Final Fantasy Draft: Underrated Archetype

This past weekend was one of the most fun weekends I've had playing Magic in a long time, maybe ever. From the comfort of our own homes, we played the Arena Direct for highly coveted Collector Booster Boxes of Final Fantasy. The secondary market for these things is through the roof because of the set's hype and a certain serialized Golden Chocobo card.

I spent almost all my free time practicing this set in anticipation. While I believe the format to be dynamic, fun, and re-playable, it is a tough set to get a massive edge in. I find both the games, drafts, and even Sealed deck building more difficult than the average set, but I enjoy the challenge.

I can't complain about my results in Arena Direct. I entered 13 events and won six, finishing with a 78% win percentage across the best-of-one Sealed events.

My only regret is not making time for another half dozen or so runs. Alas, I found the deck-building process incredibly challenging. I may dive deeper into Sealed deck building when we have the Play Booster event coming up soon, but for now, let's just talk about Limited as a whole.

The format is well-balanced, and where I find success seems to fluctuate based on a Limited metagame—yes, as formats develop in Limited, metagames are created.

Let me explain. Final Fantasy is the most popular set ever. With the IP, we got a bunch of newer and returning players, and if you want to play Magic using only the Final Fantasy cards, you're limited to, well, Limited. When I'm sitting on Arena drafting with seven random players, they're less experienced on average than the grindiest Limited players you'll find on MTGO or in a PT-testing house. Arena is how a majority of us interact with Limited these days, and the Arena Ladder pairs you against other similarly ranked players. Well, this means you're drafting with one group of players but only playing against players close to or at your skill level. This creates a particular metagame at the mythic level. If, for instance, Izzet is the best deck in the format, as it's widely seen right now, then it may be easy to force the archetype, but when you get to actual gameplay, you're often playing against those decks. As the format develops, we see fewer players drafting, which leaves more experienced drafters behind. This means Izzet will be harder to acquire, and your decks will look worse overall.

Now, what if some strong decks are rarely drafted? I noticed this right after the Arena Direct. After swearing off white for a while because it's hard to move into an archetype other than aggro, I decided to draft around a card that scared me every time I saw it in play—Phantom Train.

Choo Choo

Every single time a player cast it, I'd evaluate the board and have an "oh crap" moment. I realized I had to get it off the battlefield or never risk attacking or tapping out again. It can gobble up everything on the battlefield and deal tons of damage in a single attack. Left unchecked, it will completely take over the game.

While I was done with taking screenshots of my decks past 40, I found a great example of the deck I could replicate frequently throughout about 10 drafts, drafting it six times.

Here's TheHamTV's draft, which he permitted me to use as an example for the archetype.

TheHamTV's BW Train

While I may have made a different card choice or two in his pool, the point remains that Phantom Train becomes grossly overpowered when you pair it with a pile of job select equipment, Undercity Dire Rats, Dwarven Castle Guards, or any card that puts multiple permanents in play for a single card.

The Judge Magister Gabranth synergizes with it perfectly, allowing for easy turn-five goldfishes at times.

Right now, the most popular decks I play against are Izzet, Golgari, and Dimir. The beauty of BW Train is that it doesn't want the same cards as those decks, so you only fight over the removal, which is always the case anyways.

That said, you don't need much removal if you can get multiple trains. Train has a low win rate on 17lands (54%), which is likely weighed down by the requirement for a specific deck and not being easy to play. You don't want to expose it often to removal when the opponent has mana up. In fact, they have to respect the card so much that it can act as almost an Armageddon for the opponent. You can force them to leave their removal for multiple turns, especially if you're ahead on the board. You could protect it with a card like Restoration Magic, but the deck mostly wants to play spells that put permanents into play.

The beauty of this deck is that the Train's average taken position is ninth pick. That's right, the archetype's defining card is easy to pick up, and while the deck will function without it as a simple low-curve white aggro deck, it's a hard card to replace for its effect.

Right now, the cards in this archetype are at a low point. Rakdos's stock is down, making Black Mage's Rod easier to pick up. People aren't high on white because it's not in any of the big three archetypes, making white job select equipment easy to acquire (like White Mage's Staff), and Monk's Fist is basically free.

While you shouldn't expect to get multiple trains, if one is opened, you'll likely always see it because of its draft position. You always want some, but not a ton of, removal for this archetype. Vicious Treachery is ideal because you'll always have permanents lying around that make it efficient, which is what the name of the game is with this deck. However, Slash of Light and Fate of the Sun-Cryst are serviceable and easy to pick up.

White Auracite, while clunky, can remove a permanent and feed the Train if necessary. After blockers are declared, sacrifice it to the train to get lethal damage.

Train can be played outside white decks, but it's tougher to support. Every color has its own two-drop job select equipment, but blue and red also have three-drops that put multiple creatures into play in Dragoon's Wyvern and Mysidian Elder.

I've been experimenting a lot with the format, and this archetype is a moderately hidden gem that, while it's not a deck I'll force, it's definitely in my toolbelt now. I don't know of any Arena Open dates yet, but I'm assuming we will see one for the most popular set ever, and I want access to every tool when it comes time to draft. The format will keep evolving, and it's always nice to find a powerful deck that is underdrafted. I'll keep looking for more, and I'm excited to play more events with one of my favorite ever Limited sets.