Magic’s Final Fantasy 1 Scene Box goes all in on D&D-inspired Party mechanics

New Final Fantasy cards arrive in Magic: The Gathering Dec. 5 in the form of a Chocobo Bundle and four Scene Boxes. The birdy bundle includes a ton of promo reprints of cards from the standard set with stylish anime-inspired art, while the Scene Boxes have mostly new cards that together form iconic scenes from Final Fantasy 1, Final Fantasy 8, Final Fantasy 9, and Final Fantasy 15 (along with a few play boosters). They’re undeniably a desirable collector’s item for fans of each game, and while the quality of the new cards is all over the place mechanically, FF1’s Garland at the Chaos Shrine scene goes all-in on leveraging a beloved game mechanic: Party.

“Party” first debuted in 2020’s Zendikar Rising set and leans heavily on classic fantasy party composition, namely the typical Dungeons & Dragons lineup of Warrior, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard. Plenty of cards from that set offer benefits based on the number of party members or even having a “full party” with one of each creature type. It popped up again with the Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate commander decks in 2022, especially with the white-black Party Time deck focusing specifically on the mechanic.

All four creature subtypes are represented in the base Final Fantasy set without explicitly leaning into the Party mechanic, but Garland at the Chaos Shrine changes that with the four Warriors of Light.

For Commander play, The Destined Warrior is the obvious choice as your party leader and go-to commander. A white-blue-black that costs four total mana, he’s a 3/3 with incredible abilities for being that mana-cheap, including First Strike, vigilance, AND menace. He also makes all Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard spells cost one mana less. And, during combat your creatures get +1 to power until end of turn, but with a full party, that becomes +3.

The Destined White Mage, Thief, and Black Mage all cost 3 total mana each and fall squarely within the Warrior’s color spread, so they can easily slot into a Commander deck where he’s the leader. White Mage gets Lifelink, Thief cannot be blocked, and Black Mage has Deathtouch. And for a cost of one mana and a tap, they can loan those abilities out to a target creature.

Essentially, if you have a full party with all four of these on the board, you can pay one white, one blue, and one black mana to give the Warrior lifelink, deathtouch, and make him unblockable (deathtouch and unblockable at the same time has no real use, but that’s still OP to think about). To top it all off, all attacking creatures get the +3 from the Warrior, so he’d be an unblockable attacker at 6/3 with lifelink.

The White Mage also doles out a +1/+1 counter whenever you gain life or, with a full party, three such tokens. So you can beef up each member of the party over time. The Thief lets you draw then discard a card when one of your creatures deals damage to an opponent — or you draw three with a full party. The Black Mage essentially gets a tweaked version of a core Vivi ability: he deals one damage to each opponent whenever you cast a noncreature spell, or three damage with a full party.

Put plainly, in four-player Commander, these cards can totally wreck. Probably the best strategy is a Voltron approach, focusing on buffing and beefing up The Destined Warrior as your primary solo attacker. The one drawback is that other players will wind up targeting him with direct damage or destroy creature spells.

For players who get this scene box and want to construct a deck, it’s probably not a bad idea to invest in some Zendikar Rising cards, along with one or all of the Battle for Baldur’s Gate decks. But if it’s Final Fantasy flavor they’re going for, there’s plenty to consider from other Final Fantasy cards, whether we’re talking about the core set, Through the Ages, or some of the Commander decks.

The Destined Warrior would lock you into white-blue-black, and while there aren’t many Final Fantasy Rogues in Magic, there are some very strong Clerics, quite a few Wizards, and a LOT of Warriors to consider.

The blue-black Locke Cole (a Rogue) is an uncommon that a lot of people probably have. With Deathtouch and Lifelink, he fits nicely into the overall strategy here. For Clerics, Aerith Gainsborough and Rosa, Resolute White Mage are the obvious choices. Both help the party grow with +1/+1 counter generation. And since this would be a Legendary-heavy deck, if and when Aerith dies, she copies all of her counters to every other Legendary on the board. Minwu, White Mage would also be a must: every time you gain life, she puts a +1/+1 on each cleric you control.

Firion, Wild Rose Warrior and Raubahn, Bull of Ala Mhigo — both Warriors — are a must if the deck leans on Equipment for Voltron tactics. Between the two of them, you get to freely attach one equipment and create a temporary copy of every equipment you play. There’s also Absolute Virtue, a beefy but expensive 8/8 Warrior that costs eight mana but gives you protection from each of your opponents. Again, in four-player that’s a huge boon.

The lack of red mana in this theoretical deck puts a limit on the number of Final Fantasy Wizards you can consider, but there’s still Venat, Heart of Hydaelyn, who lets you draw a card every time you cast a Legendary card. And for seven mana, you can exile any permanent to then transform her into the Mothercrystal, doling out counters and making one of your creatures indestructible (a great way to protect your Destined Warrior).

Truly, the possibilities for a really strong deck with these cards is endless, but for players who like to Party, Garland at the Chaos Shrine looks like the best scene box to pick up.