11 New Final Fantasy Commanders Drop on Friday

Last updated on December 3, 2025

Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER | Illustration by Justyna Dura

As if Final Fantasy didn't already have enough legendary creatures, this Friday marks the debut of 11 new commanders from the MTG crossover. The four Final Fantasy Scene Boxes release on December 5, same day as the Chocobo Bundles, with each Scene Box containing six mechanically unique cards.

That means you'll see some returning faces from characters that already appeared in this summer's blockbuster Final Fantasy set, as well as some newcomers that got snubbed in the original release, like Amarant and Edea. Still no Eiko Carol from Final Fantasy IX though, so sorry once again to people who weren't satisfied with just seeing her on Sleep Magic and Crystal Fragments.

Garland at the Chaos Shrine

Garland at the Chaos Shrine, appropriately flavored after the original Final Fantasy, has the most new commanders, with five of the six new cards being legendary creatures (Chaos Shrine's Black Crystal is the sixth card). These are the four main nameless characters from the game, as well as the big bad Garland.

Garland, Royal Kidnapper demonstrates just how flavorful these cards are: He's the “Royal Kidnapper” and literally steals someone from the monarch. Good stuff. The card's also pretty interesting as a new monarch commander. Obviously, making someone else the monarch is usually a poor idea, but the control magic you get from doing so can set up some easy attacks to immediately take the monarch for yourself. It then punishes anyone for trying to steal it back by snatching one of their creatures if they do so successfully.

Not being able to sacrifice the stolen creatures is a bummer, but seems like a way to balance out a repeatable control magic effect. Notably, you get to steal creatures even if your opponents just trade the monarch back and forth among themselves. Bring along Thassa, Deep-Dwelling for some perma-stealing action.

The rest of the legends from this box all play around with the party mechanic from Zendikar Rising and Baldur's Gate, which is superb flavor. The Destined Warrior is the only one you'd really consider running as a commander, especially since it incorporates the colors of the other three. It's mostly just an Esper beater with some cost reduction, but it's a nice change of pace from Nalia de'Arnise for anyone who hasn't bounced off of their party decks yet.

Final Fantasy VIII – Children of Fate

Here we've got more Final Fantasy VIII action with a showdown between two of the main protagonists and antagonists in what might be the most controversial Final Fantasy game in the franchise. Notable, Edea makes her first appearance on a standalone card, previously only showing up in the art of other cards from the Final Fantasy set. Children of Fate features four new legendary creatures.

Funny that Edea, Possessed Sorceress isn't that different from Garland, but these Final Fantasy villains do love their kidnapping/possession. There's nothing too exciting about Edea, unfortunately, since we've seen quite a few Grixis theft commanders lately (Nathan Drake, Treasure Hunter‘s still in its MTG infancy).

Rinoa never had much of a personality in FFVIII, and that shows here. This is just an incredibly middling flying-matters commander that doesn't have flying itself, which is always super annoying. She's also doing that “one” finger pose from the game, which doesn't really make much sense given the context of the fireballs and lightning being slung around in this scene.

Seifer, Balamb Rival and Squall, Gunblade Duelist make their second MTG appearances here, and both are… fine. Neither of them seem all that compelling as clunky Mardu-spectrum creatures with attack triggers, but at least both of them are templated so you can get immediate value, even if they can't attack right away. It's always nice to see more goading in Commander too, even if Seifer gets shut down by a simple Colossapede.

Seifer really wants to play with menace-enablers to create damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't blocking situations, and Squall just wants a bunch of pump spells to dome people for large amounts of damage on each attack.

Final Fantasy IX – The Siege of Alexandria

Perhaps one of the most memorable scenes from Final Fantasy IX, The Siege of Alexandria depicts the showdown between Bahamut and Alexandria, with all of the characters caught in the middle. Amarant's a weird choice for this scene since he wasn't an essential part of anything happening here (or the game as a whole, really), and it would've been nice to see Eiko instead.

Sure, Gruul card's gonna Gruul. If you've ever wanted Hydra Omnivore as a commander, and you don't like jumping through hoops for Kosei, Penitent Warlord, here's your chance. It's fairly unremarkable, but might be one of those perfect commanders for a quick 30-minute EDH match.

Final Fantasy XV – Camp Comrades

Further proof that Final Fantasy XV is D-Tier Final Fantasy, the only thing people ever seem to remember about the game is that the protagonists like to camp out and eat food a lot. To be fair, that's basically all that happens. Oh, there's fishing too, which MTG was keen to point out with Fishing Gear, the second reference to how boring this game is after Sidequest: Catch a Fish showed up in the main set.

I would've given this a slam 10 out of 10 if this had the text: “A deck can have any number of cards named Heir Apparent.” Noctis, Heir Apparent is the only legend from the Camp Comrades box, which again is a bit of a shame, given that the rest of the cast, which are honestly the best part of the game, were all relegated to Limited-level uncommons in the main set.

This is actually a very cool Esper equipment commander. It cheats on equip costs, which is what you want out of this archetype, and rewards you for making attackers mid-combat (Adeline, Resplendent Cathar jumps to mind). Obviously, you can lean on the Warp-Strike ability and go full Voltron. This basically lets you pay 3 mana to make Noctis unblockable and auto-attaches your best piece of equipment, though you'll only be carrying one equipment at a time if you keep using this. It also punks Ghostly Prison/Propaganda and other similar stax pieces, which are always a pain for equipment decks.

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