MTG X FF GROUP INTERVIEW

by Veerender Singh Jubbal

Veerender Singh Jubbal: Which one of you has worked specifically on the Final Fantasy stuff, and which one of you has worked specifically on any of the Universes Beyond stuff? There’s a big distinction there.

Principal Designer & Set Design Lead for Final Fantasy Gavin Verhey: One of the unique things about Wizards is we’re always going with new stuff. We have so many sets we’re working on at any given time. We’re working on four/five/six sets all at the same experience. Some are Magic worlds, some are Universes Beyond worlds, but all of us work on all of it to some degree. So it’s not like, “Oh, I’m over [here on one set only]” even though we’ve been working on [the Final Fantasy set] for four or five years, depending on the timeframe. That’s not the only thing we’ve been working on during that whole time. We all touch a lot of projects. This one is very near and dear to all of our hearts, but we touch it all.

Veerender: One I played physically was the Assassin’s Creed one last year. That was my first time playing physically. I used to play when XBLA used to do the yearly 2009 Magic version for like $8.

Gavin: Duals of the Planeswalkers!

Everyone: *gets in an excited, joyous mood*

Veerender: Peak game! Especially ’cause like the hesitancy of Magic, Magic uses a lot of keywords, and I think that’s very important to have. Yu-Gi-Oh! is still kind of bad about doing that stuff, but now there’s so many keywords for Magic. How do you go about making the keyword stuff easier for people who are going into Universes Beyond because they are interested in the IP that is being collaborated with, because there’s a lot of keywords.

Gavin: Magic is an amazing game. It’s my favorite game in the world. It also does have a barrier to entry, right? You have to learn how to play a game. It’s not like there’s a magical Clippy that shows up next to you to like, tell you how everything works, right? You have to have someone teach you. One of the ways we want to do that is with great introductory experiences. So like last year with Magic The Gathering Foundations, the starter kits that’s coming out with Final Fantasy. Wanna make sure there’s some great [introductions] in. One of the other things that’s really amazing about Final Fantasy is you have the resonance of the characters and the world that will help be handholds for you. In Magic: The Gathering, a great example I like to use is Fireball. Fireball is a kind of a complicated card to read. It’s got a lot going on, but if you know what a fireball is, you’re like, “Oh, I get what this is trying to do. In Magic: The Gathering x Final Fantasy, there’s a good amount of that where there are these Saga Creatures that when you play them, they do something every turn and then they go away. These represent the summons of Final Fantasy. But if you know Final Fantasy, and you know how a summon works–well, that kind of makes sense, right? This thing shows up, it does its thing, and then eventually ticks down to its ultimate and then goes away. And so by making the cards as resonant as possible and really leaning into the creative elements and the story that they’re trying to tell, you can shortcut some of that a little bit. I’m still not gonna say you’re gonna be able to sit down and immediately osmosis through reading a book, how to play everything. But hopefully it’ll give you a leg up if you love Final Fantasy and are coming into this because, as we all know, Universes Beyond is a great chance to bring new people into Magic, right? Because a lot of folks who’ve never played Magic before are seeing Final Fantasy and wanna come check it out, but they are RPG gamers, and that’s where I’m sure Zakeel has something to say.

Executive Producer Zakeel Gordon: I think kind of talking about–you made the point about resonance. Specifically, when we’re adapting Final Fantasy into the world of Magic, much of our language is through the lens of game design. And we get to speak to the players of Final Fantasy through game design. What’s special about the Final Fantasy IP is that, of course, number one, it’s a game, but it’s also an RPG, which is a little bit more of the crunchier strategic aspect of games. So we get to start the conversation design two or three layers deeper than we normally would because there’s an expectation of things like Summons appearing or the way that different kinds of magic are supposed to work. Or you have a picture of Cloud in your mind. You remember one or two of his abilities. And really, the payoff of what we’re trying to deliver is the expectation of how that character appears in your mind. We were able to shortcut some of that complexity that may exist as a new player by just being as resonant as possible. “Oh yeah, of course, my favorite villain turns into a more powerful version. I just need to figure out–I’ll spend a couple of minutes figuring out how the Magic game engine works,” but that’s the payoff that I expect to see, therefore it’s kind of straightforward in terms of learning to play.

Gavin: I think also bouncing off that too, it’s like if it looks awesome, you will take the energy to do it right. When you see Sephiroth and you’re like, “Oh, he’s got two sides, I gotta get to this side.” You’ll read to find out what that does, ’cause you want to get there. Love a quest.

