Final Fantasy is a massive set with many cool and powerful effects. We’ve covered the splashier Commanders, and the best Rares and Mythics in our “In the 99 Set Review” – now it’s time to round up 20 of the Best Commons and Uncommons. Set review go brrrrrrrr.
THE BEST COMMONS & UNCOMMONS IN FINAL FANTASY
It seems rather fitting to start off in the Battle Menu. Whether you’ve played this particular RPG series or another, the familiarity of the turn-based battle menu makes for a really nice modal card. In practice, getting such a swathe of effects at two mana is really nice. The way to look at it is that it’s a kill spell that can sometimes make a surprise blocker. If your deck is a tokens deck, this gets a lot better. If your deck cares about gaining life (to trigger effects, or hit a certain life total) than it has even more utility.
Modal spells are hot this time around, especially for white. Restoration Magic is the part of Blacksmith’s Skill that you care about, but it can also gain you a nice little bit of extra life if you can squeeze more mana in. If you overlock it completely, it can protect your whole board for five mana. I think this one is highly playable, given that having a “wildcard” for single-target and board wide protection helps free up deck slots and keep you ready for anything.
I’m really really into a mana rock that’s also a Banishing Light. It helps with devotion, as well, giving you TWO whole pips, which powers up Nykthos or Nyx Lotus. And, in some white decks, you’re able to copy this, which helps you ramp and control the board. It is four mana, though, so probably best in artifact heavy builds.
Speaking of artifact heavy builds, if you’re in blue, I don’t see many reasons not to run Cargo Ship. It’s going to take the slot of a Fellwar Stone or Mind Stone at two mana, with the ability to crew it for just one power, getting in to trigger an on-damage effect you really want, while remaining untapped for mana later. An elegantly designed two drop.
Il Mheg Pixie is basically a second copy of Nightveil Sprite, with a bigger hit and smaller butt. It’s also a Faerie, meaning that if your deck likes Nightveil Sprite, it might well want a second copy.
Blue has had some fun little tricks recently for protecting your creatures. Putting an Untap effect onto hexproof always proves to have interesting utility.
OVERFARMING XP
If you end up levelling up too much in these types of games, you can sometimes end up one-shotting bosses. Overkill is Tidus doing exactly that. -9999 is more than enough, and in some decks you might even want the effect (Massacre Girl, Known Killer, for example).
There are a whole host of decks that like to attack with deathtouch, and generally speaking they also want first strike, to make those combats easy mode. It helps you get cards, treasures, the Initiative, or inflict Poison counters. Tonberry is serviceable.
Most of these spells are aimed at Limited, but Fire Magic could be good in Commander too. Obvious Taii Wakeen synergies aside, an instant speed Pyroclasm at three is pretty standard. The flexibility to pay more or less to wipe out tokens or bigger bodies isn’t.
Freya Crescent is a boon for equipment decks. She’s a one mana mana dork (dorks are so in this season for red!), and she also flies during your turn. That solves a lot of early game wants and needs.
Many decks these days like to swarm the board with tokens, and a great deal of them like to attack to make them. Queen Brahne can potentially summon many black Wizard tokens to help ping down opponents. There’s a lot you can do to keep her alive, and those pingers start to add up quick.
Pinging – hitting opponents for one damage, multiple times – is a great way to win a game of Commander. It’s also a way to keep life totals lower. Sabotender is a nice two mana landfall payoff that’ll increase the clock for those decks.
SOMETHIIING, SOMETHING LATIN… SEPHIROTH!
Yeah idk the lyrics but One Winged Angel is a banger, right?
The Eikons are pretty epic too, and when they Clash, you give Saga decks (or summons decks!) a removal spell that doubles up as a way to mess with lore counters. What more do you want?
In quite a number of decks, I’d be considering Summon: Fenrir over playing other ramp spells at two or three mana, but then as someone that liked to play Beanstalk Giant for similar reasons, it’s not hugely surprising. Fenrir is a Farhaven Elf that gives you a potential extra card (or two, if you have an enchantress in play) while buffing one of your creatures. That’s sweet.
Obviously, the goodest of bois is Torgal, A Fine Hound. This mana dork is honestly just sweet, especially if your Commander is a Human, but even more so if your deck has obvious synergies.
VANILLE + FANG = RAGNAROK???
I had no idea eating vanilla ice cream with a sensitive tooth could bring on the world’s ending, but apparently Vanille and Fang can become Ragnarok itself.
These two get a single entry here, as you’re mostly playing them together (though, Fang is more than playable alone IMO).
Having a free option to merge a card draw body and a graveyard piece into a massive keyword soup beatstick with a relevant dies trigger is really good upside tbh.
I love this little card. The Emperor of Palamecia looks like one of the fae folk almost, but he transforms into literally The Lord Master of Hell. A two mana dork that grows bigger and then has a monstrous attack trigger is just good, whether you’re in spellslinger or artifacts.
Of the uncommon Legendaries, Garnet, Princess of Alexandria might well be one of the biggest tempo swings. She comes in swinging, potentially growing to a 5/5 or bigger, and winding back time for you to enjoy those big abilities one last time. And another last time, as a treat.
The saga isn’t over though, because Rydia, Summoner of Mist is another fantastic two-drop. What is it with cracked two drops legends in this set? Rydia is a rummager on landfall which honestly is enough in a lot of builds. If you are playing summons, though — even just a Fenrir and Titan in a landfall deck – she has great added recursion that’s also repeatable.
Pupu UFO is the final card today, and is for all intents and purposes an upgrade to Walking Atlas. Many Walking Atlas decks will probably just play this as well. It’s a sweet little upgrade to a quite old design.
END STEP
Those are the Commons and Uncommons I’m excited about from Final Fantasy. I like a few of these more than some of the rares and mythics, to be honest. What did I miss? Let me know on BlueSky.
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.