In an air-conditioned tent on a sweltering Los Angeles day at Summer season Sport Fest, I sat right down to play a hand of the cardboard sport Magic: The Gathering and drew a handful of characters from Ultimate Fantasy. Sitting throughout from me was the person who oversaw the method of turning a few of the world’s most beloved online game characters into playable playing cards for what’s shaping as much as be Magic’s hottest set ever — already a finest vendor a month earlier than its launch.
Magic: The Gathering is a storied collectible card sport made by Wizards of the Coast that is arguably extra widespread than it is ever been because it debuted in 1993. In recent times, the sport has ventured into the mainstream by adapting the most well-liked nerd properties, like Marvel superheroes, Warhammer 40K and Lord of the Rings, into playable playing cards. These Universes Past units, as they’re referred to as, have had particular releases that make them authorized solely in choose codecs of the sport — that means you could not carry them to play in tournaments with the latest units.
That each one adjustments with the Ultimate Fantasy set, whose playing cards characteristic each mainline sport from the unique Ultimate Fantasy first launched in 1987 to Ultimate Fantasy 16 from 2023. The brand new set is being launched within the Normal format, which implies gamers will have the ability to carry essentially the most well-known characters, like Cloud, Sephiroth, Yuna, Lightning, Noctis and Y’shtola, of their decks to play in common competitions alongside the opposite latest units.
I am no Magic scrub, however it’s been years since my teen days after I began accumulating through the Urza’s Saga and Sixth Version units. The sport has modified loads since then, with new key phrases and extra highly effective playing cards than ever, however the fundamentals stay the identical: Take a deck of playing cards with a mixture of mana-generating lands, creatures, artifacts and different spells to battle in opposition to your opponent. Untap, maintenance, draw, play, fight, finish part.
As I sit throughout from Gavin Verhey, principal Magic: The Gathering sport designer and set design lead for Ultimate Fantasy, I am daunted by the duty of enjoying somebody who actually oversaw the event of each card in my hand. However I am comforted that, like me, he is an enormous fan of the Ultimate Fantasy video games, as was everybody on the staff.
“The excellent news is we have been doing the homework for the previous 30 years of our lives,” Verhey mentioned. “I imply, we did play by means of the video games, all of us revisited the previous ones.”
Although not everybody on Verhey’s staff had performed each one of many sequence’ video games, collectively they’d coated all of them. For example, he is by no means performed the massively multiplayer on-line Ultimate Fantasy 14, however he pointed to a colleague throughout the tent at a special desk — “Dylan over right here, he is performed hundreds of hours of 14,” Verhey mentioned.
The Ultimate Fantasy Starter Package contains two 60-card decks that every characteristic a hero from Ultimate Fantasy 7, together with Cloud (pictured) and Sephiroth playing cards.
Turning Ultimate Fantasy icons into playable playing cards
The primary official Universes Past set was Warhammer 40K in 2021, however Verhey instructed me Wizards of the Coast has been engaged on the Ultimate Fantasy set for about 5 years, requiring a whole lot of back-and-forth from the cardboard sport maker and Sq. Enix to get all the small print and translations proper, together with the in depth design course of to adapt the venerable property.
“What actually helped us out was that Sq. Enix has enormous Magic gamers,” Verhey mentioned.
One of many challenges was to include Ultimate Fantasy 16, which was launched in mid-2023, years into the Ultimate Fantasy Magic set’s improvement. Verhey’s staff had valuable little time to include the sport.
“When it got here out, we had a marathon weekend the place we’re all gonna play by means of,” Verhey mentioned. “We’re placing within the chat, we should always make this a personality, and this a card, and this a card. It was tremendous enjoyable.”
In preparation, Verhey had saved 10 card slots out of the 310-card set for Ultimate Fantasy 16 playing cards. Their purpose was to ensure each sport had a minimum of 10 playing cards and a minimum of certainly one of uncommon high quality, to ensure followers may discover some illustration from their favourite video games. In fact, some more-popular entries within the sequence acquired extra playing cards, resulting in extra from Ultimate Fantasy 6, 7, 10 and 14 — video games that make their means on the lists of one of the best RPGs of all time.
However there have been design directives Verhey held to ensure that gamers would acknowledge staples of the sequence even when they hadn’t performed each sport.
“Once I was designing the set of widespread and unusual playing cards, particularly widespread, I wished to place in issues that had been generic throughout many Ultimate Fantasy video games, so irrespective of which of them you performed, you’d discover a factor you acknowledge,” Verhey mentioned. “Should you’ve performed any Ultimate Fantasy sport, and even any RPG, you are like, Yep, there’s the weapons vendor, the merchandise particular person, there’s the particular person greeting you if you come into city.”
Lots of the most recognizable heroes, like Cloud and Sephiroth, are reserved for the uncommon and mythic rarity character playing cards, that are deliberately highly effective, but the latter of which present up solely in certainly one of each eight packs of playing cards. It is a robust stability, Verhey mentioned — however to ensure gamers nonetheless get these widespread heroes of their decks, they splashed them into the artwork of widespread and unusual playing cards for various spells, artifacts and enchantments. These usually depict memorable moments within the video games, together with, maybe most infamously, in Ultimate Fantasy 6 the place a martial arts character suplexes a practice. (I am not kidding. It is actually a card within the set.)
