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Attending the Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy panel at PAX East 2025 as someone who doesn’t play Magic was interesting.

To be clear, I know how to play Magic. I know the differences between various game formats, but I own exactly one MTG card - Harmless Offering - because it’s cute. To my credit, I’ve been resisting building a rat deck for some time now. So when I was at the MTG x Final Fantasy panel, I was chiefly there as a Final Fantasy fan. In many ways, I’m the type of person that Wizards of the Coast wants to pull in with this crossover. 

So when the panelists - the team who developed the crossover - revealed that the set was going to be on the more “complex” side of their offerings, I experienced pause. Their reasoning was that because Final Fantasy people are already gamers, they won’t be phased by the existence of more complex game mechanics. If you say the word “cooldown” to a Final Fantasy fan, they won’t scream. 

This was a telling assessment. On one hand, it makes a lot of sense, considering that there are a lot of strong gameplay choices throughout the Final Fantasy franchise. To be a fan of one game over another could potentially mean that you have thoughts on why a certain kind of gameplay is superior to another. That’s not necessarily why I’m a fan of Final Fantasy, however.

Beyond the fact that the franchise on the whole is a collection of stellar games, I just really love the pretty aesthetics, gorgeous music, and heightened drama. Yeah, there are also deeper reasons I have for why I love it - ask me why I love Clive Rosfield and you will get an impromptu TEDTalk about masculinity that will likely end in me crying while talking about Clive crying - but I suppose what I’m getting at here is that I’m a narrative-driven gamer. So, while Wizards of the Coast is trying to court Final Fantasy fans to the world of TCGs, there’s a limit to the parallels that they can draw between the two communities. 

Then again, the art is gorgeous on so many of the Final Fantasy cards. So maybe Wizards of the Coast will win out here, complicated game mechanics or not. Or maybe more Magic fans will find themselves getting into Final Fantasy as a result. 

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