Powerful Final Fantasy Commanders Revealed Days Before First Previews

Last updated on May 9, 2025

Yuna from FFX – Designed by Tetsuya Nomura

Someone at Wizards is getting antsy, because early Final Fantasy previews keep dropping just days before the PAX East MTG panel kicks off the next official spoiler season. There's been a handful of early, official spoilers showcasing some exciting new legendary creatures from across Final Fantasy‘s 16 mainline installments, and it's just the tip of the iceberg.

There have been no less than five new commanders previewed since Wednesday morning, and there could very well be a few more coming on Friday. Let's round up what we saw this week.

Hildibrand Manderville – Final Fantasy XIV

The first Thursday preview was Hildibrand Manderville, a member of the FFXIV gang from the Scions & Spellcraft Commander precon. This gentlemanly detective takes a page out of Mosswood Dreadknight‘s book as a recursive creature that can loop itself via its own adventure. In this case, Gentleman's Rise is an overcosted 2/2 zombie token, but the adventure always “draws” you the main creature again, which in turn pumps the zombie and all other creature tokens you control.

This is ultimately an extremely fair card that could have chops in Standard (Dreadknight sees decent play), but that little chocobo set symbol means it's a Commander precon exclusive. Also, since this is a Commander-only card, it gives us no indication as to whether or not adventures will be a main set mechanic. Plenty of other Commander precons have used one-off adventure cards before, though the mechanic would make total sense from the Final Fantasy perspective.

Also note that this is part of the Commander deck led by Y'shtola, Night's Blessed, which specifically cares about casting noncreature spells with mana value 3 or greater. Hildibrand's adventure fits the requirement, and being an instant means it gets you closer to triggering Y'shtola on other players' turns (Y'shtola triggers on everyone's end step).

Yuna, Grand Summoner – Final Fantasy X

Yuna, Grand Summoner is part of the Final Fantasy X Counter Blitz deck, where it appears to be the backup to Tidus, Yuna's Guardian. Who's guarding who exactly, Tidus?

Despite not really curving into one another in an intuitive way, Tidus and Yuna are very much in synch as +1/+1 counter commanders, though both of them have utility with other kinds of counters as well. Yuna's an expensive mana dork, but it acts as a supercharged Biophagus that makes up to one creature you cast each turn massive as it enters play.

The second trigger is very interesting. The first layer is similar to The Ozolith, as it preserves your +1/+1 counters when creatures leave the battlefield, but there's more to unpack here. Yuna actually converts any type of counter that was on your permanents into +1/+1 counters when they hit the ‘yard. As a baseline example of how messy this can get, imagine playing Dark Depths and sacrificing it to, say, Crop Rotation. Those 10 ice counters become 10 +1/+1 counters on any creature you wish.

Both Tidus and Yuna were left open-ended enough to work with all sorts of positive and negative counters, which makes the Counter Blitz deck an early frontrunner for the most unique and innovative precon among the bunch.

G’raha Tia, Scion Reborn – Final Fantasy XIV

G'raha Tia, Scion Reborn appears to be the backup commander for Y'shtola, Night's Blessed (the cat ears are a dead giveaway). It has a sort of Shark Typhoon-style cast trigger that also cares about noncreature spells, and lets you convert life into bodies on board. The bigger the spells you cast, the larger tokens you can make, though at a higher cost of life too. Lifelink obviously helps make up for this a bit.

This Esper commander is sitting at the cross-section of a lot of different archetypes: lifegain, spellslinging, token-making, +1/+1 counters, and even cats and wizards, if you're eyeballing the creature types. That all comes together to create a commander with a lot of different deckbuilding avenues, so expect brewers to latch onto this one.

Wednesday Recap

Zenos yae Galvus

Draftsim covered Zenos yae Galvus in detail yesterday, with the TL:DR being that the card has powerhouse potential. It's part Massacre Wurm, part Withengar Unbound, and it's an altogether cool addition to the set, even with clear multiplayer text tacked onto a Standard-legal card.

Shantotto

Source: Scryfall

Shantotto's a much more familiar design, leaning into Izzet‘s tried-and-true spellcasting territory. It's reminiscent of Kiln Fiend creatures where each noncreature spell you cast pumps it for the turn, and it has a strikingly similar design to Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat.

Where some people see a worse Livaan, others are calling Shantotto the next Up the Beanstalk. Better beans, actually, given that it triggers on 4-mana spells as well. However, the card isn't quite as degenerate, since it counts mana spent, not mana value of spells cast. No cheesing it with This Town Ain't Big Enough or Mine Collapse. Full price or bust.

It's still a decent card advantage creature, though it hardly feels at all unique from most other Izzet spellslinger commanders.

That said, Shantotto's an uncommon from the main set, not a Commander card, so you'll be seeing this one in the Limited format. Assuming this is a sign-post uncommon for the set, it appears Izzet will be leaning into its usual spellcasting ways, though perhaps with an “expensive spells matter” theme of sorts.

To Be Continued…

It's safe to say Final Fantasy will be absolutely loaded with legendary creatures. The developers have already stated that they tried to cover as many of the main party leads from the mainline games as they could, and that's just protagonists! With four Commander precons accompanying the main set, EDH players should expect a massive influx of new legends to work with.

Image Sources: Star City Games on X

Saturday's the big day for Final Fantasy previews, which Wizards has been hyping up nonstop. From dropping random previews on characters' birthdays to showcasing Kekfa's and Sephiroth's art on the main floor at PAX East, Wizards knows how to get people excited. Stay tuned this weekend for more previews, all leading up to the main set release on June 13.