As I draw extra playing cards, Verhey factors out the numerous particulars his staff made positive to pack into them, together with a small indicator close to the artist credit score that claims which sport they got here from. Even the best card within the sport, a mana-producing land, evokes the moments and settings from Ultimate Fantasy video games — after I drew a primary plains (white) land, it confirmed the long-lasting automobile from Ultimate Fantasy 15, the Regalia, driving up a street. I used to be immediately introduced again to enjoying the sport and its boys street journey journey (which kicks off with one of many best intros of the sequence).
Each card within the Ultimate Fantasy Magic: The Gathering set references a second, character or location from the video games. On the bottom-left nook is an indicator of which sport the cardboard’s artwork is from — this one says “FFXV” for Ultimate Fantasy 15.
Designing Ultimate Fantasy for Magic: The Gathering newcomers
When you’ve got a buddy who’s been into Magic: The Gathering, you’ve got in all probability heard loads in regards to the Ultimate Fantasy set already, and lots of newcomers are being drawn in by all of the hype. I requested Verhey what design selections they made to make the set as welcoming as they may for people who’ve by no means performed a sport of Magic earlier than (certainly, along with the interview, I and different Summer season Sport Fest attendees had been provided introductory demos to be taught Magic if we had been completely new to the sport).
“One of many issues with Ultimate Fantasy, and any Universes Past IP, that I believe is wonderful is we simply begin that dialog a bit additional down the street, as a result of for those who play Ultimate Fantasy, I need not clarify well being and mana and technique and targets as a lot,” Verhey mentioned.
Verhey additionally notes that the Starter Package for the Ultimate Fantasy set is a superb entry level for brand spanking new gamers, together with two premade 60-card decks which can be themed round Cloud and Sephiroth, in addition to codes to redeem the decks within the Magic: The Gathering Area on-line digital model of the sport.
However the staff additionally made design selections to make the Ultimate Fantasy set simpler to know for newcomers, too.
“The mechanics within the set, lots of them are issues which can be very approachable, like flashback [being able to cast some spells twice] and landfall mechanics [effects that trigger whenever you play land cards] that gamers know and have performed with for ages,” Verhey mentioned.
“The brand new mechanics are stuff like job choose, which is a riff on residing weapon from [Magic expansion] Mirrodin, which is sort of easy to know: You get a token and put this [weapon] on it, proper?” Verhey continued. “However the taste actually helps you with this as a result of, Oh, it is smart {that a} samurai katana would have a hero that comes with it and is holding the katana.”
One of many set’s new mechanics is job choose, which creates a primary creature to connect the weapon to when it enters play.
That does not imply the design course of was seamless. Adapting some well-known Ultimate Fantasy heroes right into a card sport was sometimes difficult as Verhey’s staff determined how finest to translate their talents onto a card, usually going to the teammate who knew that exact sport finest. Verhey gave an instance he had “a heck of a time with”: Kain Highwind, one of the best buddy of the protagonist of Ultimate Fantasy 4, who retains switching sides with and in opposition to the occasion. After six totally different makes an attempt at design ideas, he went to a co-worker who knew that sport , who despatched Verhey a design that very same day that ended up within the set: If the Kain, Traitorous Dragoon card offers harm to a participant, they get management of him. Elegant.
Of the 310 playing cards within the set, there are some that Verhey is especially happy with. Esper Terra is a model of the heroine of Ultimate Fantasy 6 and one of many first Saga creatures, a brand new card kind mixture launched within the set, which switches forwards and backwards between regular hero and pumped-up esper (assume summons or guardian forces in different FF video games) for some turns. One other card, a model of Sephiroth (Fabled Soldier, which flips over to rework into One-Winged Angel), leaves a everlasting emblem on the board to symbolize his lingering presence in Ultimate Fantasy 7, all the time needling the heroes in that sport.
How they balanced Ultimate Fantasy playing cards for all Magic: The Gathering codecs
Clearly, Magic can get difficult, and this intrinsic complexity of playing cards and interactions is a trademark of high-tier play and interesting deck methods. By making the Ultimate Fantasy set authorized in Normal format, Wizards of the Coast is enabling it to have an effect on mainstream play, together with aggressive tournaments that characteristic the newest units earlier than and after Ultimate Fantasy. This contains debuting the aforementioned Saga creatures, which Verhey’s staff developed as a approach to embody a few of the strongest of Ultimate Fantasy occasion talents, like summons, that make a flashy influence for a flip or two. In improvement, the staff tried out a “vanishing” mechanic the place a summon-like creature would slowly die over a number of turns, which was learn as a draw back.
As a substitute, Saga creature playing cards stability that huge influence with short-term presence, dependably swinging the pendulum of stress again to your opponent — in any case, you paid mana for one thing that goes away finally — however presents an fascinating dilemma: Does your opponent block it? Kill it? Spend a spell on it?
