Mastering the Sephiroth starter deck in MTG × Final Fantasy
The Sephiroth starter deck is a Dimir (blue-black) midrange control deck that wins by surviving the early game, removing threats, filling its graveyard, then deploying devastating finishers — headlined by Sephiroth, Planet’s Heir, a Massacre Wurm–style bomb that shrinks the opposing board and grows from the carnage. Paired against the Cloud equipment-aggro deck in the $20 Starter Kit, the Sephiroth half rewards patient, reactive play and punishes opponents who flood the board with small creatures. It’s the “villain’s deck” in every sense: slow, inevitable, and designed to crush hope in the late game.
The deck’s core engine revolves around death and the graveyard
Sephiroth, Planet’s Heir (4UB, 4/4, vigilance) is your centerpiece. When he enters, all opposing creatures get -2/-2 until end of turn, killing tokens and small bodies instantly. Each creature that dies on the opponent’s side puts a +1/+1 counter on him — meaning he can enter as a 4/4 and immediately become a 7/7 or larger against a wide board. Vigilance lets him attack and block simultaneously, making him a dominant force once he lands.
The supporting legendary creatures each present a must-answer threat. Seymour Flux (4B, 5/5) is a Phyrexian Arena stapled to a growing body — pay 1 life each upkeep to draw a card and add a +1/+1 counter. Ultimecia, Temporal Threat (4UU, 4/4) taps all opposing creatures on entry and draws you a card whenever your creatures deal combat damage, enabling game-ending alpha strikes. Xande, Dark Mage (2UB, 3/3, menace) scales with noncreature, nonland cards in your graveyard, rewarding the deck’s self-mill and removal-heavy gameplan.
The graveyard package ties everything together. Shinra Reinforcements mills three cards and gains three life on entry, fueling Xande and setting up reanimation targets. Dreams of Laguna and Retrieve the Esper both have flashback, giving you late-game card draw and a 3/3 Robot token (upgraded to roughly 4/4 when cast from the graveyard). Evil Reawakened reanimates any creature with two bonus +1/+1 counters — bringing back a dead Sephiroth as a 6/6 that triggers his -2/-2 all over again. Shambling Cie’th returns itself from the graveyard to your hand whenever you cast a noncreature spell for a single black mana, giving you a recursive 3/3 body.
The removal suite is the deck’s strongest practical element: three copies of Sephiroth’s Intervention (destroy a creature, gain 2 life), two Overkill (gives -9999/-9999, killing even indestructible creatures), and one Deadly Embrace (destroy a creature, then draw cards for each creature that died that turn). Al Bhed Salvagers acts as a Blood Artist variant, draining the opponent for 1 life whenever any creature or artifact you control dies — including Treasure tokens from Undercity Dire Rat.
How to pilot each phase of the game
Mulligan guidelines
You need three to four lands with at least one Swamp and one Island (or a Treno, Dark City). The deck’s payoffs cost four to six mana, so being stuck on two lands is fatal. Beyond lands, look for at least one early creature and one piece of interaction or card draw.
The strongest opening-hand cards are Undercity Dire Rat (a 2/2 that creates Treasure on death, ramping you toward Sephiroth a turn early), Dreams of Laguna (cheap cantrip that smooths draws and has flashback later), and Il Mheg Pixie (2/1 flyer that surveil-filters your draws each attack). A hand with three lands, a two-drop creature, Dreams of Laguna, a three-drop, and a removal spell is close to ideal.
Mulligan aggressively if you have fewer than two or more than five lands, no plays before turn four, or are locked into a single color with spells requiring the other.
Early game (turns 1–3): trade freely, set up the graveyard
Always play Treno, Dark City on turn one if it’s in your hand. It enters tapped, and you have zero one-mana plays, so you lose nothing. Playing Treno on turn four when you need to cast a four-drop is a common and costly mistake.
On turn two, deploy Undercity Dire Rat (best option — blocks and creates Treasure when it dies), Sahagin (a 1/3 wall that grows and becomes unblockable when you cast expensive noncreature spells later), or Il Mheg Pixie (evasive clock with surveil upside). If you have no creature, hold up Dreams of Laguna at end of your opponent’s turn.
Turn three is for Shinra Reinforcements (fills graveyard, gains life), Al Bhed Salvagers (starts the drain engine), or Shambling Cie’th (a 3/3, but remember it enters tapped — don’t play it when you need an immediate blocker). Block aggressively with early creatures. Your Dire Rats want to die for Treasure, and every death with Al Bhed Salvagers on the field drains the opponent.
Mid game (turns 4–5): deploy threats, control the board
This is where the deck transitions from defense to offense. Cast Retrieve the Esper for a 3/3 Robot token, fire off Sephiroth’s Intervention to kill the opponent’s best creature, or use Evil Reawakened to reanimate a milled or dead creature with +2/+2 bonus counters. If Dire Rat died and gave you a Treasure, you can cast five-drops a turn early — Seymour Flux on turn four is backbreaking.
Deadly Embrace is your highest-ceiling removal spell. Sequence it after combat trades or after other removal to maximize the “draw a card for each creature that died this turn” clause. Killing a creature with Sephiroth’s Intervention, then following up with Deadly Embrace on a second creature, draws you three cards.
Late game (turns 6+): close with bombs
Sephiroth’s deployment timing is critical. Do not cast him onto an empty opposing board — his -2/-2 ETB is wasted. Wait until the opponent has committed creatures, especially small ones. Against Cloud’s deck, his ETB kills Dwarven Castle Guard tokens, Item Shopkeep, Coeurl, and any 1/1 Hero tokens while weakening everything else. A well-timed Sephiroth can enter and immediately grow to 7/7 or larger.
