Mockup. Image sources: Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix
On Tuesday, June 23rd, Square Enix held a shareholders meeting, in which some fairly interesting tidbits of behind-the-scenes information came to light. Specifically, many of the questions answered pertained to Final Fantasy, as well as Dragon Quest, another longstanding pillar of the Japanese role-playing game industry. This article will discuss the potential ramifications of one such question, as it could very well relate to the future of Magic: The Gathering and its Universes Beyond initiative.
<h2>The Context</h2>
<iframe loading="lazy" title="NEW Dragon Quest XII Shareholders Meeting Details &amp; MORE!" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eEpolKxpNi0?start=712&feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
The above YouTube video was put together by user <a href="https://www.youtube.com/@dukey03">Dukey03</a>. In it, Dukey mentions that the eighth question posed (at timestamp 11 minutes, 52 seconds in his video) is about Square Enix's continued collaboration with tabletop gaming companies. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to note that this is in the wake of Wizards of the Coast's massive collab with Square Enix on Final Fantasy, which yielded Magic's greatest ever single-release profits.
However, the question was posed regarding Dragon Quest, a franchise that has, historically, not gotten quite as much love in the Western hemisphere as it has in the Eastern one. To paraphrase, Square Enix replied that while they can't speak to card games specifically, they are discussing this internally.
<h2>Extrapolation</h2>
What I am taking away from this meeting and this question would speak volumes if it were more than mere speculation. Dragon Quest XII is on the horizon (coming out late next year in the current timeframes). We also do not know exactly what Universes Beyond sets we are getting out of 2027. Sure, we can expect a Marvel set (such as X-Men), but beyond that, there's no telling. The verdict's still out, folks!
Having said that, I believe that it is in Square Enix's greatest interest to collaborate with Wizards of the Coast to bring the Dragon Quest franchise to Magic. Likewise, it's within Magic's better interests to collaborate, in kind. For those keeping score at home, here are some of the important franchise contexts you will want to know.
<h2>Dragon Quest, a Tale (Almost) as Old as Console Gaming</h2>
More than 18 months before Squaresoft came out with the first-ever Final Fantasy game, a small game developer called Enix came out with Dragon Quest. This game franchise, largely noted by historians as the first JRPG, was localized in the West as Dragon Warrior. This was due to copyright issues with Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (also known as TSR), the company that created Dungeons &amp; Dragons. This was an issue surrounding trademark infringement. The Dragon Warrior moniker would stick around until about 2003. This would shift after Enix localized Dragon Quest VII in English as Dragon Warrior VII. Meanwhile, TSR folded and Wizards of the Coast acquired it alongside D&amp;D back in 1997. Furthermore, Squaresoft and Enix merged to create Square Enix in 2003.
With that important information out of the way, I feel it's important to talk about why Dragon Quest matters so much to Wizards of the Coast, to Square Enix, and in general.
Dragon Quest is an even bigger hit in Japan than Final Fantasy. When I say that, I do so with no hyperbole whatsoever. No joke or lie, DQ is one of the most important things to come out of video gaming. Most Western audiences will note that Final Fantasy was marketed way better to their geographical demographics. However, nobody can deny the impact that Dragon Quest had on the industry. It's more than plausible that the JRPG genre may not even have the foothold it has without it.
In that sense, among others, it stands to reason that Square Enix would want it to reach an even larger audience. And that's where Wizards comes in.
<h2>But What is Dragon Quest?</h2>
Much like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest is a series of (mostly)disconnected stories, but with some of the most compelling plotlines in the JRPG genre. In DQI, arguably the most iconic of these stories (and with good reason: you can't beat the classics!), you play as a lone Hero fighting to save a princess from the Dragon Lord, a character whose title is more than that alone. Spoiler alert for a 40-year-old franchise debut: The Dragon Lord turns into a dragon when you defeat him, and you have to kill him when he's in that form to save the princess.
This twist revolutionized role-playing video games, but the plot was pretty par for the course where RPGs were concerned. Nevertheless, future titles came up with new plotlines. However, they all came down to a single, solitary theme: hope. Your Hero is the only one who can truly defeat the darkness and save the kingdom they're fighting for. This is true even with your allies gained along the way, but they definitely add personality to the party.
Some of the biggest and best things about the franchise are the exploratory nature of each overarching adventure and the multitude of monsters you encounter and kill along the way. Most video gamers in the West know what a Pikachu is. Many even know what a Chocobo looks like. Fewer know what a Slime is, or even what game series it's from. Frankly, that hurts my heart to know, and hopefully, one day that will change.
<a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/slime.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-187229" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/slime.jpg" alt="Image credit: Square Enix" width="230" height="220" /></a>
<h2>What's in it for Magic?</h2>
Long answer made short: More cards. That's the nature of the beast these days, and there's no skirting around that.
The long answer in its purest form: We would get a set very similar to Final Fantasy, but with innovations that distinguish Dragon Quest from that set. We'd probably get fare from each of the twelve mainline games (perhaps only the first eleven, if DQXII isn't quite out yet). I'd expect we would get more double-faced cards, denoting transformations among monsters and non-monster characters alike, where applicable. I could also see monsters getting a prominent role in the set, above even named protagonists.
Like some of the Final Fantasy games, a few DQ games will get a bit less attention than others. For instance, DQX released as an MMO in Japan, but hasn't released in English yet. That probably puts it at the bottom of that list.
For Commander, I could see a few of the games getting additional love in the form of preconstructed decks. The ones that come to mind are: DQIII, DQVIII, DQXI, and perhaps also DQVII, based on how current certain releases and rereleases are. Note that this is largely my opinion, and I could be completely off the mark by saying so, but Dragon Quest VIII was a masterpiece. So, if all of this comes to fruition, not giving it its own Commander precon would be sacrilege.
<h2>Conclusion</h2>
My own thoughts aside, this feels like something that Wizards of the Coast and Square Enix could do if they play their cards right. If it happens, they could honestly make lightning strike twice.
But enough speculation from me, dear readers; I want to hear from you. Have you played a Dragon Quest game before? Which one(s), and did you enjoy the experience? What's your favorite game, and what's your favorite monster in the series? Sound off in the comments below!

