Y’Shtola Becomes First Top 200 Final Fantasy x MTG Commander

Last updated on June 13, 2025

Y'shtola Rhul (Final Fantasy) – illustration by Immanuela Crovius

Final Fantasy x MTG finally arrives today to tabletop Magic all over the world, after its digital release on MTGO and MTG Arena last Tuesday. The best-selling MTG set in all of Magic's history thanks to pre-sales alone has broken Magic record after record – and rather than losing steam, it seems to just be warming up.

In another impressive feat, Y'shtola, Night's Blessed – the face commander of the Scions and Spellcraft Commander precon – has smashed into the Top 200 most popular commanders in the last two years even before she's officially released, sitting at #184 with 7,562 total decks according to EDHREC at the time of writing. Final Fantasy may be out today, but players have been eagerly brewing with Y'shtola, Night's Blessed in the command zone.

Source: EDHREC

And she keeps climbing at breakneck speed.

Nearly 1700 brand-new Y'shotla lists were logged in the last week alone. For context, the current #100 commander overall (Lost Caverns of Ixalan's Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might) clocks in at about 11,200 decks. If Final Fantasy's cat warlock simply repeats last month’s growth, she’ll hit ~12,000 decks by mid-July.

There are two catches, though.

The first is, that the higher you climb, the steeper it gets.

The graph above shows some of the most popular commanders from recent MTG sets, plus the Big Four at the very top: The Ur-Dragon, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, Edgar Markov, and Krenko, Mob Boss.

5,000 extra decks next month would let Y'shtola, Night's Blessed leap close to 100 positions. But once she finds herself in the top 100, that same number of extra decks would only push her up by 60 positions. And cracking the Top 10 would still require another 10k decks.

And then there's the real big catch: You come at the kings, you better come prepared.

A Cat Lady In the Rat Race

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

The kings and queens of the Commander format don't just get to the top and then take a nap – as we saw a couple of weeks ago when the Ur Dragon dethroned Atraxa as the #1 most popular commander, the most popular commanders still accrue thousands of new decks per month.

And when looking at last month's new EDH brews, Y'shtola, Night's Blessed‘s performance is definitely impressive – but she's outpaced by three other heavy-hitters:

Source: EDHREC

Carried by strong Tarkir: Dragonstorm winds, both the ancient Father of Dragons, and the much younger Teval, the Balanced Scales (who currently claws at the #80 spot among most popular commanders) both outrun Y'shtola, Night's Blessed in the number of new decks.

It goes without saying that the cat will truly be out of the bag today, when players get to toy with Y'shtola, Night's Blessed for real, rather than proxy or theorycraft with her. This is very likely to give all Final Fantasy commanders a huge push forward. But even with an extra push, the cat will need to really sprint if she wants to overtake the dragons.

Then again, there's also the black mage in the room: Vivi Ornitier

The pint-sized pyromancer really hit the afterburner last month, logging a ludicrous 6,198 fresh decks to top the chart with a gap wide enough to put runner-ups to total shame. And with a total of 6,724 total decks, Vivi Ornitier sits at #227 in the two-year ranking.

The scary part?

While dragons and cat ladies were laser-focusing, eyes-on-the-prize-ing this Commander race, Vivi Ornitier outpaced them all while multitasking and punching up in other formats, as shown in Vivi Ornitier‘s impressive early performance in both cEDH and Standard. And that's with just the small fraction of players that already got a copy of Vivi Ornitier on Final Fantasy prerelease events, played on proxy-friendly tournaments, or competed online.

Source: MTGTop8

And the really scary part? Yeah, your eyes do not cheat you: Vivi Ornitier found its way, seemingly with great success, into Izzet Prowess decks!!

The Standard meta should change a lot in two weeks, not only because Final Fantasy is now Standard-legal, but because June 30th is WotC's next Ban & Restricted Announcement (and there's no way that Monstrous Rage walks out of it alive).

But, until then, one of the strongest Standard decks out there may have just gotten some black mage support!

Which Old, Forgotten Card Are These Two Final Fantasy Commanders Spiking Today?

Vivi Ornitier – Illustration by Toni Infante

No joke, this section's title is pretty much what we ask ourselves every day, when looking at the MTG finance sites. Helm of the Ghastlord; Ophidian Eye and Sigil of Sleep; Quicksilver Elemental going up by a silly 3000%… if it's going up in Izzet or Esper colors, Vivi Ornitier and Y'shtola, Night's Blessed are the usual suspects.

And, what do you know: Solitary Confinement, a niche white enchantment sometimes seen with Sythis, Harvest's Hand and Zedruu the Greathearted, has become one of the cat lady's new toys. The original Judgement version, which had already gained some traction during Final Fantasy reveals, has shot up in price by roughly 100% since last week in US markets, according to MTGStocks:

Source: MTGStocks – Solitary Confinement (Judgment)

The jump is even higher if you're after near-mint copies, which TCGplayer currently lists at between $8 and $12.

Meanwhile, Submerge – a blue instant that both Vivi Ornitier and Y'shtola, Night's Blessed are making room for – is trending upward, going from about $4.50 to over $6.50 during this week:

Source: MTGStocks

Enough theorycrafting: Final Fantasy x MTG launches today, globally, on tabletop. Time to hunt down some chocobos, and finally play with the real cards!