Let's Talk About Cards: Shantotto (1-107L)

Hello, and welcome to Let’s Talk About Cards. The hope for these articles is to give players a concentrated insight into the usages of individual cards. This will include discussing a card’s synergies, a card’s role at different stages in the game, non-intuitive rulings or interactions, and counter-strategies.

Picture this:

It’s all coming together. Finally! You’ve brewed long and hard to get your combo to align, and now, it’s happening. You have your opponent on the ropes. You play another Forward, post combat, because the math is simple. Nothing but a few turns left before your army of Forwards takes the game.

During your opponent’s next turn, they attack with all of their Forwards. You let a few slip by, but easily block the smaller ones.

You think to yourself: what kind of a doofus attacks with all of their Forwards, facing certain doom? Why are they doing this?

Then, boom. Your opponent answers, as if reading your mind. With the play of one Backup, all Forwards in the game are gone.

Is this a familiar story? We’ve all been there before, at least once. Shantotto (1-107L) is a card that every player should be desensitized to. Nothing feels worse than climbing back uphill after you’ve over-extended and Dr Shantotto has visited.

Rulings and Interactions

Shantotto is an Earth backup that may not immediately resonate with a player who is reading it for the very first time. At 7 CP, she is one of the most expensive backups in the game. If she is on the field, she gains, and can produce CP of, all elements except Light and Dark.

Her final clause is the backbreaker: When Shantotto enters the field, remove all the Forwards from the game.

“Boardwipes” are common in all TCGs. What make Shantotto special is not simply that she wipes the board clean of Forwards. It’s how she does it, and how uniquely.

Shantotto does not break Forwards. She removes them from the game. This is preferable to breaking a Forward, because a player can no longer retrieve it from their Break Zone. Many Forwards realize their full value when they are put into the Break Zone, and thus they will not get any activations from leaving play altogether.

What makes Shantotto doubly important to recognize and understand is that very few other cards have similar effects in Final Fantasy TCG. Valefor (1-062L) is a Wind option, but it gives opponents the chance to restore their board state. Exdeath (3-100L) is a good comparison, but it is actually quite expensive to perform, moreso than Shantotto. Cagnazzo (3-130R) can clear a board, as discussed previously, but it requires a lot of setup. The closest comparison in Fire might be Vivi (3-017L)’s Firaga or Sabin (4-021L)’s Rising Phoenix. Ice has Zalera, the Death Seraph (3-037H), which is the most conditional of all, and barely makes the cut.

One important thing to remember is that Shantotto’s ability does use the stack. While Characters are played onto the field without use of the stack, players do gain priority to Shantotto’s ability and can respond. We’ll return to this important detail later.

Synergy

Shantotto is a straightforward card. She likes giving the player who cast her Elements, and she hates Forwards. She does, however, really like Monsters. A deck that is heavy on Monsters that turn into Forwards can benefit tremendously from a well-timed Shantotto play.

Beyond Monsters as a whole, there are few cards that add any additional value to Shantotto. Tama (1-111C) can allow a Shantotto play on your opponent’s turn, which is brutal.

The synergy with Shantotto is at a deck level, not an individual card level. Earth deck strategies tend to include large, resilient Forwards that will slowly churn through a game. Cards like Delita (3-088L), Yang (5-095H), and Guy (1-097H) tend to stick around for awhile, avoiding removal and allowing the Earth player to attack while remaining defensive with the keyword Brave.

These beefy Forwards conceal the disciplined approach to victory that the Earth player requires. Having just one or two powerful and defensive Forwards allows Earth players to commit resources to their Backups, and avoid overcommitting on too many Forwards. That makes the Shantotto play much less painful on their side.

Once played, Shantotto is often the fourth or fifth backup and makes casting future cards much easier with her affinity for all elements.

Since Opus 1, most Earth / X decks have played two or three Shantotto. Star Sibyl (5-091H) makes it easier now to run two Shantotto, but the effect is so powerful, it is justifiable to run the full set of three. You want to play Shantotto when your opponent has several forwards, especially if they have overcommitted to their forwards.

Counters

Regular readers of this site will recognize a pair of answers for Shantotto. Y’shtola (5-0068L) and Seven (3-057R) are the only current responses to Shantotto’s ability that makes it fizzle.

There are a few particularly resilient Forwards that don’t care about Shantotto. Hildibrand (4-109H) will dance right back to your hand, and you may feel pretty okay with that if you have Nashu (4-107R) in play.

Eald’narche (5-147L) has similar text. This is a powerful Forward to retain, but it is still going to cost you some considerable resources to play.

Otherwise, when you gain priority from an opponent playing Shantotto, the next thing that happens is going to strip you of all Forwards you control. If there are any abilities you can do, then you might as well do them now. Break things to keep them in the game, if you have something that returns cards from your Break Zone.

Scholar (1-157C) is one way to save a particular Forward you control. Summons cast on your own forwards may be worth the resources, or they may not. It is always worth the thought.

Conclusion

Shantotto’s are inevitable. How you pilot around them is essential for playing this game at a high level. The one thing to remember: do not let a blowout to Shantotto make you feel too bad. Try to learn from it, and think of the timing and how you could have done something differently. We have all been there before.