At Summer Game Fest, I chatted with Daniel Holt at the MTG booth (a fellow FFX fan), and he mentioned the counter-passing mechanic was inspired by the games signature sport
Through the Omenpaths Card Image Gallery Card Image Gallery / Through the Omenpaths done Explore the Through the Omenpaths Card Image Gallery Explore the Magic Multiverse with Through the Omenpaths , releasing on MTG Arena September 23, 2025
Evans' Brimstone Angels series: Brimstone Angels , Brimstone Angels: Lesser Evils , The Adversary , Fire in the Blood , Ashes of the Tyrant , and The Devil You Know
#3 Magmatic HellkiteMagmatic Hellkite I like stun counters, its an elegant design to circumnavigate the challenge of remembering that you werent supposed to untap your creature this turn, with built-in scalability to enable soft removal designs that put more stun counters on a thing to take it out of action for more than a single turn