Special: Final Fantasy - Magic: The Gathering, feat. Ash Parrish and Emma Partlow
You wouldn't suplex a train, would you?
Episode 15 of the Rascal Radio Hour is another special episode with not one, but two new special guests. Video game journalist Ash Parrish and professional trading card game writer Emma Partlow join Chase to discuss the Final Fantasy - Magic: The Gathering set launching later this month. The trio talk mechanical quality, the secret ingredient that uplifts fan service, a bevvy of blorbos, and so much more.
On the critical side of the docket is the effect of licensing fees on an already expensive hobby, the creeping takeover of Universes Beyond, and what other video games could make the jump to cardboard. Ash makes very good jokes about sports games to the wrong audience. Emma reveals herself as a screenshot hater. Chase regrets his past financial decisions.
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Here's an excerpt:
Ash Parrish: I don't think the Final Fantasy set is necessarily a good start to get people entrenched into why they care about these stories, these characters, these cards.
Chase Carter: What are the next few sets coming out this year after Final Fantasy?
Emma Partlow: You have Edge of Eternities in August, which is the Magic in Space, actually doing the space stuff properly. You've got Marvel's Spider-Man in late September, and then it's Avatar: [The Last Airbender] late November, I believe. So you're rounding out the last two sets with Universes Beyond. We should get the 2026 schedule in the next few months as well.
Chase: That's not a pretty scene for, as you said, these players coming in with Final Fantasy and then wanting to get into Magic's in-universe lore. This is going to be one of the biggest tonal swings magic has done in the recent past with the, the sci-fi set and then two more Universes Beyond sets. It's actually probably going to be, what, six to eight months before you get what you might call a traditional MTG in-universe set.
Ash: Yeah, and I'm thinking like a person who's trying to get into Magic right now, they might think, oh, this is what it always is. And so then then six months down the line, when it's like, oh, who are these people? Because we've gone back to, I don't know, Ravnica or whatever. It's kind of like that same tonal shift between Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy IX, where you had all this spacey sci-fi stuff, because that's how I came into it. I had all the spacey sci-fi stuff, and then we get to IX and it's all the swords 'n' boards. And I'm like, what the fuck is this? I don't like this shit.
For a long time, Final Fantasy IX was the one I did not like the most. I've come around because I've matured as an adult. But you're gonna run into that inverse problem, too, which is interesting.
Emma: Yeah, and especially because in early 2026, they've announced the return to Lorwyn, which was a very popular Magic set, but also a very old set. That was originally supposed to come out in late November, but they pushed it back for Avatar for whatever reason. They didn't say why. This kind of aggravated the community because it was like, why are you jumping through these hoops for Universes Beyond when we could have had this in-Magic set?
It'll be interesting to how Avatar plays out because people want Lorwyn. It's this really popular plane for Magic people and lore people. But now we need to do this Avatar set, which isn't probably going to do as well compared to Final Fantasy and Marvel. Let's be honest.
Chase: Man, it really does seem like Avatar's getting set up to fail from every direction now that I think about it.
Ash: Avatar was set up to fail when it was chosen.
Emma: It depends on the cards. If the cards are busted, no one will care. They'll just play with the busted cards.
