2025 saw the release of a major collaboration between Final Fantasy franchise and popular card games Magic: The Gathering, featuring characters, moments, locations and items from each game receiving cards. One of the knots Magic: The Gathering sets was “Camp Comrades,” an all-around themed box set Final Fantasy 15. While the cards in the box initially received some attention for their eye-catching art, in early 2026 a previously overlooked card suddenly, and seemingly randomly, rose in price.
“Flash Photography” went from Ignored to In Vogue
“The Campmates” Magic: The Gathering scene box contains six exclusive cards, six art cards, three 14-card Play Booster packs containing other Final Fantasy cards and a display easel. The scene depicted across the six cards shows the game's four main characters relaxing at the camp: Noctis poses with his car, Regalia, Ignis cooks a meal, Gladiolus shows off his sword, and Prompto takes a selfie with a chocobo. It is the latter of the four, a blue Sorcery card called “Flash Photography”, that has suddenly become extremely valuable.
- Flash photography: Blue sorcery
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Costs 2 blue mana, 2 colorless mana
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You can cast this spell as if it had Flash (can cast any time you can cast an instant) if it targets a permanent you control.
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Create a token that is a copy of target permanent.
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Spend 2 blue mana, 4 colorless mana for Flashback – Recreate this spell from your graveyard.
After the release of “Camp Comrades”, “Flash Photography” usually sold for between $7 and $9. This is pretty standard for a card of its rarity – it can only be found in “Camp Comrades” and rarely in Final Fantasy Chocobo parcel boxes. But in early March, this unassuming blue Magic: The Gathering the card saw an unexpected increase in price. Now, Magic retailers like Scryfall and TCGPlayer list the card between $30 and $40, with at least one listing over $100.
Expensive Call: Why Is 'Flash Photography' Suddenly So Expensive?
What caused this sudden rise in price for a fairly serviceable Magic: The Gathering card, months after it was released? Rarity certainly contributes something — but that's not all. The “Camp Comrades” set itself is quite expensive, usually selling for $70-$90 online, in line with the other Final Fantasy scene frames. As of this writing, however, there is no other exclusive card in it Final Fantasy 15-themes are almost as valuable. The lowest, “Warrior's Resolve,” sells for only $2, while the most expensive, “Camp Cuisine,” can be had for $15. The rarity of “Flash Photography” cannot be the only explanation behind the price increase.
Is magic in its “copy period”?
In general, the ability to copy cards has a bit of a moment Magic: The Gathering. Two recent releases, Lorwyn Eclipsed and that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles crossover (with the “TubuLair” Secret Lair drop) both featured cards that focused on copy as a mechanic. It's likely that players started building copy-focused decks, looked for cards that synergized well with what they were doing, and found “Flash Photography”. Here are just a few examples of cards that have recently contributed to the current “copy meta”:
- Slash, Evil Turtle From Dimension X (TubuLair) — Can enter as a copy of any creature on the battlefield, allowing you to draw a card when it or the creature it copies takes damage.
- Mirrormind Crown (Lorwyn Eclipsed) — Is equipped to a creature and then allows you to turn tokens into copies of said creature.
- Mirror shape (Lorwyn Eclipsed) — All non-land permanents under your control become copies of target non-Aura permanents.
- Here comes a new hero! (TMNT) — Spend mana to draw cards, then copy a creature with a mana value equal to or less than the number of cards you drew.
There are also some potentially fun synergies between “Flash Photography” and “Donatello, the Brains,” one of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-theme cards. Donatello allows you to create an extra Mutagen token every time you make a token. If you had the mana, you could continue to sacrifice Flash Photography, recast it from your graveyard, make copies, and stack those Mutagens, which you can then sacrifice to boost your existing creatures.
The word spreads
After the initial price jump, Magic gamers started talking about “Flash Photography”, further increasing its popularity (and price). Last week, “Flash Photography” was #3 on MTGStock's “Weekly Winners” list, with the article pointing to a fun combo with the already popular “Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer”, which makes your existing tokens haste and generate more each turn. It also points out that many other clone cards limit you to cloning creatures, while “Flash Photography” lets you copy pretty much anything.
Threads discussing the card in the Reddit community dedicated to discussing EDH (Elder Dragon Highlander), Magic: The Gathering's “Commander” format, also noted that the card had appeared in the winning decks of at least one recent EDH tournament, possibly further increasing its visibility. Especially though the earliest thread discussing “Flash Photography” in any of Magic Created shortly after the card was revealed last year, Reddit communities believed it to be a mid-tier card and a smaller version of the existing “Clever Impersonator” clone card. The change in this card's fortunes has indeed been rapid.
Has this card's potential simply been overlooked until now?
As one Magic players, I can say one thing — “Flash Photography” is a really, really good card, and always has been. Final Fantasy 15 is my favorite game in the series, and I thought of creating a deck focused around it as soon as the set was released last year. It uses Noctis Lucis Caelum, a skinned version of the card Kenrith, The Restored King, as a five-color commander, allowing me to put in every Final Fantasy 15 Magic short I possibly could. I've known for months how good this sneaky little card could be.
Who is that character?
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Start
Identify the silhouettes before time runs out.
Easy (7.5s) Medium (5.0s) Hard (2.5s) Permadeath (2.5s)
“Flash Photography” is the card most likely to get a groan or cry of despair from my opponent when it comes out. (And when I use “Ardyn Izunia's” Boast ability to search my deck, it's always “Flash Photography” I look for.) Personally, I like to copy a bulky creature during an opponent's turn for a quick extra defense, forcing them to tap more and leaving them vulnerable to my attack. Copying “Campsite Cuisine” is also pretty fun — I can generate tons of mat tokens and then sacrifice them for powerful attacks. I'm glad that “Flash Photography” is finally getting the love it deserves, even if it came with a price jump that's unlikely to go down anytime soon.
- Original release date
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August 5, 1993
- Designer
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Richard Garfield
- Number of players
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2+
- Age recommendation
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13+
