One of the best parts of Magic: The Gathering is that it’s been around so long that there are unexpected interactions between cards printed in 2026 and those that that shipped in the ’90s (at least in formats that don’t rotate, like Commander). Still, I wasn’t quite expecting one of the Commander cards in Magic’s the latest set, Secrets of Strixhaven, would be essentially broken with a card from last year’s Final Fantasy set.
Dina, Essence Brewer, helms the Witherbloom Pestilence precon, the Golgari (green-black) offering in the quintet of boxed decks. She’s a 2/3 druid that lets you draw a card whenever you sacrifice a creature, but also has an activated ability that requires two generic mana and triggers that card draw.
Pay two mana and tap Dina to sacrifice another a creature and you’ll gain X life and put X +1/+1 counters on another target creature. X is the sacrificed creature’s power.
The idea is obvious, then: Sacrifice a big-hitter to power up another card and gain a bunch of life. And the hitters don’t come much bigger than Jumbo Cactuar.
This rare creature from the Final Fantasy set is a 1/7 plant that has the ability 10,000 Needles: Whenever it attacks, it gets +9999/+0 until the end of the turn. (And no, that’s not a typo.)
If you can get both Jumbo Cactuar and Dina onto the battlefield — and wait for them to overcome summoning sickness — it’s a serious problem. Declare Jumbo Cactuar as an attacker and then activate Dina’s ability to gain 10,000 life and place 10,000 +1/+1 counters on a creature. For all intents and purposes, it’s going to end the game.
The only real mitigation here is that while Dina is only a three-cost card, Jumbo Cactuar will set you back seven mana. Then again, if there’s one thing green is good at doing in Magic, it’s helping you ramp up to extra mana early in the game.
