The Best Commons and Uncommons By Color for Final Fantasy Draft

Sazh's Chocobo | Illustration by Domenico Cava

New Draft formats (or perhaps new games if you’re giving Magic a go for the first time) can be quite intimidating at first. You could try to read my full Final Fantasy Limited set review, but if you’d like the quick hits, this is for you.

Here, I’ll go over my picks for the four best commons and uncommons in each of the five colors. This list is by no means definitive, and these are bound to move around over the course of the format. But hopefully this helps as a good starter guide of what to look out for.

Commons

White

#4. Summon: Choco/Mog

Three-mana 3/3s aren’t quite good enough anymore, but giving your whole team +1/+0 is enough of a bonus that I think this is really good. Green/white especially is really interested in Summon: Choco/Mog, plus it has both summon and chocobo synergy to play into.

#3. Magitek Infantry

Aggressive 1-drops have a tendency to over-perform. Even in slow formats, it’s cards like Magitek Infantry that help the aggressive decks to survive. It obviously works well when you have multiple copies, but even on its own, a 1-mana 2/1 in an aggressive artifact-based deck is still very good.

#2. White Auracite

Removal always makes the cut on these lists, because dealing with problematic rares and mythics is one of the most valuable effects you can have in Draft. White Auracite is a nice, clean answer to basically anything in Final Fantasy Limited, and it even ramps you, which is particularly good given how many huge mana sinks are in this set.

#1. Dwarven Castle Guard

I’m really high on Dwarven Castle Guard. Good 2-drops are essential in most Draft formats, and this one looks really good, especially in the white/black sacrifice deck. In can do everything: early pressure, double chump block, double sacrifice…. It just doesn’t get a lot better than this for a common.

Blue

#4. Combat Tutorial

Divinations are always nice. They smooth out your draws and help you to dig for more relevant cards. Plus, in spellslinger archetypes like what blue/red is trying to do in Final Fantasy, they help enable your deck’s themes. Combat Tutorial is surely no different.

#3. Qiqirn Merchant

This is a weird choice, but Qiqirn Merchant looks like it has the potential to really overperform. It’s good on defense, it filters your draws while you’re setting up, and it turns into three extra cards when you don’t need it anymore. Sounds like a great control card to me.

#2. Ice Magic

Over the last few sets, the design of a 4-mana blue spell that sends a creature to the top or bottom of the deck has been pretty good. It’s bound to be even better when it also has the option of being a 2-mana Unsummon. Ice Magic could even cost 8 mana if you want to trigger the select few cards that care about that.

#1. Dragoon’s Wyvern

These cards are pretty much never bad. Two bodies with solid combined stats from one card and one of them even flies? Yeah, always good, and Dragoon's Wyvern is likely no different.

Black

#4. Hecteyes

Forcing your opponent to discard a card is quite close to you drawing a card in terms of card advantage. As such, Hecteyes is essentially a cheap two-for-one play, assuming you can make use of the 1/1 body, which you should be able to.

#3. Shinra Reinforcements

Two of black’s archetypes care about loading the graveyard, and Shinra Reinforcements is one of the best ways to do that efficiently. The fact that this is a permanent card that gains life puts it ahead of Resentful Revelation. Any controlling deck would be happy playing this solely for the lifegain anyway, so the mill is just a big bonus.

#2. Cornered by Black Mages

Two-for-one plays are what Limited is all about. Cornered by Black Mages is very close to being one, and it’s a great way to create this highly desirable black mage token. I’m quite excited for this black/red archetype, and this looks like a key card to make it work.

#1. Vayne’s Treachery

Cheap black removal is always deserving of the top spot of a set’s best black commons, and Vayne's Treachery is no exception. -X/-X spells are especially powerful since you can use them as combat tricks to kill bigger creatures. This version even lets you kill much bigger creatures by sacrificing a random bit of fodder you have lying around.

Red

#4. Call the Mountain Chocobo

This would already be quite good if it were just the chocobo creature that drew a mountain when it entered. Except Call the Mountain Chocobo is also a noncreature spell for the spellslinger archetypes in blue and black, plus it has flashback to go do it again later! I love this card, and I hope I get to cast it a bunch.

