Matoya, Archon Elder – Final Fantasy
Date Reviewed: June 30, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.58
Casual: 4.17
Limited: 3.00
Multiplayer: 3.67
Commander [EDH]: 4.00
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
It was probably just a matter of time before Magic got a legendary creature who encouraged you to build a deck around the scry and surveil keyword actions. The biggest casual format is Commander, and people do love their top card manipulation; the only real surprise is that it wasn’t in a Theros set, and even that’s not a complete mind-breaker. It definitely fits her character as a wise (if cranky) mentor, especially since she subtly changes how you look at other cards. Every card with an incidental scry or surveil effect that’s commonly considered to have about one and a half cards’ worth of value suddenly has notably more than that when she’s in play. And it starts to feel downright unfair when you get a repeatable effect and start doing that every turn, turn after turn. I don’t know if there’s space for her in the highly-tuned Xerox decks, but I do know that playing her onto a stable game state, with the kind of cards blue likes anyway in hand, lets you pull ahead surprisingly fast.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 3
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4
Given Final Fantasy XIV‘s fondness for referring to other games in its series, them getting a Matoya (originally from Final Fantasy I) makes sense. She certainly does all the things you’d hope out of a wizard-ish creature, though she is a Warlock instead, and the type is a slight disadvantage in that it’s nowhere near as supported.
All that said, getting a card draw after any scry or surveil you do, regardless of how it was triggered, can add up very quickly; my first thought is for a card like Search for Azcanta or Thassa, God of the Sea to really snowball with the card advantage, but there are a fair few spells that have scry riders baked in to sweeten the pot. She’s not much for combat, but three mana leaves her well positioned to power the engines for a later push (and she’s not paper-thin in terms of survivability, thanks to good toughness and a high enough mana value to stymie some things that care about such things). She’ll never be the star, but Matoya, Archon Elder is a good way to keep the gears turning.
Constructed: 3.75
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 3
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4
Thijs
Matoya is one of the characters from the original Final Fantasy, released in 1987. The Matoya in the picture is from FFXIV, where she appears as the old mentor of Y’shtola Rhul. Usually a grumpy old woman, she always lends a helping hand to the heroes of the story.
In the case of this card, she’s here to lend a hand to players who want to draw cards. And boy, she does a good job. The surveil lands from Murders at Karlov Manor are immensely popular in Standard and Legacy and this card will add enormous power to them. And don’t forget the Temple lands from Born of the Gods (reprinted in sets up to now) where you scry 1 when they enter. So an extra card at your land drop, that’s not a bad deal.
As far as synergies with other cards go, I have to think of creatures like Geist of the Archives, where you scry every upkeep or Aminatou, Veil Piercer, who lets you surveil 2 at every upkeep. Add to that the huge amount of cantrips like Opt, Consider, Deliberate and Preordain and you’ll be drawing loads of cards.
Constructed: 3,5
Casual: 4
Limited: 3 (drawing cards just isn’t the tempo you look for in a draft)
Multiplayer: 3,7
Commander [EDH]: 4
We would love more volunteers to help us with our Magic the Gathering Card of the Day reviews. If you want to share your ideas on cards with other fans, feel free to drop us an email. We would be happy to link back to your blog / YouTube Channel / etc. 😉