Journey Afar: Standard Gran Turismo

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

Before We Start

The Towns introduced by the FINAL FANTASY series, true to the land themes of past sets, make for a deck that suits acceleration, and what to fill the blank in the middle with is where players get to show their creativity. It just so happens that one entry in the FF series puts special emphasis on travel, so let’s join our cheerful companions in reliving that road trip!

Card Analysis

That’s right, the author is talking about FFXV: Noctis, Prince of Lucis and his three good friends Prompto Argentum, Ignis Scientia, and Gladiolus Amicitia, setting off on a road trip in the luxurious convertible The Regalia, a gift from his father, King Regis.

In this deck, the player plays Noctis, leading these three companions to tour the Towns by car and run over the opponent along the way. What the three companions and the car have in common is acceleration. Prompto Argentum, the sunny boy who loves taking photos, gives you a Treasure as a souvenir whenever you cast a noncreature spell with four or more mana spent on it. Ignis Scientia, the bespectacled young man who does the driving, ramps you a land when he enters, and can also cook the opponent’s graveyard to disrupt them while making a Food. Gladiolus Amicitia, the sturdy bodyguard, has the build of a Primeval Titan and the ability to search for any land when he enters, and pumps teammates +2/+2 and trample when a land enters, making him one of the key pieces for finishing the game. The convertible The Regalia, which pairs with the three companions, puts a land onto the battlefield when it attacks, and its own cost of four triggers Prompto Argentum to make a Treasure. By this point, I trust you readers have already seen the shape of the whole mana curve: turn two Prompto Argentum, turn three Ignis Scientia, turn four The Regalia, turn five Gladiolus Amicitia. The deck is built as follows:

Decklist

The Town components the author chose are The Wandering Minstrel, Balamb Garden, SeeD Academy, Starting Town, Eden, Seat of the Sanctum, and the pure fixing Town Baron, Airship Kingdom. The Wandering Minstrel, Producer Yoshida, is the trump card of the Town theme: once you gather five or more Towns, it keeps making Elemental tokens and can also pump your whole team once to take the opponent out. The catch is that it is really not much use before you gather five Towns, so only two copies are run. Balamb Garden, SeeD Academy is another trump card: it can transform into Balamb Garden, Airborne to chip away at the opponent’s life from the air and draw cards to refill resources, and since the front face is not legendary, you can play a full set. Eden, Seat of the Sanctum is used for recovering resources in the late game.

Since this is an acceleration deck with a Vehicle theme attached, the author also added three planeswalkers: Chandra, Spark Hunter, Vivien Reid, and Ugin, Eye of the Storms. Chandra, Spark Hunter is a professional driver: she can herself trigger Prompto Argentum to make a Treasure, and can also convert his Treasure and the Food made by Ignis Scientia into cards in hand. Vivien Reid fills the five-mana slot of the curve that Ignis Scientia accelerates you into; she can refill your hand, and her removal ability has no shortage of targets in the current Standard. Ugin, Eye of the Storms, besides coming with permanent removal when cast, is also an important source of life gain and card draw, and its sturdy loyalty gives it a high survival rate in ordinary combat. Incidentally, once Ugin is on the battlefield, The Regalia also brings a shot of removal when cast.

As for the other removal, the author chose Burst Lightning, Suplex, Twinmaw Stormbrood // Charring Bite, Roaring Furnace // Steaming Sauna, and Ill-Timed Explosion. Overall, the emphasis is on range and on synergy with Prompto Argentum. Burst Lightning can finish the game and, with kicker, boost its damage; Suplex cleans up hard-to-remove small creatures and artifacts, sparing you from watching them go back and forth between the battlefield and the graveyard; Twinmaw Stormbrood // Charring Bite, with an Omen range as high as 5, can also be cast as the creature to gain life with the help of Starting Town and Treasure; Roaring Furnace // Steaming Sauna has decent range in both the early and late game, and can also double as a card-draw engine; Ill-Timed Explosion has a sweeper range as high as 7 in this deck, and being able to be used purely as a card-draw spell is something the author appreciates. Finally, one more Rite of Renewal recovers graveyard resources to boost staying power.

Gameplay Demo

Some readers may wonder why the deck does not run more Towns (for example, swapping Copperline Gorge for Gongaga, Reactor Town). This is because, although red-based aggro decks took a big cut in this ban update, in the author’s testing, running twelve tapped lands cannot keep up with the current Standard tempo, so this part can only be reinforced by Gladiolus Amicitia’s land search or the land-flipping of Ignis Scientia and The Regalia.

Conclusion

Although at first glance it looks like a fun meme deck, in practice it is quite strong in the mid-to-long game. In testing, its win rate against control and ordinary midrange decks was very good. However, because of the removal range limits of this color combination, it easily fails to keep up against explosive decks (such as ones with big creatures digging from the graveyard), so it is not a good archetype for Bo1. As for the protagonist Noctis, the colors are wrong and his abilities do not fit, so he truly cannot go in the deck. Fortunately, MTG Arena lets you obtain Noctis’s avatar and sleeves, so the FFXV lineup could still come together. Recommended for readers who like that game!