Senior Game Designer Daniel Holt: I have a two-part answer to kind of build on what they said in regards to the Commander Decks. It’s flavor first. You pick up the Cloud deck for Final Fantasy 7. You’re in the know that he’s gonna equip a sword. He’s gonna go swinging. You’re trying to get to power seven. You can count to seven. But then, further into the deck, you’re gonna find other mechanics pulled from across Magic, but it’s gonna flavorfully make sense. When you see the card, the character, you recognize the action, you’re just gonna know what it does. And it also builds off of things from the main set. If you go and play the main set and then go pick up a Commander deck, the Summons, for example, that’s a big part of Final Fantasy 10’s story. You’re gonna see chapter numbers ticking up with counters, and it’s a counter deck. You’re gonna remove them so they stay longer, they don’t go away. They’re here forever and things like that. So you’re gonna build on itself.

Principal Game Designer Dillon Deveney: Creatively also, we tried to employ flavor words where we could, or where it made sense, taking words from the game itself, whether it was a character’s iconic ability, a spell, an item, or even a quote that they’re super known for, and we attached it to their main mechanic. So if you know what a character’s Limit Break does, or their Desperation Attack, or their Spiral Attack, or what Materia that most people like to put on them. We tried to use that–employ that to help shortcut, again, kind of like Zakeel and Gavin were talking about in your understanding of what that does. You know what it does in the game, it’s probably gonna do that in our set as well. In terms of the art, whenever possible, too, if that character is known for a move or a scene that when I say Sephiroth, when I say Cloud or Tifa, and the first three things you think of, we try to make a lot of that art emblematic of that moment. So you could even further explain the mechanical ability with the expectation of what the art is.

Veerender: Since you’re going through a lot of keywords that are in an established IP, does Square-Enix need to look over a lot of the keywords you’re allowed to use, or were there any you weren’t allowed to use for whatever reason? Final Fantasy has had translation issues. Where any keywords were different in the 90s that they had to change?

Dillon: Mostly, whenever we were to make a decision, we would prepare what we thought was great–a cool card mechanic, a really sweet piece of art, some cool flavor text. Square-Enix was looking it over with us. We would submit it to them, and then we’d have their team look it over, our partners over there. Sometimes the title owners or the producers, the people who worked on it, the various selves would come in and they would give us feedback. A lot of times it was just like, “Oh, based on my understanding, I think I might offer this as an opinion.” Maybe this character would have this ability over this ability, or I think they’re more residently known for this thing versus this thing. Then we’d just kind of like start the conversation. When it comes to like creative text, there were obviously, like you kind of mentioned throughout the ages, they have re-localized certain games over time differently. There is a pretty classic example in Final Fantasy 6 of the move Suplex that Sabin has, and how it’s evolved into a different name, into Meteor Dive, Meteor Strikes, depending on where you’re at. That was a conversation we totally had because we were building Final Fantasy x Magic: The Gathering from the original entry, as it was introduced almost at every point in time. Then we would work with Square-Enix. Like, “Is there anything that you want to personally update or that you think is canon in your eyes or that you’d like to reinvent?” Nine times out of ten, we were just like, “Yep. That sounds good.” But there was that conversation about Suplex versus Meteor…

Veerender: It’s so iconic.

Dillon: But it’s so iconic.

Veerender: But it’s also such a big mistranslation.

Dillon: But it captured the intent of the character. It was really charming, and for all the kids who played it in the English localization, we had that conversation for a really, really long time. I think people are gonna be really excited about that particular flavor point when they see the set, no matter what language you decide to play in.

Veerender: Each of the main games have very different battle systems. Final Fantasy 8 has the GF stuff. Final Fantasy 13 has ATB and Stagger, the Command Synergy System, and the Crystarium System. How do you go about bringing each of those design mechanics from the battle system to the gameplay for the cards themselves? Because that’s a very vastly different thing. ‘Cause you have to go through each and look, look at it very specifically, because none of them have the same battle system in any sense.

Gavin: For a lot of the core mechanics of the set, we tried to do things that were consistent throughout most of the Final Fantasy, right? Like, Summons are everywhere. Jobs and classes are in tons of games, right?. So, for a lot of the overarching like name mechanics, there are a ton of cards, we went pretty wide, but we still wanted to capture some really iconic things like the battle systems. We went a little bit more narrow on those and put them on specific cards. For example, Lightning’s card.

Veerender: I’d love to play. That’s the deck I want to play.

Gavin: There you go. Perfect. Lightning, her ability, she’s of the Stagger ability. Of course, we play 13. Stagger is the key part of the combat system. We showed a lot of that stuff off on more individual cards. You can summon Guardian Forces in the set, all that kind of stuff. While I’m not gonna say that every single battle system or everything like that is represented. We investigated a lot of them and put a lot of them in various places on individual cards or other ways to show them off.

