This got slightly too long to add to the post for the Final Fantasy cards on Bluesky, so I’m dumping it here.

One interesting thing I noticed while going over this set trying to decide on my favorite art is that I think Magic is leaning into a more varied art style for cards in the main set these past couple years, which is interesting because they spent a lot of time trying to create something of a unified aesthetic back during the 2010s. I’m not sure if this is good or bad, just… worth noting, I guess. It’s interesting.

I admit, I don’t really know what people like very much. I know what I like, and that serves me well enough (Even as a “YouTuber” or “video essayist” - ‘scuse me while I vomit - I don’t need to know these things, I just need to convince you that I’m objectively correct and what I like is the best.). But I’m a little confused as to the distribution of cards in Magic’s Final Fantasy expansion.

I know why some games in this series are widely represented, and I think the four Commander deck choices were the best possible choices to get the widest possible audience. Obviously you needed an FF7 deck and an FF14 deck, because both are wildly popular (hey, S-E, your next big break is coming with FF21). FF6 was probably also the right call; it is a much-beloved game among pre-Nomura FF fans. I don’t like it much, but it’s pretty well-liked. And FF10 is a game that most people love even when they have problems with it (like, man, I swear I hear people complain about some parts all the damn time, which is weird because the game is nearly flawless). The card distribution for the main set is also more or less fair. Games like FF2, that are not as beloved, or FF5 and FF9, which have more cult followings, are comparatively underrepresented.

Among those, however, is Final Fantasy IV. I’m genuinely befuddled at how few cards there are for Final Fantasy IV. A whopping 27 cards are tagged with this game. Subtract the alternate-art cards, the token, the Secret Lair card, and the Final Fantasy Through the Ages add-ons, and you have a whopping sixteen. And one of those is a basic land! (I’ll actually count that because it’s a main-set thing.) Like, what the fuck? Am I just deluded, or is FF4 not one of the most beloved games in the entire series? Didn’t they just do almost an entire expansion pack of FF14 devoted to the game? It got spin-offs! FF6 didn’t get fuckin’ spin-offs, and surely it had some bits of lore worth filling out! Giving it fifteen actual cards is absolutely moronic set design!

Now, perhaps I’m misjudging here. Maybe the case is that FF4 only commands this popularity in Japan. It definitely feels like, when your only interaction with the fandom is American netizens, mentions of FF4 do go a bit downhill. I know that’s not the only place they get their opinions from, obviously, but I think this is just one of those things that’s happened more as a result of this being aimed at a different audience than the franchise was originally made for. Still, this is a weird exclusion, right?

(There are two things that I’m personally sad about but I know why they didn’t bother; for a start, there’s nothing from Dawntrail - and while I didn’t like Dawntrail much past the halfway mark, Wuk Lamat was still actually a decent character. I suspect the set went to print before Dawntrail came out, though. I also am kinda sad that there’s nothing from any of the spin-offs or side-games, but this is probably aimed at a surface-level fan who probably has only barely even heard of Final Fantasy Tactics.)

(Oh, and I won’t complain about Universes Beyond this time in any way because I’m a dirty hypocrite who doesn’t care if it’s something I like, just like most UB haters probably are. Final Fantasy fits in decently with Magic, especially the older games thanks to the design-work of Yoshitaka Amano, whose art comes from a similar school to what Magic wanted to capture early on. I also think it might be a bit wide for them to just knock off in one fell swoop like they could probably do with, say, Avatar: The Last Airbender (which is actually also a fine fit!) - which, I’m not necessarily saying they should, more that nobody would give a shit if they did. I still don’t like the superhero stuff or Ninja Turtles. It’s like you’re herding sheep and you suddenly discover your flock contains an octopus. (Star Trek is probably okay, though.))