Scions & Spellcraft (FINAL FANTASY XIV) precon upgrade guide

Y'shtola, Night's Blessed turns every noncreature spell with mana value 3 or greater into 2 damage to each opponent — and she checks the number printed on the card, not what you paid to cast it.

Resolving the shipped decklist, 27 of the box's 62 nonland cards carry that trigger, three more reach it as Adventure halves — Swift End, Mesmeric Glare and Gentleman's Rise all sit at exactly mana value 3 — and Exsanguinate and Champions from Beyond join whenever X is 1 or more. Her second line is the engine: at the beginning of each end step, if any player lost 4 or more life that turn, you draw a card. Two triggers in one turn put every opponent past that bar by themselves.

The box's problem is that it pays full price for everything. Its cheapest interaction, Swords to Plowshares at one mana, never triggers her; its five job weapons and two Auras want a combat deck that isn't in these 100 cards; and five lands always enter tapped under a curve with 34 cards at mana value 2 and 3. The fifteen swaps here push in one direction — spells that cost less to cast than their mana value admits, and lands that stop making the deck wait — and then add a place for all that banked life to go.

What are the best Scions & Spellcraft upgrades?

Ranked by what they do to the deck per dollar. Each one is argued in full below, and the fifteen cuts that make room are further down the page.

1. Treasure Cruise ($0.32) — mana value 8, so one cast is three cards, 2 damage to each opponent and 2 life — and delve means the late-game price is a single blue mana.
2. Behold the Multiverse and Saw It Coming ($0.66 for the pair) — foretell splits their cost across two turns: a mana value 4 draw spell and a mana value 3 counterspell, each cast for two mana on the turn that matters.
3. The five-land package ($5.15) — two painlands and three fastlands replace four taplands and Temple of the False God. Always-tapped lands drop from five to one.
4. Deep Analysis ($0.20) — the same card triggers Y'shtola twice, once from hand and once from the graveyard for {1}{U} and 3 life.
5. Jace's Sanctum ($1.61) — the upgraded list runs 27 instants and sorceries; every one of them costs {1} less and scrys on the way past.
6. Deadly Rollick and Aetherflux Reservoir ($47.97 for the pair) — last per dollar, first per game won: free removal that still pings the table, and a kill condition for the life total everything above keeps building. Both argued below.

Spells that say eight and cost one

Mana value is set by the printed cost, so delve, foretell, flashback, convoke and alternative costs change what you pay without changing what Y'shtola sees. The box already ships six cards that use the trick, and Dig Through Time is the flagship: mana value 8 for {U}{U} and six cards of graveyard. The swaps raise that count to eleven of the thirty-one trigger spells — Deadly Rollick is the extreme case, free outright with Y'shtola on the battlefield while she reads its 4. Treasure Cruise is Dig's twin. Into the Story is a mana value 7 draw-four that costs four mana once any graveyard holds seven cards. Lingering Souls' flashback is two mana for a mana value 3 trigger plus two Spirits, and Transpose rebounds — the same card casts itself again from exile on your next upkeep, free, and both casts count.

Snuff Out is the neatest line in the deck. With a Swamp in play it costs 4 life instead of mana, and paying life is losing life: the free cast kills a nonblack creature, deals 2 to each opponent, gains 2 back — and single-handedly satisfies the end-step check, because you lost 4 this turn.

One honest cost to this plan: delve and the graveyard compete. Emet-Selch of the Third Seat, Into the Story, Fandaniel, Telophoroi Ascian and both flashback cards all want instants and sorceries to stay in the yard, and a full Treasure Cruise eats six cards of it. The delve spells are at their best late, exiling excess lands — not stripping the yard bare on turn four.

Four life a turn is a lower bar than it reads

The draw check counts the total life lost by any one player over the whole turn, at every end step — combat on an opponent's turn, their painlands and their fetches all feed it, and gaining life back doesn't undo it. Y'shtola alone gets there with two trigger spells. Papalymo Totolymo lowers that to one trigger spell plus any other noncreature spell, since he deals 1 to each opponent on every noncreature cast, and the 0/1 Wizard tokens from Transpose and Circle of Power each add another 1. With Papalymo and one token out, a single Behold the Multiverse is 4 damage to every opponent.

