Scions & Spellcraft Upgrade Guide: 20 Easy Changes You Can Make

Last updated on June 9, 2025

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed | Illustration by Magali Villeneuve

It’s time for a new set and new precons to tinker with! I know very little about the Final Fantasy games, but the cards look pretty interesting, and there are certainly some spicy commanders worth building around.

One I’ve been interested in since it was spoiled is Y'shtola, Night's Blessed, the face commander of the Scions & Spellcraft precon. Today, I’m upgrading the precon to bring out the best in this lovely spellslinger commander!

Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy XIV Commander Deck - Scions & Spellcraft

• FINAL FANTASY XIV-THEMED DECK—Battle your friends with FINAL FANTASY XIV’s iconic heroes, villains, and spells with the strategic gameplay of the Magic: The Gathering collectible card game
• ALWAYS SEEK OUT NEW KNOWLEDGE—Be a master caster and gain control with card advantage as you band together with Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed to aid Eorzea in its time of need
• 25 NEW CARDS plus ALL NEW ART—All 100 cards in this ready-to-play deck feature new FINAL FANTASY-themed art, including 25 Commander cards entirely new to Magic: The Gathering
• 2 FOIL LEGENDARY CARDS—Each deck includes 2 Legendary Creature cards with a shiny Traditional Foil treatment that can be played as your commander
• COLLECT SPECIAL ALT-BORDER CARDS—Each deck also comes with a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack containing 2 alternate-border cards of rarity Rare or higher

Buy on Amazon

As far as the deck's connection to Final Fantasy, I'm told that the themes of Scions saving the realm and wielding powerful spells directly ties into the new FFXIV Dawntrail expansion.

Scions & Spellcraft Overview

G'raha Tia, Scion Reborn | Illustration by YASUNARI HIRASAKA

As both the textbox of Y'shtola, Night's Blessed and the name implies, this deck is built as an Esper spellslinger list looking to grind out the game with Y’shtola’s two abilities.

Except the deck has a bit of an identity crisis, with a strong token theme that seems present mostly in case a player wished to use the alternate face commander, G'raha Tia, Scion Reborn. I don’t think Y’shtrola tokens is bad, but the sources this deck uses don’t seem particularly useful.

It also has a lot of legends that don’t mesh particularly well with the theme; that seems to be a trend in Universes Beyond precons to maximize the number of characters who get legendary cards. A Final Fantasy fan could probably find flavor links between these cards, but speaking strictly of their mechanics, some of these cards deserve the boot.

I want to focus on Y’shtola as a source of card advantage and pressure, so that’s the crux of this upgrade guide.

Upgrade Plan

The first batch of upgrades to any given precon is typically quite simple: Identify cards that are weak and replace them with good cards. Cards in precons can be identified as ‘weak’ along three criteria:

• The card is just bad.
• It’s a good card, but doesn’t mesh with the deck (these are often printed for the Commander format at large, without worrying about putting them through Standard),
• The card belongs to an undersupported theme, a consequence of precons trying to do too much.

This deck has few truly bad cards, but plenty of support for tokens and some equipment stuff I have no trouble letting go of.

We’ll replace our cuts with cards that enhance Y’shtola in one of two ways: They either guarantee a draw trigger in our turn when we cast them, or they make our opponents lose life during their turns.

In addition to enhancing Y’shtola, I want to address other weaknesses in the deck, namely a lack of card advantage and an underwhelming ramp package considering that our commander wants us to cast multiple, expensive spells in a turn when we can. I’ve also snuck in better interaction, as I often find myself needing to do with precons.

Undermine

Suggested Cut: Hypnotic Sprite

Hypnotic Sprite is a ludicrously bad card outside of Limited. Undermine is far stronger; not only does it lose the restrictions on what it counters, it always draws a card with Y’shtola out, on our opponent’s turn, to boot.

Night’s Whisper

Suggested Cut: Cut a Deal

Cut a Deal works fine in group hug decks, but this isn’t that. Night's Whisper provides simple value at any point in the game; it’s cheap enough to dig for lands early while letting you double spell fairly easily later.

Sygg, River Cutthroat

Suggested Cut: Authority of the Consuls

Authority of the Consuls has no business being in this deck, or any deck without significant lifegain synergies. But Sygg, River Cutthroat excels here; it has a very similar ability to Y’shtola, so we can draw twice as many cards.

Kaya, Ghost Assassin

Suggested Cut: Bastion of Remembrance

Bastion of Remembrance makes a certain amount of sense, if we were sticking with the token theme and adding aristocrat stuff, but we aren’t and won’t, so we need something else.

Kaya, Ghost Assassin always triggers Y’shtola the turn you cast it, with the potential for more activations later, either because you use the -1 ability again or cause yourself to lose 4 life between Kaya’s 0 and a card like Night's Whisper. The card advantage on the last ability’s not bad, either.

Keen Duelist

Suggested Cut: Tome of Legends

I don’t care much for Tome of Legends in a deck without partners or an aggressive, hasty commander. I’m much more impressed by Keen Duelist, which draws a card regardless of Y’shtola’s presence while becoming stronger if its in play.

Liesa, Shroud of Dusk

Suggested Cut: Summon: Good King Mog XII

The Good King would be excellent if you cared about any number of things: Counters, tokens, sagas, enchantments, sacrifice triggers… but you don’t.

