Final Fantasy Is the Set That Made Me Realize Where My Universes Beyond Line Is

Universes Beyond makes up half of all Magic sets in 2025, and has been picking up momentum since its inception with The Walking Dead. With Final Fantasy breaking all records, Kristen takes a moment to reflect on where the line is. 

It’s hard to talk about Universes Beyond sets these days without acknowledging the two large elephants in the room. The first, of course, is the fact that UB sets are big money for Wizards. They pull in a lot of players, and a lot of those players are new (or returning) to Magic. The second elephant is the slightly more forlorn elephant. That elephant is telling you he isn’t Dumbo, or Babaar, but his own person, Hamza, from the world of Magic. He isn’t a reference. That elephant is the large portion of the entrenched Magic playerbase that are burned out on UB products. They resent the “fortnitification” of the game.

WHAT MAKES A MAGIC SET, WELL, MAGIC?

Back around the release of Neon Dynasty, I proposed that this Kamigawa revisit was indeed the first Universes Beyond set, the one that would be on-boarding us to the idea of Magic being more than just historical realism and classic high fantasy. 

More recently, when we saw the Spongebob cards revealed, and found out that Final Fantasy would be Standard legal, I wrote about how I thought that UB being Standard legal was actually a good thing, in light of recent issues with powercreep in the game, and growing the audience for Standard.

Though separated by a few years, the common thread that prevails – the issue many have with Universes Beyond – is in the worlds that are picked. It’s well trodden ground at this point – discussing historical realism, and fantasy vs sci-fi – so I want to take a different angle this time. When I was checking out the previews for FIN, something hit me: recognizability is a huge factor. 

ENTER FINAL FANTASY

I’ll be honest: I’m not a big Final Fantasy fan. In fact, my history with the franchise is limited to watching Advent Children one time at college. I vaguely remember Tifa and Aerith, but I’d met Cloud and Sephiroth before: playing the Kingdom Hearts series. Personally, I’m disappointed we didn’t end up with a Zettaflare card featuring Donald Duck, but I guess the Big Mouse hasn’t shaken hands with Wizards yet.

So, what do I know about FF from my time with Nomura’s other pet project? Well, I know about Cloud and Sephiroth, of course. I recognise Cid. Yuffie and Squall show up at one point, as does Auron – fighting Cerberus in Hades’ Underworld, no less. There are maybe a few more cameos, but that’s the long and short of it. (Looking at the image I scrounged up for this article, I can see many more I forgot about).

There’s also pop culture, right? I know Tidus from the ageless meme of him laughing his head off. I know Yuna is in the same game. I’ve seen Lightning on the box art of games I used to sell when I worked in videogames retail. She looked cool, I guess,  but I wasn’t really interested in J-RPGs or Japanese culture when I was younger. 

In fact, I haven’t really played many turn-based games at all, outside of Pokemon and more recently Persona 5. And, at risk of going on an entirely too long tangent, I’ve just finished Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

But my point is, when I saw we were getting a Final Fantasy Magic set, I was vaguely aware of some of the cast, but had no real context for it. I promise this is going to be relevant – just stick with me. 

LORD OF THE RINGS

The other big hit we’ve had with Universes Beyond was Lord of the Rings, with Tales of Middle-earth. What’s really interesting to me here is that they re-imagined the aesthetics and vibe of the world by taking both the books and the movies as inspiration. As such, the end result was a product that had resonance, but wasn’t a series of references to Peter Jackson’s iconic imagery. We could argue all day about whether people enjoyed that particular adaptation, or whether they enjoyed the one Wizards came up with, or Bakshi’s, but the point I want to focus on here is that to some degree, the reimagining of these iconic characters pulled the game slightly away from the “fortnitification” aspect, because it wasn’t just a bunch of game pieces that signified something else – gamepieces that would otherwise be entirely memetic. 

There’s something funny about showing people the Lord of the Rings movies for the first time these days. They’re way more likely to say “Oh, it’s Ned Stark!” when Sean Bean rides into Rivendell, or “Hey it’s the guy from Stranger Things” when Samwise Gamgee sits down for a pint with Frodo, than they are to think of Hugo Weaving’s Elrond as Agent Smith from the Matrix. 