Veerender: How do you folks go about doing something like Summons? Summons in 10 take up two spots for characters versus summons in 13, as a Gestalt Mode that Lightning rides Odin or any of the characters. How do you go about like implementing that? Can just any of the Summons do whatever, or do you only 13’s have the Gestalt Drive? Or GFs will work this way.

Gavin: Ultimately, you have to make a lot of tough decisions. Because if you write what every card should specifically do compared to every other card in the text box, it’s gonna be long, and you’re not gonna be able to read it at all. So at some point, you have to have to be like, “Okay, all of the Summons in the set are gonna work this way,” even though Summons do change from game to game.

Veerender: ‘Cause some summons just attack and then they leave.

Gavin: Right. Every game’s got it a little bit differently. With that said, within the spirit of each Summon, there might be tiny things we did in the design to help it feel a little different from some of the other ones. While there’s not an overarching like, “All the 10 ones work this way, or all the 8 ones work this way.” There’s definitely some nods in the designs, as you’ll see as cards are unveiled, that kind of indicate a bit of that mechanic behind it. But ultimately, you know, you have to kind of choose where you’re gonna make your flavor and where you’re gonna try and make it understandable because there’s always this push and pull. Like you mentioned, the complexity of that at the beginning of this [chat], and if every Saga had bespoke rules for how it worked for 10 and 6, it would be very challenging. A great example of this is the 16 Saga Creatures. If you know Final Fantasy 16, they’re the Dominants, who people actually turn into their Saga Creatures. Here in our set, that’s exactly what happens. Clive actually turns over into Ifrit, so that’s a way to showcase that in the card set, and give it its own unique feel. So we did a little bit of that for sure.

Veerender: I saw that with Cecil as well, because Cecil has the Dark Knight and the Paladin. Were there any influences you took outside of the main game? Stuff like Dissidia does a lot of interesting mechanical aspects like Cecil being able to switch back and forth, or the Onion Knight being able to use [all kinds of weapons/jobs] to get your choice, or Tifa using a lottery system. Were there things in there that were allowed to be implemented as well? I would also have to add, in regards to how Kingdom Hearts has some of the characters represented as well? Or was it just from the main games?

Dillon: Early on, we talked about what Final Fantasy encompasses in terms of just how many titles there are. There are a lot. Even with 16 games, that is already a lot, and Magic sets only have so many slots. In order to do justice to Final Fantasy, we decided early on that we wanted to focus exclusively on the mainline 16 games. No spinoffs, no other series, or anything like that. Because even with that “restriction” and heavy air quotes, there are still thousands upon thousands upon thousands of card designs and pieces of art and concepts and flavor texts that we could possibly pull from. When we were talking to Square-Enix early on, we’re like, “Hey, I think this is kind of like a point of focus that we were really excited about,” and then they were basically like, “Yeah, we completely agree. That’s a really great way to help explore each individual game.” Kind of give them their like give them their due in respect to all the other titles. If we were working with spinoff content, we would need a thousand cards set to even cover half of it, right? We wanted that focus, and I think it really helped us make decisions to make a very authentic set.

Veerender: Final Fantasy has always had different card games. It has its own physical card game separately–have any of you played that? Were there any things from that you gravitated or pulled into this one?

Zakeel: I played the FF TCG casually before. There wasn’t quite a distinct, linear kind of attachment between them. The mechanics of Magic and the FF TCG are pretty different. I don’t think we viewed it as an adversarial relationship or anything. Final Fantasy has had multiple different expressions of trading card games over the almost 40 years now. While I don’t think there was any references taken from their current game into our project. As a whole, trading card games have existed in, in that ecosystem for a long time.

Veerender: Card games themselves are in many different cultures as well. North American design philosophy for card games is very different from–we will stick with Japan–design cards. Cardfight!! Vanguard, Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece, Digimon versus Magic, Lorcana. One of Magic‘s strong points is that it was one of the first CCGs, so it can be able to do a lot of stuff, but like the Land Issue is a common indicator that, if Magic was released today as like a new card game, it wouldn’t do as well just for me playing every sort of card game because of how slow it is. We’ve seen in the past few years how Japanese card games have boomed even harder, with One Piece, Digimon, because of how snappy and quick they are. Since you’re doing a Final Fantasy set, which is very much focused on the battle system being so quick and snappy, even the menus, you’re making a decision–how do you design to collaborate that with a studio that has done Japanese-made games outside of North America and to implement it with an ecosystem with North America’s design philosophy.

