Sets [FIN] [UB] Final Fantasy

[shamizy]

I've been trying to avoid adding more double-sided cards into my cube over the last few years, I think the only exception I've made is for Fable of the Mirror Breaker, but Cecil is very intriguing on the front side (and also one of my favorite protagonists from the series) so I'll probably give it a run. I'm always looking for better B/x Aggro pieces and being a human lets it slot real nicely into my B/W Humans archetype. Flipping into a 4/4 Lifelink is massive, I would have preferred it if it wasn't quite that beefy, but it might be fine since there should be enough of a window to answer it before the flip if you were to start with it on T1.

Aside from burn, my early answers are looking like:



I'm hoping that's enough, but I'd like one more piece of removal targeted towards low CMC creatures/permanents.

 

[Seeker]

We just got Quag Feast, which is guaranteed to kill Cecil even from an empty graveyard. I think that's my pick even though it's brand new so the "new stuff" bias hasn't worn off yet.
There's also Flame Slash which I have always thought of as a small creature killer.
You already have Sheoldred's Edict according to your cubecobra link, which was my other rec. Edicts are great at killing a cheap thing because it's the only creature in play more often.

Specifically targeting low-MV in gold there's Drown in the Loch and Abrupt Decay.
oh also if you want there's Long Goodbye over Eliminate (not related to what you asked) - I guess you could just double up on that!

 

[Seeker]

The product accidentally sent to Brazil may or may not have leaked - haven't heard of anything else in the wild yet, but the Spanish version of the RW equipment starter deck showed up on Reddit, but Brazil should be using Portuguese? Anyway, leaks. I'd put the big image on imgur but you know how webp files are and it's a nice big image so I can't just use screenshots.

Relevant cards, with non-functional card tags for now:
Suplex is Abrade except it exiles the creature if it would die and it's "exile target artifact". Eat it, The One Ring. (edit: never mind it's a sorcery I no longer care lol at me)
a bunch of two-mana equipment like White Mage's Rod with the "Job Change" mechanic of "when this enters, make a 1/1 Hero and attach this equipment to it" - so if you want a bunch of Ancestral Blades, this is the set for you for sure (which is great, I love that mechanic)
a new land subtype, City, with no functional meaning spoiled yet

and uh, Freya Crescent:

Freya Crescent
R
Legendary Creature - Rat Knight
During your turn, ~ has flying.
T: Add R. Spend this mana only to cast Equipment spells or activate Equip abilities.
1/1

 

[alvoi]

Brazil should be using Portuguese?

I think they stopped producing cards in Portuguese, right? So I guess they are sending Spanish cards because "whatever all latin languages are the same"

 

[Seeker]

Oh, did they? That's... well, I'm sure there wasn't enough demand to make Portuguese if they say there wasn't, but I would have expected English then, I guess.

 

[Rusje]

Many languages are close to each other and one who is fluent in a language can easily understand large parts of the other language. This is the case for Portuguese to Spanish. This makes it much easier for brazilians to play magic in Spanish than it is in English and makes it much easier to learn Spanish than it is to learn English.

Similarly with many other languages in the world: Portuguese and Italian, or Dutch and German. Do note that it is often easier to transition from the more difficult/sound complete language to the easier one, so from Portuguese to Spanish or from Dutch to German than the other way around.

When I was in Brazil it was most often that they speak Portuguese to you, if that did not work some tried Spanish or more likely portonol. If that failed you were shit out of luck, only in rare cases there was one who spoke English (mind you this was 10 years ago). In very touristic areas it was also the same order, but there was just a higher chance of progressing to the other language.

It is surprising how easy it is to communicate between two close languages when one speaks slowly and tries to avoid difficult words.

