The long-awaited Magic: The Gathering — FINAL FANTASY set will soon release on June 13! In anticipation of this exciting event, we're introducing some of the cards in the set – sixteen articles for sixteen mainline games in the series!
The elements we showcase here range from iconic characters to defining moments—aspects that encompass the essence of the FINAL FANTASY franchise.
For our sixth showcase, we’d like to show you three cards from FINAL FANTASY VI.
The first card we’ll be introducing today is “Poison the Waters.” It captures the moment when Gestahlian Empire court mage Kefka Palazzo employs underhanded methods to incapacitate an opposing nation. His cutthroat tactics would go on to cause great harm not only to the empire’s foes, but its allies as well.
The next two cards are special—they depict the same scene but from two different perspectives. “Phantom Train” portrays the boss fight from FINAL FANTASY VI, famous for its unique structure where you flee from the train whilst battling it. “Suplex,” however, focuses on the iconic moment when one of the protagonists, Sabin, lifts the massive train into the air and slams it into the ground like it was nothing!
We introduced three cards today, but “Suplex” in particular has had a lot of love poured into it. May you enjoy reading the comments from Magic: The Gathering’s Principle Narrative Game Designer, Dillion Deveny, as much as he did writing them.
Poison the Waters
Hee-hee! Kefka, oh Kefka, you gave us so many amazing concepts to make cards for! One of the greatest villains in gaming history, Kefka from FINAL FANTASY VI has had many iconic moments (almost too many) that shows how villainous he is. For me, one of the vilest things he did was poisoning the waters of Doma. There is something so haunting about the art for this card, seeing Kefka from under the water, like we (the viewer) are already drowning in poison and the last thing we see is Kefka laughing at us! I find it to be very dark and it totally nails the tone of the scene.
Phantom Train
All aboard! The Phantom Train was a must-include if we were going to have a card depicting Sabin's Suplex. In this art we show the beginning of the boss battle where Sabin, Shadow, and Cyan are running for their lives! You can imagine, once you look at the Suplex card, Sabin turning around just after this moment and charging at this classic boss! We even added the spirits that appear in the fight to the art so players unfamiliar with this title could understand why the train turns into the spirit creature type.
Suplex
Suplex—what an iconic move!
In the original release of FINAL FANTASY VI, Sabin masters the art of the Suplex and uses it to defeat his many foes. Suplex, if you are unfamiliar with the term, is a wrestling move where you lift your opponent off the ground and throw them backwards (behind you) and you very often crash down with them. It's visually flashy and always cool to watch! Starting at Level 10, Sabin can use his Blitz technique to suplex his enemies and—just like in real life—it’s always cool. Now, there is one enemy that Sabin has suplexed that is so iconic it cemented his place in video game history: The Phantom Train. I know, you know, where I am going with this.
Sabin suplexing the Phantom Train is a milestone in gaming history that serves as a wonderful time capsule to the creativity and culture of our world in 1994. It's such a hilarious and epic moment that it has become a beloved part of FINAL FANTASY VI's identity. Whenever you watch a playthrough or a speedrun of FINAL FANTASY VI, there is always a moment where everyone gets so hyped watching Sabin suplex the Phantom Train. It’s an infectious amount of optimism and passion that takes me back to being a kid on the playground. I fondly remember everyone roaring out their favorite video game moves while trying to tackle each other during recess; Suplex was a mainstay ability in these imaginary battles.
Alright, so why am I talking about this wrestling move so much?
In more recent versions of FINAL FANTASY VI, Suplex was updated to be called 'Meteor Strike', which is a very cool name! Very fitting for a Magic card too. When working with our partners over at SQUARE ENIX, we decided to keep as much parity between the English game terms and Japanese game terms as possible for Card Names, Flavor Words, and Flavor Text. In our design file, the card we made to capture the Sabin versus Phantom Train moment was always called Suplex, because that's how we all remembered this iconic moment. When it came time to finalize card names, the card was updated to be called Meteor Strike and I remember having a conversation with Gavin Verhey, Zakeel Gordon, and Daniel Holt after that. We all just kind of looked at each other and were like, "This card has to be called Suplex, right?" We deemed it an important part of FINAL FANTASY's history and how it shaped the imagination of many kids back in the day, and the many kids who grew up to work on this collaboration felt the same!
I spoke with the SQUARE ENIX's project team about this idea (and they were so willing to hear me out; Ichikawa-san and Yamashita-san are the coolest guys you'll ever meet) and they brought my reasoning to the FINAL FANTASY VI Title Owner and Review Team. We went back and forth talking about matching parity, representing the series on how it is now versus how it was back in the 90's, and the importance of consistency of card names between our languages. After all, I was asking to break a rule that we all decided to adhere to! But, after much discussion, everyone over at SQUARE ENIX decided that invoking the nostalgic love for FINAL FANTASY VI, even in the smallest ways, is the purest version of this collaboration. We came together to celebrate both of our awesome games, so anything we can do to make our players happy is the right thing to do for this project.
To my dear friends and partners at SQUARE ENIX, thank you for all of your trust and support! To all my FINAL FANTASY VI fans out there, I hope you enjoy Suplexing your friends at pre-release!
Magic: The Gathering — FINAL FANTASY will be available for purchase on June 13. Until then, why not come (re-)familiarize yourself with the world of FINAL FANTASY? If you simply can’t wait, be among the first to play with the collaboration cards via prerelease at authorized retailers come Friday, June 6!
FINAL FANTASY VI
The ancient War of Magi. When its flames at last receded, only the charred husk of a world remained. Even the power of magic was lost. In the thousand years that followed, iron, gunpowder, and steam engines took the place of magic, and life slowly returned to the barren land. Yet there now stands one who would reawaken the magic of ages past, and use its dread power as a means by which to conquer all the world. Could anyone truly be foolish enough to repeat that mistake?
The Gestahlian Empire holds the world in an iron grip, its subjects living in fear and misery. It continues its research into the mystical beings known as "espers" in a bid to create ever more terrible Magitek weaponry. Meanwhile, the Returners resistance movement carries out covert operations, pursuing their goal of liberating the world from the Empire's oppressive rule.
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