Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™ Prerelease Guide

Magic: The Gathering®—FINAL FANTASY™ brings everything that FINAL FANTASY fans love—incredible artwork, evocative gameplay, and emotional stories—to one epic Magic: The Gathering release. It's a true celebration of this iconic RPG franchise, and it releases in just a few weeks! Be among the first to play with the set at Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Prerelease events.

Prerelease events let you play with a new Magic release ahead of the official tabletop release, combining fresh new cards with a casual and friendly environment. They're great for long-time Magic fans and first-time players. If you've never been to a Magic event and are looking to celebrate the FINAL FANTASY franchise, then Prerelease events are perfect for you.

What Is a Prerelease?

Prerelease events are typically held a week prior to a Magic set's global tabletop release. These are held at game stores across the world and are a huge part of the Magic community. When you register for a Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Prerelease event, you'll receive a Prerelease Pack containing the following:

• 6 Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Play Boosters 
• 1 Traditional foil year-stamped rare or mythic rare card 
• 1 Deck box 
• 1 Spindown die 
  • 1 in 20 Prerelease Packs contains a special acrylic spindown die. 

Your Prerelease Pack—along with basic lands provided by your local game store—contains everything you need to build your deck. You'll be building a 40-card sealed deck and facing off against your fellow Prerelease attendees. If that sounds daunting, don't worry. We've got a guide to building your very first Prerelease deck right here. Before you know it, you'll be casting spells and attacking with your favorite FINAL FANTASY characters and heroes.

Building a Prerelease Deck

When you open a Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Play Booster, it will contain a collection of cards that looks something like this:

You can use every Magic card you open, along with your year-stamped card, to build your sealed deck for Prerelease. That includes cards from the FINAL FANTASY Through the Ages bonus sheet!

As you open your Play Boosters, sort your cards by color, placing any multicolor, colorless, or land cards into their own piles. Once you're done with that, it's time to decide what your deck's colors are. In the Sealed format, you'll want to build a two-color deck. This will help you reliably cast your spells while ensuring you have enough cards to complete your deck.

To decide what colors you will be playing, you'll want to look for massive threats. These can be gargantuan creatures, powerful Equipment cards, or devastating spells. These will often be rare, mythic rare, or FINAL FANTASY Through the Ages cards. In our example Play Booster, two of the best threats are Relentless X-ATM092 and Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor as "The Shadow Lord." Relentless X-ATM092 is a high-power creature that forces your opponent to block or take damage, while "The Shadow Lord" draws cards over the course of the game.

Since our two best threats are a black card and a colorless card, one of our two colors should be black. The next thing you'll want to look for is removal, which is any card that gets rid of your opponent's cards. This can be a spell that destroys a creature or an Aura that prevents it from attacking.

In our example Play Booster, we opened Overkill, a powerful spell that can eliminate almost any creature. We also opened Slash of Light and Airship Crash, two other removal spells that push us toward playing white and green respectively.

The cards opened here are just an example. You'll find six Play Boosters in your Prerelease Pack, so you'll have many more threats and removal spells to choose from. But this should give you an idea of how to find the best cards for your deck and decide what colors you want to play. Once you've selected your two colors, it's time to build your deck!

Building Your Deck with the Mana Curve 

In the FINAL FANTASY series, assembling a powerful party means balancing characters' strengths to ensure you can take on powerful monsters and villains. Magic works the same way, and a good deck balances smaller support cards with heavy-hitting spells. In deck building, this balance is called the "mana curve."

Each spell has a mana value, which is the total mana cost of a spell. For example, Overkill's mana value is 3, because it costs two generic mana and one black mana. The average mana value of spells in your deck should be around 2 or 3, as that ensures you can cast spells throughout the game. Here is an example of what your mana curve should look like:

• 1 Mana: 1–2 cards
• 2 Mana: 7–8 cards
• 3 Mana: 5–6 cards
• 4 Mana: 3–4 cards
• 5 Mana: 2–3 cards
• 6 Mana: 0–1 card
• and 17 lands! 

