FINAL FANTASY (FIN) Limited Overview: White

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

FINAL FANTASY (FIN) holds its prerelease events on June 6, 2025. Want to learn more about card ratings and advice for Limited? Then check out this series of FIN Limited overviews!

• For the mechanics, see this article: FINAL FANTASY Mechanics Explained

Rating Scale

5.0: Unconditional first pick, brings a near-winning advantage
4.5: Unconditional first pick if you’re in the right color pair, brings a huge advantage
4.0: Worth a first pick, great synergy with the color pair’s theme, can be the deciding card for splashing / switching colors or entering the color pair
3.5: Top uncommons and commons of the set and other strong enough cards, good synergy with the color pair’s theme, can be a key card for entering the color pair
3.0: Important cards for the color pair’s theme and other above-average cards, you’ll want them in your final deck
2.5: Average, usually a decent curve filler
2.0 to 1.0: Below average, basically leaning toward not playing; can be used as filler when necessary, but not too many
0.5 to 0.0: Unplayable, basically don’t play it, it will only help you lose

Ratings

Score: 3.0
Comment: This set is an Equipment environment, and the Equipment with Job select can all be counted in the creature slots. As long as it comes with one Equipment it qualifies as a decent creature, and the expected ceiling isn’t bad either.

Score: 3.0
Comment: White Clerics in this set have a lifegain-payoff subtheme, but looking at the whole card pool, lifelink and lifegain sources aren’t plentiful, so many times you may have to rely on her own lifelink damage to trigger the lifegain ability. But a 3-mana 2/2 body is a bit flimsy and may need help from Equipment or combat tricks to get going. Once it snowballs, though, the pressure it exerts is indeed very strong.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Each half is roughly the strength of a three-mana play, and putting them together for one extra mana buys you flexibility of choice. Also, for Equipment-boosting strategies, getting three creature bodies is slightly better than making one vanilla creature with a better body.

Score: 3.5
Comment: If you thought four Sunpearl Kirin weren’t enough, now there’s a fifth. Effects that return your own permanents at instant speed have special meaning in a Saga-themed set: you can respond to the chapter ability of your Saga’s final chapter by bouncing the Saga to your hand first, so the Saga isn’t sacrificed but the chapter ability still resolves normally.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Given the number of artifacts in this set, the expected card advantage reaches a usable level, but it’s still a bit unstable, and its survival rate after attacking is a concern. The ceiling and floor vary a lot: the ceiling is very profitable, while the floor of a 3-mana vanilla 3/2 isn’t unlikely.

Score: 2.0
Comment: A finisher for extreme aggro builds. Note that this pumps all attacking creatures, so it can’t be used on defense.

Score: 3.0
Comment: The floor is a 2/2 flash creature, plus some flexible options that aren’t strong but whose practical situations aren’t hard to imagine.

Score: 3.5
Comment: In recent years, creatures that replenish your card advantage when they enter for two mana have generally performed well. In this Equipment environment you basically don’t need to worry about being unable to find Equipment in your deck, especially since many creature slots will be filled by Job select Equipment.

PS: Many Equipment don’t trigger abilities themselves but give a creature a triggered ability, which is why Cloud’s second ability writes himself into the abilities’ applicable targets.

Score: 2.0
Comment: The ability is plain but practical, but the base body is just too flimsy, unworthy of its cost.

Score: 2.0
Comment: White’s customary tapper, but its own body gives it a low survival rate, the activation cost to tap a creature is slightly high, and it has targeting blind spots, so it’s below the average tapper.

Score: 2.5
Comment: The team-pushing ability after transforming is very powerful, but 7 mana is no small cost, so the key to evaluating this card is still the front face. A 1-mana Equipment you cast for 1 and equip for 1 that gives +1/+1 seems featureless and unpowerful, but in a Limited format that emphasizes creature trades, it can still influence the board for a low cost, keeping it from being a dead card before transforming, though it’s only just not dead.

Score: 2.0
Comment: If you really pull it off it’s still pretty fierce, but this set has many high-cost bombs and many cards that create more direct pressure, and there aren’t that many high-cost slots, so this card’s priority shouldn’t be high.

Score: 3.0
Comment: The condition is a bit strict, and what it finds is mostly not bombs, but as long as you can make sure it won’t whiff and reliably gains cards, it’s still worth including.

Score: 4.0
Comment: One card that makes the Knight tribe take off, in the literal physical sense. The board presence contributed by the front face alone is worth it, and after transforming it can overwhelm the opponent in one go.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Basically it can be seen as a 2-mana curve creature, and its type supports pairing with many strategies in the set.

Score: 2.0
Comment: The key fodder supplier that Orzhov sacrifice needs.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Most of the time it’s a conditional Murder, not efficient but practical enough. Also, this set has an especially large number of noncreature permanents, so even if a 5-mana catch-all removal is clunky, it’s better than being unable to remove them. (If this set had Up the Beanstalk, that would be another story.)

Score: 0.5
Comment: Did this thing end up in the wrong set? You should have been printed in DFT.

