Commander Deck Tech: Noctis, Prince of Lucis

Directly from the Final Fantasy franchise to your command zone!

Prince Noctis is here to command our decks, and, like the great monarch he is, he has brought us several artifacts so we can play explosive combinations and win many games.

In this article, we'll show you two lists: the main one focuses on artifact combos and several other interactions with the board, and the second is an Equipment Voltron list that makes Noctis deal deadly amounts of damage to our opponents. Let's go!

In the Final Fantasy franchise, Noctis is the heir to the throne of Lucis. He is betrothed to Lunafreya Nox Fleuret (a political marriage), can wield the power of Lucian kings, and is an excellent fighter.

In Magic: The Gathering, this future Monarch is an Esper creature with lifelink and a very interesting ability: he lets you cast artifacts in your graveyard if you pay three life in addition to any other costs. Any artifacts you cast this way return to the board with a finality counter. Remember, if an artifact with a finality counter "dies", it is exiled instead.

Noctis represents recursion in your command zone for any artifact spell in your deck. So, in this list we'll use many strong interactions with artifacts, that is, ones that end the game in a single turn.

However, we'd rather not lose our precious artifacts to finality counters, which will exile them. So, let's start with our saviors: the cards that remove finality counters from our artifacts!

Removing Finality Counters

As the Tidus, Yuna's Guardian precon proved, we can move any counter from one permanent to another. That's what we're counting on here to make sure our board lasts a little longer and we don't have to fear Austere Commands or Vandalblasts.

According to the Rules (accessed on October 2025) regarding finality counters:

So, we can say for certain that one of the most fun things we can do with a permanent that has a finality counter on it is to... blink it!

In that sense, Brago, King Eternal and Displacer Kitten are excellent. They'll save your board effortlessly.

Hex Parasite and Power Conduit will also remove these counters, and O'aka, Traveling Merchant turns them into card draw.

Solemnity is one of the most important pieces and one of the best cards to tutor in this list.

Thanks to this three-mana enchantment, you won't even have to put finality counters on your artifacts. As a bonus, your opponents will also not be able to put any type of counter on your artifacts, creatures, enchantments, lands, or even on you as a player.

Could this be the best counter for decks that play energy/experience counters?

But keep in mind that, when you cast Solemnity, your opponents will try to remove it at any cost. Use it wisely.

Rocks and Mana

Because this commander can return any artifact to your board, even a simple Commander's Sphere is more valuable.

Above, you'll find classic mana rocks for Commander decks, like Arcane Signet, Azorius Signet, Commander's Sphere, Mind Stone, Talisman of Progress, and Sol Ring.

Because of how this deck and the commander work, we added Solemn Simulacrum to draw cards and get basic lands. Moonsilver Key will get lands for you as well, but you can also sacrifice it to tutor a mana rock.

Forsaken Monument gives you more colorless mana whenever you create it, but what truly makes it incredible is that it gives you life when you cast colorless spells. In this case, that will be your artifacts.

Krark-Clan Ironworks, Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge, and Urza, Lord High Artificer will also help us cast more spells, either by sacrificing something or tapping artifacts to pay for them.

With all these artifact interactions in play, Smothering Tithe's Treasure tokens will be even more precious. They'll also feed other cards in this list, like Krark-Clan Ironworks.

As for Bolas's Citadel, it allows us to access the top of our deck and cast lands and spells directly from there. Its activated ability also forces our opponents to lose 10 life. Each.

Combo: Sensei's Divining Top + Aetherflux Reservoir + Bolas's Citadel

This is one of the most classic combos in Commander, as well as one of the most famous. It fits this deck well, too, because each of these cards is valuable on its own. When they're together in play, they'll form an engine that will lead you straight to victory.

To make this combo work, you need to have at least 2 life and all pieces in play.

Then, tap Sensei's Divining Top to draw a card, and put it on the top of your deck. Next, cast it with life points through Bolas's Citadel.

