Magic’s Final Fantasy crossover almost had a busted version of one mechanic

I was late to a press-only Secrets of Strixhaven draft at MagicCon: Las Vegas 2026, having gotten stuck in the lengthy queue with other attendees. Thankfully, Magic: The Gathering senior designer Daniel Holt slid into my seat before I got there and drafted a really solid Lorehold deck that went on to win me some games. As he lingered to chat about his work designing various Commander decks, I pivoted to talk about last year’s Final Fantasy set — mainly so I could get him to take a look at my Jenova, Ancient Calamity deck. It’s a Golgari (green-black) Commander deck that focuses on +1/+1 counters with plenty of counter-doublers, a powerful draw engine, a few sources that eliminate the limit on hand size, and a light dip into mutant typal strategies.