MTG Final Fantasy reveals incredible alternate Commander for 'Revival Trance' deck

The MTG Final Fantasy set is still quite a ways off, but we recently received word of a new Commander coming to the set. Each Commander deck has a primary commander and an alternate Commander to give players a few choices in playstyles. The Revival Trance commander deck stars Terra Branford as Terra, Herald of Hope, and one of her allies from FF6 will be joining her: Celes Chere as Celes, Rune Knight.

Celes Chere, Rune Knight and former Imperial General, joined the party after being arrested by her own faction. Locke broke her out of the South Figaro basement/prison and was also the first character players had access to in the World of Ruin section of the game. She also brings some truly incredible power when the MTG Final Fantasy Commander decks come to life.

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MTG Final Fantasy ‘Revival Trance’ offers players Rune Knight, Celes as a Commander

While the MTG Final Fantasy expansion will feature some amazing villains, the Revival Trance Commander deck stars two notable protagonists: Terra and now Celes. The deck is built around graveyard manipulation, and never has this been more apparent than with the Celes, Rune Knight card.

Celes Chere is an amazing Commander, that's for sure (Image via Wizards of the Coast)

Not only does she serve as an incredible discard/draw engine when she comes into play, she also has a reasonably low mana value and decent stats at 4/4. However, it’s her other special ability that makes her such an incredible card:

Celes, Rune Knight

• Mana Value: 1RWB
• Card Type: Legendary Creature — Human Wizard Knight
• Rarity: Mythic Rare
• Stats: 4/4
• First ability: When Celes enters, discard any number of cards, then draw that many cards plus one.
• Second ability: Whenever one or more other creatures you control enter, if one or more of them entered from a graveyard or cast from a graveyard, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.

Her second ability is built around creatures coming back from the graveyard or being cast from the graveyard. Whenever one or more creatures does this, you put a +1/+1 counter on each of your creatures. That sounds pretty good at base value, but it’s even better when you remember the Persist keyword.

When Creatures with Persist die, if they have no -1/-1 counters on them, come back into play under their owner’s control with a -1/-/1 counter on them. However, thanks to Celes’ ability, they come back and receive a +1/+1 counter, negating the negative counters. If you stagger the sacrifice/deaths of these creatures, you can set up some very unpleasant combos.

Want to drop a gigantic Fireball or Meteor Shower? This combo will make it easy (Image via Wizards of the Coast)

I can already think of one right off the top of my head, and that’s infinitely sacrificing Putrid Goblin to something like Goblin Bombardment to essentially do infinite damage to each player at your Commander table, thanks to this MTG Final Fantasy commander.

There are others, but that’s the first one that came to mind. You could also use Skirk Prospector instead of Bombardment to get infinite Red mana. All told, this is an incredible card, and I can’t wait to see what else comes out of this set.

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