Aetherflux Reservoir checks all spells you cast, even if you cast them from the top of your deck with Citadel.

You'll progressively gain life whenever you cast Sensei's Divining Top from the top of your deck. Repeat this process until you have at least 52 life, then use Aetherflux's ability to deal 50 damage to any target, like, for instance, your opponents' life totals!

Gaining Life

Noctis has lifelink, but the 4 life we'll gain whenever he attacks or blocks won't be enough to cast all the artifacts we want in our graveyard.

The aforementioned Aetherflux Reservoir will give us life whenever we cast a spell. It is similar to Forsaken Monument, but this one only gives us life when we cast colorless spells.

Alhammarret's Archive and Ugin, Eye of the Storms will give us even more life and cards. Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge, in turn, deals damage to enemies and gives us life equal to the number of artifacts under our control.

Another powerful card is Bloodthirsty Conqueror, which might not have lifelink, but its ability gives us life whenever our opponents lose theirs. By the way, this Vampire makes the combo we mentioned before with Aetherflux Reservoir even better and lets you play it faster.

These two artifacts won't give us life, but they help us maintain it somehow.

Whenever a land enters your board each turn, Eternity Vessel will set your life points to the number of counters on it.

As for The Endstone, its triggered ability triggers at the end step and sets your life points to half your initial amount. As this is a Commander list, you'll get 20 life.

Card Draw

One of the most critical parts of any great Commander deck is card draw. Check out what we prepared to help Noctis win more matches!

Windfall makes each player discard their own hand and draw cards equal to the greatest number of cards a player discarded this way. This could benefit your opponents, but it will be twice as efficient for you because you'll send many artifacts to your graveyard. Later on, you'll be able to cast them with Noctis.

As for Basim Ibn Ishaq, it rewards you for casting historic spells by drawing cards and making itself unblockable for that turn. There is a reason Esper Sentinel is a staple in this format. It can draw a lot of cards.

Noctis Buffs

As Noctis is a 4/3, it can attack and defend quite nicely. So, we also added some buffs to make him more powerful, such as:

To make sure he'll deal damage, we added Kaito, Cunning Infiltrator and Power Conduit, besides Rogue's Passage.

Filling Your Graveyard

This is still a deck that brings back artifacts from the graveyard. So, we added some cards to put them there and make sure you don't have to rely on enemy removals.

The recently unbanned Gifts Ungiven is an excellent tutor in Commander. In this strategy, you'll use this instant to look for four artifacts in your list. This way, you can cast the ones that end up in the graveyard with Noctis' ability.

Golbez, Crystal Collector Surveils 1 when artifacts enter your board. In your end step, depending on how many artifacts you control, it also returns a creature in your graveyard to your hand and makes your opponent lose life equal to that card's mana value.

As for Time Sieve, it is a very useful sacrifice source because it gives you access to one of the strongest resources in the game: an extra turn.

Hated by many and loved by all that use it, getting extra turns is excellent for this strategy and also fills your graveyard.

To be a good king, one must be wise. However, to pilot this list, Noctis needs great equipment.

Let's explore his potential with attacks that will leave your opponents close to death.

This Noctis list doesn't play red, but we can play great support for white Voltron, like Sigarda's Aid, Mantle of the Ancients, and Forge Anew. This color also allows us to use the best board wipe for a deck with this theme: Single Combat!

Besides these, we can play Steelshaper's Gift and Open the Armory.

The equipment cards that will make this young prince even more powerful are:

Playing black equipment like Wand of Orcus in a Voltron list is simply incredible!

Noctis might not have classic keywords, like double strike or vigilance, but when I first tested this list, I had a lot of fun. He is a casual option for anyone who enjoys this character but doesn't want a broken deck.

Noctis is quite fun. Having recursion in the command zone is also one of the strongest things you can have. Furthermore, you can build him in many ways, and all of them will surely be quite resilient because Noctis himself is quite resilient.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!