#3. Mysidian Elder

Two bodies for one card is usually good, and while we don’t care too much about a vanilla 1/3, we really want the black mage token to start stacking up damage pings. On top of that, Mysidian Elder is the only red common that makes a black mage token, so you’re going to want to pick this up quite often.

#2. Thunder Magic

Red’s burn spells are nearly always the best commons, or at the very least in contention. The split card of basically Shock (yes, I know it only hits creatures) or Electrify sounds pretty good to me, though there’s a slightly better burn spell than Thunder Magic at common….

#1. Suplex

Two mana for 3 damage is the most efficient rate we have for burn spells here, and exiling the target could also be very relevant. There are also a couple of huge artifact creatures in Final Fantasy that Suplex can outright kill without dealing damage.

Green

#4. Chocobo Kick

Bite spells like this are how green gets access to removal, and it’s not bad at doing that. The kicker cost is nice because it allows Chocobo Kick to take down a much larger range of possible targets, but it also guarantees you a land drop to trigger landfall.

#3. Summon: Fat Chocobo

I had to put my spirit animal on this list, but it helps that it’s legitimately great. Summon: Fat Chocobo is another example of two bodies for one card at a good rate while also giving your whole team trample for a few turns, which should be great to help you push through damage.

#2. Goobbue Gardener

Mana acceleration is literally what green wants to do the most. I mean, it’s usually what you first learn about green decks. Goobbue Gardener is the best way that we have to do this in Final Fantasy, so it really ought to be a high pick.

#1. Town Greeter

This text box is a roundabout way to say that this is a 1/1 that draws you a land for 2 mana. That would already be a perfect 2-drop for green, but Town Greeter also fills your graveyard and sometimes gains you some life for good measure. This is great and an easy pick for the best green common.

Uncommons

White

#4. Delivery Moogle

I’ve said it a few times, but two-for-ones are exactly what we’re looking for. There’s a good selection of small artifacts that you can find in your draft to make sure Delivery Moogle has some solid targets, but as long as you get anything this is well worth the cost.

#3. G’raha Tia

G'raha Tia is a little on the expensive side, but the ability to draw cards whenever something dies is extremely powerful. Enough so that this definitely deserves a spot on this list. Sacrifice decks especially like this, but any white deck can play it and just draw cards when creatures trade off in combat.

#2. Summon: Primal Garuda

It may go away in a couple of turns, but at least it killed a creature before doing so. It’s hard to call Summon: Primal Garuda an actual Flametongue Kavu given that you’ll sacrifice it shortly after it enters, but killing a creature and then providing a threatening amount of damage in the air still sounds like a great card to me.

#1. Zack Fair

The fact that Zack Fair is only a 1-drop is unbelievable. It does so much and yet requires so little mana investment. That’s all we need to know. Zack can protect any creature from a lot of potential removal, and it costs you so little. Similar cards in the past have been very powerful, and this might be the best version of the effect.

Blue

#4. Sleep Magic

Sleep Magic basically looks like the blue Swords to Plowshares. It’s incredibly efficient to answer just about any creature with almost no downside for just 1 mana. It’s as simple as that really.

#3. Ultros, Obnoxious Octopus

The difficulty with casting 4-mana noncreature spells is that they often don’t affect the board, and that can cause you to fall too far behind your opponent, especially when they’re aggressive. Ultros, Obnoxious Octopus guarantees that every big spell you cast actually affects the board in a meaningful way, and spells that already do now pull double duty.

#2. Relm’s Sketching

This is an effect that’s strong enough to be a rare in most sets, so seeing it at uncommon is particularly good. Relm's Sketching is also a 4-mana noncreature spell for the blue/red deck, so it’s an incredibly high value pick.

#1. Eject

Four mana for the blue/red deck while interacting with the board and drawing a card? Done! The spells archetype looks very strong in Final Fantasy, and Eject is one of the best ones available.

Black

#4. Sidequest: Hunt the Mark // Yiazmat, Ultimate Mark

So this is as close to a two-for-one removal spell as black is ever going to get these days. I assume we’re unlikely to ever see something as ridiculous as Ravenous Chupacabra anymore, so we can settle for something like Sidequest: Hunt the Mark, where we get a similar effect but need to jump through a few hoops for it.

