In recent years, Magic: The Gathering has been no stranger to crossover sets. They’ve released cards from a wide breadth of different properties and media, such as Doctor Who and Lord of the Rings, with a Spider-Man set coming this September. Square Enix’s Final Fantasy is the next crossover set, dubbed Universes Beyond by Wizards of the Coast (WOTC), with cards chronicling the beloved RPG franchise’s long history and 16 core games. During PAX East in Boston, WOTC showed off a ton of new cards, art, and mechanics.
I had the chance to attend a digital preview and got some answers on a handful of details. For one, only the mainline 16 games are represented in the set. No spin-offs or sequels will be included, such as Final Fantasy Tactics and Final Fantasy X-2. This is due to design limitations when cherry-picking from the massive library of games. The full set is larger than most Magic sets, and even then the design team had to narrow down what iconic characters and monsters to add.
Flavorful Design
Final Fantasy is known for overlapping certain characters and Summons, such as Bahamut, but these characters will only be represented as one mechanically unique card (with one hilarious exception), and was chosen based on their relevance to their respective game’s story.
With the four Final Fantasy Commander preconstructed decks, the design team was able to get a bit more creative with cards for characters that exist in the main set. For example, Terra, Herald of Hope has a main set counterpart in Terra, Magical Adept/ Esper Terra (below). Since the main set is legal in all constructed formats, it makes sense to have mechanically unique cards for this purpose.
Check out all the cards shown during the PAX East panel below, in the video games’ release order.
MTG x Final Fantasy Card Gallery:
Where it all started, the original Final Fantasy.
New and reprinted cards for Final Fantasy II
Final Fantasy III’s story revolved around the elemental crystals.
A fan-favorite, Final Fantasy IV.
Gilgamesh is at his best in Final Fantasy V.
A timeless classic, Final Fantasy VI is many peoples’ favorite.
Everyone knows Final Fantasy VII has the best characters.
The best boy? Final Fantasy VIII‘s Angelo
Vivi from Final Fantasy XI fits right in with MTG.
Bahamut is depicted as his Final Fantasy X version.
Abolute Virtue’s card from Final Fantasy XI aims to represent its in-game counterpart well.
Final Fantasy XII’s infamous sky pirates use a fitting mechanic.
Meld is back with Vanille and Fang from Final Fantasy XIII.
The MMO phenomenon Final Fantasy XIV.
Road trip anyone? Noctis from Final Fantasy XV.
The most recent entry, Final Fantasy XVI gave the world Ben Starr as Clive Rosfield.
If you’re familiar with the Final Fantasy games, you’ll know that each title (except for the first) has a different iteration of the character Cid, so WOTC decided to have a little fun with his card by printing 15 different arts to represent this:
Finally, Chocobos come in all different colors in the games, so there are alternate arts for each one in the main set. If you’re lucky, you can open a serialized X/77 Golden Chocobo card too!
Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy releases June 13, 2025. The cards will be legal in all constructed formats and will be available in various boosters, starter kits, and bundles.
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