Gavin: Magic is the first, and it’s impossible for me to tell you how Magic would do if it was released today. There’s no major IP attached to it, who knows, right? I will say that I believe Magic is one of the best design games in the world, and many of the things that people might criticize it for are actually what makes it good. The Mana System is actually a great example of this, where the Mana System is one of Magic’s actual positive features, in my opinion. Sure. Getting Mana screwed sucks. It happens. You play a game, what the heck–I didn’t draw enough Land?

Veerender: And that was my biggest issue with Lorcana, ’cause Lorcana was trying to reinvigorate and fix [the Land Issue] because making some cards be the Inkwell. [Lorcana] was made by a lot of the Wizards of the Coast developers as well, who went off and you can’t make a game that’s that slow today, and then you compare it with One Piece or Digimon, it’s just like very vastly different. So they try to fix the [Land Issue].

Gavin: Yeah. I feel like the issue people try and fix is it sucks to get Mana screwed or Mana flooded. But that’s also part of what makes the game fun, right? Is that you have these interesting decisions. You have to play from behind. Sometimes you can play from ahead, sometimes. You get to do these common tasks, and how much Mana you have on every given turn. You don’t know how every game’s gonna play out. If I know I’m always gonna have eight Mana on turn eight, it’s very different from not knowing what that’s gonna be the case. While Magic can be a little slower, it can be faster sometimes, too. I feel like part of the reason why it is the way it is, because it is the one that’s been around. If you wanna play a game like Magic, that’s the game you play is Magic. One of the amazing things about Universes Beyond and this collaboration is, it brings Final Fantasy to this game with so much history and all this design experience and a top-tier trading card game in the world, which is such a special, special experience. When it comes to taking different design sensibilities, when you’re signing up to do Universes Beyond set with Magic, what you want is Magic’s design philosophy. That’s what you’re buying into.

Veerender: Yu-Gi-Oh! was influenced by it a hundred percent. Dual Masters is another one that is still thriving [in Japan].

Gavin: We make Dual Masters masters at Wizards actually.

Zakeel: I’ll add for the second part of your question of just specifically working with Square-Enix from their design philosophy. One of the privileges of working on Magic and working with other game studios is that there’s also a lot of fans on their side that really helped us bring this project to life. Not just from the perspective of Square-Enix employees, but also as Magic fans who have been playing the game for 20+ years. Yes. We went over there five different times, play testing, meetings, world building, and design meetings, all different kinds of reviews, kind of on a week-to-week basis, remotely. A lot of what we aspired to make the project shine was bringing the sense of authenticity, delivering on the expectation of what Magic fans would wanna see from Final Fantasy, and then also from Final Fantasy fans coming into Magic. We don’t particularly look to what the market is kind of doing and how other designs are, but we just try to make the most authentic representation of what those two IPs combined together would look like.

Veerender: Was this set a lot more snappier in terms of gameplay compared to different sets? Do some cards cost less Mana than they would in the Assassins Creed set, or less Land, Mana?

Gavin: I would say for the most part, we designed it like we would design a Magic set, and we put a lot of time and rigor and energy into it because it’s the first Universes Beyond set that’s legal in all of our formats. We wanted to make sure that it was appropriate everywhere, but we didn’t try and do anything strange with the costing or otherwise. We just tried to make a great Magic set, and I feel like the rest would kind of follow suit from there. Because once again, if you’re trying to make the UB Magic collaboration and you’re coming to Magic, let’s give you a real thing, right? Don’t give you something that isn’t what Magic would want you to have.

Veerender: In card games and Final Fantasy, turban options that’ve existed for more than 40 years. Many card games have turban options, characters with turbans. Final Fantasy has many of those options as well. In the second one. Do you have any cards with characters with turban art?

Daniel: We haven’t revealed all of the characters that are going to be involved or released, inside the development set at this time? I would very much so encourage you to think about this question when the set comes out. Let us know what you think.

Dillon: There are a lot of characters, a lot of tier one characters that absolutely had to make cut. Then there was a lot of characters in games that we went very deep into, and these characters are really special. They’re really, really important, and fans would absolutely love to see these kinds of characters on cards. We made sure we found home for those characters.

Veerender: The Mystic Knights, they’re canonical to have turbans in 5. Minwu is another example. That’s my main question about that.

Gavin: Stay tuned is what I guess I’ll say.

Veerender: Okay…!

Everyone: *laughs and smiles*

The Final Fantasy set of Magic the Gathering released June 13th. According to an investor call from back in April, it was already the best selling Magic set of all time, based on preorders.