Emet-Selch, Y'shtola Headline First Magic: The Gathering Final Fantasy Set Reveal, Coming In June

Magic: The Gathering's first major Universes Beyond set of 2025 got its first look in a couple of reveals this week, with a few familiar faces from the award-winning MMORPG taking center stage.

First, revealed yesterday exclusively by IGN, we got a first look at the four Commander set face cards, including Scion of the Seventh Dawn member Y'shtola from Final Fantasy XIV. Y'shtola, Night's Blessed, Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER, Tidus, Yuna's Guardian, and Terra, Herald of Hope, were all revealed yesterday, bringing some interesting takes on building Final Fantasy characters around Magic: the Gathering's mechanics. Y'shtola, for example, is an Esper Commander that seeks to drain life from opponents each turn by casting noncreature spells, as well as turning that damage into a sustainable draw engine.

Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER is a Naya Commander that specializes in synergies with Equipment, getting card draw and treasure tokens based on the amount of attacking creature who has been equipped alongside Cloud.  Meanwhile, Tidus, a Bant Commander, is all about moving counters from across creatures, drawing cards and proliferating those counters. Final Fantasy VI's Terra is a Mardu Commander that brings Milling and graveyard recursion tactics to the pod, allowing her to bring creature cards back from the graveyard if you pay 2 mana whenever she deals combat damage to a player. 

However, this was just the first major reveal of the week, as the WeeklyMTG stream hosted this morning gave us a broader look at the set, which is due out on June 13th. When it was first revealed that we'd be seeing Final Fantasy join the ranks of Magic's Universes Beyond set format, one of the first pieces of artwork highlighted was that of Emet-Selch, the Ascian antagonist who takes up a ton of screentime across a few of Final Fantasy XIV's recent expansions. Today we saw the card fully revealed, and it's a good one, as Magic's game designers have made sure to highlight both his humanoid form, and his alternate form, Hades. 

Emet-Selch, Unsundered is a Dimir Legendary Creature that has Vigilance, a looting mechanic when he both enters the battlefield and attacks, and checks the graveyard for a certain number of cards before he'll transform. How many cards, you ask? Fourteen. Very flavorful. 

When he transforms, he becomes Hades, Sorcerer of Eld, which then allows you to play cards from your graveyard on your turn, but to balance this whenever something gets sent to your graveyard, it's exiled instead. 

It's really cool to see both sides of the antagonist highlighted with the card, and it looks like double sided cards will feature heavily in the set if these first reveals are anything to go by. From Final Fantasy I's Garland, Knight of Cornelia // Chaos the Endless  to Final Fantasy V's Cecil,  Dark Knight // Cecil, Redeemed Paladin, I'm intrigued to see where else Wizards goes with this. 

Today's stream also showcased two more of Final Fantasy's most enduring characters, Sephiroth, Planet's Heir and Cloud, Planet's Champion. We also learned how Magic will treat one of the most iconic parts of any Final Fantasy game: Summons. 

The card game is reintroducing Saga Enchantments as Saga Elemental Creatures. These cards function just like Sagas do, with counters counting down each upkeep, but they are also creatures with power and toughness, and therefore can attack, block and be targeted as creatures while on the battlefield. This reflects both their power in combat as well as the limited time they spend on the battlefield during a Final Fantasy fight. 

The reveal also showcased some of the creatures from the Final Fantasy universe, such as a Tonberry card, Stillzkin, Moogle Merchant (Final Fantasy IX), Sazh's Chocobo from Final Fantasy XIII, and even the Jumbo Cactuar, complete with its 10,000 Needles skill from Final Fantasy VIII. 

You can check out the full reveal on the stream embed below. Also, be sure to check out our sister site, MTG Salvation, for more news and discussion around this new reveal. This is the first major Universes Beyond set that will be legal in all formats, including Standard, so it'll be interesting to see what it brings to the entire landscape of Magic: The Gathering, not just Commander a few other formats. This also means we'll see the full set fully realized in its digital forms of Magic: The Gathering Online and Magic: The Gathering Arena.