Magic: the Gathering - Final Fantasy is right around the corner, and as such previews have been in full swing. Last week was kicked off with the full reveal of all four Commander decks, which players immediately went nuts for. Not only are they full of cool new cards and great reprints, but they're absolutely dripping with flavor from all throughout their respective games. As such, I wanted to continue my lore coverage of the Final Fantasy series by spending the next three weeks talking about the decks that I'm best familiar with the source material of. That means everything except Final Fantasy XIV's Scions &.Spellcraft precon.

Today, I want to kick things off with the earliest represented title among these decks: Final Fantasy VI's Revival Trance deck. This game was released for the Super Nintendo in 1994 and became a watershed moment for role-playing games. It's frequently hailed as one of the greatest video games of all time and it's my personal favorite in the series. The deck covers the whole breadth of the story, and I'm going to cover it all. If you don't want to be spoiled on this, I'd recommend putting down this article, play the game, and then come back later to see how I did. If you're simply feeling lost and want to know what the deal is without playing the game, then don't worry. I've got you covered.

As a note, I'm only going to cover cards in the Commander deck itself. While there may be some cards in the main set that can represent certain sequences, I'd rather save those for a later piece where I can cover them in more detail. Now then, there's a lot to go over so let's get started by kicking things off with one iconic march through a snowy wasteland.

The game starts out with three people in large mechanical suits known as Magitek Armor trudging through the snow to the town of Narshe. The two men - Biggs and Wedge - lead a mysterious girl toward the town and battle against its residents, who seek to defend their town and its treasure from these pursuers. The treasure they're after? A mysterious magical being known as an esper. When they reach it, the mysterious girl connects to the esper, which obliterates her companions and causes the screen to go dark.

The girl wakes up later, amnesiac, having been revealed she had been enslaved by a mind control device. This is Terra, a girl with magical abilities that can't recall her past. The thief - no, that's treasure hunter to you! - Locke meets with the man who found her and helps her escape to bring her to the Returners, a rebel faction fighting against the Gestahlian Empire. As he helps her escape, they're ambushed by Narshe fighters. A band of moogles - cute critters of the Final Fantasy series - come to the rescue and help them escape.

There they meet with Edgar, the king of Figaro. Edgar is extremely flirtatious and a bit of a goofball in spite of his noble lineage. Edgar, an ally of the Empire (who in reality is aligned with the Returners), agrees to help them, but they're interrupted by the arrival of the mad clown Kefka.

Kefka is one of the leading men of the Gestahlian Empire and comes demanding they hand over Terra to him. Edgar feigns ignorance, insisting he doesn't know of her whereabouts. Kefka sees through this ruse, though, and attempts to burn the castle down. However, Castle Figaro is capable is sinking into the sand below it and moving elsewhere in the world, dispelling the flames as Terra, Locke, and Edgar escape to the town of South Figaro to regroup before continuing ahead.

From here they travel to Mt. Kolts, where they hope to cross the treacherous terrain and meet with the Returners. Along the way, though, they run into Edgar's brother, Sabin, who abandoned the throne years before with Edgar's help and the tossing of a two-headed coin. Since then, he's become an accomplished martial artist and arrives just in time to save them from Vargas, son of his master Duncan who they believe killed his father. Vargas is defeated and the party moves on, with Sabin in tow.

The party coordinates their plans to defend the town of Narshe and stop the Empire from taking the esper. Banon, the leader of The Returners, sends Locke to infiltrate the freshly overtaken South Figaro while he escapes with the rest of the party. During a treacherous trek through the Lethe River, Sabin leaps into the river after battling the quippy octopus Ultros, and the party splits. While players can tackle the three story segments in any order they wish, we'll be looking at them in the order of Terra, Locke, and Sabin's scenarios.

First, Terra, Edgar, and Banon reach Narshe quickly, utilizing a hidden path from early in the game to get inside sneakily. Shortly after, we're then treated to Locke undergoing a lengthy stealth operation through South Figaro, stealing clothing to make his way through. At the end of his time through the scenario, he runs into Celes, a former general of the Empire who turns traitor and refuses to aid in their atrocities. To atone for her crimes, she joins with Locke and moves to join with the Returners.

Now comes the lengthiest part of this section: Sabin's scenario.

Sabin washes ashore near a lonely cabin in the middle of nowhere. There he meets the mysterious ninja Shadow - seen previously earlier in the game's first visit to South Figaro. Shadow agrees to join Sabin for the time being and they make their way for the nearby kingdom of Doma.

