The hype for the ever-closer-to-release Final Fantasy set is just on another level. Wizards has pulled out all the stops to publicize the set, knowing that the tie-in to a massive gaming franchise will draw the eyes of thousands of new players to Magic when the set does come out. It’s all building the perfect conditions for an all-time-massive prerelease event!
For the bulk of Magic players who don’t frequent tournaments, a prerelease is the best way to get out to a game store and engage with the community, all flush with the thrilling atmosphere of a global premiere. If you’re planning to check out a prerelease near you (and I recommend you do) then let this blog be your guide on what to bring, what to expect, and how to make the most of your new Final Fantasy cards on the day!
PREPARING FOR ADVENTURE
One of the nice things about prerelease events is their accessibility. You don’t need to qualify for a spot, decide on a deck to bring or even know the new cards – you could simply walk into a store on the day and ask to sign up!
That said, I’ve always preferred to go in with a little bit of preparation and planning ahead. When these events get busy (and the Final Fantasy prerelease definitely will be) being one of the people not trying to do everything on the spot will buy you so much more time to relax and appreciate the day.
First thing you can do: call in and pre-register for the event.
Most stores advertise a certain number of sessions (“flights”) over the prerelease weekend. Only so many people can participate in each flight, due to limited stock and store space – so if you walk up on the day and those seats are full, you’re out of luck.
How often the flights actually sell out depends on the popularity of the store, but why take any chances when you can register your interest with a 2-minute phone call? Some stores even offer small early bird discounts for those who show interest early.
Acquire a Companion
Installing the official Magic Companion app is not a strict requirement for most stores, but it does help smooth over the few sharp corners in the prerelease experience. You can use it to look up the opponents you’re paired against or to report the score of your games without the hassle of navigating a crowded store to do so in person.
The app can track your life total during a match, and a few other small conveniences. Some stores even hand out bonus prizes to players who participate in multiple prerelease flights under the same Companion account!
Pack your bags
You’ll get some shiny new Final Fantasy cards to play with as part of the event, but there’s a few extra accessories you can pack to greatly improve your experience.
Card sleeves are always a good idea to protect your new cards from getting dinged up as you play. But for this set I’d say they’re almost mandatory, due to the high numbers of dual-faced transforming cards! With sleeves, you can just shuffle these cards into your deck and play normally – saving a TON of petty annoyance.
You’ll need ~45 sleeves with a design that’s fully opaque on the back side (40-42 for your actual deck, plus spares to replace broken sleeves or protect rares you’re not playing). A dark matte color or picture sleeves are usually safe bets, but you can easily test your sleeves by putting cards in them backwards and holding them under bright light. So long as you can’t read any part of the card through the back side, your sleeves will do the job.
If you don’t have the right sleeves at home to bring, I would go so far as to recommend buying them. Just show up a few minutes early and ask the staff if they can recommend some opaque sleeves, or buy them ahead of time!
Bringing at least a handful of dice is my other top recommendation. These are primarily useful for tracking different counters which might be placed on cards, so having different sizes/colors/designs is useful. But they’re also good for:
- Deciding who gets first turn in the match
- Simulating coin flips for The Gold Saucer (call odds/evens instead of heads/tails)
- Randomly choosing a card for Sin, Spira’s Punishment
- Tracking the mana in your mana pool (if a card like Esper Terra makes a lot all at once)
- Representing the numbers (and/or stats) of tokens you create
- Keeping count of random statistics that your cards care about, like how close you are to transforming Emet-Selch or how many times Sephiroth has triggered this turn
- Helping you remember important upkeep triggers like Dark Confidant or Seymour Flux (place a die on top of your deck every turn so you can’t draw a card without stopping to remember why it’s there)
…and plenty more. Magic is a game with lots of numbers in it; you can never have enough dice.
I personally always bring my own basic land cards to the prerelease, and I’m going to recommend you do as well (if you have some). You’ll definitely need some amount of them to finish off your prerelease deck, and (unfortunately) there won’t be enough copies in your Final Fantasy packs to do the job.
If you don’t keep spare basic lands at home, don’t fret – almost every store hosting events will have a “public land station” where you can freely borrow the basic lands you need on an honor system.
But bringing your own from home means that you can show off with your favorite artworks and styles for each land type. You also don’t have to stop and de-sleeve your lands at the end of the day to do the right thing by returning it to the land station.
Bringing a playmat to the prerelease isn’t as important as those first few recommendations, but it’s a great luxury if you have one to use. Playmats are great for marking out your table space even when you’re sandwiched between other games at the same table. They protect your unsleeved cards from being scratched up in the deckbuilding phase, and they make it SO much easier to pick up individual cards instead of sliding them to the edge of the table.
My last recommendation (at least for helping with the Magic part of your day) is simply to bring a bag, preferably with some empty card boxes in it.