Sword-Point Diplomacy plays the same math from the other side. Three cards revealed, and every one an opponent wants kept out of your hand costs them 3 life — one such payment on a turn you cast any trigger spell reads 5 lost, so the check flips on whichever way they choose. Emet-Selch turns all of this into recursion: whenever one or more opponents lose life, he casts an instant or sorcery from your graveyard, once each turn, and with Y'shtola out that clause is live on every turn you cast anything worth recurring.

One tapped land left

The stock mana passes its single-pip checks — 24 or 25 sources per color against a wanted 24 — then gives part of it back by entering tapped: Arcane Sanctum, Contaminated Aquifer, Idyllic Beachfront, Sunlit Marsh, and Path of Ancestry, whose scry fires on exactly two cards here (G'raha Tia, Scion Reborn, and Y'shtola herself recast from the command zone). Temple of the False God adds no colored mana at all in a three-color deck. Five of those six leave. In come Adarkar Wastes and Caves of Koilos, untapped every turn of the game, and Seachrome Coast, Concealed Courtyard and Darkslick Shores, untapped through your first three land drops — exactly the turns where this list wants to cast its 31 two- and three-drops.

Two numbers get slightly worse in the trade, and they belong on the page rather than in a footnote. Coveted Jewel counted as a source of every color, so cutting it (argued below) plus the land churn drops blue from 24 sources to 23 and black from 25 to 24, and the turn-three double-pip odds slide a couple of points per color — 69.4% for {B}{B}, 66.7% for {U}{U}. But the double-pip spells are the deck's late casts: Crux of Fate at five mana, Exsanguinate with X, Lethal Scheme paying its own {B}{B} through convoke. Every card in the deck, by contrast, wants an untapped land on turns one through three. I took the untapped lands.

What comes out

Ten spells and five lands. Eight of the spells share one failure — they want Y'shtola's side to win combats, and this deck wins the spell count instead — and the last two just lose their slots to better cards.

• Dancer's Chakrams — four mana whose headline text buffs “other commanders you control,” and this deck has exactly one commander. What's left is +2/+2 and lifelink split across two bodies.
• Blue Mage's Cane — the copy effect needs the equipped creature to attack a player whose graveyard holds an instant or sorcery worth taking, and the deck's creatures mostly stay home.
• Sage's Nouliths — “untap target attacking creature” in a list that rarely attacks with more than two.
• Astrologian's Planisphere — the closest call of the five weapons. It grows on every noncreature cast and every third draw, but it's still a two-mana 1/1 in a deck whose casts already pay out through the commander.
• Observed Stasis — one attacker removed from one combat, and the draw needs that player tapped out before it pays.
• Eye of Nidhogg — three mana per lap to goad a 4/2. The deck would rather spend every three mana pinging the table.
• Hraesvelgr of the First Brood — five mana to make one creature unblockable per cast, in a deck with no creature it particularly wants connecting.
• Coveted Jewel — six mana, and any unblocked attacker takes the three cards and the ramp with it. A deck that taps out on its own turn can't also hold blockers back to guard it.
• Hypnotic Sprite — the reason to run it is the Mesmeric Glare half, and a counter that only catches mana value 3 or less expires as the game goes on. The 2/1 flier it leaves behind is off-plan, and the interaction that replaces it has no ceiling.
• Cut a Deal — a mana value 3 trigger, but it hands each opponent a card to draw you three, in a deck that draws fifteen ways and spends the whole game pointed at those same opponents' life totals. The deck doesn't need a fourth draw spell; it needs somewhere for the life to go.
• Contaminated Aquifer, Idyllic Beachfront and Sunlit Marsh — duals whose only line of rules text is entering tapped.
• Path of Ancestry — tapped forever, for a scry two cards can turn on.
• Temple of the False God — no colored mana in a three-color deck, and blank before your fifth land.

