Final Fantasy’s crossover conundrum – why nobody can preorder Magic cards
Card games are nothing new in the world of Final Fantasy. Cloud had Queen’s Bloom and Zidane had Tetra Master. Now, despite the existence of a Final Fantasy TCG, you can play Triple Triad in your Squall deck in Magic the Gathering.
For the uninitiated, MTG is Hasbro’s biggest moneyspinner. Historically, we see a new set of cards released every few months, exploring a different plane of existence. You are a Planeswalker, pulling creatures and spells from across the planes to do battle with your opponent. With the 2021 launch of the Universes Beyond crossover series, this has meant that pretty much any IP is fair game.
Want to launch your Gilgamesh into battle wielding Glamdring and Ezio’s Hidden Blade? Go for it, but why stop there, when you can also give it a Nuka-Nuke Launcher and an Astartes Inquisitorial Rosette?
Oh no, my immersion!
These Universes Beyond crossovers are a very sore point for a subset of the community, scared and angry that their wizardy card game is being infiltrated by a someone who lives in a pineapple under the sea. To this, I would say Magic has always been a silly game, the idea of visiting other planes is baked into the very fabric of not only the lore, but the actual back of a Magic card. And to Gilgamesh specifically, this goofball is known specifically for jumping between worlds, looking for epic weapons.
So, to all the Final Fantasy players psyched to get their hands on some new cards depicting their favourite moments from their favourite games, I say welcome. Pull up a chair and we’ll play some games with some very silly cardboard. Not only are these cards powerfully designed, they’re thematically on point.
Image credit: Wizards of the Coast, Square Enix – Illustrations by Gal Or, Fang Xinyu, Yumi Yaoshida
The only problem is that Final Fantasy MTG cards are virtually impossible to get hold of. A cursory glance online shows that preorders are either sold out or ludicrously expensive. Talking to shop owners, they tell me that the amount of product they have requested from their suppliers is nowhere near the amount they’ve been promised. One owner I spoke to said that he was offered just over a dozen prerelease packs for an upcoming tournament, with a comment about how he should look forward to bringing in new members of the community with it. The sarcasm almost bleeds off the page.
However, the fact remains: Wizards of the Coast has not printed enough product for the demand we’re seeing. The set releases in June and it was already declared MTG’s best-selling set of all time in an investors’ call on April 24th. Imagine how much it would have sold if vendors could actually promise stock…
Fans are both worried and optimistic. Optimistic because this is a Standard-legal set, meaning that Wizards of the Coast will continue printing it for years to come, which will help increase supply and stave off scalpers in the long run. This is especailly important now, as the MSRP for this set is significantly higher than it is for ‘normal’ MTG sets. WotC’s official MSRP for a normal Standard-legal booster is $5.49, with a full 100-card Commander deck costing $44.99. For Final Fantast, this jumps up to $6.99 and $69.99, respectively.
Image credit: Wizards of the Coast, Square Enix – Illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano, Toni Infante, Kota Nakatsubo, Ezoi
So now we have a weird push–pull scenario. We have a cool new crossover set designed to attract new players, but in targeting the potential whales in the FF Fandom, existing players are being priced out and sidelined. This is not the only price rise in recent memory, granted, but coupled with the fact that these cards are already selling out everywhere, it sends a clear message to WotC: that they can keep raising your prices and we will keep digging deeper. This is not the message fans should want to send.
Worse still, you can’t simply ignore the set if you’re a competitive player because for the first time this is a Standard-legal set — something Wizards of the Coast had previously said would not happen. This means you have to get these cards if you want to play in any sanctioned format, but if you can’t get the cards because they’re either prohibitively expensive, or if they simply don’t exist, what are you supposed to do? Abandon your hobby?
It’s a difficult quandary. I love both Final Fantasy and Magic the Gathering, and seeing them come together like this is truly exciting. The thought of my hobby expanding to include more like-minded people is always great, and like everyone else I really can’t wait to get my hands on the product. The issue is that I simply can’t do that right now — my dreams of suiting up Optimus Prime with Cloud’s Buster Sword will have to wait for now.
