Cloud, Ex-Soldier
FINAL FANTASY!
If you told me years ago, when I first started playing Magic the Gathering, that I’d be able to sit down at a Commander Pod and have Wolverine vs Ezio vs Doctor Who vs Cloud Strife, I would have laughed saying it sounds like bad fan parodies. Or would have questioned if they were just really cool fan made alt arts.
But now that Final Fantasy is officially releasing and spoiling in Universes Beyond for Magic the Gathering, those fan parodies are very much a reality.
The 4 Commander Decks releasing soon are: “Cloud, Ex-Soldier", “Terra, Herald of Hope”, “TIdus, Yuna’s Guardian”, and “Y’shtola, Night’s Blessed”
Today, we focus on Cloud, a Naya Commander for 2 WRG for a 4/4 Legendary Human Soldier Mercenary, who’s abilities are all about equipping creatures and drawing cards for each equipped creature.
This feels like it’s going to go the way of many equipment decks, played as a more Voltron Commander. Auto equipping and haste are insane pressure tools for any Voltron Strategy. On summon, Cloud can equip himself with a slew of powerful equipment spells like, such as:
Excalibur being able to lower the cost of itself can be very mana efficient for your big play of summoning a hasty Cloud, who then picks up Excalibur and swings in to your opponent’s face for 14/4. Which then also triggers his ability to generate treasures, which then gives you a follow up play to either protect your board or to allow you to do more battle tricks in the hopes of removing a player from the game with Commander Damage. If you don’t happen to kill off a player or out right win the game with a 14 damage swing from Cloud, Excalibur also gives Cloud the Vigilance Ability, so he can be ready to block any crack back from an opponent....because Drawing free cards, massive damage, ramping, and losing nothing for it, seems like you will generate a little hate from the surviving players from this attempt on their lives.
The same damage can be made with Colossus Hammer. Because, redundancy in a singleton format is King. You trade off Vigilance for +10 to both stats, but the damage remains the same, and so do the pluses Cloud generates from his own abilities.
The swords are just mean with Commanders like Cloud. Giving him evasion and protection from specific players and decks can just out right win the game through sheer damage that can be avoided. Or, it will just force free bonuses for the Cloud player. Hitting once with a Feast and Famine wielding Cloud will net you 6 Commander Damage to that opponent, protection from Black and Green, You get 2 treasures, you Draw a card, and essentially have another turn by untapping mana. On top of your opponent having to discard a card, generating free Card Advantage. Feast and Famine is particularly evil, being that Cloud is in Red....the color of Multiple Combat Phases. Swing with the Sword on Cloud for 6 Commander Damage, tap all your mana to float it all, draw a card and get 2 treasures because of Clouds effects, the sword forces your opponent to discard a card, and untap all your mana. Effectively DOUBLING your mana +2 because of the treasures, then use that mana to cast Savage Beating to gain an additional Combat Step......and do it all again.
Lastly Cloud doesn’t have to go Solo in this adventure. He always has Fam.....I mean allies. His second ability can go in a more “Go Wide” style of play, suiting up a ton of creatures with equipments to draw a ton of cards
Anduril, allows Cloud to build his own flying spirit Army......almost like Final Fantasy has Spirits Within....doesn’t sound so bad right.....right? Bad jokes aside, this can lead to drawing more cards by equipping the spirits Anduril makes just for attacking while equipped to Cloud. If unchecked, you will have a full field of spirits that can attack in the air and draw you cards to generate a ton of aggressive advantage.
Cloud feels like he can be a fun Voltron Commander, hopefully we get an MTG version of the Buster Sword and a card of Clouds OmniSlash to add to the flavor of the deck.