Drafting Final Fantasy x MTG: Izzet and Golgari Dominate Early Games

Last updated on June 12, 2025

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER – art by Wisnu Tan

Final Fantasy x MTG releases worldwide for tabletop players tomorrow, Friday. But Magic's digital platforms, MTGO and MTG Arena, have already kicked the FIN floodgates wide open. Players are flocking in droves to draft the newest Magic.

Thus far, Izzet shows a clear lead among strictly 2-color decks, although Golgari with a light splash is the best-performing combination overall.

Early Final Fantasy Draft Data: By the Numbers

First and foremost, with Final Fantasy hitting MTG Arena less than two days ago, this is very early data. Most players are just testing the waters and learning the cards, so we're still far from knowing what's good and what's bad.

Second, all data in this article comes from 17Lands, specifically from MTG Arena's Premier drafts. The data only tracks 17Lands users – therefore, it's not a random sample of all MTGA players, but just a subset of players who are better than average.

Which leads us to the third point: At the time of writing, the data we took for this articles shows:

… 85,213 games played, across all recorded decks, with a win rate (WR) of 56.1%. That's what “a subset of better-than-average players” means in this case. 17Lands users win, on average, 56.1% of the time.

Keep that in mind when we look at the following numbers – we're only impressed by decks and cards that punch well above the 56% mark.

2-color decks are strictly two colors, not a single card with a third. “Splashes” mean “between 1 and 3 cards from other colors”. 3-color decks have exactly three colors, and at least 4 cards from each color.

The color combinations are sorted by WR:

Source: 17Lands

The first thing that sticks out is Golgari + splash being the absolute best performer.

Izzet leads the 2-color pack, and by a good lead at that: It's the only one that breaks out from the 57% WR pack.

Notice how, among 2-color decks, Azorius and Boros are the most popular (around 7,200 games each), and Izzet is third with about 6,200.

Notice how Simic is by far the least popular 2-color combination (barely 1,600)… but it's among the most-popular and best-performing splashes, coming second on both counts behind Golgari, and it's also the core of the only two 3-color decks with worthy results: Temur () and Sultai ().

At least this early:

• Blue () seems like color you want to be early in your draft: The top 3 among 2-color decks lean blue, and the fourth (Dimir) is not too far behind.
• Something similar can be said for White (), with all four white-leaning guilds punching above 57%.
• Green () looks like the most flexible color.
• Red () seems like a polarizing color: The very best when paired with Blue, but the worst (by a huge margin!) with Black or Green.
• You don't want to be Rakdos, it seems, but Black () does well with the other colors.

There's an excellent data analysis post by u/IamMandrell on reddit, analyzing trophy decks (that's to say, only looking at decks that reached 7 wins).

Source: u/IamMandrell's thread on Reddit

To the left, you can see how , , and got the most trophies, which is consistent with them being both the most popular 2-color archetypes, and among the heavy-hitters.

Early Final Fantasy Draft Data: Best Commons and Uncommons

While we're too early into the format to be confident about knowing which archetypes are really the best, card data for commons and uncommon do start forming a picture.

Thus far, the three best uncommons are:

Here's the rest of the top-tier uncommons, and including one common which is strong enough to make the cut: White Auracite 

Source: 17Lands

Also notice that the three top multicolor uncommons all lean green:

Of the three best commons, they are all removal, which should tell you something about the Final Fantasy draft format:

And here are the top-tier commons, with White Auracite leading this pack:

Source: 17Lands

The commons give more context to the deck performance data we saw earlier:

• Blue is the deepest color by far, with a lot of good commons,
• Red, on the other hand, doesn't have too many options at this level.

Early Final Fantasy Draft Data: Best Rares and Mythics

The “early data” caveat cuts even deeper here: Players are not only finding their feet, but there are several rares, and roughly 30% of the mythics, that just simply don't have enough data to appraise properly

Here are the best rares, again showing Red getting the short end of the stick:

Source: 17Lands

The multicolor bombs gives us a clue of when you may want to go into Rakdos, and further clues about what's going on with Golgari and Sultai (arguably the best three-color deck).

And here are the best mythics:

Source: 17Lands

Wrap Up

This is where, in our financial articles, we remind folks that this is not investment advice.

Oddly enough, it also applies here – just for your hard-grinded gold or gems if you're about to draft on MTG Arena, or your packs if you're heading to your LGS.

That said, by this early data the quick n' dirty rules of thumb would be:

• Try sticking to two colors.
• You're very happy if you can start with Blue or White.
• Green's arguably the color best if you like (or need to) splash or move into three colors.
• Black's very good, except with Red.
• Try avoiding Rakdos and Gruul.

And, of course: On packs 2 and 3, always try opening a straight-up bomb in your colors!