What goes in

Fifteen cards, $58.55 together at Scryfall market prices the day this page was written. Thirteen of them come to $10.58 with nothing over $3; the other two are Deadly Rollick and Aetherflux Reservoir, and they're the two strongest cards on the page — picked the same way as the cheap ones, then priced honestly.

Draw that doubles as burn

• Treasure Cruise ($0.32) — delves down to {U} in the late game, and every cast is still mana value 8 to Y'shtola: three cards, 6 damage across the table, 2 life.
• Behold the Multiverse ($0.29) — foretell {1}{U} on turn two, cast {1}{U} later: scry 2 and draw two at instant speed, with the trigger attached.
• Deep Analysis ($0.20) — four cards across two casts, both at mana value 4, and the flashback's 3 life feeds the end-step check on any turn a painland also tapped.
• Sword-Point Diplomacy ($0.19) — argued above: three cards for you, or up to 9 life off the table, usually some of each.

Interaction at trigger size

• Saw It Coming ($0.37) — a real counterspell at mana value 3, castable for two mana after a turn-two foretell. The box's only unconditional counter costs six.
• Mystic Confluence ($1.08) — choose any three of: counter unless they pay {3}, bounce a creature, draw a card. It answers a board state and pings while doing it, and Torrential Gearhulk casts it again later.
• Anguished Unmaking ($1.37) — instant-speed exile on any nonland permanent. The 3 life it costs is tracked toward your own draw check, not just a tax.
• Deadly Rollick ($27.67) — with your commander out it costs nothing, and this deck's commander is out by turn four in most games. A free exile is good anywhere; here the printed 4 means the free cast also pings all three opponents and gains you 2 — removal you can fire on the turn you tapped out casting draw spells, which is every turn this deck has.

The place the life goes

• Aetherflux Reservoir ($20.30) — every Y'shtola trigger banks 2 life, the Reservoir banks more on each spell in a turn, and the deck otherwise has no plan for the total it builds beyond not dying. Fifty of it becomes a kill at instant speed. It's also a mana value 4 artifact, so the cast that deploys it is itself a trigger.

The engine card

• Jace's Sanctum ($1.61) — with 27 instants and sorceries in the upgraded list, every cast gets {1} cheaper and scrys 1. It refunds the foretell surcharge, and it turns Into the Story into a three-mana draw-four.

Lands that keep pace

• Adarkar Wastes ($0.39) and Caves of Koilos ($0.73) — untapped every turn of the game, and the point of pain even counts toward your own four-life tally on a turn you need it to.
• Seachrome Coast ($0.44), Concealed Courtyard ($0.87) and Darkslick Shores ($2.72) — untapped while you control two or fewer other lands, which is every turn that decides whether this deck curves.

One card is priced out rather than argued out. Fierce Guardianship is this page's thesis in its purest form — a counterspell that costs nothing with your commander out and still says mana value 3, so even the free cast pings the table — and it stays on the shelf for two reasons: it ran $58.24 when this page was written, about what the fifteen adds cost together, and it's on the Game Changers list, which would move the bracket floor the FAQ below promises. If neither of those is a constraint at your table, it's the next card to buy.

The cards that read as cuts and stay

Six of the box's seven attachments leave, and the same lens points at six more cards. These stay, each for something the mana value alone can't see.

