Latest news with #CommanderDecks
Forbes
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Forbes
MTG: Spider-Man Continues A Fantastical Collectors Dream
MTG: Spider-Man is the next Universes Beyond set, releasing later this year. But it started with a bunch of Secret Lair drops in 2020. The Walking Dead, Stranger Things, Street Fighter, and Fortnite were some of the early Universes Beyond releases from Hasbro's Magic: The Gathering brand. These cards, some reskins, were terribly popular with collectors, chasing the pop culture crossover dream. While the resell value of most of these drops has stayed steady, it was the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks in 2022 that really pushed Universes Beyond into the forefront of comic book store shelves. These Commander sets go for hundreds of dollars, according to a quick search on TCGPlayer. And that resell value has renewed heated interest into a brand that for a while, was meeting a tad of (anecdotal) stagnation in the market. Wizards of the Coast realized they had something going with these crossovers, leading up to next month's full release of Spider-Man (after a Marvel Secret Lair drop last year). Not all releases have seen a full release in the sense of booster packs, Commander decks, and all the other selling packs. Notably, The Lord of The Rings, Assassin's Creed, and Fallout have found their way into the hands of collectors, with plenty of new cards and a few reskins mixed in. Final Fantasy came out earlier this year, and collectors were chasing that Traveling Chocobo card for sure. And if you were able to get your hands on a Collector's Booster, you can pay your rent selling a couple of those. So will Spider-Man reach the same level of ridiculous value? Probably. Because there is an Infinity Stone. You thought The One Ring was cool? Wait until you pull a cosmic foil Soul Stone. If you are lucky, maybe Post Malone will buy it off you. MTG: Spider-Man respects the art One of the best things about these Universes Beyond releases, besides the resell value, is the artwork. With Spider-Man, we're going to see Showcase Scene cards. These cards can be combined to form a scene that feels like it was lifted from a comic book. Spider-Man comic cover artists such as Steve Ditko will be featured on cards starring iconic Spider-Man characters. Let's take a look at some of the cards you'll likely be slipping into card protectors in a few weeks. FEATURED | Frase ByForbes™ Unscramble The Anagram To Reveal The Phrase Pinpoint By Linkedin Guess The Category Queens By Linkedin Crown Each Region Crossclimb By Linkedin Unlock A Trivia Ladder It's clear that you are going to find a lot of double-sided cards in this expansion. Not my favorite to play with because you have to remove them from the sleeves to transform them. That's a personal issue though. But the mythic cards should carry a moderate resale value at least. This set is leaning heavily into the multiverse aspect, with characters that found their way from the comics to the big screen along with Miles Morales in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It's clear this set isn't settling on the traditional universe populated by Tobey Maguire and his new best friends Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield. It's all the Spider-Mans from all the places. And their best villains and abilities. Plus, some great lands. Collectors love unique lands, and our first taste with Multiversal Passage certainly fits the bill. The Magic: The Gathering Spider-Man expansion releases on September 26th, 2025 and there will surely be a ton of local comic store events leading up to the release. The pre-release parties are where you get the good stuff, especially those collector boosters before everyone else snaps them all up.
Gizmodo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Final Fantasy X's Laughing Scene Is Now a Magic: The Gathering Card
This past weekend Wizards of the Coast really lifted the lid on its upcoming Final Fantasy crossover set for Magic: The Gathering, but the oodles of cards revealed there were apparently not enough. Today the Magic team revealed even more cards to players, and they're filled with incredible nods to Final Fantasy history… including an absolute gem from Final Fantasy X. Today Wizards revealed the full card lists for each of the four Final Fantasy preconstructed Commander Decks that will launch alongside the expansion next month. The four decks are built around four iconic entries from the mainline Final Fantasy series: Revival Trance, based on Final Fantasy VI; Limit Break, based on Final Fantasy VII; Counter Blitz, based around Final Fantasy X; and Scions and Spellcraft, based around Final Fantasy XIV. Each deck of 100 cards is completely themed for the Final Fantasy set, from wholly new cards to re-flavored takes on already-existent Magic cards with new thematically appropriate art. One such re-flavor in the Counter Blitz deck is Inspiring Call, a green mana instant that has been around in various Magic sets since it first appeared in 2015's Dragons of Tarkir. It's a simple enough card, granting any creatures you control that you've given +1/+1 counters to temporary protection while also drawing a few cards. But in Counter Blitz, it becomes, well, more of an inspiring laugh: Yes, right down to the flavor text, we're getting Yuna and Tidus' infamous laugh scene from Final Fantasy X in card form. An early moment in the game, the scene sees Yuna try to cheer Tidus up as the duo and the rest of the party prepare to carry on their pilgrimage to defeat the monstrous entity known as Sin, who Tidus has just learned (spoilers for a 24-year-old PS2 game) is actually seemingly a transformed corruption of his long-missing father, Jecht. Yuna, knowing her quest will eventually claim her life, tries to get Tidus to learn how to hide his emotions and put on a happy face, first literally and then through comically forced laughter. The rest is Final Fantasy meme history: Although the purpose of the scene is that Tidus and Yuna's laughter is meant to be forced and awkward sounding (as you can see above, they break out into genuine laughter immediately after), the clip of their barked laughs has spent the past two and a half decades taking on a life of its own as a viral meme, from goofy music edits to dunks on cringy video game voice acting (X was the first Final Fantasy to feature extensive voice acting). And now, its legacy is reclaimed in Magic. It's just one of many great little nods and references throughout what we've seen of the Final Fantasy set so far. The Commander Decks have revealed a ton of new cards in a similar vein that have great mechanical nods to their respective games—some of my favorites include Zack Fair in FFVII's, which lets you essentially replicate Cloud swiping Zack's identity after his death, or Champions from Beyond in FFXIV's, a very nifty nod to the MMORPG's party finder mechanic (and one of the coolest moments in its expansion Shadowbringers). Most of the nods are reverentially serious, befitting the passion that's on display for this meeting of fantastical titans. But it's nice that in cards like Inspiring Call's remixing, the Final Fantasy set knows when to have a bit of forced laughter at itself too. Magic: The Gathering – Final Fantasy hits shelves next month on June 13. Head on over to Wizards' card image gallery for the set to see even more cards from the crossover!
