Image credit: Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix

Today is Monday, June 2nd, the sixth day of our count-up towards the release date of the Magic set for Final Fantasy! For the past five days, I've been examining the best cards in the set from each game in the series based on superlatives. Yesterday we looked at FFV, and today we'll be looking at Final Fantasy VI! Like many other FF fans, this game is my favorite entry in the main series, so I have some thoughts on this one. So join me as we look into this masterpiece of a game and the most powerful and faithfully adapted cards for FFVI!

The criteria we're working with for this superlative list is as follows:

• 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 only have one card.)
• 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 begin!

Honorable Mention

It was actually very difficult to find an optimal Honorable Mention for Final Fantasy VI. Every card in this subset is extremely well made and faithful to the game in a huge way. However, having found one, I can safely say it is Opera Love SongOpera Love Song.

Opera Love Song depicts such an important and iconic scene from FFVI. This is the moment that CelesCeles is quite torn about the affections of Locke ColeLocke Cole, her fellow party member who is himself torn between Celes and TerraTerra. He's smitten with both, but at that time, Terra had left the party, having gone into an Esper Trance form. One of Celes' main concerns is if, to Locke, she's just a rebound or "replacement" for Terra. Celes is also performing in an opera during this scene, but her passion, alongside this particular issue, shines through her performance.

Now, the reason I have to only give this scene-depicting card Honorable Mention over Most Flavorful is that there are still more important scenes in this subset. Furthermore, Opera Love Song is an okay card at best. Mechanically, it's not terrible, but it doesn't exactly shine, either. I love how it shows this scene, but love isn't an easy thing to represent in Magic: The Gathering. Given enough time for Wizards of the Coast to figure that out, it might be okay eventually to redo. But for now, the concept is a bit mechanically undercooked.

Best as a Commander

For full disclosure, Kefka, Court MageKefka, Court Mage is a subject of my clear-cut biases. Whether it's Piedmon from the Digimon Adventure 01 anime, Dhoulmagus from Dragon Quest VIII, or even Chuckles from Legends of Avantris, I'm an absolute sucker for evil or demented clowns. I even have my own evil clown "BBEG" (or "Big Bad Evil Guy"), in the Dungeons & Dragons campaign I currently act as Dungeon Master for. Suffice to say, after Dhoulmagus and Piedmon, Kefka is probably my favorite of the lot.

Anyway, Kefka is the best commander of the FFVI options. As a tricolor legend, he has more versatility than Edgar, King of FigaroEdgar, King of Figaro or Locke Cole, but a less-difficult required mana base than Terra, Magical Adept. His control strategy paired with the ability to pivot into a combo stance is also a really powerful playstyle. I covered Kefka in a deck tech early on in the preview season. And, I still stand by the idea that he's my favorite commander in the set overall.

Best in the 99

Phoenix DownPhoenix Down is a strong modal artifact with a use in many white decks. If you need to reanimate a reasonably-sized creature, Phoenix Down has your back. Do you need to remove a pesky undead? Phoenix Down is available to help you here as well. This falls in line with how the card works in the Final Fantasy series, as healing magic can kill undead creatures. But overall, it's a very versatile card and works great in the 99 of most white decks for its extreme utility in a pinch.

Most Flavorful

With cards like Opera Love Song and Phoenix Down in other superlative spots, what takes the cake as Most Flavorful? Well, we have to give this one to SuplexSuplex.

The flavor of Suplex is that SabinSabin is faced against the Phantom TrainPhantom Train. Normally, you could kill the Train with a Phoenix Down, which would deal 9,999 damage to it, but Sabin can also suplex the Train. Yes, you read that correctly. It's apparently a major rite of passage for Final Fantasy VI players to suplex the Phantom Train, and many do it just for bragging rights.

What's that? Suplex can exile an artifact? And the Phantom Train is an artifact? What a supreme flavor win!

The card depicts this memetic scene so well that it had to be my Most Flavorful.

And that brings us to our Best In Show. With so many awesome entries ultimately relegated to other categories, what could this one be? Well...

Final Fantasy VI Best In Show

Stolen UniformStolen Uniform is a card that, like Suplex, depicts a really cool scene from Final Fantasy VI. In the game, at some point in the first half, Locke has to infiltrate the ranks of the Gestahlian Empire to find a way to escape a town. To do this, he robs an Imperial soldier blind, down to his uniform. The soldier flees, naked down to his boxers, in a scene that can be best described as "pathetic for the soldier" and "funny for Locke". So, this card has a ton of flavor to it.

It also has a ton of mechanical usage. In Limited, it's going to be a card that changes games in a big way due to all of the job select cards. And in Commander, the same will happen; someone is bound to steal and equip a pair of Lightning GreavesLightning Greaves, making something susceptible to removal for upwards of a turn cycle. I can't wait to cast it on my Tetsuo, Imperial ChampionTetsuo, Imperial Champion, though, and equip my own Kaldra CompleatKaldra Compleat onto him. The potential is basically endless here!

That does it for our count-up of Final Fantasy VI! Do you agree with my takes on this game's cards? Sound off below! Also, if you missed any of our past coverage of this count-up, feel free to read these articles below to refresh yourself!

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