Final Fantasy Turtles Up With Highest-Toughness Creature Ever Printed

Last updated on May 22, 2025

Dragon Turtle | Illustration by Dan Scott

Sick and tired of attacking with your Ambling Stormshell and then having to wait three turns for it to untap? Worry not, Final Fantasy is here to help! What better way to remove one of those stun counters than to cast an 8-mana 8/20 turtle?

Sorry, It’s How Big?

Ancient Adamantoise is officially the highest-toughness creature card in Magic: The Gathering. Time for Charix, the Raging Isle and Impervious Greatwurm to hang up their hats, the true king of butts has finally arrived.

And just to get ahead of all the “well actuallys,” B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster) is a silver-bordered card, and Marit Lage is a token, so they don’t count and you know it.

So yeah, that’s one giant turtle, but is it actually any good? Let’s break it down.

This thing costs a whopping , and 8 mana’s pretty much no-go territory for most Constructed formats outside of decks that aren’t trying to cheat creatures into play. Chances are anyone interested in doing that is going to lean towards Atraxa, Grand Unifier or another massive value creature before this thing.

Standard also has two other creatures with this exact mana cost: Craterhoof Behemoth and Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant, which are much more proactive threats. Eight points of power isn’t anything to sneeze at, but Adamantoise is mostly a defensive play. Even with vigilance letting you play offense and defense at the same time, you’re not really jamming this in a deck with the intentions of getting the game over quickly.

There are a lot of other knobs here though. Ward 3 is basically mandatory on a card like this, though even Go for the Throat at 5 mana still makes this trade down miserably. We don’t get cards that mention the cleanup step by name very often at all, but it’s here to balance out the damage redirection. The turtle basically lets you and your other creatures tank 20 points worth of damage, which makes this something of a second life total that your opponent has to slog through.

And the last ability is a nice consolation prize for having your 8-mana play defeated (assuming it doesn’t just get exiled by a Blot Out or something). Turning this into 10 Treasures upon defeat gives you your initial investment back and then some. That’s just enough mana to cast another Adamantoise and two Aegis Turtles. We call the deck “Turbo Stormshell.”

The Commander Corner

Craterhoof Behemoth | Illustration by Chris Rahn

So, it’s a longshot in shell that this sees any meaningful Constructed play, but thankfully there’s a format where 8-mana creatures go to thrive. Ancient Adamantoise definitely has homes in Commander, though even there it’s a bit niche. We’re talking a format that’s defined to some extent by the existence of Craterhoof Behemoth, after all.

So who wants the 8/20 monstrosity? Well, the high-toughness decks, for one. These have made a resurgence lately thanks to Tarkir: Dragonstorm and the Abzan Armor precon, and a 20-toughness creature sounds like exactly the type of card you’d want to pair with Felothar the Steadfast and support pieces like Jaws of Defeat and Arbor Adherent.

There might also be some flavor of Gruul Treasure decks that want this, as another Goldvein Hydra of sorts. Roxanne, Starfall Savant is the type of card that can ramp into an 8-drop with ease, benefits from the Treasure the turtle leaves behind, and even makes good use of the damage redirection since Roxanne’s a frail 4/3 that needs to be attacking to function. Henzie “Toolbox” Torre‘s another commander that comes to mind as something that can make the turtle cheaper and cash in on its Treasures right away. Ziatora, the Incinerator might be interested in flinging this turtle around, too.

The turtle’s going to show up somewhere, just don’t expect it to dethrone the ‘Hoof any time soon. And if you want this sort of damage prevention at a lower cost, dig up all those old copies of Vigor you’ve got lying around.

The Lore Behind the Shell

Source: Final Fantasy Wiki

For those curious about the source material, this version of the Adamantoise comes from Final Fantasy XV, where it’s the game’s big post-credits super-boss (a creature typically stronger than the final bosses of the main story). It’s somewhat notorious for being a lengthy fight that can take upwards of an hour or two to actually finish, though the game developers initially planned to have the fight take upwards of two weeks to complete.

Even with its imposing stature and somewhat difficult boss battle, it’s usually seen as a pretty tame entry in the line-up of Final Fantasy super-bosses. In fact, some of those even show up in the MTG crossover on cards like Yiazmat, Ultimate Mark (Final Fantasy XII), Omega, the Heartless (Final Fantasy XIV), and Absolute Virtue (Final Fantasy XI).

And for anyone holding out hope that other fan-favorite super-bosses like Ozma, Shinryu, Ruby/Emerald Weapon, or Penance will show up, there’s still a week of Final Fantasy previews left!