As with every major set release, Magic: The Gathering's Final Fantasy set includes ten different archetypes for its Limited formats. Both Draft and Sealed involve playing with cards exclusively from a respective set, with every color pairing being represented with its own unique archetype.

An important thing to note is that Limited archetypes are just recommendations for the kind of deck to build with those colors, but not necessarily a requirement. You can build a Draft or Sealed deck any way you want, including a deck that plays more than two colors. However, if you want a guideline for what kind of cards to look out for, it's good to refer to the Limited archetypes available.

Artifacts (White/Blue)

The Azorius (white/blue) color pairing for Final Fantasy is built around artifacts. The blue half of the color in particular has the best benefits from artifacts with cards like Valkyrie Aerial Unit and Rook Turret both being solid payoffs for playing artifacts.

As for the white side, they tend to help you find artifacts directly from your library. If you have multiple copies of Magitek Infantry, you can flood the battlefield with artifact creatures for just three mana. Ashe, Princess of Dalmasca and Delivery Moogle both help you to find artifacts to ensure you never run out of steam.

Control (Blue/Black)

Dimir (blue/black) is the simplest archetype in Final Fantasy which is simple control. A control deck counters spells as they're being cast and removes and problem creatures that hit the battlefield. It's a slow grind, trading resources and playing your big threats to close out the game.

The black half handles removal with cards like Overkill and Sephiroth's Intervention, with the blue half having counterspells such as Syncopate and Louisoix's Sacrifice. With Dimir in Final Fantasy Limited, it's all about putting early game threats on the battlefield while keeping your opponents off of their best cards to slowly but surely win the game.

Black Mage Aggro (Black/Red)

As advertised by its archetype name, the Rakdos (black/red) archetype is about creating Black Mages to do burn damage with. In Magic, a Black Mage is a creature (often a token) that will deal one burn damage whenever you cast a noncreature spell.

The idea of Black Mage Aggro is to make a ton of Black Mage tokens and cast multiple noncreature spells to make them deal damage, so you never even need to attack your opponent to beat them. It pairs well with burn cards found in red (such as Choco-Comet), while the black half of the archetype can handle taking care of problem creatures through removal or forced sacrifice (such as Cornered by Black Mages).

Landfall Aggro (Red/Green)

For Gruul (red/green) in Final Fantasy, it's all about landfall. Landfall is an ability that triggers any time a land enters the battlefield. This helps to make it so even if you draw a land late-game, it's not a dead card as it can trigger your landfall abilities.

Go Wide (Green/White)

Selesnya (green/white) is the primary aggressive archetype built solely off of cheap creatures and tokens. It wants you to cast a ton of creature spells to attack with before your opponent can stabilize a battlefield of blockers.

If you opt to play Go Wide, battle tricks such as Auron's Inspiration, Tifa's Limit Break, and You're Not Alone are all especially helpful for ensuring your creatures don't trade and you deal large amounts of damage. There are multiple cards that care about the number of creatures you control such as Riona Heartilly and Snow Villiers to encourage you to go into Selesnya if you get them in your pool.

Artifact And Creature Sacrifice (White/Black)

Orzhov (white/black) is the archetype that wants your own creatures to be sacrificed. There aren't actually a ton of sacrifice outlets, with Ahriman and Phantom Train being the two cards you're likely to see in your pool. Judge Magister Gabranth is the best payoff for creatures dying as it'll slowly gain stats whenever creatures or artifacts die.

Big Noncreatures (Blue/Red)

As is Izzet (blue/red) tradition, the archetype is about casting noncreature spells. This time, it wants you to be casting noncreature spells that cost four or more mana to trigger effects of various permanents. There is no shortage of expensive noncreature spells, making it easy to proc these effects. The downside is your turns will often consist of just playing one spell a turn.

Graveyard Value (Black/Green)

Golgari (black/green) is the graveyard-focused archetype of Final Fantasy. It actively wants cards in the graveyard to trigger effects of various permanents. Afterward, you can recycle them since many cards within the archetype have flashback or other ways to get put back into your hand.

The payoffs for permanents in graveyards are a bit slim, with Cloud of Darkness, Diamond Weapon, and Exdeath, Void Warlock being the only payoffs. Recursion is rather easy with Summon: Titan being able to put all lands into the battlefield from the graveyard, Evil Reawakened able to put any creatures back onto the battlefield, and Fight On! returning any two creatures to the hand.

Equipment Aggro (Red/White)

Final Fantasy has a ton of Equipment, with Boros (red/white) being the primary color pairing for Equipment. The primary way to get aggressive is by playing cards with job select, such as Dragoon's Lance, Monk's Fist, and Red Mage's Rapier. You want to constantly be casting job select cards to build up a battlefield quickly and start swinging.

Boros has access to a ton of support for Equipment, with cards such as Freya Crescent acting as a mana dork, Adelbery Steiner getting a stat boost from all Equipment, and Firion, Wild Rose Warrior giving equipped creatures haste as well as a copy of any Equipment entering.

Town Ramp (Green/Blue)

Simic (green/blue) is built around the new Town land type. It wants you to ramp by using cards like PuPu UFO and Reach the Horizon to quickly put as many Towns as possible onto the battlefield. There aren't actually too many Towns, especially if you're just playing a two-color deck. The big payoff is Balamb Garden, SeeD Academy which can transform into a useful Vehicle

Town Ramp pairs well with landfall, something that plenty of green cards have. Generally, it's not worth putting a ton of Towns into your deck just to get the minor payoffs. It's best to just play Simic as landfall, and in some cases, it is a better landfall archetype than the advertised Gruul landfall archetype.

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