Last updated on April 21, 2025
Tifa Lockhart from FFVII: Rebirth
According to a leak posted on reddit, there's a new Naya commander in Magictown, courtesy of the upcoming Final Fantasy x MTG crossover.
Everything that follows is from an unofficial leak, so consider this your SPOILER WARNING for the rest of the article – if you prefer to enjoy Final Fantasy‘s reveals at their official pace, proceed no further.
Those of you that don't mind (another!) unofficial early peek at the Universes Beyond MTG set dropping in June, though, let's see the latest leak!
Tifa, Martial Artist
According to an unofficial reddit thread, Tifa Lockhart will join Magic as a pretty scary Naya extra combat commander.
Source: Reddit
Tifa, Martial Artist is inspired by the original Tifa incarnation from Final Fantasy VII, and illustrated by Yumi Yaoshida. She's a 4/4 human monk with a lot of juicy text (more about Tifa's kick-ass abilities in a bit!). Her set symbol (a chocobo, which you can see by the right of her type line) indicates she's from Final Fantasy Commander, so very likely a card we'll find in the Limit Break Commander precon, headed by Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER.
As noted, this is an unofficial leak, and the reddit thread does not provide a source. But the screenshot looks like a very real Magic card, to the point that the MTG finance subreddit is already discussing possible specs around Tifa, Martial Artist.
Who's Tifa, By The Way?
For those of you that are not into Final Fantasy‘s lore, Tifa is the childhood friend of Cloud Strife, the protagonist of Final Fantasy VII, it makes perfect sense that Tifa shows up in Cloud's Commander precon. In FFVII, Tifa is who convinces Cloud to join AVALANCHE, the group that opposes the game's bad guy, Sephiroth (Sephiroth and Cloud will also face each other in the Starter decks, which have been fully leaked).
From what we know thus far, it's very possible that Tifa ends up being Limit Break‘s backup commander – both Tifa, Martial Artist and Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER share the “7-power matters” theme.
In the game, Tifa's class is a monk (in the videogame sense of “character that uses unarmed combat, usually striking super-fast”), the same class as her Magic card.
Tifa's Magic Abilities
All-Out Assault – illus. Joshua Cairos
In Magic, Tifa, Martial Artist looks like a really scary extra combat card, although her abilities may need a bit of parsing before that becomes evident. For starters, she has melee: a triggered ability that, whenever Tifa attacks, will buff Tifa by +1/+1 per opponent you attack.
Say you're in a Commander pod, and you have Tifa along with two other creatures. If Tifa attacks one player, and each of your other two creatures attack one of the other players, Tifa's melee buff will become +3/+3, making her into a beefy 7/7.
That's when her second “7-power matters” ability kicks in: If you manage to connect with her (or any other 7/x creature), then:
- You get to untap all your creatures, and
- If this was your first attack, then you get an extra attack per damaged player.
Notice that the second part, while limited to your first attack, is not limited per player – that's to say, if you manage to hit all three of your opponents during your first attack, you get three extra attacks!
Note that the untap ability is not limited in any way. If in your second attack that turn you land at least one blow with a 7/x creature, all your creatures will untap. And if you happen to pull, with some help from other cards, an infinite combo with infinite extra attacks, Tifa will make sure you untap in all of them (as long as your 7-power beater hits an opponent, of course).
Cherry on top? Melee triggers in all extra combat steps!
It's a really cool implementation of her quick-punching monkish abilities from the videogame, where she is a bit of a combo machine: if you manage to land a blow, you get to then launch a more powerful blow, and then a more powerful blow, and then… well, by that point, you probably just won!
Extra Combat Sauce
Jetmir, Nexus of Revels – Illustration by Ryan Pancoast
Magic players are all over Tifa, eagerly discussing if she'll be better paired with hydras, with dinos, if she'll be their commander or if she'll pour extra combats under somebody else's banner, like Jetmir, Nexus of Revels or Voja, Jaws of the Conclave.
And, needless to say, you can sprinkle all the trigger doublers and extra spice you have at hand to make Tifa even punchier, like Annie Joins Up.
We'll need to wait a bit to find out, officially or through leaks, what else Final Fantasy's Limit Break Commander Precon brings to the table. But it's clear that if you're into combat, Tifa will be happy to add a little extra!
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2 Comments
“Notice that the second part, while limited to your first attack, is not limited per player – that’s to say, if you manage to hit all three of your opponents during your first attack, you get three extra attacks!”
You do not get a maximum of 3 extra combats, you get 1, no matter how many players get hit. Reading the card explains the card. Try again.
This is incorrect. You do in fact get one extra combat per player dealt combat damage with a 7+ power creature, assuming all those creatures are connecting during your first combat of the turn.
The “one or more” aspect applies to opponents on an individual basis. So you can hit up to three opponents with “one or more” creatures each and get one respective trigger per opponent.
Check rulings on Anowon, the Ruin Thief if you need more clarification.
Note the untap trigger happens when the damage connects, not when the extra combats start, so whether your creatures will actually be able to attack during the extra combats beyond the first is another matter.
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