Final Fantasy Landfall Legend Destined to Rock Upcoming Standard

Last updated on May 20, 2025

Tifa Lockhart | Illustration by Laurel Austin

We're mid-Final Fantasy spoiler season, which has been a slow drip of incredibly flavorful and well-designed cards that, unfortunately, mostly feel understatted or tied to parasitic mechanics. The set is definitely flavor-forward, but remember that this Universes Beyond crossover is passing through Standard, so you'd hope something from the best-selling set of all time breaks out in the format.

Tifa Lockhart might be the card to show people that Final Fantasy‘s not just another Commander Legends set in disguise. The new green legend and its supporting cast of landfall newcomers might be the next big thing in Standard. And it doesn't hurt that Tifa is, in fact, quite good in Commander.

The Balancing Act

Landfall cards are pretty straightforward: Play a land, get a benefit. They haven't been all that relevant for Standard since the years of original Zendikar when the mechanic was first introduced, and they're even less competitive in environments without fetch lands, which basically just break the mechanic in half.

But Tifa Lockhart has just the right level of spice to appeal to brewers and spikes alike, since a few land drops in a single turn can put the card into one-hit kill territory.

The perfect Tifa deck requires two things: a way to pump the creature, either permanently or temporarily, and/or a way to hit multiple lands drops in the same turn.

That first part's not all that difficult in current Standard, given the presence of persistent +1/+1 counter engines like Innkeeper's Talent and Bristly Bill, Spine Sower. A single +1/+1 counter on Tifa plus a landfall trigger means it's attacking as a 4/3 trampler for the turn, which ain't too shabby for a 2-drop. And it scales up from there with additional counters or landfall triggers.

If you're trying to go the full combo route, something as simple as Titanic Growth and a Fabled Passage adds up to 20 trample damage as early as turn 3!

How about extra land drops? Well, Standard has Fabled Passage, which is probably a 4-of in any landfall deck. Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse rarely creep into Standard, but just maybe for Tifa. In fact, there's an even better Evolving Wilds that everyone forgot about: Escape Tunnel. It's a slow fetch when needed, but can also make Tifa unblockable before pumping it into oblivion.

Lumbering Worldwagon and Archdruid's Charm have some synergy here. The vehicle fetches a land each turn while also being a burly beater itself, and the charm has more utility beyond just searching up a land. Ordeal of Nylea might even end up being a surprise sleeper for the first time ever (it's Standard-legal via Foundations). With some help from other +1/+1 counter cards, a Tifa enchanted with the Ordeal can attack, get a +1/+1 counter first, then search up two lands and quadruple its power that same combat.

The Supporting Cast

It's not just Tifa or bust though; Final Fantasy‘s bringing some other landfall heaters to the game. Sazh's Chocobo is a consideration as an aggressive turn-1 play, though it'll be competing with the ever-faithful Llanowar Elves. Zell Dincht is also one of the few Standard-legal cards that'll let you play multiple lands per turn, and its “downside” ensures you always have at least one landfall trigger each turn. It's quite the beater itself, though it lacks trample and could end up being a liability if your plan's not working out.

And don't forget about the in-universe landfall threats that already exist in the format. Mossborn Hydra‘s kind of like an alternate Tifa Lockhart that costs an extra mana, but keeps its buff each turn. And Bristly Bill, Spine Sower is just an excellent 2-drop in general, as one of the premier counter distributors in the format. You wouldn't think a 5-mana activated ability in Standard would matter all that much, until you find yourself facing down this prickly cactusfolk and a board full of +1/+1 counters.

Reality Check

Cut Down | Illustration by Dominik Mayer

All of the god-hand lines with Tifa Lockhart sound amazing, but it's probably worth looking at it from a more realistic angle. Tifa has no protection, its baseline stats don't even compete with the mighty Grizzly Bears, and the ideal plays with Tifa require multiple moving pieces coming together at the same time. A landfall deck falls flat if it ever misses a land drop, and you need your power-boosting effects at the right time too. There aren't enough fetch lands in Standard for your manabase to pull the heavy lifting on its own; you'll need your land drops, pump spells, and landfall payoffs to come together in perfect harmony for a deck like this to work.

There's also this dreaded little thing called removal. With Cut Down and Go for the Throat still floating around as baseline examples of commonly-played removal spells, it seems hard to imagine a glass cannon deck revolving around Tifa will actually work out, but a green player can dream, right? Maybe the response is to load up on Snakeskin Veils and Royal Treatments, which play pretty nicely with the primary gameplan anyway.

Whatever ends up happening, the brewers sat up in their seat when Tifa Lockhart was revealed, and there's bound to be some interesting brews surrounding the card. It might need an extra little push to become consistent in Standard though. Just hope it's not a Fatal Push.