When they arrive there, they find the castle to be under siege by the Empire's forces, who are camped nearby and are gearing up for all-out war. Led by General Leo, the army stands ready to fight and attempts to take the kingdom. When this plan fails, Kefka - who is also on the scene - lures Leo away and poisons Doma's water supply. This not only kills the people within the castle, but the Empire's own men.

The lone survivor of this onslaught is Cyan, the samurai warrior of Doma who talks with distinctly medieval language. Enraged not only by the loss of his kingdom, but also the murder of his wife and child, Cyan lashes out at the Empire camp, fighting through and joining with Edgar and Sabin on their quest so that he might take his revenge on those who took everything from him.

The party finds themselves escaping into the Phantom Forest, where they soon happen upon the legendary Phantom Train. This ghoulish train carries the souls of the dead to the afterlife and causes the party to battle through a host of ghosts. After the party conquers the train, Cyan sees the souls of his wife and son on the train and they say their final farewells, beautifully captured here as Night's Whisper. Shadow departs from the party, and the pair of Sabin and Cyan continue on.

The Phantom Forest leads the pair to the Veldt, an endless plain where players may once more face enemies from throughout the game. There they meet Gau, a young boy raised among the beasts of the wilderness after being abandoned by his deranged father. Gau befriends the pair, playfully mocking Cyan's medieval verbiage, and offers to give them his treasure - a diving helmet that allows them to pass through the treacherous Serpent Trench to reach Nikeah and continue onto Narshe.

Now reunited with a host of new allies, the party fights back against Kefka and the forces of the Empire to defend the frozen esper. Once the Empire is defeated, the group retreats back to the esper. There, Terra communes with it, only to transform into a beastial form, which causes her to lose control and fly away from the party.

The party gives chase, and eventually locates her at the top of the town of Zozo. This town is overrun with thieves and shady folk, but at the top sits the lightning esper Ramuh, who cares for Terra after she flies to him, sensing the camaraderie between them. This is because - at least in her present form - she too is an esper. Ramuh gives the party magicite, the remains of espers which can allow them to be summoned as well as imbue them with magical abilities, and tasks them with finding and taking out the Empire's Magitek Facility.

To do this, the party determines they must acquire an airship to reach the Empire capital. They work alongside the Impresario of Jidoor's opera house to have Celes perform as Maria, the show's star, whom the gambler Setzer is infatuated with. Following a brilliant opera performance, Setzer whisks Celes away and the party stows aboard his airship, the Blackjack. Following a little gamble and a touch of trickery, Setzer joins the party and provides them safe passage to the Empire capital of Vector.

There, the party infiltrates the Magitek research facility. Should you try to go through the front gate to the palace, you'll run afoul of the mighty and unbeatable Guardian, as seen on Combustible Gearhulk. The party sneaks in, discovers the horrors the Empire is inflicting on espers, and recovers several magicite, including that of Terra's father Maduin. When she comes in contact with his magicite, she has a flashback of how she was brought into the world and how the Empire assaulted the world of the espers, causing them to permanently seal the gate between their worlds.

With Terra back amongst the party, she explains what she remembers and how she is half-esper, half-human. The Returners ask her to find the espers and ask for their assistance in fighting the Empire. She takes the party through the volcanic caverns that lead to the Sealed Gate to the world of the espers, where they find Kefka waiting to ambush them. The espers hear Terra's call for aid and emerge from the gate to attack Vector. Having seen the horrors wrought by the espers, Emperor Gestahl imprisons Kefka for his crimes and calls a truce with the Returners and your party, encouraging you to seek out remaining espers in an effort for peace.

Along the way, the party arrives at the odd town of Thamasa where everyone seems to keep to themselves. It doesn't take long for them to discover that the town is hidden away as they are the remaining descendants of the magi from the infamous War of the Magi. The elderly Strago looks out after the young magical artist Relm and accompanies the party when Relm becomes trapped in a burning building. The group saves her and continues to find the espers.

After meeting with the espers and asking for their aid, the group returns to Thamasa where they find Kefka waiting for them with a force of imperial soldiers. Kefka turns the espers to magicite and uses his newfound power to murder General Leo. From there, he burns Thamasa in a fit of destructive revelry.

Kefka and Gestahl then enter the esper world, discover The Warring Triad, and cause the land to rise from the sea to become The Floating Continent. The party goes after the pair to stop them from misusing the powers of the Triad, as they are locked in eternal combat which holds them - and the world - in balance. On their way to the continent, they are attacked by Ultros and Typhon, who uses a mighty Snort to attack the party.

