Magic designer says this underrated Final Fantasy MTG Commander deserves more play

Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond sets are always chock full of legendary creatures that are legal to use as Commanders. While the standouts typically emerge shortly after a set’s release, the sheer density of choices means that new viable options emerge over time.

“One thing I like to say is the filter on Commander is very slow,” Magic principal designer Gavin Verhey told Polygon during a MagicCon: Las Vegas 2026 interview. “With Standard, the filter’s very fast. Literally on day one, you have thousands of players all trying to find the best deck, and they play a lot of games very quickly. Commander’s not like that.”

Magic’s official pro tour blog frequently publishes data about the ongoing Standard meta. While cards like Ouroboroid from Edge of Eternities and Badgermole Cub from Avatar: The Last Airbender still dominate green-based strategies, Izzet decks prove the most popular with what feels like a revolving door of all the best red and blue spells from each subsequent set. At MagicCon: Las Vegas 2026, top pro tour decks included new staples from the recently released Secrets of Strixhaven set, namely cards like Erode, Molten-Core Maestro, Prismari Charm, Tablet of Discovery, and more.

Verhey said that by comparison, players always seem to be noticing new viable Commanders from sets that are a few years old. “I feel like every other week, we’re seeing a new deck with a Streets of New Capenna Commander,” he said of the four-year-old set. When asked whether or not he thought last year’s Final Fantasy crossover had any underrated Commanders, Verhey had an immediate answer: Venat, Heart of Hydaelyn.

“A card that I expected to see a lot more play — and I have seen some, but not as much as I expected — was Venat,” Verhey said. “It’s a double-sided creature, but the front side is the part that’s really important. It says that whenever you play a legendary creature spell, you draw a card.”

Venat is a mono-white 3/3 that costs three mana to cast, and she has great synergy in decks with a lot of legendary spells, creature or otherwise. She’s only one color, and that does limit your options considerably, but since her core strategy is “oops, all legendaries,” you can fit all sorts of different sub-strategies into the mix. For seven mana, you can exile a target nonland permanent and transform Venat into Hydaelyn, the Mothercrystal. A legit god, Hydaelyn distributes a +1/+1 counter at the start of combat to a creature you control and makes them indestructible. And, if that creature is legendary, you draw a card.

At a cost of seven mana, that transform ability will probably come fairly late in the game, but it’s still a good idea to lean into +1/+1 counters as part of your strategy. Even within the Final Fantasy set alone, several cards come to mind like Zack Fair, Aerith Gainsborough, Rosa, Resolute White Mage, and Auron, Venerated Guardian. More broadly, you’d want to prioritize cards that make white spells cheaper — like The Wind Crystal and Pearl Medallion — and obviously other cards that offer mechanical interactions with legendaries — like Gandalf the White and Heroes’ Podium. There’s nothing all that flashy or complicated about a deck like this, but it’s bound to be really consistent if you have a density of legendary spells to trigger Venat’s card draw every turn. (Keep in mind that there are legendary noncreature spells out there, too.)

Personally, I can’t wait to try building this deck — especially since I don’t have any Commander decks right now that even dip white, so all of my best white cards are just sitting there. Perhaps best of all, Venat is really affordable. Even the ethereal watercolor-anime style borderless printing with art by Minoru & Kei Satsuki costs only about $5 with the base version of Venat hovering around the $1.50 mark. Some of the other aforementioned cards can go for considerably more, but this could be a surprisingly effective casual Commander deck that anybody could build on the cheap. All you need is Venat herself and all your best white Universes Beyond legendaries.

“I think that card is awesome, and it’s so cool to build a legendary deck around,” Verhey said. “I expected that to see a little more play, but honestly, that’s probably like half the legends in the set. And I think for many of them, their time is still coming.”