Vivi Is Ruining MTG: Final Fantasy’s Black Mage Shows Up in 41% of Standard Winners
Vivi Ornitier, a character from Final Fantasy IX now printed in Magic: The Gathering’s Universes Beyond line, is a high-impact card in Standard play and a notable collector item. Specifically, some decklists that pair Vivi with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron have performed strongly in recent events, and the card’s secondary-market price has risen since release.
- What the article covers: Vivi’s role in Standard, recent performance data, market price, and how the Final Fantasy Universes Beyond release affected player interest.
Vivi in Standard
Vivi Ornitier is printed in Magic’s Final Fantasy Universes Beyond set. In certain builds, Vivi gains power as players cast spells and can generate mana, which combos effectively with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron — a card that can exile creatures to provide opponent-impacting effects. As a result, decks built around this interaction have become common in Standard. For background reporting on this trend, see the Reddit thread noting that Vivi has also broken Magic: The Gathering Standard format.
Performance data
Data collected from multiple Standard matches shows a heavy presence of the Izzet Cauldron archetype (the archetype that commonly includes Vivi and Agatha’s Soul Cauldron). According to aggregated match results, 41% of winners in a sample of about 600 Standard matches were playing an Izzet Cauldron deck. For the original report of that statistic, see the Metagame Mentor coverage at magic.gg.
Market price and collecting
On the secondary market, Vivi Ornitier has traded at a significantly higher price than a typical set rare. At the time of reporting, a single English copy was listed around $98.98 on TCGplayer. The listing is available here: $98.98 on TCG Player.
What this means for players
Concretely, the Final Fantasy Universes Beyond cards have had two measurable effects so far: increased tournament representation for decks built around Vivi and materially higher secondary-market prices for that card. Tournament organizers and Wizards of the Coast maintain official rules and ban/format policies; any future changes to card legality would be announced by Wizards through their standard channels.