Will Magic: The Gathering Collaborate With Dragon Quest?

<h6 style="text-align: right;"><a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sword of Fire and Ice" href="#" target="_blank">Sword of Fire and Ice</a> | art by <a href="https://www.rahnart.com/">Chris Rahn</a></h6>
Hello, data enthusiasts, and welcome to this overview of the math behind the new Fire and Ice data articles. In this series, we'll we dive into the recent card-playing trends within a given commander and identify the biggest movers as defined as:
Cards that are either significantly increasing or decreasing in usage with a given commander relative to other cards played with that commander over the most recent six months.
This article will provide an overview of the math behind identifying these "fiery" (trending up) and "icy" (trending down) cards.
Why a given card might be fiery or icy, however, is up to interpretation, and we look forward to speculating wildly in our Fire and Ice series!
<h2>Overview of the Math</h2>
We start by looking at all cards that are played with each commander aside from those that are very rare (&lt;2.5% of decks) or very ubiquitous (&gt; 97.5% of decks). 
We calculate the weekly usage of these cards as a percentage of all decks for each given commander for the past six months. 
Then, we determine the average change from week to week and summarize the data with a single "extremeness" score (also known as a z-score) as follows:
<a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/latex_z_score-2.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-158164" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/latex_z_score-2-300x41.png" alt="" width="300" height="41" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/latex_z_score-2-300x41.png 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/latex_z_score-2-768x105.png 768w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/latex_z_score-2.png 990w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /></a>
where x = average weekly change in card usage (% of decks for this commander)
We currently identify those cards with extremeness &gt; 2 as "fiery", or having a high Fire Score, and those with extremeness &lt; -2 as "icy", or having a low Ice Score.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="The Ur-Dragon"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Omnath, Locus of Rage"></div></div>
Using these extremeness scores allows us to control for the unique deck-building behavior of each commander rather than using a fixed threshold of average change to identify big movers.
For example, a commander that has been around for a while that has fairly predictable deck-building (e.g. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="The Ur-Dragon" href="#" target="_blank">The Ur-Dragon</a>) will see very little movement in the usage of each card over time compared to a commander that has more flexibility in its play (e.g. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Omnath, Locus of Rage" href="#" target="_blank">Omnath, Locus of Rage</a>).
This might mean a relatively small uptick for a card played with The Ur-Dragon will have the same Fire score as a card with a large uptick with Omnath.
<h2>An Example</h2>
Let's take a look at card usage in <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Urza, Lord High Artificer" href="#" target="_blank">Urza, Lord High Artificer</a> decks over the six month period from December 24, 2024 to June 24, 2025.
 This plot shows a time series of the weekly usage of all 378 qualifying cards across this commander's decks. 
<a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.24 PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-158181" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.24 PM-1024x574.png" alt="" width="767" height="430" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.24 PM-1024x574.png 1024w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.24 PM-300x168.png 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.24 PM-768x430.png 768w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.24 PM-1536x861.png 1536w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.24 PM.png 2016w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 767px) 100vw, 767px" /></a>
Another way we can look at the data is relative to the start of the time period.
Here, we see certain cards emerge more clearly as "big movers".
<a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.12 PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-158182" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.12 PM-1024x561.png" alt="" width="761" height="417" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.12 PM-1024x561.png 1024w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.12 PM-300x164.png 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.12 PM-768x421.png 768w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.12 PM-1536x842.png 1536w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-12.41.12 PM.png 2026w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 761px) 100vw, 761px" /></a>