Liesa, Shroud of Dusk excels at triggering Y'shtola, Night's Blessed.
 It attacks for enough damage to trigger Y’shtola on our turn while generating triggers on opposing turns.

Kambal, Consul of Allocation

Suggested Cut: Hildibrand Manderville

I really like Hildibrand Manderville as a card, but it needs a different deck to truly shine. Kambal, Consul of Allocation functions rather like a second Liesa, in that it turns our opponents taking game actions into us drawing cards.

Quick Study

Suggested Cut: Into the Story

I care little for Into the Story without dedicated enablers; if you aren’t milling the table, it just gets trapped in your hand. Quick Study draws fewer cards, but is always easier to sequence into our turns, and it triggers Y’shtola just as well as Into the Story.

Will of the Abzan

Suggested Cut: Rite of Replication

If I lived in a cartoon, a question mark would have popped up above my head when I saw Rite of Replication in a deck with a mere 22 creatures, over half of which are legendary. I know it hits opposing creatures, but you should never count on that.

Will of the Abzan is so much more effective; it provides oodles of value since it cantrips off Y’sthtola and puts something into play and kills the three largest threats at the table.

Curiosity

Suggested Cut: Circle of Power

Curiosity opens us to being two-for-one’d, but it also draws three cards whenever we triggers Y’sthola. That’s a reward well worth a greater risk than that, and it’s certainly better than Circle of Power, a mediocre draw spell at best.

Nettling Nuisance

Suggested Cut: Exsanguinate

I see the vision of Exsanguinate, and I could get behind it if it were an instant, or if Y’shtola drew cards based on the number of players who lost 4 life. Without either of those factors, it feels out of place; this deck doesn’t produce enough mana to make this card a reasonable win condition, and we can tap out for more impactful spells.

I will grant that Nettling Nuisance might be a little too cute, but it has incredible potential; forcing our opponents to attack each other for at least 4 damage could rack up a bunch of card draw, and applies lots of pressure.

Azorius, Orzhov, and Dimir Signets

Suggested Cuts: Blue Mage's Cane, Sage's Nouliths, and Lingering Souls.

This section’s very simple: The deck needs more ramp, and it doesn’t need more token producers. None of these cut cards are bad, they just don’t work within the deck’s new vision.

Rush of Dread

Suggested Cut: Thancred Waters

Thancred Waters is the cut I’m least sure of, because it’s certainly not a bad card; nor is it great. Rush of Dread often eats part of a threatening board while drawing a card, and it’s just cool.

Logic Knot

Suggested Cut: Champions from Beyond

While Champions from Beyond looks quite strong, this isn’t the right shell for it. Even out of the box, I don’t see this deck regularly triggering it. Logic Knot isn’t flashy, but I like the idea of triggering Y’shtola while only spending 2 mana, and it gives us additional protection.

Norn’s Annex

Suggested Cut: Ardbert, Warrior of Darkness

I’m normally quite low on Norn's Annex compared to Ghostly Prison, but this might be the deck that makes it shine. Paying 4 life with Phyrexian mana enables Y’shtola, and forcing our opponents to pay the life makes it easier for us to draw on their turn.

Ardbert, Warrior of Darkness will be great in some decks, but certainly not this one.

Dismember

Suggested Cut: Sublime Epiphany

While I enjoy Sublime Epiphany as a card, I don’t think this is the deck for it; we just don’t have enough instants for me to feel comfortable holding up 6 mana, especially considering many of our other instants, like Lethal Scheme and Dig Through Time, can be cast for considerably less mana than their mana values suggest.

Dismember kills most threats, and paying for it with Phyrexian mana makes it cantrip. It’s simple, but sometimes that’s all you need.

Grasp of Fate

Suggested Cut: Torrential Gearhulk

I don’t care for Torrential Gearhulk under the same criticisms leveraged against Sublime Epiphany; the best reason I can see to play either is the presence of the other, so cutting both seems sensible.

Grasp of Fate is just good removal that hits multiple targets and triggers our commander. Another relatively unflashy but important change for the deck’s consistency.

Starfall Invocation

Suggested Cut: Crux of Fate

I often find myself cutting board wipes from precons, but I think this one has a controlling enough game plan to keep them in. But I hate Crux of Fate. It’s terrible because you can’t count on it killing the threats you need to. That fallibility doesn’t even come with efficiency or anything; sometimes your board wipe just doesn’t work because one player has a massive dragon, and another a massive board of non-odragon creatures.

Starfall Invocation never fails you and even protects your most relevant threat, for the same mana cost. Perfection.

The Final Decklist and New Cards

Here’s an updated decklist, plus just the cards I added, for you convince. If you want to pick up the singles for the deck or the upgrade, you can use the shopping cart button in the top corner!

Commanding Conclusion

Torrential Gearhulk | Illustration by Erikas Perl

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed has a ton of potential as a commander; with this upgrade guide, I tried maximizing that potential but cutting away an extraneous token subtheme for better cards to trigger the commander—though I think a token build leveraging cards like Corpse Knight and Within Range has plenty of potential itself.

Are you thinking about picking up Scions & Spellcraft? How would you upgrade the deck? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!

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