collaborations, more frequent and better integrated with other IPs. This is something they have been doing for a few years now, for example with Fallout or Assassin’s Creed, but from now on they want to do more. And above all, integrated in a more natural way with the overall game.
This year we expect a Spider-Man collection and another mysterious collection that is rumored to be about Avatar: The Last Airbender. But until then, Wizards of the Coast has already presented us with the first major collaboration of the year. And one that has the potential to be the biggest collection of the year, overall. Because they have given us a first look at the cards from Final Fantasy.
Final Fantasy arrives in Magic: The Gathering
Magic: The Gathering — Final Fantasy will be a standard card collection that will arrive in stores on June 13, 2025. This means that the cards will be playable in all formats within the game. This is a novelty that surprised at the time of its announcement, because collaborations with other IPs, such as the hugely successful Lord of the Rings collection, were limited to being collections for eternal formats. Formats that do not have rotation and whose competitive play is much more limited, as they do not have a presence in the main digital card game, Magic: Arena.
This means that Magic: The Gathering — Final Fantasy will arrive with all the fanfare of any previous collection. Including Magic: Arena. With everything that entails.
It will not be the entirety of Final Fantasy
The most interesting thing is how, despite being a collection of Final Fantasy, we will not see all of Final Fantasy. The collection will be limited to the numbered Final Fantasy games, to the sixteen of them. So we won’t see some popular games like Tactics or Crystal Chronicles, except perhaps as nods or specific references. But aside from that, we can expect to see all the main protagonists and villains from all the main installments, all the iconic places, artifacts, and creatures, as well as some unexpected choices. As always happens with the team behind this kind of collections.
For now, what we have been able to see is a very eclectic selection, where we have seen a bit of everything. With a strong emphasis on characters that transform when certain conditions are met and even with a new type of card, the Creature Saga, which will be used to represent summons like Shiva or Ifrit, everything they have shown so far perfectly captures the essence of Final Fantasy. And cards like Cecil, Dark Knight make us fear how strong the black color might be at the release of this collection.
Commander fans will have something specially dedicated
Additionally, as it could not be otherwise, they have presented four Commander decks. Being one of the most popular formats of Magic: The Gathering, it was logical that it would be present in a special way here. And indeed it is.
Each of these decks is centered around a specific video game, with all the cards focused on that particular title. Thus, we have decks from Final Fantasy VI, VII, X, and XIV, where their commanders are Terra, Cloud, Tidus, and Y’shtola. This shows that Wizards of the Coast knows perfectly well which Final Fantasy games are the favorites of the people and which characters everyone wants to play with. Because there is no doubt that in Cloud’s deck there will be at least one Tifa and one Sephiroth to throw in your friends’ faces.
There is still more to reveal in the future
For the rest, this is a collection of Magic: The Gathering. That means there will be packs, collector packs, boxes, bundles, and also starter kits for those who want to start playing the game, this time featuring Cloud and Sephiroth as the main characters. And if you want something more special, they have already announced that there will be three Secret Lairs dedicated to Final Fantasy, although they haven’t provided more details about it. Even if we already know that there will be a card treatment, THROUGH THE AGES, where classic artists from Square Enix will reproduce the art of iconic Final Fantasy characters on no less iconic Magic: The Gathering cards.
Although the bulk of the collection is still to be presented, this has been enough to leave us wanting more. It is now possible to reserve all the sealed material from this collection, which will be released on June 13 and, personally, we can’t wait to get our hands on it. Yes, hands. Because on the Internet, no one knows if you’re a moguri.