Besides from holding your snacks, drinks, and anything you’re bringing from the rest of this list, you’ll need something to carry away all the new Final Fantasy cards you’ll be getting (hence the empty card boxes). The box your prerelease kit comes in helps a bit, but in my experience you’ll need more storage than just that!
SEALED BATTLE TUTORIAL
Alright, so now you know how to set yourself up for success before the prerelease. Let’s jump forward to the day of the event itself; what do you actually do in a flight, and what should you expect from the actual “playing Magic” part of the prerelease?
The specific ruleset (or “format”) played at prerelease is called Sealed, and that’s what you’ll be playing for the Final Fantasy event too. It’s called that because you aren’t allowed to bring any decks or cards from home – you can only use cards from a “sealed pool” of Final Fantasy cards that you’re provided with at the start of the flight. This is great for putting players on more of an even keel, regardless of how long they’ve played or how large their collection is. It also puts the new cards firmly in the spotlight, because everybody will have to use them!
When the start time for your flight arrives, all players find a seat and the organizer will hand out those precious booster packs. Once everyone has their boosters in front of them, the signal will go out to crack those cards open and start figuring out a deck to build from them!
This is probably the most stressful part of the day, especially if you aren’t an experienced Sealed player. You have a bit less than an hour to open your boosters, read and sort your cards, and then build a complete deck to fight with.
If the thought of that time limit is stressing you out, I’d suggest reading up on what the new cards do ahead of time. Even if you focus on just the commons and uncommons – even if you don’t commit them to memory! – you’ll be able to recognize them and understand what their effects do much more quickly and easily when you’re at the event.
You’re aiming to build a deck with a total of 40 cards – it’s illegal to make it smaller than that, and it almost never helps you to make it bigger (since adding your 41st-best card will dilute the odds of you drawing your 1st-best card). A deck that size will need to include 17 land cards (just trust me), which can be either basic lands or Town cards you find in your boosters. This leaves room for 23 other cards – slightly more than a quarter of what you’ll have to choose from. You have to be pretty ruthless when it comes to picking characters for this party!
I think the easiest way to pick cards for a deck is to open all the packs and sort the cards into piles based on their color. Then look for which two piles have the most rares and mythics between them (or just the cards you want to play the most), and set the others aside.
Spread out the cards from your two colors into piles based on their mana value (the number of colored mana symbols in their cost + the amount of generic mana in their cost) so that the cheapest cards are on the left and most expensive cards are on the right. If you want to, I think sorting the creature cards out from each pile and putting them above the pile of non-creatures with the same mana value helps a lot.
Even if you’re not really sure which cards are better or worse, looking at this layout of cards can help you figure out some to cut just by aiming to keep each pile balanced, perhaps with a bit of favoritism for creature cards over non-creatures and cheaper cards over expensive ones.
If you’re still not sure which cards are strategically important, Wizards has produced a reference guide to explain the basic pros, cons and goals for every two-color combination of Final Fantasy deck. You can also look through your uncommon or multicolor cards for inspiration, since those are often designed with Sealed in mind.
Eventually, you should be able to trim enough cards to get down to 23 non-lands across your two colors. Figure out which color you have more of: grab 9 of that color’s basic land, and 8 of your other color. If you opened Town cards that match those colors and want to use them, subtract one (matching) basic land per Town. Congratulations, your sealed deck is now ready to play!
If you do find yourself short on deckbuilding time – don’t panic. Your scheduled opponent for the first game will probably not mind you taking an extra 5-10 minutes to finish up, so long as you explain yourself and ask politely. Don’t forget to sleeve!
CELEBRATE AND LOOT!
Deckbuilding really is the most challenging part of a prerelease flight, so once you get that sorted you should be able to relax and breathe in the atmosphere. You’ll get to play 3-4 best-of-three matches against different opponents, with the later rounds pitting you vs. foes with a similar win-loss record for fairness.
Win or lose, the vibe in the room should be positive and low-intensity, and everyone will be learning and laughing about the new cards together. Enjoy recreating your favorite Final Fantasy moments in card form! Or play hard-but-fair and see if you can win any bonus prizes!
Either way, I’m sure you’ll come away from this biggest-ever prerelease appreciating Magic – the game and its community – more than you did before. Good luck out there.
Tom’s fate was sealed in 7th grade when his friend lent him a pile of commons to play Magic. He quickly picked up Boros and Orzhov decks in Ravnica block and has remained a staunch white magician ever since. A fan of all Constructed formats, he enjoys studying the history of the tournament meta. He specializes in midrange decks, especially Death & Taxes and Martyr Proc. One day, he swears he will win an MCQ with Evershrike. Ask him how at @AWanderingBard, or watch him stream Magic at twitch.tv/TheWanderingBard.