Daredevil Dragster: Standard Boros Vehicles

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Before We Start

When reading this set’s Standard preliminary look, did you feel something was missing? Now that we’re back on Kaladesh/Avishkar, how could there not be a red-white-based Vehicle deck? In Aetherdrift we have neither Smuggler’s Copter nor Heart of Kiran, and the Pilot structure is quite different too, so how should we build it?

Card Analysis

First, let’s look at the most representative legend, Kolodin, Triumph Caster:

Legendary Creature | Human Pilot
Mounts and Vehicles you control have haste.
Whenever a Mount you control enters, it becomes saddled until end of turn.
Whenever a Vehicle you control enters, it becomes an artifact creature until end of turn.

Kolodin lets every Vehicle throw a punch the turn it enters without being crewed, and has excellent synergy with Vehicles with good bodies, but he has a serious flaw: only 2 power, and no Pilot ability to help crew the big ones. Mid- to large-sized Vehicles mostly need power 3 to crew, which gives Kolodin the risk of being unable to crew when cast behind a Vehicle.
So should we settle for mid- to small-sized Vehicles?
Like Voyager Glidecar, Skyseer’s Chariot, or Gastal Thrillroller?

That level of damage is no better than just attacking with the Pilot.
So I still built the deck around Vehicles with better bodies. The decklist is as follows:

Decklist

The Vehicle lineup is Lifecraft Engine, Cultivator’s Caravan, and Magmatic Galleon. The first two are strong turn-3 damage sources when Kolodin is on the battlefield, but both need Crew 3, so what to do? The answer is to choose Pilot as Lifecraft Engine’s creature type, giving Kolodin +1/+1. In other words, this deck is also a Pilot tribal deck, and the only one that might fail to crew is Cultivator’s Caravan. But Cultivator’s Caravan has another use: besides being a strong 5/5 beater, its mana-rock trait lets you reach five mana more smoothly to cast Magmatic Galleon, and on the turn you slam it down you can still cast a one-mana creature or hold up a one-mana removal spell for your opponent. Magmatic Galleon is a strong beater that brings a removal spell on entering, and its passive ability gives you Treasure tokens when you deal excess damage, which can lubricate your tempo or become card-draw fuel.

Since I’ve said above that this is a Pilot tribal deck, the creatures are naturally picked from Pilots. Besides Kolodin, the other Pilots are Dynamite Diver, Canyon Vaulter, and Cloudspire Coordinator. Dynamite Diver is a curve-filling choice; its dies-deal-1 effect is lackluster, but occasionally has a miraculous effect. Canyon Vaulter can give a Vehicle evasion, letting the Vehicle it crews fly over ground defenses and hit the opponent hard. The point of Cloudspire Coordinator is scry 2 on entering, which is precious in a deck with weak card selection. In addition, its activated ability that creates Pilot tokens based on the number of Vehicles that entered lets you go wide, and it interacts well with Lifecraft Engine and Chandra, Spark Hunter, making it the only two-drop Pilot played as a full playset.

Next is the section on our ace driver, Chandra, Spark Hunter.

Legendary Planeswalker | Chandra
At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose up to one target Vehicle you control. Until end of turn, it becomes an artifact creature and gains haste.
+2: You may sacrifice an artifact or discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
0: Create a 3/2 colorless Vehicle artifact token with crew 1.
-7: You get an emblem with “Whenever an artifact you control enters, this emblem deals 3 damage to any target.”

Like Kolodin, Chandra, Spark Hunter’s static ability lets a Vehicle throw a punch right when it enters, and the better the Vehicle’s body, the greater the benefit; pairing her with mid- to small-sized Vehicles would be a total waste. Her ability to create Vehicle tokens interacts with Cloudspire Coordinator, and sacrificing an artifact to draw pairs well with Magmatic Galleon’s Treasure-making passive. Unfortunately, the legend rule makes it unsuitable to play a full set, so I added one Alacrian Armory as a supplement.

For removal, besides the Magmatic Galleon mentioned above, considering the synergy with its excess-damage passive and the deck’s aggressive nature, I chose Road Rage, which scales damage with the number of Vehicles/Mounts, and Lightning Helix, which holds off aggro while finishing the opponent. The lands are the red-white fixing set Inspiring Vantage, Battlefield Forge, Sunbillow Verge, and the creature land Restless Bivouac, which doubles as a Pilot, plus one Fountainport to provide a Fish to crew or to recur Treasure for card draw.

Gameplay Demo

Game 1 shows the basic tempo: Dynamite Diver on turn 1, Kolodin on turn 2, Lifecraft Engine on turn 3, and Lifecraft Engine on turn 4, which rammed the opponent down to 1 in no time, and a Lightning Helix finished it. Games 2 and 3 were against mono-black midrange and Esper planeswalkers; in these two games Chandra basically drove unrivaled. It doesn’t matter if the Pilots get removed: when Chandra comes down with the Armory, two or three 5/5 Vehicles rush out at once and ram the opponent until smoke comes out of their ears; Liliana shows up and we ram as many as come, driving the opponent so hard they can’t take care of themselves, and we win.

Conclusion

In the Kaladesh era, Vehicles were mostly just decorations until crewed. Although Skysovereign, Consul Flagship had enters-and-attacks triggered abilities, its range was limited and it had the legend restriction, so decks were built around cheap-to-mid-cost evasive beaters. Now Vehicles have all sorts of additional abilities and have a certain degree of influence even when not crewed, and with the arrival of stronger auto-crewing cards, Vehicle strategies have changed substantially.