Once the party reaches the pair, the Emperor is basking in the power the Triad provides. However, Kefka soon throws them out of balance, awakening the might of the sleeping Triad once more. Gestahl attempts to use the power bestowed on him by the Triad to stop Kefka, but as he is sitting in the center of the Triad, he is unaffected. Kefka kills Emperor Gestahl and sends the world further out of balance, destroying everything and causing the world to fall to ruin. Kefka wins.

A year later, Celes awakens with Cid, the main man behind the Magitek Research Facility. Celes attempts to take care of Cid as he did for her, and whether he lives or dies (depending on the player's actions) Celes leaves the secluded island in search of her lost companions. She first reaches the town of Tzen where she meets up with Sabin and realizes just how much the world has changed in the last year. The pair continue on to the town of Mobilz where they find Terra tending to a group of orphans. She refuses to rejoin them so she can protect the children. We'll come back to them later.

The pair then reach the town of Nikeah, where she joins with a band of thieves who seek their fortune in the abandoned Castle Figaro. This group is implied to have been the ones seen imprisoned in Castle Figaro at the start of the game, and are being led by a man named Gerad who looks suspiciously like Edgar. Eventually, once they get inside the castle, Gerad reveals he is indeed Edgar and the pair reclaim Castle Figaro.

With a party of three brought together, they now seek out an airship to further their search. In the town of Kohlingen, they find Setzer, where he joins them and promises to help them find a ship. With the Blackjack destroyed, Setzer shows them to the tomb of his former companion, Darill. There, the airship The Falcon awaits once they defeat the ghoulish onslaught within the tomb.

Here is where Terra's card, Terra, Herald of Hope, comes into play. Terra's Commander card represents her caring nature for the children and the bringing together of the party to save the world and protect these orphans she has come to love. Rejoin the Fight depicts her standing up to the mighty Humbaba and doing battle alongside her former companions to take a stand against the evils Kefka has wrought.

There are several other party members that can be recovered via sidequests from here, such as Cyan on Mt. Zozo or Relm in Jidoor. However, the main additional sidequest touched upon in this deck is the one that brings Locke back into the party. Locke seeks out a way to bring his former love, Rachel, back to the world of the living. To do so, he travels to a star-shaped volcanic location to recover the Phoenix magicite. He then uses it to bring Rachel back to life momentarily, just long enough to get the closure he needs to be able to return to the party once more.

Two additional party members can be found as well. These are the berserker yeti, Umaro, and Gogo the mimic who can utilize any of the unique abilities the rest of the party can use. These are found through optional sidequests, which make up the rest of the runtime of the game leading up to the final battle with Kefka.

Many of the cards in the deck reflect these sidequests. Sun Titan is Wrexsoul, the evil entity that possesses and consumes Cyan's grief-stricken mind when he returns to Doma once more. Dragonskull Summit represents the quest to defeat eight colored dragons to receive a powerful weapon. Ash Barrens is the ancient castle where you find the Odin magicite and the Priest of Fell Rites depicts the Cult of Kefka, who maintain a massive tower that holds some of Kefka's most treasured prizes.

Finally, the party is reassembled and ready to tackle Kefka's Tower. It's a grueling dungeon that requires the party to split into teams of three to climb the tower and reach the would-be god. Along the way, the party defeats each member of the Warring Triad before setting their sights on Kefka.

The final battle with Kefka is one of the most epic moments in gaming, a multi-part battle of divine effigies built in his image to the epic Nobuo Uematsu composition Dancing Mad. You eventually climb to the heavens to face off against the mad god Kefka himself. You defeat him and he fades away into dust. The party escapes, and the world returns to balance.

While this does cover the majority of the story, there are a few miscellaneous elements I want to mention. Several cards in this deck represent common enemies you might find throughout the game. As such, I wasn't able to go through the game's entire bestiary to find the specific instances in which they appear, however many of these designs are iconic and instantly recognizable to fans of the game.

Additionally, a handful of artifacts represent the various relics that boost the power of your party members. Commander's Sphere is the Growth Egg, an item that doubles the experience party members who equip it earn. The Mind Stone is likely the Gold Hairpin (or at least I think it is, I can't find a clear analogue besides it) which significantly lowers the MP it takes to cast spells in game. Finally, Swiftfoot Boots is the Sprint Shoes, a relic that increases players' walking speed to a run.

I hope you've enjoyed this brief summary of Final Fantasy VI's story. It's one of the best stories and greatest casts of characters I've ever had the pleasure to experience in a game. To be honest, a meager 3000 words like this simply isn't enough to do it justice. I highly encourage anyone reading this to pick up the game and try it for yourself. Maybe, just as it did for me, it will become one of your favorite games of all time.

Paige Smith

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