I don’t go here (Magic: The Gathering, that is), but I’m obsessed with the new MTG and Final Fantasy collaboration. I swore off trading card games when I realized how much money people dump into cracking packs, but I can still appreciate some good Final Fantasy art when I see it. Something I also appreciate is a good bit, and the Magic x Final Fantasy collab handled one of the series’ long-running constants in a truly clever way that even I, someone who doesn’t understand the ruleset of the card game, can appreciate. I’m talking about Cid, a recurring name given to different characters in each mainline Final Fantasy.
For those who don’t play Square Enix’蝉 RPG anthology series, every Final Fantasy has a character named Cid (though he doesn’t appear physically in the first game, thus he isn’t featured in the Magic collab), but it’蝉 never the same guy twice. If you were to line up every version of Cid next to each other, you’d probably have no idea any of them were related in any way. But they all share the same name, and some of them are among the most beloved characters in the series. Final Fantasy XVI’蝉 iteration was easily the breakout star of the RPG in 2023, and Final Fantasy VII’蝉 Cid is a personal favorite of mine across the series’ long history.
So, how do you handle 15 disparate characters who only share a name and (usually) some mechanical skill? You make a card for each of them, of course. Magic: The Gathering will include 15 different cards titled “Cid, Timeless Artificer.” Each card has the same in-game function, so there’蝉 no favoritism on display here, even for more popular Cids. You can have any number of them in your deck, so you could have several variations to use in a game rather than having to pick your favorite. However, there is one wrinkle in all of this worth mentioning: Final Fantasy XV’蝉 Cindy (Cidney in some territories) is nowhere to be seen.
This omission recalls some weird semantic debates over who the true “Cid” of the 15th game is, as there is indeed a character named Cid in it and he has a card in this set, but his granddaughter Cindy is the mechanic the team interfaces with most of the time. The character spurred strong and sometimes divided opinions among players in 2016, as she was the first female Cid in the series, while also appearing in one of the most notably male-centric Final Fantasy games (for good and ill) and wearing a revealing outfit that was controversial, to say the least. She may get a card down the line, but she wasn’t part of the initial Cid showcase. You can click through to see the other 15 cards.
The Magic x Final Fantasy set will hit store shelves on June 13.