 

[MusicalBen]

I mean, as a Portuguese speaker (from Portugal) and Literature teacher I just had to comment on this Mutual or partially mutual intelligibility has nothing to do with languages being "easier" or "more sound complete." Portuguese is the 5th most spoken language in the world, the vast majority of its speakers (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea, etc.) would not find it so easy to transition to Spanish. Portuguese and Brazilian people do because... their countries neighbor Spanish-speaking countries. And this despite both of those versions of Portuguese not being entirely similar, namely, at a phonetic level. Most foreigners find it easier to learn Brazilian Portuguese than the European version, for example.

Wizards stopped printing cards in Portuguese because, I suppose, the majority of Portuguese speakers around the globe cannot afford to play Magic. And I imagine they send Spanish cards to Brazil because it is, after all, in South America. In Portugal we get cards in English, despite Spain being right there.

When it comes to languages, politics and geopolitics often offer a better explanation than linguistics. Visit any high school in Portugal and you'll verify that linguistic proximity doesn't make it easier to learn French; kids get better grades in English or Mandarin...

 

[Rusje]

Most foreigners find it easier to learn Brazilian Portuguese than the European version, for example.

This is because Brazilian Portuguese is simpler and they speak more slowly.

Mutual or partially mutual intelligibility has nothing to do with languages being "easier" or "more sound complete.

I could not find the right word to describe what makes a language harder to learn: all I know is the closer the new one is to the languages you know, be it similar words or grammar, the easier it is to learn (since you can use a lot of the knowledge from the languages you already know). Also if you have to learn new sounds it makes it harder to communicate in that language because you "butcher" it.

Portuguese is the 5th most spoken language in the world, the vast majority of its speakers (Angola, Mozambique, Guinea, etc.) would not find it so easy to transition to Spanish. Portuguese and Brazilian people do because... their countries neighbor Spanish-speaking countries.

Neighboring countries help, unless you are from a germanic/slavic speaking country and your neighbour is Finno-ugric. Or a Latin language and a germanic language. The closeness of the languages is what is important, not whether they are from a neighbouring country. I come from a part of the Netherlands close to the German border, it was perfectly possible to speak simple Dutch to a German and the other way around However, the further inland in Germany the worse it performed (less exposure/dialect). If I try to speak simple Dutch to a French speaker (forget wallonia for this example) I will get blank eyes.

Oh, and you know that the vast majority of Portuguese speaking are in fact living in Brasil?

When it comes to languages, politics and geopolitics often offer a better explanation than linguistics. Visit any high school in Portugal and you'll verify that linguistic proximity doesn't make it easier to learn French; kids get better grades in English or Mandarin

This does not provide any point whether a language is easier to learn only why they are chosen. To start: grades do not imply how easy it is to learn, maybe the effort put in goes down to get the same grade. Second, that people prefer English over French could be because much more people speak English than French. Finally, for most people there is almost no return by speaking an additional close language. Often you can use English and if that does not work you can just use your own language but speak slowly and avoid difficult words.
When in high school do you already know that you want to live in another country or that it is needed for your future work? And if so, do you know which country? I do not think many high schoolers know the answer to these questions and then you get the geopolitical choices.

 

[ravnic]

Didn't expect this thread to become so interesting

 

[alvoi]

Similarly with many other languages in the world: Portuguese and Italian, or Dutch and German. Do note that it is often easier to transition from the more difficult/sound complete language to the easier one, so from Portuguese to Spanish or from Dutch to German than the other way around.

I am not convinced by this argument, like, what does it mean for a language to be more difficult, or more sound-complete? Which way would you order the Latin languages, for example? I speak Italian and Catalan, but I find Spanish understandable, Portuguese and Romanian half-decent, and French totally impossible. Probably different people with different backgrounds than me have different feelings towards the languages, though.

[...] makes it much easier to learn Spanish than it is to learn English.

I totally agree on this, though. Languages in the same group already have a lot of common vocabulary, so learning them consists mostly in grammar differences and some phonetic variations, while learning a language that belongs to a different category has the additional very hard mnemonic burden of learning all the meaning of words. In my life as a native Italian speaker I studied English and German in the high school, and recently I learned Catalan, that was waaay easier, because there is a significative similarity in the word meanings. For a person that calls the tall green things you find in the alleys "alberi", it's clearly more easy to remember to call them "arbres" than "trees" or "Bäume".

