This week, a Flashback Draft of Final Fantasy (FIN) was available on Arena, and since I’d read that FIN is one of the best Draft formats of recent years, I decided to give it a try.
According to the Draftsim guide, the strongest color pairs are Izzet Big Spells and Golgari Graveyard (Midrange).
For my first Draft, with Draftsmith enabled, I built an Orzhov deck with a strong white focus. Technically, Orzhov is supposed to be a sacrifice-oriented archetype, but my deck revolved more around Equipment and the Job Select mechanic.
I started the draft very well, going 3–0 against two Azorius artifacts decks and one Rakdos Wizard Tokens deck, despite being on the draw in all three matches.
Unfortunately, my deck was extremely vulnerable to board wipes (cards that destroy all creatures), and on two occasions games that looked firmly under control slipped away because of Fire Magic and Ultima .
In the end, I finished 4–3 and came away with a fairly positive first impression of Final Fantasy Limited.
The second Draft was a complete disaster.
I didn’t enable Draftsmith’s pick recommendations and only used the card-rating overlay. It was probably a combination of bad luck and, more importantly, unfamiliarity with the set, but my Rakdos deck simply didn’t work. In every match I found myself on the back foot, trying to defend and remove my opponents’ biggest threats without ever having a realistic path to victory.
My only win came against a poor opponent who played nothing but a Mountain for the entire game and spent the six turns it took me to defeat them discarding cards at end step.
So far, it has been my worst result and my least enjoyable Draft experience.
I played the third Draft on the same day as the second one, hoping to reconcile myself with FIN, once again with Draftsmith enabled.
This time I built a Izzet deck featuring creatures that grew whenever I cast spells with mana value 4 or greater, such as Blazing Bomb and Sahagin , alongside a The Regalia that proved decisive every time it hit the battlefield.
This was by far the closest Draft, and the final 3–3 record reflects that. I think I could have won a couple more games (especially the fourth one) if I hadn’t taken such a big risk on the final turn.
While at 2 life, I attacked with a 4/6 Sahagin hoping to set up lethal on the following turn, failing to notice that my opponent could use Rydia, Summoner of Mist to return Summon: G.F. Ifrit with haste and push through my lone Robot Warrior blocker.
Overall, the experience wasn’t bad despite the train wreck that was Draft #2, but I’ve had significantly more fun playing SOS than FIN.
Of course, winning tends to make any format more enjoyable, but from what I’ve seen so far, both enjoyment and success are closely tied to how well you know the set.
In terms of results, my Final Fantasy experience cost me 2 and 1,500 in entry fees, while the rewards amounted to 2,500 and six booster packs.
As always, assuming 1 = 1,500 and one booster pack = 200 , that works out to an overall loss equivalent to -800 .