Tarkir: Dragonstorm Enchantment and Final Fantasy Instant Are a Two-Card Kill Combo

Last updated on June 18, 2025

Darkstar (Final Fantasy) – art by Ben Wootten

These last few weeks, we've been covering relentlessly how the most popular Final Fantasy commanders have been spiking the prices of older cards and sending them sky-high. Not our fault, to be honest: Not a day goes by without Vivi transmuting old draft chaff like Quicksilver Elemental into the hottest trend in the Magic market, or that Y'shtola makes Sigil of Sleep go parabolic.

But there's also room for more humble Final Fantasy x MTG cards to find willing copilots to fly through the sky thanks to some off-the-wall combo. Such is the case today for Jaws of Defeat , a rare black enchantment from Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander which tripled in price since last week, spiking by around 300% from $0.80 to over $2.40:

Source: MTGStocks

Why Is Jaws of Defeat Spiking?

Go for the Throat – art by David Rapoza

At quick glance, it's pretty clear which type of deck wants an enchantment like Jaws of Defeat: Every toughness-matter commander will be happy to have it.

Jaws of Defeat is almost an auto-include in Felothar the Steadfast decks, who is itself one of the most popular commanders from TDC. And it features in half of all Betor, Kin to All decks.

But the real reason for why Jaws of Defeat is out of the bulk bin range in the last couple of weeks is a black instant from Final Fantasy x MTG: Overkill.

By itself, Overkill is a fairly serviceable black removal spell in EDH, making its way to serve under the flag of lots of black-leaning Commanders. Its main trick is that the huge toughness reduction works around indestructible, something that black removal (which tends to focus on destroying) often has a problem with.

But Overkill‘s effect is a lot funnier (for you, not so much for your foes…) when you pair it with Jaws of Defeat, since the Jaws-Overkill combo defeats a player on the spot.

How Does the Jaws of Defeat – Overkill Combo Work?

Bruvac the Grandiloquent – art by Ekaterina Burmak

Here’s how to over-defeat a foe with this nifty combo:

First, get a creature on the board: Any creature works here, even a humble 1/1 token. Doesn't matter if it's a creature you cast from hand, or reanimate from the graveyard, or was spawned by a token generator – as long as it enters the battlefield, Jaws of Defeat‘s trigger will go onto the stack.

While the trigger is on the stack, cast Overkill targeting the same creature. Its toughness plummets by 9,999, which will of course kill your creature.

Profit! Just let Jaws of Defeat’s trigger resolve. In this case, the game looks back to the creature’s last known information. So even though your creature, that you just Overkilled, is no longer on the board, Jaws of Defeat uses its stats as they were right after it left the field. The result of the “power minus toughness” equation will be around 10,000 at that point, and this five-figure life-loss event will one-shot the targeted opponent.

For the Rules Lawyers in the back row, above all because this is a bit of an obscure interaction: Rules-wise, all of this works because triggered abilities that reference a characteristic of a specific permanent check that characteristic on resolution; and if the permanent has left the battlefield they use its last-known information (according to rule 608.2h).

And the rules information for Jaws of Defeat make it crystal clear that the difference between power and toughness is a positive number: “To find the difference between a creature’s power and its toughness, subtract the smaller of those two numbers from the larger one. For example, the difference between the power and toughness of a 3/5 creature is 2. The difference between the power and toughness of a 5/3 creature is also 2.” 

What Will Happen with Jaws of Defeat's Price?

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed – art by Magali Villeneuve

The Overkill – Jaws of Defeat combo is hilarious, left-field, and pretty easy to set up. Any Commander deck that already wants Jaws of Defeat will have no problem going for the over-kill.

And the demand for Jaws of Defeat is real, not just hype. Over 8,300 Commander decks already run Jaws of Defeat on EDHREC, and as noted it’s an auto-include status for new toughness-matters legends like Felothar the Steadfast and Betor, Kin to All

On the other hand, though, and with the usual caveat that this is not investment advice (always do your own research, folks!) Jaws of Defeat is a pretty specific Magic card that not every black deck will want, and which comes from a very recent Commander precon that sold extremely well. Therefore, supply is large and still flowing.

And floating in the middle is the technicality that, while Jaws-Overkill is a two-card combo (or three, if you consider the creature, but any creature will do), this is not a “real” two-card combo in the sense that the Commander Brackets use it. This is clearly not an infinite combo that wins you the game on the spot – you just (over)kill one player. Which definitely ain't nothing, and may even make it more palatable for lower-power tables, but this combo is definitely not a powerhouse that will turn the cEDH meta on its head.

All in all, the Overkill combo looks fun enough to keep Jaws of Defeat out of bulk-bin status. And definitely inside the two-punch-kills toolbox for black Commander decks!