And I imagine they send Spanish cards to Brazil because it is, after all, in South America.

I am curious about this: do Brazilian people regularly learn Spanish during their lives, like in many other countries we learn English?

 

[Rusje]

I am not convinced by this argument, like, what does it mean for a language to be more difficult, or more sound-complete? Which way would you order the Latin languages, for example? I speak Italian and Catalan, but I find Spanish understandable, Portuguese and Romanian half-decent, and French totally impossible. Probably different people with different backgrounds than me have different feelings towards the languages, though.

It all depends on what language you are coming from. Transitivity is not a thing with languages. It could very well be that from Italian to Spanish is easier than from Italian to Portuguese. At the same time it could be that from Portuguese it is easier to go to Spanish than Italian. It is also not about which language is the easiest to learn, because that depends on the language you are coming from. However, if you come from a language where the written is the sound or the meaning does not depend on the rest of the sentence than it is harder to go to a close language which does have this. If you started with the more "difficult" one, than it is easier to "forget" those rules in another language.

French is an odd duck. It is a Latin language but is quite different from the others.

With difficult I mean the grammar, weird sentence building and so on. For example German has the he/she/it. Dutch has the same genderthing, but hidden since he/she is in one pronoun. Thing is, if you have to point back to it, it is easier in German because it is forced on you (harder in the beginning, easier later). Just like some programming languages, typeforcing is a pain in the ass in the beginning, but you will be thankful for it later. Dutch has sounds that many languages do not have, if you have to learn them later it is hard. Dutch is partly a quite literal language, what is written is the sound, except that the sound depends on the letters before/after. That is also why it has much more sounds than 26. The meaning of the word can be highly dependent on the rest of the words. There are correct sentences in Dutch with many verbs following each other.

 

[LadyMapi]

Well...

Portuguese and Spanish are really closely related if you group everything by linguistic features (which is what this mess of a picture I borrowed from Wikipedia is trying to show). Personally, as someone who learned a bit of Spanish growing up and who took Latin in high school, I find that Portuguese is surprisingly understandable until it very abruptly isn't.

 

[Seeker]

as someone who has always regretted not taking linguistics classes in college (with a passing interest in Proto-Indo-European, always super interesting to read etymologies), I am tickled pink that some Final Fantasy leaks led to this discussion, carry on

 

[Seeker]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1920055179669614638

it's my girl Shantotto!

Google Lens has produced a translation that surely has the correct name and flavor text:

Shantotto, the Radical Lady
1UR
Legendary Creature - Dwarf Wizard
Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, ~ gets +x/+0 until end of turn, where X is the amount of mana spent to cast that spell. If X is 4 or more, draw a card.
0/4
"Oh! I'm so pissed."

edit: also you know this set is gonna be fire because
1) it is already the best-selling set of all time, preorders only (as in it's outsold everything else before even hitting shelves), but more importantly
2) this one card alone got me trapped in a five-minute debate about whether that's her real creature type or Google Lens didn't know "Halfling"
(it is totally Dwarf, because she's a tarutaru from XI and the lalafell from XIV are basically the same race and the lalafell on the First in XIV are called "Dwarves" and have beards and helmets and so on. book it.)

 

[MilesOfficial]

That design is so clean. It feels like the logical conclusion to where this style of card has been going for years. I have many a Cube project in mind that will benefit from her!!

 

[Chris Taylor]

"the mana spent to cast that spell" if true is really good and interesting text to try and guide away from the voodoo accounting things that usually accompany anything MV matters

 

[TrainmasterGT]

"the mana spent to cast that spell" if true is really good and interesting text to try and guide away from the voodoo accounting things that usually accompany anything MV matters

Voodoo accounting is what makes the world go round!

