Final Fantasy MTG Set Was So Big It Sold $200 Million In A Day

We already knew that the Final Fantasy Universes Beyond expansion was the fastest-selling set in Magic: The Gathering’s history, but an absurd new stat puts what that actually means in perspective. Hasbro’s CEO recently revealed the massive crossover sporting Cloud, Sephiroth and other Square Enix icons earned $200 million in a single day.

“Lord of the Rings took six months to deliver $200 million of revenue, Final Fantasy took one day, and we left demand on the table,” Christian Cocks told analysts during Hasbro’s earnings call on Wednesday (via Bloomberg). “So we couldn’t produce enough. I think we increased production runs on it 4x pre-release. It was substantially by many, many very high double-digit percentages ahead of any other production run we’ve ever done, and we left the market wanting more.”

That might come as a surprise to fans who have struggled to find MTG booster packs and Commander decks for the Final Fantasy set, with stock selling out during advance pre-order periods and then being marked up over MSRP at some locations by the time it hit store shelves. But critics who sometimes claim that Wizards of the Coast artificially limits supply to drive hype and engagement should be happy to know that the company intends to keep selling new Final Fantasy stock for a while yet.

“Our expectation is there’s going to be a nice long tail of backlist for the product. Likewise, we’re still selling Lord of the Rings product today,” Cocks said. “So even though we hit $200 million in December of ‘22 for Lord of the Rings, we sold a substantial percentage of that in the several years following and we expect Final Fantasy to be no different. It’s partially what’s powering our backlist, which already in, like, five and a half months in the year did more than we’ve ever done in any year prior.” Hasbro chief financial officer Gina Goetter added, “We’re continuing to produce this set. We think the set itself is going to have a huge long tail.”

While the rarest and most expensive cards in the set were only available in Collector Boosters, the initial print run of which is basically all sold out, regular cards in the set will continue to become available and hopefully drive down prices on some of the more sought-after standard cards. One of those is Vivi Ornitier, a mythic Legendary Creature from Final Fantasy IX. It’s a powerful card that synergizes well with lots of mana-hungry, spell-based decks and has been hovering around $45 for weeks now. Other examples include Knights of the Round and Bahamut summons. Unlike with standard MTG sets, fan interest in the cards for their own sakes, combined with their limited availability, is currently fueling a particularly brutal reseller market for collectors.

One upside is that those who just want to have fun playing with the cards can collect them much more cheaply in Magic The Gathering Arena, the video game adaptation for PC and mobile. It’s due for an update at some point in the future, though Cocks also noted that the app only accounts for a small slice of the current fanbase. “Only 15-or-so percent of the player base plays on something like Arena,” he said.

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