Image credit: Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix

Today is Wednesday, June 11th, the second-to-last day before Final Fantasy's Magic: The Gathering set officially releases! As such, it's time to continue our Count-Up series. Each day leading up to Friday, June 13th, I've been compiling the best and most flavorful cards from each mainline game in the series. Yesterday, we looked at FFXIV, and today we'll be covering Final Fantasy XV!

To refresh you about the criteria I'm using to rank cards from each game subset:

• Honorable Mention - These usually will be a cycle or group of cards that are great but don't quite measure up to the "best" in the categories we have chosen to cover. Today's list will have three cards.
• Best as a Commander - This category covers, as advertised, the best commander to lead a deck in Commander, but may also look briefly at other Command Zone-driven formats.
• Best in the 99 - This section discusses my choice for the best card in a given 99 of a deck. It may be a ubiquitous card, but it might also just be a card with a fair amount of utility.
• Most Flavorful - The most fun to play card in a storytelling context will be deemed Most Flavorful. For example, we covered Town GreeterTown Greeter in our FFI list for its fun lore synergies with Towns, especially those with specific Final Fantasy town names.
• Best In Show - The very best of these cards in a balance of the above categories.

Furthermore, cards from the Commander precons, Through the Ages, and promotional/Secret Lair cards are ineligible for consideration. We want to keep this strictly from the main set.

With that, let's hit the road and delve into the wide world of FFXV!

Honorable Mentions

I chose Noctis's retainers/friends as FFXV's Honorable Mentions. Prompto ArgentumPrompto Argentum, Gladiolus AmicitiaGladiolus Amicitia, and Ignis ScientiaIgnis Scientia are all interesting cards individually. They each have their own niche usage in the context of Magic, just as in Final Fantasy XV. But they're also best evaluated as a team (and especially alongside Noctis). Where is Noctis, you may ask? You'll see later. But because of this grouping, they're best as our Honorable Mentions.

Best as a Commander

My Best as a Commander pick is Ardyn, the UsurperArdyn, the Usurper. Ardyn is a fabulous Demon-kindred commander option in mono-black, despite not being a Demon himself. He instead brings out the very worst in everyone, turning the dead into Demon creatures with a bunch of extra keywords. You can read our deck tech on Ardyn here to find out more about how absolutely awesome Ardyn is. You don't have to take my word for that. And granted, he costs 8 mana, but that's an easy enough cost to pay in black.

Best in the 99

We are really focusing on a lot of legendary cards in this Count-Up entry, huh? The Regalia is a powerful Vehicle card that can quickly get you ramping on lands. While it costs a somewhat-frustrating 4 mana to cast, having haste and the low, low crewing cost of 1 means it'll be useful soon thereafter. Vroom, vroom!

Most Flavorful

Creatures like Ancient AdamantoiseAncient Adamantoise are decidedly very easy to encounter in the context of Magic: The Gathering. Note that I don't mean based on what it does; rather, I mean its level of impact on the game. However, Ancient Adamantoise is a 20-hour fight in Final Fantasy XV and rightly so. Its defenses are nigh-impenetrable. So, too, will this creature protect you in a huge way in a given Commander game. That in itself is enough to give this titanic Turtle the Most Flavorful distinction for this subset.

And so, that brings us to my Best In Show. What card could it be?

Final Fantasy XV Best In Show

It's no surprise that our Best In Show is Noctis! Noctis, Prince of LucisNoctis, Prince of Lucis is a powerful white-blue-black commander that's firing on all cylinders immediately out of the gate. He's a fantastic card that even has some cEDH potential (due to his ability's interactions with cheap, instantaneously-countered artifacts and Aetherflux ReservoirAetherflux Reservoir). Noctis has shown himself to be a competent card in the format and is our Best In Show primarily for that reason.

Unfortunately, he can't join his comrades/retainers in a given deck led by any of them. However, he has a Through the Ages reskin wherein he is Kenrith, the Returned KingKenrith, the Returned King who can field them all, even this iteration of Noctis as well.

With that, we conclude our Count-Up entry on Final Fantasy XV! Have you ever played FFXV? What do you think of it? Let us know in the comments below. And, if you like this series so far, please stay tuned as tomorrow we go over FFXVI, the final entry in this series! The rest of the articles can be found in the links below!

Day 1: FFI | Day 2: FFII | Day 3: FFIII | Day 4: FFIV | Day 5: FFV

Day 6: FFVI | Day 7: FFVII | Day 8: FFVIII | Day 9: FFIX | Day 10: FFX

Day 11: FFXI | Day 12: FFXII | Day 13: FFXIII | Day 14: FFXIV