Already already pre-ordering a number of packs and bundles, The Magic: The Gathering-Final Fantasy Cards was officially released on June 13th, with principal Gavin Verhey and executive producer Zakeel Gordon discussing the much-anticipated collaboration on Passthecontroller Live today.
Verhey and Gordon said they had other IP crossovers with magic before. Final Fantasy was particularly exciting. Because, as Verhey said, “It’s a Final Fantasy! It really helps! We’ve been working on this set for about five years.”
The duo pointed out that everyone in the Coast Wizards are huge fans of Final Fantasy and most have been playing the game longer than they were playing magic, meaning that much to them.
Verhery said their approach is to incorporate something from all 15 games. This was raised to 16 while working on the card. This started with creating a spreadsheet for all the characters, items, and story modes. We then split the possible inclusions into three layers – Verhey said, “There are major elements and the most popular characters, followed by the second tier, followed by the second tier where “cool side characters” came out, and the third tier was like talking Beaver. We wanted to get everything there. All games are represented in deep cuts from most iconic characters. I can’t believe they’re wearing magic cards. ”
There are four Commander decks based on Final Fantasy X, XIV, VI and VII, and Verhery has promised that “everything except for the land is game-themed.” Gordon said, “We chose these decks to represent different eras. We really wanted to get the breadth of the overall product franchise.”
Gordon said that inevitably, given that they didn’t have unlimited cards, they still can’t include all the characters and aspects of the game they wanted, “We’re going to the whole mainline series.
Gordon explained that the Through Agees Card, which includes classic Final Fantasy artwork, was an idea that came up in the middle of the development process, simply because they were looking at art from Yoshitaka’s Amano and Tetsuya’s Amusement Park.
When several lucky fans of Passthecontroller Live were given decks of cards before release and showed off their decks, their decks included Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII and Rosa from Final Fantasy IV. Verhey said he found it to be a magical charm: The Gathering – Final Fantasy Cards – two characters “You don’t see them in (the same) games, but here they’re the same.”