• Dig Through Time — mana value 8 is the point. {U}{U} plus six exiled cards casts it, and Y'shtola reads the 8.
• Sublime Epiphany — six full-price mana, but “choose one or more”: a single cast can counter a spell, bounce a permanent, copy your best creature and draw a card, all stacked onto one trigger.
• Torrential Gearhulk — a flash 5/6 that recasts Dig Through Time, Into the Story or Mystic Confluence from the graveyard for free. A second mana value 7-or-8 trigger, stapled to a blocker.
• Fandaniel, Telophoroi Ascian — five mana and slow to start, but with 27 instants and sorceries his end step becomes “sacrifice a creature or lose twice my graveyard count,” and the surveil on every cast stocks the yard the delve and flashback spells spend.
• Reaper's Scythe — the one job weapon kept. With Y'shtola active, a single trigger spell on your turn means all three opponents lost life, and the Scythe banks a soul counter per player at your end step: +3/+3 a turn without spending another card.
• Arcane Sanctum — the last always-tapped land. A third any-color source next to Command Tower and Exotic Orchard is worth one slow turn in a deck whose pip checks sit at 89–90%.

The deck after fifteen swaps

Average mana value rises from 3.37 to 3.5 — backwards for a normal upgrade, deliberate here, because the printed number is the trigger and eleven of the thirty-one trigger spells now cast below face. Trigger cards go from 27 to 31 (plus two Adventure halves and two X spells), instants and sorceries from 21 to 27, and always-tapped lands from five to one.

The role counts move where the box was thin. Spot removal goes 7 to 9 and wipes hold at 3, with Cleansing Nova, Final Judgment and Crux of Fate all doubling as triggers. Draw holds at 15 even with Cut a Deal gone — still above the typical 8–12, and in this deck a draw spell is also a burn spell. Ramp dips from 9 pieces to 8 with Coveted Jewel gone; Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, three Talismans, Thought Vessel, Relic of Legends and Archaeomancer's Map remain, which is enough at this curve. Nothing added is a Game Changer, so the Bracket 1 floor the box shipped with survives every swap.

The upgraded decklist

All 100 cards after the swaps, grouped by type — hover any name for the card and its current price.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist

“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena — no account needed.

FAQ

Does a delve or foretell cast still trigger Y'shtola for full value?

Yes. Mana value comes from the printed mana cost, so delve, foretell, flashback, convoke and Snuff Out's pay-4-life option change what you pay without changing what Y'shtola sees — Treasure Cruise cast for a single blue mana is still mana value 8. The one exception is Adventures: on the stack, the half you cast sets the number, which is why Swift End and Gentleman's Rise (each exactly mana value 3) trigger her while their creature halves don't.

How does Y'shtola's end-step draw actually count life?

It checks the total life any single player lost over the whole turn, at every end step — including your opponents' turns — and gaining life back doesn't erase it. You count as a player too: paying 4 life to cast Snuff Out for free satisfies the check on its own, and two of Y'shtola's own triggers put every opponent past it.

Why do these swaps raise the deck's average mana value?

From 3.37 to 3.5, and it's deliberate. Y'shtola pays out on the printed number, so the goal is spells that say 3 or more while costing less to cast — after the swaps, eleven of the deck's thirty-one trigger spells cast below their face cost through delve, foretell, flashback, convoke or an alternative cost. A conventional curve-lowering upgrade would turn her off.

Can G'raha Tia, Scion Reborn lead this deck instead of Y'shtola?

He's the box's second commander and the swap is legal, but the list is tuned to Y'shtola: thirty-one noncreature spells at mana value 3 or more after the upgrades. G'raha earns his keep in the 99, where his once-a-turn option to pay life equal to a spell's mana value is a controllable way to reach the four-life end-step check on a turn nothing else got there.

What actually closes out a game with this list?

The pings do more than they read — every trigger is 2 damage to each of three opponents, so a two-spell turn takes 12 total life off the table. Once that has ground life totals into the teens, Exsanguinate ends it for X around 8, Aetherflux Reservoir converts the life the engine banked into a 50-point kill, Fandaniel, Telophoroi Ascian taxes whoever survived at every one of your end steps, and Rite of Replication kicked on Archmage Emeritus refills your hand mid-push.

Which bracket does the upgraded list sit in?

The box ships with no Game Changers and none of the fifteen adds is one, so the floor stays Bracket 1. In practice it plays like a Bracket 2 deck — paste the final list into the bracket checker if you keep upgrading past this page.