Ultimecia is the closer. She taps the entire opposing board on entry and draws you a card for every creature that connects in combat. If you have even two or three other creatures when she resolves, the resulting unblocked attack plus card draw usually ends the game.
Flash back Dreams of Laguna and Retrieve the Esper from the graveyard for extra resources. Use Relm’s Sketching to clone your best threat — or clone Sephiroth himself (the legendary rule forces you to sacrifice the original, but the fresh copy triggers -2/-2 again). Evil Reawakened on a dead Sephiroth brings him back as a 6/6 vigilance creature with another board-shrinking ETB.
Five synergies that win games
Sephiroth + wide opposing boards is the deck’s signature play. Against three 2-toughness creatures, Sephiroth enters, kills all three, gains three +1/+1 counters, and becomes a 7/7 vigilance threat — a complete board reversal from a single card.
Al Bhed Salvagers + Undercity Dire Rat + Treasure sacrifice creates a surprisingly potent drain chain. Dire Rat dies, triggering Salvagers (drain 1) and creating a Treasure. When you sacrifice the Treasure for mana, Salvagers triggers again (drain 1). Two life drained plus a mana — from a two-drop dying.
Shinra Reinforcements + Evil Reawakened is a repeatable value loop. Reinforcements mills three and gains three life on entry. When it dies and you reanimate it with Evil Reawakened, it returns as a 4/5 that mills three more cards and gains three more life, filling the graveyard further for Xande and future flashback spells.
Sahagin + expensive noncreature spells is an overlooked threat. Every time you cast a noncreature spell costing four or more mana — which includes Sephiroth’s Intervention, Retrieve the Esper, Deadly Embrace, Evil Reawakened, and Relm’s Sketching — Sahagin gets a +1/+1 counter and becomes unblockable that turn. Over a long game, a neglected Sahagin becomes a massive evasive attacker.
Shambling Cie’th + any noncreature spell gives you an endlessly recursive creature. Mill it or trade it in combat, then get it back to hand by casting any instant or sorcery and paying a single black mana. It’s a 3/3 body that never truly dies, providing permanent blocking duty, attack pressure, and death triggers for Al Bhed Salvagers.
Upgrading from starter to standard-playable
The deck’s biggest weakness is its filler creatures. Sahagin, Undercity Dire Rat, Shambling Cie’th, Shinra Reinforcements, Al Bhed Salvagers, and Il Mheg Pixie are all functional but mediocre — they do little individually and are poor topdecks. The upgrade path starts by cutting these for higher-impact cards.
For budget upgrades using only Final Fantasy set cards, the strongest additions are Vayne’s Treachery (efficient removal), Resentful Revelation (card selection via surveil), Memories Returning (graveyard recursion), Emet-Selch, Unsundered (synergizes with surveil/mill themes and transforms into a powerful reanimator), and Zenos yae Galvus (a sweeper on a stick that transforms into an 8/8 flyer). Improve the mana base with Starting Town (budget dual) and Vector, Imperial Capital.
The premium competitive upgrade path transforms the deck into a Grixis (blue-black-red) reanimator shell by adding red for Kefka, Court Mage (one of the strongest creatures in the FF set, providing card advantage on ETB and attacks). The ideal endgame involves reanimating Ardyn, the Usurper, who chains into further reanimation targets. Add Blitzball for card advantage, four copies each of Overkill, Dreams of Laguna, and Vayne’s Treachery for consistency, and Summon: Primal Odin as a potential board wipe. This competitive shell moves away from the creature-beatdown plan entirely, focusing on controlling the board while assembling a reanimation chain that generates overwhelming board presence from a single spell.
The Cloud matchup and broader competitive context
The Starter Kit contains exactly two decks — Sephiroth and Cloud — designed to be played against each other. Cloud’s Red/White equipment-aggro deck wants to suit up creatures with Warrior’s Sword, Dragoon’s Lance, and Ultima Weapon, then attack with Cloud, Planet’s Champion for massive damage with double strike.
The matchup is intentionally balanced, but each deck has windows of dominance. Cloud is favored in turns 3–5 when it curves equipment into creatures and starts attacking before Sephiroth can stabilize. Sephiroth is favored from turn 6 onward, where removal spells create enormous tempo swings — destroying an equipped creature costs Cloud both the creature and the equipment investment. Sephiroth’s -2/-2 ETB is devastating against Cloud’s smaller support creatures, and Ultimecia’s tap-everything ability can close games from behind. The deck notably has no artifact removal, so you cannot directly destroy Cloud’s equipment. Instead, focus on killing the creatures wearing them before they connect.
Key tactical advice against Cloud: prioritize removing Cloud, Planet’s Champion before he gets equipped (he gains double strike and indestructible when equipped during your turn). Use Sephiroth’s Intervention and Overkill reactively, saving them for the most dangerous equipped threat rather than spending them on smaller creatures. Accept early damage if needed — your life total is a resource, and Shinra Reinforcements plus Al Bhed Salvagers help you recover. The game almost always goes long enough for Sephiroth to take over if you manage your removal wisely.
Conclusion
The Sephiroth deck rewards patience and sequencing over raw speed. Its greatest asset is inevitability — between flashback spells, graveyard recursion, a recursive Shambling Cie’th, and finishers that generate card advantage, it simply has more raw resources than an aggro deck in a long game. The critical skill is surviving turns three through five without falling too far behind, then leveraging Sephiroth’s ETB, Ultimecia’s tap effect, or Seymour’s card draw engine to pull decisively ahead. Play your tapped lands early, trade your small creatures freely, time Sephiroth for maximum -2/-2 value, and remember that your graveyard is your second hand. The deck teaches control fundamentals well: threat assessment, removal sequencing, and the discipline to wait for the right moment rather than jamming threats on curve.