“We balanced [Saga creatures] utilizing the ability, toughness and talents to ensure it might be acceptable, however I believe extra fascinating is, as soon as they’re in play, what occurs? They actually make gameplay fascinating,” Verhey mentioned.
Because it was the primary Universes Past set to be authorized in Normal play, Verhey acknowledged that there was stress to ensure they balanced it properly. That meant placing it by means of the identical play design technique of different units, just like the current Tarkir Dragonstorm, with ex-pro Magic gamers play-testing and iterating the playing cards. “We put our complete staff on it for the stability portion,” Verhey mentioned.
This course of will probably be used for all future Universes Past units, just like the upcoming Spider-Man and Avatar: The Final Airbender units, which will probably be equally balanced and authorized for Normal and different codecs. Wizards of the Coast may all the time change their thoughts and pare this again for future units, however making these new IP variations able to play in tournaments and past is the plan for now.
These Cloud, Midgar Mercenary and Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier playing cards are totally different than the Cloud and Sephiroth playing cards included within the Ultimate Fantasy Starter Package.
How Ultimate Fantasy pushes Magic: The Gathering into the long run
Unsurprisingly, it is difficult to select the IPs to adapt. A separate staff from Verhey and his designers chooses which recognizable properties to select, and certainly one of their filters is deciding whether or not it is potential to carry to Magic within the first place. Whereas harmonious, formidable, aggressive and good characters match white, black, crimson and blue mana identities, respectively, some IPs haven’t got a lot to supply inexperienced, the colour of earth and nature. Different necessities embrace sufficient characters and monsters that may make small, medium and enormous creatures or can match Magic staples like flying creatures, that are necessary for supporting play environments like drafts.
Verhey and his staff discovered a ton from creating the Ultimate Fantasy set, together with tackling the arduous process of filtering all of the characters into all 5 colours of mana in Magic, which outline play-style and technique. Within the years creating this set, Verhey pioneered what he calls the “snapshot second,” choosing an important time in that character’s story for the cardboard they’re making.
For instance, there are a number of Sephiroth character playing cards. One is included in a Commander premade deck and is white and crimson mana, depicting a pivotal second in Ultimate Fantasy 7’s backstory when he discovers his previous and angrily burns the city of Nibelheim to the bottom. One other, a black mana card, is the Sephiroth that gamers encounter throughout the primary plot of Ultimate Fantasy 7 because the evil one-winged angel attempting to destroy the world.
“They’re two very totally different moments of Sephiroth’s story that permit us present totally different colours by means of them, and that separate technique is what we will undoubtedly take ahead and use in future Universes Past units,” Verhey mentioned.
It is an ideal second in our real-world sport of Magic as I sit throughout from Verhey: He, operating the blue and black deck of the Starter Package, performs his Sephiroth creature card. Noticing he used all his mana, I exploit an instantaneous spell to kill the villain on his flip, and a flip later, I play my Cloud card, swaggering with confidence that I turned the tide. Sadly, Verhey notices I overcommitted and performs a Magitek Scythe on certainly one of his different creatures, which forces my Cloud to dam and get killed. A flip later, he makes use of a spell card to resurrect Sephiroth to the battlefield and rapidly overwhelms me — a becoming, Ultimate Fantasy 7-appropriate finish to our match.
Over the weekend, Verhey performed a whole lot of Magic matches with many different Summer season Sport Fest attendees — some veterans, some newcomers to the sport. And what he is been noticing, this weekend and within the monthslong lead-up to the set’s launch, is the enjoyment when followers see playing cards of their favourite characters and moments from the video games.
“I believe the largest factor is remembering that every little thing has followers,” Verhey mentioned. “There’s 16 video games we’re attempting to cowl right here, and each sport, individuals are like, Oh my gosh, this card from Ultimate Fantasy 2 is in right here. Or, I am unable to consider this card from Ultimate Fantasy 7 is in right here. Or, I want this character from Ultimate Fantasy 8 was in right here. Folks actually do care about it, and the lacking stuff is de facto seen, is de facto related.”
Sadly, that meant slicing playing cards even Verhey wished, like one for Eiko from Ultimate Fantasy 9, in addition to others left on the slicing room flooring from Ultimate Fantasy 4 and 5. (I used to be personally eager for extra Ultimate Fantasy 8 playing cards myself.) However inside the tight constraints of attempting to symbolize 16 video games in a 310-card set, they nonetheless managed to cram in sufficient iconic scenes that respect the beloved idiosyncrasies of a online game sequence nearing its fortieth birthday — issues like, sure, having the ability to kill Ultimate Fantasy 6’s Phantom Prepare with the Phoenix Down card.
“On this set, [someone asked,] ‘Hey, are you able to take away — I do not know why it is even there — killing an undead factor in your Phoenix Down?'” Verhey mentioned. “I am like, ‘Completely not. That’s vital. You can’t contact this.'”
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