Standard: 7 Best-of-One Decks with Final Fantasy

Final Fantasy has arrived on Magic Arena, marking the start of the first Universes Beyond season in Standard. With over 300 cards, it's only natural that the set has a lot of hype around which archetypes and strategies can (and should) be tried out in the first few weeks on the digital platform, whether they're cards that have been heavily speculated about in the competitive scene, or just fan-favorite characters that may or may not enable some decks.

In this article, we present seven decks to play in the Best of One Standard format on Magic Arena, all based on Final Fantasy cards or mechanics. In addition, due to the imminent update to the banned list on June 30, and the rotation on August 1, we're trying to avoid many cards that will rotate soon, or that may be banned in the coming weeks — not every list was able to escape this exception, but most of them resort to few, if any, that are included in these two categories.

Boros Equipments

With Cloud, Midgar Mercenary and Raubahn, Bull of Ala Mhigo, we can build a solid equipment deck in both Standard and Pioneer. Although we don't have Colossus Hammer in the format, we have a wide variety of artifacts that we can use.

Among them, the highlights are Lost Jitte, whose trigger is doubled when Cloud deals combat damage, and also Chainsaw, which the hero can search for as a removal — its effect is doubled with Firion, Wild Rose Warrior, which creates a copy of the equipment that comes into play, turning it into a two-for-one against smaller creatures.

Dragonfire Blade offers protection for a relatively low cost, while Basilisk Collar guarantees the necessary Lifelink against Aggro. Deathtouch also interacts with Lightning, Army of One, where we can split its damage into one point for the blocking creature and the rest of the damage on the opponent with Trample, automatically doubling the damage of other creatures and the spells Burst Lightning and Lightning Helix.

Bladehold War Whip will rotate from Standard in August, but as an uncommon, it's a cheap card to acquire and/or you might already have it in your collection, and reducing the equip cost means attaching Lavaspur Boots and Lost Jitte for free, not being so punished for using Buster Sword, whose attach cost can be quite bitter when answered by a removal — for this purpose, we also have Zack Fair as an efficient protection that also attaches equipment to creatures.

Orzhov Sacrifice

This list runs the shell of an archetype that you have probably already come across in Best of One games: Raise the Past is an Aggro-Combo based on putting as many creatures with mana value two or less into the graveyard to reanimate them and make interactions between Vengeful Bloodwitch and Bartolomé del Presidio to drain the opponent's life.

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER fits into this strategy, as it offers another source of life drain, while granting card advantage and an impossible-to-remove win condition if he transforms, and to complement the ease of triggering the Emblem, we added Voice of Victory, which in addition to protecting our combo from instant-speed interaction, also guarantees two tokens with Mobilize, sacrificed at the end of the turn — if Sephiroth attacks and sacrifices another creature, we are one trigger away from transforming him, which can be done with Bartolomé's activated ability, or with Zahur, Glory's Past, or even with Midgar, City of Mako.

Another relevant addition from Final Fantasy to this strategy includes Dark Confidant, which benefits from the archetype's life gain and low mana values. Additionally, Phantom Train comes in as another recurring sacrifice outlet that, in longer games, can be turned into a gigantic creature with Trample to win through combat.

Orzhov Zantetsuken

Summon: Primal Odin has one of the most fun lines of text in Magic: winning the game with an attack, so why not try to build something around that Summon?

This list is the classic “I hate Aggro” that occasionally shows up in Best of One as an attempt to combat red decks: a pile of removal, eight sweepers, and, to top it off, Authority of the Consuls in the Maindeck — which makes much more sense in this list, where our plan involves sequencing Ultima with Summon: Primal Odin in the hopes of destroying, with the first chapter, the only creature left on the board and “locking” the blockers with Authority, ensuring the clear path for Zantetsuken to hit the opponent.

Since we can’t count on just that, we have a Bounce package with Nurturing Pixie with Unholy Annex to create repeated demon tokens, and we complement it with Instant Ramen for extra early-game draws, plus Soulstone Sanctuary to trigger Annex more consistently.

Izzet Vivi

Izzet Prowess is on the Standard ban radar, and Cori-Steel Cutter is likely to leave the format on June 30, while cards like Monstrous Rage and Slickshot Show-Off are also on a dangerous line. Vivi Ornitier is a very powerful card, and any ability to generate free mana should be taken with a grain of salt, but with the impending bans of other cards, we can use some Final Fantasy pieces to build new lists.

This version essentially follows the same theme as the current Izzet Prowess, but with fewer explosive cards—it focuses instead on casting plenty of spells in a turn and extracting Tempo-based value from Drake Hatcher and Vivi Ornitier, or growing creatures rapidly with Astrologian’s Planisphere.

We still have the Stormchaser’s Talent package, and Planisphere creates another motivator to add This Town Ain’t Big Enough. The blue talent gains, with Vivi, ample potential to reach third level very early, where it easily snowballs our opponents.

Without Monstrous Rage, we added Might of the Meek as the closest replacement: it doesn’t guarantee a power increase, but it provides the Trample needed to connect and functions as four new cantrips in the list, allowing for more streaks in a single turn.

Naya Summoners

The Summoners have several synergies with each other in the main set, with Rydia, Summoner of Mist and Terra, Magical Adept having the ability to feed the graveyard with creatures for Yuna, Hope of Spira to reanimate — our target of choice is Summon: Knights of Round, which has indestructible and is therefore harder to remove by conventional means.

To complement it, we have Overlord of the Mistmoors, which we can cast for four mana to create some tokens and can also snowball the opponent. Other sagas include Summon: Titan, which also feeds the graveyard and can win games with the third chapter, and Summon: Fenrir, a low-cost ramp that we can use to block and, on the next turn, activate Rydia, Summoner of Mist to bring it back.

This list may be trying too hard and failing in terms of interaction, especially in a faster Metagame like Standard in this pre-ban era. Including more removals instead of Overlord and relying solely on Summon: Knights of Round as a bomb is an option, or we could even go the opposite route and remove Knights to keep Overlord — although this would be less satisfying when we finally get an enchantment into play with Yuna.

Kefka Reanimator

We can use Summons with Kefka, Court Mage to generate card advantage with each attack — a common trait with Fear of Missing Out and Overlord of the Balemurk, allowing us to play around Zombify to bring Summon: Knights of Round back from the graveyard.

We also included a copy of Ardyn, the Usurper for the possibility of reanimating him to fetch another creature each turn, but he's a vulnerable target against removal: with Atraxa, Grand Unifier rotating soon, perhaps the best target for this line is Valgavoth, Terror Eater.

Although it may seem counterintuitive, Emet-Selch, Unsundered offers both another source of discard and a way to set up to play the combo straight from the graveyard when transformed, also allowing us to play a more fair Midrange plan with Kefka, where we reuse our spells with the Ascian.

Tifa Stompy

Tifa Lockhart can win games suddenly with land drops and pump spells: with two effects that increase her power by three and a Fabled Passage, it is possible to reach 28 damage with Trample on the third turn, so we focus this deck on being a Gruul Prowess version maximizing her ability to win games quickly.

While Tifa prioritizes Landfall to increase her power, we don’t want too many lands in the list, so Opera Love Song and Questing Druid come in as ways to gain more reach in games and find more lands easily, while offering, respectively, another pump and another threat in longer games.

The rest of the list essentially follows the Prowess shell, but excluding potential future ban targets. One of those risks, however, could involve Slickshot Show-Off, and while Red Mage’s Rapier could be inserted in its place, the bird is simply too good not to play.

That’s all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!