Saga Creatures from Final Fantasy Spark MTG Rules Debates — Players Eager for New Interaction

Last updated on May 12, 2025

Urza's Saga (Modern Horizons II) | Illustration by Titus Lunter

Final Fantasy x MTG had a huge debut last weekend, with everything from big character reveals to…

One particular type of card that is getting a lot of talk among MTG players are Final Fantasy‘s summons, which combine sagas and creatures… are are bringing a few headaches about how exactly they work.

So lets jump into these epic sagas and learn their ins and outs!

What Are Summons in Final Fantasy x MTG?

In the Final Fantasy videogames, summons are powerful monsters that can be called into battle to fight by your side. They have different recurring names in the English translations, including eidolons, espers, and eikons

The Final Fantasy x MTG set will bring them to Magic by combining two types of cards: creatures, and sagas. It's a great flavor win: sagas are powerful but short-lived (they usually only stay around for a couple of turns).

From what we've seen thus far, many of these saga creatures have “Summon” in their name, like for example Summon: Primal Odin or Summon: Bahamut. That seems to be just for flavor, and “summon” doesn't have any impact on the rules that we know of. 

How Do Saga Creatures Work?

Rules Lawyer | Illustration by Sean Murray

“Saga creatures follow all the same rules that other Sagas do”, writes WotC's Matt Tabak in the official article about Final Fantasy x MTG mechanics. They are pretty much two types of cards – sagas, and creatures – rolled into one. Anything a creature can do, saga creatures can do too. And everything that applies to regular sagas also applies to Final Fantasy‘s summons.

Saga creatures can attack and block exactly like regular creatures; they can crew vehicles; they die if you point enough Burst Lightnings at them; and they will trigger a Blood Artist or any other death trigger.

In short: They are creatures!

If It Affects Counters, It Affects Lore Counters

Everything that affects any type of counter also affects lore counters on sagas. Everything.  

Your sagas just ignore stuff that affect other types of counters, so of course, your Hardened Scales has no effect on lore counters. Cards like Doubling Season, Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider, Glissa Sunslayer all affect lore counters exactly as they describe.

Final Fantasy summons were clearly made to work with Yuna, Grand Summoner, and you can see the difference spelled out: Yuna places +1/+1 counters on creatures as they enter, but when they die she just cares about any type of counters. So, if you sacrifice a saga with 3 lore counters, Yuna will recycle those counters.

Yes, Proliferate Works With Sagas

Since everything that works for counters in general also work for lore counters, it means that you can proliferate them.

The only thing to keep in mind is that, if you ever put several lore counters on a saga at the same time (like if you proliferate while having Doubling Season in play), you trigger all the chapters you advance through.

So if you have Summon: Bahamut in play with one lore counter, and you proliferate it twice to land on Chapter III (draw two cards), you'll also get to trigger Chapter II (destroy a creature). That's to say, if you place two lore counters at the same time you don't skip one chapter; you get to read them all!

Something similar happens with Esper Terra, the transformed backside of Terra, Magical Adept. Esper Terra is a saga creature that lets you copy another saga and put 3 lore counters on it: you get to trigger those three chapters, not just skip to the last.

What If a Saga Creature Has Zero Lore Counters?

Anti-climatic as it sounds… nothing actually happens if a saga creature has zero lore counters!

A saga with zero lore counters just stays on the battlefield. A saga can have zero counters because the counters get removed, or because something (like Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider) prevented them getting counters in the first place.

But, if you play Summon: Fenrir while my Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider is in play, your Summon: Fenrir won't get any counters on it. Notably, It will remain on the battlefield as a big, bad creature.

Do I Want to Run Cards that Remove Counters?

Removing lore counters can be a good thing, though, that you may want to do on purpose!

Say you kill my Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider and your Summon: Primal Odin has two lore counters; you attack me with it and if it hits I'm dead, so I chump-block it to survive this round. I sigh in relief, since your big bad Summon: Primal Odin will be gone next turn when you put 3 lore counters and you have to sacrifice it. BUT before your turn ends…

… you play Power Conduit and remove one counter from it. Now you can keep your Summon: Primal Odin alive and capitalize on additional triggers.

Here Comes the Fun Police

Tishana's Tidebinder | Illustration by Nino Vecia

One very negative aspect of being both a saga and a creature is susceptibility to “loses all abilities” cards.

If a saga somehow loses all its abilities, then you have to sacrifice it immediately. That's because if it loses all abilities, it loses all its chapters – and if a saga somehow has no chapter abilities, its final chapter number is 0, and you'll have to sacrifice it since you've basically reached the last chapter.

Up until now, this is a pretty obscure interaction which only came up in formats that play Urza's Saga and Blood Moon.

But once Final Fantasy releases, summon creatures are going to meet…

The Tidebinder not only stifles a triggered ability on the stack, but also removes all abilities from the source if it's a creature. If I play Summon: Bahamut, and you Tidebind the chapter's trigger on the stack, you not only counter the trigger, but also remove all of Summon: Bahamut‘s abilities, including the chapter abilities. But Bahamut is still a saga, now with zero chapters… which means it has reached the end of its story, and I have to sacrifice it.

You can pull this nasty trick on my Bahamut with cards like Fresh Start or Unable to Scream, too!