The 39 Best Black Cards in Final Fantasy Ranked

Last updated on June 13, 2025

Cecil, Dark Knight | Illustration by Josu Hernaiz

Final Fantasy is one of the juiciest Magic sets in some time, and it has a host of powerful cards, from the reprints to the new ones, in all colors. Most decks and formats get a little something from these cards.

So what do the black mages get? Support for classic strategies, a few new toys, and reprints of some of black’s most iconic and most powerful cards.

Let’s see which black cards shine from Final Fantasy!

What Are Black Cards in Final Fantasy?

Dark Confidant | Illustration by Immanuela Crovius

Black cards in Final Fantasy have a black color identity (with one exception), which means they have black symbols in their mana cost or text box. Black cards classically care about seizing power, and they’re best known for trading life for card draw, destroying or reanimating creatures, and making your opponents discard cards. Oh, and sacrifice effects. So many sacrifice effects.

This ranking considers everything across the MTG x Final Fantasy crossover—reprints, new cards, cards from the main set (FIN), and Commander precons (FIC) and the Through the Ages bonus sheet (FCA). New cards are ranked alongside reprints to give a sense of how Final Fantasy stacks up to black broadly.

#39. Summon: Anima

I looked at Summon: Anima and immediately thought of Peasant Cube. Grindy creatures that offer immediate and extended value thrive in that format, and this looks like an all-star for black decks. It’s almost always a two-for-one at the very least, and potentially game-winning if you reach the final chapter.

#38. Espers to Magicite

Espers to Magicite is an awesome graveyard hate piece for Commander players. This is a little expensive for graveyard hate, which you often want to be cheap, but the value of the magicite copy can outweigh that, especially if you pick up something like Orcish Bowmasters.

Fun fact: If you copy an opponent’s Devoted Druid, you get infinite green mana for free!

#37. Gaius van Baelsar

One of the more recent, exciting developments in the field of Fleshbag Marauder was Accursed Marauder, which shaved a mana off the cost and avoided token permanents. Gaius van Baelsar goes in the other direction, adding another mana for modality. This looks like an awesome card for decks like Meren of Clan Nel Toth capable of looping the edict creature.

#36. Kain, Traitorous Dragoon

I don’t know that Kain, Traitorous Dragoon is good, per se; giving your opponents cards and mana sounds dicey, and it certainly has no legs outside of Commander. But it has a unique textbox and should set up lots of intriguing political plays. At the very least, it’s a cool design.

#35. Summon: Primal Odin

I’m a sucker for a creature that kills something when it comes into play, so Summon: Primal Odin is right up my alley. This enchantment creature offers lots of pressure, and it wins random games! It might be too fragile to be super splashy, but a creature that triggers enchantment synergies while being a solid two-for-one has a home somewhere.

#34. Zodiark, Umbral God

Zodiark, Umbral God has a daunting mana cost, but you get a great threat in exchange. It’s indestructible and huge, and chumping it becomes harder since it cuts through opposing boards and continually grows. The devotion for cards like Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Gray Merchant of Asphodel might be the biggest reason to play this.

#33. Seymour Flux

It’s Phyrexian Arena, but on a creature! I like Seymour Flux. The combination of card draw and pressure is quite valuable, because the draw advantage gives you the fuel to end the game before your opponents find a way to get around it or to generate their own pressure.

#32. Syphon Mind

Syphon Mind is a personal favorite draw spell in EDH. You get tons of card advantage, drawing three cards while each of your opponents discard one. Though mediocre in Constructed, it scales well into the multiplayer format.

#31. Resentful Revelation

Cheap setup cards always have a place in Magic, and Resentful Revelation fills the graveyard quite well. Two mana for a weak Impulse that puts excess cards in the graveyard is perfectly playable, and flashback gives us value in the late game if we mill this through other means. It walks the line between payoff and enabler.

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

Though Sidequest: Hunt the Mark looks too slow for many Constructed formats, treasure commanders love some synergistic removal that becomes a big threat.

#29. Shadow, Mysterious Assassin

It’s time to break out the Whispersilk Cloak, because we really want to connect with Shadow, Mysterious Assassin. Many sacrifice cards are worded in such a way that they either work with tokens or don’t, but Shadow fits any sacrifice shell. Sure, the card’s ceiling involves throwing a chunk of damage at everybody by sacrificing cards like Disciple of Bolas, but trading away a Faerie Rogue for two cards is still perfectly reasonable.

#28. Rise of the Dark Realms

Commander decks generally want big, splashy finishers. Rise of the Dark Realms often fills that role in black as a card that handily profits from the large number of board wipes in the format. Four graveyards fill up awfully fast, and getting back the best threats in the game often ends it.

