Final Fantasy releases on June 13th, and preview season concluded last week so we’ve seen every single card in the set. The set is filled with lots of cool and powerful cards, as well as flavorful designs that immerse you in the world of Final Fantasy.
One of the ways they achieved this was by including more legendary creatures than any set has ever had. After all, there are 16 main-line games in the franchise, and each of them has dozens of named characters. In order to include so many characters, they even printed 41 legendary creatures at Uncommon.
While it’s not the first time we’ve seen them at this rarity, it is the first time we’ve seen uncommon legendary creatures in such a massive quantity. And some of them have really cool designs. In this article, I’m going to take a look at the five coolest uncommon commanders in Final Fantasy.
OMEGA, HEARTLESS EVOLUTION
I really love nonbasic lands. They’re great fixing your mana and they come with all sorts of useful abilities. Omega gives us a new powerful way to take advantage of the large number of nonbasics that most Commander decks have.
This Robot’s pretty expensive, but he brings a huge body along for the ride and stuns one nonland permanent per opponent when it enters. And if you’re going hard on nonbasics, he’ll put so many stun counters on them that you probably never need to worry about them again.
If you combine Omega with ways to blink it so that you can get the trigger multiple times. That can be a bit slow, but because Omega gains you live and stuns a bunch of stuff, you’re likely to have plenty of time. If you blink him enough times, locking down every relevant nonland permanent your opponents control really isn’t out of the question.
Conjurer’s Closet and Thassa, Deep-Dwelling are two of the best ways to set this up, as once you pay to cast them, you never have to invest any more mana into them and they can exile Omega every single turn.
GARNET, PRINCESS OF ALEXANDRIA
If you want a Commander who loves Sagas, there really aren’t very many viable options outside of Tom Bombadil. But Garnet changes that, and she can get going much earlier in the game.
She does have to attack to do her thing, but the fact she can remove lore counters from multiple Sagas at once is particularly potent, as it can allow you to repeat triggers on your Sagas, and if they happen to be Saga Creatures, she makes sure they stay on the battlefield to attack and block longer.
For example, getting Elspeth Conquers Death’s Chapter I during your draw step every turn, or Tale of Tinuviel’s chapter II every turn is going to overwhelm your opponents in a hurry. And she even buffs herself while making sure you get powerful Saga chapters every single turn.
ZIDANE, TANTALUS THIEF
Zidane has a surprising amount going on for an Uncommon commander – and he supports a strategy that has a very limited number of Commanders right now.
He’s only the second legendary creature that can “Threaten” (that is, gain control of it temporarily and give it Haste) any opposing creature with an enters trigger, and he gives you so much upside when you do. Once you lose control of the creature you’ll get a treasure, and giving the creature lifelink means that you are going to get value out of stealing almost anything.
The best way to take advantage of Threaten effects is to sacrifice the creature you steal so that you remove their creature while generating extra value. And while you won’t get the treasure when you go that route, you will drive your opponent crazy by stealing their creature, hitting them with it and gaining life, and then sacrificing it to Goblin Bombardment or Fanatical Devotion is pretty amazing.
White has no Shortage of ways to blink Zidane too. For example, Ephemerate and Cloudshift give you super cheap ways to get his powerful trigger all over again.
GLADIOLUS AMICITIA
Alright, I know I’ve already talked about one land-loving commander in this article, but they gave us two really good ones at Uncommon, and I can’t help but talk about both of them.
The most exciting thing about Gladiolus is that he tutors up any land when he enters. There’s only one other legendary creature in Magic that can do that – Golos, Tireless Pilgrim who is banned in Commander. That makes Gladiolus the only legal legendary creature that has this powerful effect.
I’m not trying to suggest that Gladiolus is on the same level as Golos – who has a five-color identity and an absurd activated ability – but Gladiolus is definitely strong. There are just so many good lands he can tutor up for you, whether you’re trying to go crazy with Field of the Dead or simply search up a useful utility land like Kessig Wolf Run.
Like Golos, Gladiolus’s ability also really helps to offset the commander tax too, since it can at least get you halfway towards paying for it when you cast him a second time – at which point you get to tutor up yet another land!
I haven’t even talked about Gladiolus’s landfall trigger yet, but that actually allows it to do one thing that Golos really can’t – he’s pretty good with a beatdown plan, as the stats boost and trample is likely to enable some much better attacks.
It also means Gladiolus can be really nasty when you set up game-ending situations with Reshape the Earth and Boundless Realms. And he helps you ramp into those expensive Sorceries too.
THE EMPEROR OF PALAMECIA
The Emperor really loves expensive noncreature spells and helps you cast them too. While that side of the card is certainly powerful, it wouldn’t really make it one of the coolest Uncommon commanders in the set. However, its ability to transform into The Lord Master of Hell definitely does.
Notably, when she transforms she never gets exiled, so she’s able to attack right away once she transforms – and she retains all of her +1/+1 counters too. It’s her attack trigger that makes her particularly spicy though, since it lets you do X damage to each opponent where X is the number of noncreature, nonland cards in your graveyard. There’s a very real chance that that trigger can just kill one or more opponents outright.
To do that, you need to be pretty good at self-milling and discarding – but I have good news for you – that’s pretty easy to do in Blue/Red. Chaining a few wheel effects together is perhaps the most potent way to pull this off. Cards like Will of the Jeskai, Reforge the Soul, and Windfall are The Emperor’s best friends.
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Those are my picks for the five coolest uncommon commanders in Final Fantasy. What do you think? Do you think the ones I chose are cool? If not, which ones do you think I should have discussed? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.