 

[Seeker]

"the mana spent to cast that spell" if true is really good and interesting text to try and guide away from the voodoo accounting things that usually accompany anything MV matters

they don't do it often, but they certainly have a history of using that phrase:

so this would naturally fit

also, Hildibrand!

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1920554332736663949

Flavor fits. Love the Gentle Dead Man token. I'm the target market - won't be cubing it because I think that Mosswood Dreadknight always disappointed because the timing restriction on recasting it was slightly too tight, but could easily be wrong.

 

[MilesOfficial]

I've been running this little guy for almost a year now:



Pollen-Shield Hare is fine! I moved him in a Selesnya slot because it's my Cube and I can be inconsistent when I want to be, even though I really view him as a mono-white card but I found GW to be less competitive than straight white 2-drops!! I'm 50/50 to boot him from Cube now, since Hildibrand does everything and more. I don't mind this getting power-crept a little, since the Hare was just shy of what I was looking for in this effect anyways.

But WOW does Hildi do a lot. The adventure is actually useful and synergistic? I'd consider him an instant include with just the legendary typing, to be honest -- love my Mox Amber/Yoshimaru, Ever Faithful deck. And the Mosswood Dreadknight impression is a big boon. Less important on this card than the Dreadknight, but he really causes a lot of annoyance for your opponents. If this isn't amongst my favorite sets in the set(s) when it's all done, I'll be shocked.

Sometimes, I think it's a little tacky/sloppy when cards tell you what to do so clearly. But other times, it's nice to tell your drafters "do this and you will be fed", and I've really been enjoying a variety of token strategies lately.



I only run Bennie out of these three, but the other two get closer to graduating from the "On-Deck" binder every time we get an effect like this.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Whelp. It’s still hard to get excited for an IP I have no affinity with and whose art style I don’t love. I don’t need more anime in my life… I’m glad it resonates with some of us though!

 

[Velrun]

Whelp. It’s still hard to get excited for an IP I have no affinity with and whose art style I don’t love. I don’t need more anime in my life… I’m glad it resonates with some of us though!

Same

Wish we could kill it with fire. If they absolutely have to do UB could they at least stick to stuff like The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Dungeons & Dragons or instead let the entirety of UB be skins and not cards.

 

[ravnic]

Just let people enjoy their kind of magic, whatever it looks like. Aren't we cubing exactly to not feel pissed when wozards prints sonething that we personally don't like, be it mechanics, aesthetics or whatever? We can simply not put it into our cubes.

I won't touch Final Fantasy stuff either, but damn it is already the best selling set ever. Is the joy it brings to so many people not worth more than the tiny satisfaction you woulf get if it would be discontinued? I don't think so.

 

[Velrun]

Best selling set is not a criteria that I care about. None of us should. Only Wizards.

If the only UB set ever was Final Fantasy then the arguments hold water. However they will keep coming so we either have to let our voice be heard or leave the game. The fact that non-Magic players are voting with their wallets does not help the game overall. It just makes money for Wizards. They were capable of making the game before UB so there is no excuse.

 

[Seeker]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1920645151896248371

Think we already had Yuna, definitely didn't have G'raha.

also even as the target market for this set - huge FF fan and relatively indifferent towards UB in general because I enjoyed LotR as a set - I totally get it because like... sure, whatever, I like this IP, but it doesn't really feel like Magic, and it's only gonna get weirder when they release a set with different card names on Arena (which is not real Magic, paper Magic is real Magic) and so on. I think it's just me being a boomer and hating capitalism. But I'm not gonna deny either of those.

e: to onder's point below: god, amen to that. even as a fan, this stuff mostly doesn't look like Magic

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Is the joy it brings to so many people not worth more than the tiny satisfaction you woulf get if it would be discontinued? I don't think so.

That’s why I voiced my personal disappointment but also said I’m glad it does resonate with others. To each their own. I do sincerely hope the success of this IP won’t sway WotC to adopt anime as the main art style for their main sets, because it’s really, really not my jam.