Score: 3.5
Comment: You draw a card whenever creatures trade, and even with the once-per-turn restriction that’s enough value, and it can also serve as a key follow-up for Orzhov sacrifice.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Once powered up it has the combat strength of a rare creature, but before that it’s a bit flimsy. Although the condition for powering up isn’t hard, considering the tempo needs of early creatures it isn’t stable either, but you still get the baseline value of a 3-mana flier.

Score: 3.5
Comment: In an Equipment environment, getting a +4/+4 bonus isn’t hard, and the ceiling can be even higher.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Average card strength, but it fits the characteristics of the various color-pair themes in this set, serving as curve filler for each theme.

Score: 2.0
Comment: Pulling one from the library is a gain, arguably, but in practice you don’t gain a very strong board. I suggest using it only when you have at least three in your deck.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Lifegain & Clerics are only a small subtheme in this set, with just a few usable cards, so it’s somewhat hard to make this theme come together fully.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Its strength depends on your board. In a fierce combat race a single cast can be instantly lethal, and once you have enough creatures on the board it’s strong however you use it. The key is that it’s an instant, which is hard to defend against.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Usable as a 3-mana curve creature, and the bonus it grants when equipped to other creatures afterward is also decent.

Score: 1.5
Comment: The reanimation doesn’t gain much, and there aren’t any good targets for the removal in this set either.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Flexible when you want flexibility, high ceiling when you want a ceiling. It’s one of the better protection spells.

Score: 2.5
Comment: The card you draw on transforming only makes up for the card spent calling it, and with bad luck you might not transform even after 4 turns. After transforming the ceiling is good, but to provide a steady chain of fodder you’d probably need to build an Orzhov sacrifice archetype.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Thanks to Job select Equipment, its reach is easier to raise.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A standard 3-mana curve play.

Score: 2.0
Comment: Its value is basically that it’s a 1-mana 1/2 lifelinker; the gift-a-card draw ability is hard to make work in Limited.

Score: 2.5
Comment: For offensive decks that want to seize tempo.

Score: 4.0
Comment: The deluxe edition of History of Benalia. Its ability to win the game is not in doubt, but how to get up to 8 mana may be a problem.

Score: 3.5
Comment: Barring surprises this should be white’s top uncommon: on entering it deals 4 damage to a tapped creature, then for the next two turns it carries one of your creatures in the air. Although it must be sacrificed after the third turn, it does plenty, and in the process it usually outputs 3 to 6 damage.

Score: 4.5
Comment: A sweeper is strong in Limited, and this one even sweeps artifacts, so you don’t need to worry about a pile of Equipment staying on the battlefield to provide staying power.

Score: 4.5
Comment: The body itself is acceptable, legendary creatures are everywhere in this set so drawing cards is very easy, it can clear the board when transforming, and after transforming it’s a huge bomb.

Score: 3.0
Comment: It gains a card on entering. The body is a bit overcosted, but Equipment equip costs in this set are generally heavy, so if you use its ability to make up for the mana and tempo spent on equipping, the overall tempo isn’t bad.

Score: 3.5
Comment: Catch-all removal that also gives you a mana rock afterward, which is very precious in white, a color lacking acceleration.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Normally it can be seen as a 2-mana filler, but if you go into the lifegain/Cleric subtheme, it will be a very key curve play.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Basically useless in the early to mid game, but if you manage to stall until the late game it’s a life-total-swing artifact, and the opponent can hardly win a life race against you.

Score: 2.0
Comment: Use it when playing a deck that’s very focused on going wide.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Protecting teammates is nice, but it’s a telegraphed play, and the opponent usually knows how to play around it to minimize losses. Besides simply treating it as protection for teammates, you can also prioritize stacking Equipment and counter buffs on it, forcing the opponent to use removal, then respond and throw these buffs onto a teammate, effectively making the opponent trade a removal spell for a 1-mana 0/1.

Conclusion

The officially designated themes for white color pairs in this set are as follows:

• White-Blue: Artifacts
• White-Black: Sacrifice
• White-Red: Equipment
• White-Green: Go wide

Job select Equipment works with almost all of the themes above. White-blue and white-red have the right types directly, so I won’t elaborate.

Equipment can boost small creatures to a truly threatening level, so when your Equipment provides enough bonus, going wide and then having your creatures take turns picking up Equipment to force the opponent to trade is more annoying to the opponent than a plain big body, so white-green’s go-wide theme can benefit from it too.

White-black’s theme is sacrifice, and the premise for sacrifice strategies to work is also a certain ability to go wide. If it’s going wide with creatures, the white-green logic above applies. Also, many of the sacrifice engines in this set can eat creatures or artifacts, so from that angle Job select is a two-for-one kind of fodder, especially those Job select Equipment that can be cast for 2 mana and also serve as normal curve creatures, so you won’t feel too bad about eating them.

So although many Job select Equipment are given only average, curve-filling scores based on individual card performance, they have enormous potential in strategic synergy, and you should pay more attention to this when choosing a white color pair.