While this version of the mana curve is useful, it isn't a rule of deck building. What's most important is building a deck that has a plan to win and the tools to do it. By figuring out your most effective path to victory, you'll be able to assemble a formidable sealed deck.

Each two-color pair in Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY has a "draft archetype." This is a unifying theme across the cards in that color pair. By building a two-color deck with a focus on a specific draft archetype, you're more likely to build a synergistic and effective deck.

Each two-color pair has two uncommon multicolor cards, each of which is a legendary creature from the FINAL FANTASY series. Here's a quick breakdown of all the draft archetypes and their uncommon multicolor cards from Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY.

White-Blue Artifacts

Assemble a massive board of artifacts, including artifact creatures, Equipment, Treasures, and more! Tidus, Blitzball Star gets stronger as you create more artifact tokens, while Cid, Timeless Artificer supports a wide battlefield of artifact creatures.

Blue-Black Control

Take a slow-and-steady approach by accruing value from the graveyard. Locke Cole can draw fresh cards while discarding spare cards. Then put those discarded cards to use by taking an extra turn with Ultimecia, Time Sorceress.

Black-Red Black Mage Aggro

Cast noncreature spells to deal devastating damage to your opponents. Black Waltz No. 3 and Wizard tokens created by cards like Mysidian Elder turn all your spells into damage, allowing you to finish the game with Garland, Knight of Cornelia.

Red-Green Landfall Aggro

Transform your lands into tide-turning territory with red-green aggro cards. Rydia, Summoner of Mist lets you find new cards and recur Saga creatures, while Gladiolus Amicitia hits hard turn after turn. Note that all the chocobos in the set synergize with landfall abilities!

Green-White Go Wide

Build up a large board of creatures, then swing in for the win with the power of your united forces! Rinoa wants you to build a large board of creatures and token creatures. For a more Saga-heavy deck, Garnet, Princess of Alexandria is a perfect fit.

White-Black Sacrifice

Victory requires sacrifice, and white-black takes advantage of this by turning your permanents into a resource. Rufus Shinra can creature a creature token each time it attacks, which can then be sacrificed to fuel payoffs like Judge Magister Gabranth's.

Blue-Red Big Noncreatures

Cast massive spells for massive value with a blue-red deck! Shantotto, Tactician Magician and The Emperor of Palamecia each care about the amount of mana spent to cast them. That means they work with tiered spells and spells with flashback, such as Ice Magic and Laughing Mad.

Black-Green Graveyard Value

Stock up your graveyard with permanent cards to supercharge your spells. Exdeath, Void Warlock offers a proactive approach by transforming into a large creature, while Cloud of Darkness serves as a removal spell that can go on to attack.

Red-White Equipment Aggro

Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY is filled with exciting and splashy Equipment, some of which come with a creature token with the keyword job select. Suit up your strongest creatures like Zidane, Tantalus Thief, then outvalue your opponents with Giott, King of the Dwarves.

Green-Blue Town Ramp

Play Towns to get extra value from your lands. Ignis Scientia helps you get more lands while giving you a way to spend your mana. Once you've assembled plenty of Towns and other nonbasic lands, cast Omega, Heartless Evolution to turn the tides of battle.

There's so much to explore in Limited formats for Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY, with enticing strategies to be found throughout the set. What strategies, synergies, and secrets can you find in the set? Find out at Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Prerelease events!

---

Start Your Journey with Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY!

We can't wait to see you at Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Prerelease events, where we'll be sharing this monumental release for the very first time. In the meantime, you can browse all the cards from the set and its Commander decks in the Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY Card Image Gallery. Enter the world of FINAL FANTASY at your local game store!

Magic: The Gathering—FINAL FANTASY releases on June 13, 2025. Preorder products now from your local game store, online retailers like Amazon, and elsewhere Magic products are sold.

---