Bombshell $50 Reprint Exclusive to Japanese Final Fantasy Boxes

Last updated on April 12, 2025

 Force of Negation | Illustration by Paul Scott Canavan

Tarkir: Dragonstorm previews are so March 2025, right? The clans and winged death-lizards were cool and all, but as all Magic players know, the close of one spoiler season is a gateway to the next. Magic's official Twitter/X accounts have been trickling in previews over the last few months, and we're still a ways away from “official” Final Fantasy x MTG preview season, but they've dropped yet another exciting tidbit from the upcoming Universes Beyond set.

MTG's official Japanese X account posted a look at a few promo cards coming out this June, specifically reprints of Force of Negation and Arcane Denial, complete with the Godzilla treatment of using a different Final Fantasy related name.

Japanese Exclusives

Before you counterspell connoisseurs get too excited about these reprints, it's important to note that these two cards in particular are exclusive to Japanese booster boxes. As you can tell from the Twitter post (assuming that you can read Japanese), this is meant as an incentive for Japanese audiences, so no point chasing after these in your English Collector Booster boxes.

But the exclusivity doesn't end there: There are only 2,000 copies of the Force of Negation to begin with, so even the Japanese crowd isn't guaranteed a copy! That's not quite serialized Headliner status, but it's not that far off, and it's safe to say this card will be the White Whale of many Magic players.

Roses Are Red, Counters Are Blue

Arcane Denial | Illustration by Xi Zhang

So, scarcity and regional ties aside, what about the cards themselves?

Arcane Denial is… fine? Here reskinned as “Fatalism,” Arcane Denial is an efficient counterspell that sees extensive Commander play and basically never graces the sleeve of a 60-card deck. Copies fetch between $1-2, and the card has seen numerous reprints over the years, dating all the way back to Alliances. Commander staple or not, it's not exactly coveted despite its pedigree as one of the better budget counterspells in EDH.

Originally meant to be the “fixed” Force of Will, Force of Negation accidentally dipped its toes in Modern Horizons juices for too long and instead went on to simply become Force of Will #2. It does a good impression of FOW in formats where that card isn't legal, and it sits side-by-side with the all-timer free counterspell in formats where both co-exist. Negate that you can cast for free on an opponent's turn is still a nuisance even if it's not as versatile as the original.

That competitive angle means Force of Negation's worth a pretty penny. The cheapest copies of Force of Negation run around $50-55 on TCGplayer. The card's only been printed in three supplementary sets: Modern Horizons, Double Masters 2022, and as a “Timeshifted reprint” in Modern Horizons 2. It's not exactly easily accessible given its playability in Modern and other Eternal formats. As cool as it would've been to see a main-set reprint of the card, remember that Final Fantasy will be Standard-legal, and the world's probably not ready for free counters in Standard again. Or ever.

What About the Final Fantasy Flavor?

Force of Negation

This Force of Negation reprint (translated to “Witch's Prophecy” by some X users) depicts a moment in Final Fantasy VIII where Sorceress Edea, the early antagonist turned protagonist later in the game, stops a sniper bullet aimed at her during an assassination mission held be the main characters. For those of you who ever wondered if blue mana could stop a handgun, now you know!

The moment can be seen around the 2:00 minute mark in the video below, posted by Takhomasak, complete with glorious PlayStation 1 graphics:

Arcane Denial

Arcane Denial is labeled as “Fatalism” here, and depicts “The Endsinger” from Final Fantasy XIV. She's a boss from the entry bent on planetary destruction, which is par for the course when it comes to Final Fantasy villains. It's a little bit less of a perfect fit than Edea deflecting a bullet, but if you think of it as destroying the universe = denying the arcane, it kind of gets the job done. Of note, this version of Arcane Denial can come in foil or non-foil.

Whether these two counterspells are something you could feasibly get a hold of or not, you've got to admit they're pretty cool, even if one overshadows the other by a colossal amount.

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