The earliest MTG Final Fantasy card spoilers gave us a sneak peek at some of the mechanics and themes for the set
One of the key features I find fascinating in the Emerald and Ruby starter deck is the ability to steal Lore away from your Lorcana opponent through cards like Steal From the Rich, Rapunzel, Letting Down Her Hair, and Aladdin, Street Rat
To do that, we developed a workflow that asked concept artists and card artists to pull hallmark character designs from Yoshitaka Amanos original (and legendary) concept art, the original FFVI sprites, and the FFVI Pixel Remaster character portraits, to synthesize the most consistent elements of each characters design into something new. We also encouraged our artists to punch up finer details and explore elements where they thought they could push (fabric, patterns, textures, etc.) Then, we would meet with the Final Fantasy VI review team, and they would give us feedback on what core elements they wanted to preserve and what new elements they were excited about
This deck worst best when it has momentum, so if the opponent is able to control your board early, you may have a difficult time catching back up
It was clear to me that we did not want to represent summons as legendary creatures, as that space was already very crowded from all the awesome party members and villains