#27. Poison the Waters

Poison the Waters mostly interests me as a sideboard card. Neither mode is particularly impressive, but pairing both on a single card makes it an interesting silver bullet for decks that might need answers to threats they can’t otherwise handle, like Ketramose, the New Dawn.

#26. Ardyn, the Usurper

Ardyn, the Usurper asks for quite the mana investment, but the demon tokens it creates are massive threats thanks to all the keywords it adds. The card plays rather like a God-Pharaoh's Gift that uses all graveyards, not just yours, and I expect it to be good in the same decks.

#25. The Falcon, Airship Restored

The Falcon, Airship Restored offers a reanimation spell attached to a vehicle. It can be mana intensive, but the ability to continually reuse it gives you a huge edge in long games. The base stat line isn’t bad, either. This could be really annoying in the sideboard of grindy midrange matchups to ensure you have a mana sink.

#24. Al Bhed Salvagers

Al Bhed Salvagers is just a support piece, but a good one. A Blood Artist that triggers off Treasure tokens and other artifacts dying is just good value, and it’s well worth the additional mana in its cost.

#23. Morbid Opportunist

Black has lots of death trigger draw engines, like Midnight Reaper and Grim Haruspex. Morbid Opportunist stands out as one of the few that trigger when tokens die, so it’s useful in the right context.

#22. Night’s Whisper

Card draw is good, plain and simple. Night's Whisper gives it to you efficiently, and it’s well worth the 2 life to shave a mana off Divination. Most black decks are improved with a copy of this.

#21. Transpose

Rebound makes Transpose quite threatening. If you compare this to Night's Whisper, you’re paying an extra mana to create a Wizard token, with the potential to trigger cards that care about casting spells from exile or enable two magecraft triggers. You don't get another wizard when you re-cast the spell, but that’s an incredible deal, especially when you consider how much value black decks squeeze from a stray creature token.

#20. Zenos yae Galvus / Shinryu, Transcendent Rival

Zenos yae Galvus primarily interests me as a commander. See, Voltron decks often kill one player, then they’re pummeled into the ground once the other two players realize they’re next. But Zenos—more specifically, Shinryu, Transcendent Rival—only needs to remove one player, and it’s not like flipping Zenos is hard.

#19. Stitcher’s Supplier

Stitcher's Supplier is one of black’s best setup pieces, and one of the strongest self-mill cards in the game due to sheer efficiency: Putting six cards in the graveyard for a single mana has yet to be surpassed.

#18. Fang, Fearless I’Cie

Yet another entry in the growing list of effects that reward you when cards leave your graveyard, Fang, Fearless l'Cie looks exceptional. Drawing cards while you hit land drops off Ramunap Excavator or while you cycle through creatures with Tortured Existence and Phyrexian Reclamation is a disgusting amount of card advantage, even if it only triggers once per turn.

#17. The Darkness Crystal

All of FIN’s Crystals are cool, but The Darkness Crystal might be the best of the bunch. Exiling creatures as they go to the graveyard hampers recursion and graveyard strategies, and the incidental lifegain becomes significant when scaled to a Commander board—casting Damnation while you control this offers perfect stabilization. The activated ability sweetens the deal, turning your mana rock into a genuine threat and mana sink for the late game.

#16. Pitiless Plunderer

Most people know Pitiless Plunderer in the context of infinite combos, and that’s where this card shines. Even if you try to play it fairly, the mana advantage dominates games. Recent sets have made it even better as Wizards increasingly expands sacrifice outlets to sacrifice creatures or artifacts.

#15. Rejoin the Fight

Reanimation decks in Commander need mass reanimation spells to scale appropriately; cards like Animate Dead and Reanimate are still good, but less impressive.

Rejoin the Fight looks like an excellent entry into the format. It’s a significant downside that you let your opponents choose the creatures you get back, but savvy use of delve spells and cards like Phyrexian Reclamation limits their options.

#14. Deadly Embrace

Deadly Embrace is to black decks what Rishkar's Expertise is to green decks: It’s a chance to turn the color’s key trait into a huge burst of card draw. Note that this doesn’t care about who controlled the creatures that died, so you can throw a bunch of tokens into your Viscera Seer to set up a huge swing of card advantage.

#13. Reaper’s Scythe

Reaper's Scythe isn’t Magic’s first scaling equipment, but it looks quite promising. Just one Bastion of Remembrance or Zulaport Cutthroat trigger adds three counters, and thus +3/+3 to this equipment. The right setup makes this a 3-mana 4/4 that grows each turn. That scales quickly enough to become imposing, so I like this a lot—though I wouldn’t bother with it outside of multiplayer.

#12. Black Mage’s Rod

Black Mage's Rod effectively color-shifts Firebrand Archer to black, except it’s much more exciting since it triggers all your noncreature payoffs, and you can even flicker and bounce it to create more Wizard tokens. It’s going to see tons of play.