Exposure to actors leaves an indelible mark on audiences. One of Peter Jackson’s goals with fleshing out his cast for the LotR movies was to use as many younger or up-and-coming actors as possible. Sure, he used some household names to give the films some gravitas, but he avoided casting anyone who was “too” famous, because it would be distracting; it would shatter the suspension of disbelief.

SEEING CLOUD BREAKS THE SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF

Up until now, I’ve felt like I’ve fallen into three distinct camps with Universes Beyond sets: they’re either “for” me, like LotR, or Assassin’s Creed, and they fit well into the historical fantasy “world” of Magic; they’re not for me, but they fit fine under most conditions, such as Warhammer 40k having similar vibes to The Brothers War and older Dominaria/Phyrexia; or, they’re not for me, and they completely break the suspension of disbelief. Think The Walking Dead, or Spongebob. 

During preview season, I was quietly excited for Final Fantasy. It was a UB product that fit well into Magic’s established world of fantasy, and the art treatments looked somewhere between Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, classic Dominaria, and such. That general acceptance with the set, despite me having no real experience with it, was holding steady until we saw some of the more recognizable previews.

It might even be the combination of having Cloud and having him be on a pushed new design from one of my favorite archetypes, but I was so over it the moment I saw it. And I don’t think I’ll add it to my equipment deck, even with such a strong design. 

“But Kristen, what about Kassandra?” the astute amongst you might say. Well, you’re right. I do love Kassandra, and AC Odyssey is a firm favorite of mine. Well, it’s going to sound extremely weasley of me to say this, but she just fits the vibe of Magic more. Maybe that’s because Theros exists, maybe it’s because she isn’t holding a giant Buster Sword with bad form.

It’s just vibes, right? That’s the problem. It’s just vibes, and it always will be. For everyone. Wizards won’t please everyone, that much is clear. But they are pleasing a lot of people, even ignoring the whales and scalpers that are helping send this release into the record books. 

And while it is just vibes, I do think there’s something to be said for how seeing such an iconic pop-culture figure in the game – one that I am not personally invested in – feels way more obtrusive and breaks the suspension of disbelief for me. 

SO DOES FINAL FANTASY PASS THE VIBE CHECK?

If we take it back to the movie actor analogy, seeing Cloud for me is like seeing Tom Cruise. Someone like Kassandra – who I spent 200 hours with, in her self-contained adventure, and who hasn’t leaked into pop culture in the same way – well, that’s like seeing an actress who you might not know if you’d not watched her previous work. For me, that’s like the fact Genevieve O’Reilly will always be Mon Mothma for me in Star Wars, as I don’t recall her from any huge roles in other media I’ve consumed. It just doesn’t have the same sort of impact as seeing Cloud, or Tom Cruise, in this analogy. 

That’s why when I look at most of the rest of the Final Fantasy set, I am quite happy to accept it into Magic canon. Those cool heroes like Terra, Celes, or Thancred Waters. Characters like Shadow, Mysterious Assassin. They don’t have baggage for me. 

They’re way closer to “random-uncommon-legendary-shoe-horned-into-the-latest-Magic-set-for-Commander-players” than Cloud or Tifa. Cloud and Tifa are closer to Rick, to Spongebob, to the Battle Bus.

That means that I can concentrate on things like how Shadow’s armor looks so freakin’ rad, and how his gameplay sounds fun, without being distracted by what is signified by this card.

And do you know what? Those hat-sets are a lot closer to that end of the spectrum too. Marchesa gallivanting around Thunder Junction in a cowboy hat when she’s a sitting monarch is just way more frustrating to me than seeing Jill, Shiva’s Dominant, or Mysidian Elder. I’m way more wrapped up in what Marchesa, Dealer of Death signifies, than the gamepiece itself. 

END STEP

So yeah, Final Fantasy is the set that made me realize where my line is with Universes Beyond. On one hand, that’s basically like everyone else: it’s a hard to describe line built entirely out of vibes. But on the other hand, there is a lot of validity to the idea of recognizability and memetic signification on these game pieces. 

So yes, for the most part, I’m pretty high on the set, but I am not enthused about considering cards like Cloud and Sephiroth for my decks, because they are pop culture icons that I don’t have any attachment to, but that I can’t escape. And that’d be like sitting down to watch Andor and seeing Jack Black in it. 

---

You might have noticed I talked about the signified a few times here. It’s rooted in Saussure’s semiotics, and it’s a part of literary critical theory that is well worth a dive into if you’re interested.