I was late to a press-only Secrets of Strixhaven draft at MagicCon: Las Vegas 2026, having gotten stuck in the lengthy queue with other attendees. Thankfully, Magic: The Gathering senior designer Daniel Holt slid into my seat before I got there and drafted a really solid Lorehold deck that went on to win me some games. As he lingered to chat about his work designing various Commander decks, I pivoted to talk about last year’s Final Fantasy set — mainly so I could get him to take a look at my Jenova, Ancient Calamity deck. It’s a Golgari (green-black) Commander deck that focuses on +1/+1 counters with plenty of counter-doublers, a powerful draw engine, a few sources that eliminate the limit on hand size, and a light dip into mutant typal strategies.
“Yeah, this is going to win you some games,” Holt said. As we chatted about our favorite cards from the Final Fantasy set, I had to ask, “Could we ever see any more Final Fantasy cards?” Final Fantasy has more than 600 unique cards if you combine the base set, bonus sheet, Commander decks, and many card variants. Wizards of the Coast did a commendable job representing 16 mainline games and nearly 40 years of series history, but some Final Fantasy games get the spotlight far more than others. As arguably the most popular game in the series, Final Fantasy 7 looms large between its Commander deck and a suite of cards in the main set — including an entire mini-cycle of Secret Rendezvous cards that showcase possible outcomes for FF7’s Gold Saucer date — whereas Final Fantasy 8 is relegated to just a few cards and a scene box.
What about Final Fantasy Tactics? How would Holt represent protagonist Ramza Beoulve on a card? A noble in the world of Ivalice, Ramza forsakes his title to fight against injustice during the War of the Lions, and unlike every other named playable character, he doesn’t really have a custom job class. Yet he leads an army of heroes in a game that’s perhaps the series’ single best execution on its iconic job system.
Holt’s idea for a Legendary Ramza card stems from an enhanced version of a mechanic that’s deceptively simple but has the potential to become hugely powerful: Job Select.
Job Select is one of the new named mechanics introduced in the Final Fantasy set. It’s a triggered ability that appears on equipment artifacts that creates a 1/1 colorless Hero creature token when the artifact is played, and then the equipment attaches to that creature. There are similar precursors in the game like the Living Weapon and For Mirrodin! abilities, but Job Select is a more nuanced and thematically resonant variation on the same idea.
Take Red Mage’s Rapier, for instance. It’s a two-cost red artifact that gives the equipped creature the wizard creature subtype and essentially a tweak on prowess: whenever you cast a noncreature spell, the creature gets +2/+0 until end of turn. That’s thematically appropriate for a Red Mage, Final Fantasy’s iconic fusion of black and white magic for a blend of offense and support in a martial class.
As the FFT protagonist who leads an entire army, Ramza needs an extra oomph to compete with other powerful protagonists like Cloud Strife. Holt’s idea? Make it so that Ramza gives every single piece of equipment Job Select. The biggest benefit of Job Select is that it essentially circumvents equip cost. Normally, you have to pay mana for the card itself and then a separate cost to equip it — that can add up quickly, ultimately slowing down your game plan. This theoretical Ramza would transform any weapon into its own unique job or class, allowing him to quickly amass an army to overwhelm opponents. The single most absurd combo here would definitely be with Colossus Hammer which removes flying but gives a creature +10/+10. That equipment has a base cost of one mana and costs eight mana to equip. Colossus Hammer is already a staple in equipment-focused decks where there are other ways to avoid equip cost. But Ramza would be able to create a 10/10 creature for a single mana. Yeah, that’s broken.
What’s fascinating about this idea is that it almost appeared in the Final Fantasy set in a different form. In a separate conversation with principal designer Gavin Verhey at MagicCon, Verhey told Polygon that this “all your equipment have Job Select” was originally his idea. Holt had actually tested it in the Final Fantasy 7 Limit Break Commander deck on Barret Wallace.
“Eventually, after play testing, he decided that he didn’t really want 1/1 tokens,” Verhey said. “He wanted 2/2 tokens. So we got rid of that line of text and Barret became something else.”
The end result is Barret, Avalanche Leader, which imposes some limitations on that same core idea. Whenever an equipment enters, he creates a 2/2 rebel creature token. Then at the start of combat, you can attach up to one equipment you control to a rebel you control. It’s Job Select with an extra step that’s also constrained to just rebels.
Could we ever see that version of Ramza with super Job Select printed?
“It certainly sounds cool, but there are so many things you can do for any given character,” Verhey said. “It all depends on the moment you want to show them at.” Is it Ramza as a young, idealistic squire with a ponytail? The jaded version traveling with the treacherous dark knight Gaffgarion? Or the seasoned warrior who saved the world and was erased from history for it?
When it comes to more Final Fantasy cards in Magic, both Holt and Verhey seem open to the idea, but it depends on whether or not players actually want that. Holt speculated that if fans make it widely known that there’s demand, maybe Wizards of the Coast would consider it. Personally, I can’t get enough of Final Fantasy in Magic. What about you?
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