#11. Snuff Out

Snuff Out is a testament to how powerful free spells are. Despite having a restriction on targets, costing a chunk of life, and requiring you to control a swamp, it’s an exceptional removal spell.

#10. Kefka’s Tower (Bolas’s Citadel)

Bolas's Citadel is one of the most imposing artifacts in Magic. Casting spells for life rather than mana will never be fair; even if you don’t combo off with Sensei's Divining Top, you likely win the game when you cast three free spells off this.

#9. Shantotto’s Coercion (Diabolic Intent)

Diabolic Intent is essentially Demonic Tutor in sacrifice decks. In fact, you could argue it’s even better since you get a super cheap tutor while triggering sacrifice payoffs like Mayhem Devil and Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER. I wouldn’t play this in a deck without ample sacrifice fodder, but that’s a low bar for black decks to clear.

#8. Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER / Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER caught my eye as a commander, largely because it’s a legendary Blood Artist that also draws cards and serves as a sacrifice outlet—a perfect encapsulation of what mono-black wants to do.

Throw in the transformation to Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel that provides a substantial sacrifice outlet/mass draw effect, and you have a nasty threat that might not break any creative metrics, but serves as the solid foundation from which to build your 99. It’s worth noting that the emblems stack, so you can reasonably reach a point where your opponents lose 3 or 4 life each time you sacrifice a creature.

#7. Emet-Selch, Ascian (K’rrik, Son of Yawgmoth)

Phyrexian mana is among the greatest design mistakes Wizards has ever made—so why not make a commander that gives it to every card in your deck?

K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth is the most popular mono-black commander, and it’s one of the strongest. The deck often skews towards combo shells that exploit the lowered mana cost and can win as soon as turn 1 if luck smiles upon you. This is one of the few commanders that I doubt you can build fairly; Phyrexian mana is that good.

#6. The Emperor, Hell Tyrant (Yawgmoth, Thran Physician)

Yawgmoth is one of Magic’s most iconic villains, and his only card depiction is Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. It’s just as iconic as the villain, bundling a sacrifice outlet with removal and card draw into a vile package that’s the centerpiece of decks in multiple formats, most often with Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Young Wolf for heinous combo potential.

#5. Battle at the Big Bridge (Fatal Push)

Fatal Push set a new bar for black removal when it came out in Aether Revolt, and it still sees plenty of play across formats like Pioneer and Modern that require the most efficient answers possible. It excels in any format with fetch lands to enable revolt.

#4. Cecil, Dark Knight / Cecil, Redeemed Paladin

Can Cecil, Dark Knight make Suicide Black meta again?

Maybe. This is a massive 1-drop that always trades up thanks to deathtouch. Since a 2/3 for 2 is pretty large, your opponents probably can’t trade for this until they land a 3-drop. There might be a Standard brew that uses Dark Confidant to turbo transform it into Cecil, Redeemed Paladin, and it could be efficient enough for Modern in a deck reminiscent of Death's Shadow lists.

This card has a black-white color identity, but it was too cool not to include.

#3. Dark Confidant

I really, really want to be excited for Dark Confidant coming to Pioneer and Standard, but mono-red aggro decks have such a great presence in both formats that I worry one of Magic’s best draw engines won’t be up to snuff.

But Bob is one of the best black cards ever, even if power creep has hampered it; a cheap threat that draws plenty of cards does wonders, even if it means you need to restrict your mana curve.

#2. Reanimate

Reanimate is the gold standard of reanimation spells since it costs practically nothing. It has my vote for one of Commander’s most underplayed spells; I think of it as the most flexible protection spell you could add to a deck. Of course, its impact is seen well outside of EDH, with Legacy decks and Vintage Cubes built around its existence.

#1. Darkness of Eternity (Dark Ritual)

Dark Ritual is one of the strongest black cards ever. Generating a mana advantage easily escalates into dominating a game with the right deck, and it’s generally used unfairly to Reanimate something nasty on turn 1 or empower a storm deck. Anything that gives you free mana is hard to contend with.

Wrap Up

Fatal Push | Illustration by Yoshitaka Amano

Black has some incredible cards coming with Final Fantasy. Not only do we have awesome commanders and neat threats, some of the most iconic and powerful black cards throughout Magic’s history have been reprinted. They’re now more accessible, which is a huge win.

Which black cards are you looking forward to playing? Do you think Dark Confidant will have a big impact in Standard and Pioneer? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Do you have a favorite black card from the set or its Commander decks? Or maybe you’re interested in cards from another color. If so, check out our ranking of the best cards in Final Fantasy by color: White / Blue / Red / Green.

Stay safe and thanks for reading!