If we calculate the average weekly change for each card and look at the distribution across all qualifying Urza cards, we see roughly a bell curve with some extreme values that get flagged as being fiery or icy:
<a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.54.42 PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-158713" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.54.42 PM.png" alt="" width="729" height="381" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.54.42 PM.png 848w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.54.42 PM-300x157.png 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-12.54.42 PM-768x401.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 729px) 100vw, 729px" /></a>
Let's once again plot the relative time series graph, this time highlighting the identified fiery and icy cards. 
We can see that these cards clearly have exhibited more extreme changes over the time period than the cards identified as stable:
<a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-1.02.44 PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-158187" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-1.02.44 PM.png" alt="" width="891" height="411" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-1.02.44 PM.png 2284w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-1.02.44 PM-300x138.png 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-1.02.44 PM-1024x473.png 1024w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-1.02.44 PM-768x354.png 768w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-1.02.44 PM-1536x709.png 1536w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-07-at-1.02.44 PM-2048x945.png 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 891px) 100vw, 891px" /></a>
The following table shows which cards were identified as fiery and icy, along with their average weekly changes, extremeness score, and the number of decks they were played in over the six month time period.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Repurposing Bay" href="#" target="_blank">Repurposing Bay</a> takes the cake for fieriest card, with a Fire score of 5.85, and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Etherium Sculptor" href="#" target="_blank">Etherium Sculptor</a> as the iciest card, with an Ice score of -3.54.
The top four fieriest cards (<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Repurposing Bay" href="#" target="_blank">Repurposing Bay</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Mistrise Village" href="#" target="_blank">Mistrise Village</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Unstoppable Plan" href="#" target="_blank">Unstoppable Plan</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ugin, Eye of the Storms" href="#" target="_blank">Ugin, Eye of the Storms</a>) were released in the examined six-month period and were able to achieve high Fire Scores largely due to starting at 0% usage.
Not all newly released cards will show up as fiery if they aren't an obviously good fit for the given commander, but it is a good thing to be aware of.
Icy cards are often less explicable as we often see Commander staples showing up icy; this may be due to potential replacements coming on the scene or any of a number of other reasons. 
<a href="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-1.45.05 PM.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-158717" src="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-1.45.05 PM.png" alt="" width="1041" height="316" srcset="https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-1.45.05 PM.png 1226w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-1.45.05 PM-300x91.png 300w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-1.45.05 PM-1024x311.png 1024w, https://cloudflare.edhrec.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Screenshot-2025-07-10-at-1.45.05 PM-768x233.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1041px) 100vw, 1041px" /></a>
<h2>What to Expect in the Fire and Ice Series</h2>
In Fire and Ice, we'll highlight commanders with intriguing fiery and icy cards and comment on why we believe each card is trending up or down. 
We will also provide the Fire and Ice score of each card discussed along with graphs of the relative weekly usage of each card over the specified time period.
Starting today, you'll find brand new Fire and Ice articles out every Friday on EDHREC!

speculation

Will Magic: The Gathering Collaborate With Dragon Quest?

Introducing the Math Behind EDHREC's Fire and Ice Series

The 600 - Predicting the Popularity of Guilds of Ravnica Commanders