#3. Summon: Anima

Six-drops don’t normally make this list in black, but Summon: Anima is extremely powerful. It’s essentially a Phyrexian Gargantua, which was always a powerful card in its own right. If I’m spending 6 mana in a long, controlling game, there are few cards as impactful in that situation as Anima.

#2. Al Bhed Salvagers

Blood Artist is a classic card at this point, and I have no problem believing Al Bhed Salvagers will be a major player in Final Fantasy if the sacrifice deck has any legs. Even without a dedicated archetype, gaining life whenever you trade off a creature in combat or chump block is something that makes it very difficult for an opponent to win the damage race.

#1. Gaius van Baelsar

The best part about Gaius van Baelsar is just how flexible its ability is. Whether you kill a summon, a token, or whatever else, you have a lot of agency to choose a mode where you don’t sacrifice anything good, but your opponent still has to. All that on a 4-mana creature that you can then recur sounds pretty amazing to me.

Red

#4. Summon: Esper Ramuh

Two of the four archetypes in red are centered around noncreature spells, and both will be very interested in this card. Summon: Esper Ramuh’s removal mode is a little bit conditional, but with instants and sorceries going straight to the graveyard, you should enable it pretty quickly.

#3. Samurai’s Katana

This is the best job select card in Final Fantasy. A 3/3 with trample and haste for 3 mana is an exceptionally good rate. Five to re-equip is prohibitively expensive, but I don’t think we care since Samurai's Katana already hits like a ton of bricks when you play it.

#2. Freya Crescent

A restrictive mana dork like this perhaps doesn’t look too good, but Freya Crescent does a lot more than that. It’s also a 1-drop, which might allow you to cast a Samurai's Katana on turn 2. Not only that, Freya also has flying, so it’s a great aggressive option too. There’s enough going on here to make me think it’s among the strongest 1-drops in Final Fantasy.

#1. Choco-Comet

This isn’t only the best red uncommon in my eyes, but it’s also potentially the best non-rare card in any color. Choco-Comet is basically a Flametongue Kavu that can deal any amount of damage to a creature, and it’s even a noncreature spell to support the spellslinger decks. This is unbelievably strong, and I can’t wait to play it for myself!

Green

#4. Coliseum Behemoth

Green wants to do some mana ramping in Final Fantasy, and this is basically the strongest ramp payoff before getting to the rares and mythics. It’s an easy pick for this list. Coliseum Behemoth can destroy enchantments, making it a good way to answer a lot of annoying summons that you might play against.

#3. Summon: Fenrir

Mana acceleration is the name of the game here. Even if your opponent deals with Summon: Fenrir, it still ramps you and fixes your colors. Ideally it trades off with something in combat before you sacrifice it, but if you can set it up so you draw a card from the third chapter ability, that’s still a reasonable shout.

#2. Vanille, Cheerful l’Cie // Ragnarok, Divine Deliverance

Two-for-ones! They’re always among the strongest cards in any set, and this is no different. Vanille, Cheerful l'Cie is basically a slightly weaker Eternal Witness, which was one of the best Limited uncommons ever made. What more do we even need?

#1. Torgal, A Fine Hound

If some mana accelerants are good, then more must be better, right? Torgal, A Fine Hound is my pick for the best accelerant in Final Fantasy. Not only does it ramp you on 2 and fix for any color, but when 44.3% of the set’s creatures are human, its first ability triggers quite often.

Wrap Up

Yiazmat, Ultimate Mark | Illustration by Joshua Raphael

The Final Fantasy Magic set looks incredibly sweet. As a big fan of Final Fantasy and JRPGs in general, I’m incredibly excited! If you’ve never played Final Fantasy and this set has inspired you to give it a try, my advice is to start with Final Fantasy X. The story is phenomenal, the gameplay is fairly simple, and you can get the remastered version for cheap on all modern systems. If you’re interested in some recommendations for other JRPGs, I posted a list at the end of my main set review, so check it out!

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Until next time, take care of yourselves!