Taking a Look Round the Table at the Casual and Competitive Future of Flesh and Blood
By Dimos It’s been a bit since Round the Table came out, and introduced us all to a new type of Flesh and Blood Product. I have been quite impressed with it, all in all. This is the first official support that we’ve seen for the Ultimate Pit Fight format. Three of the four of the decks feel new and unique, and all four of the decks introduce new mechanics. I find it difficult to evaluate the balance of this set because of how variable it is based on player sentiment from table to table. It is clear that Melody’s deck cannot be used as a viable Blitz deck, but that doesn’t mean that it is underpowered for playing in UPF. However, the balance of this set is very secondary, the thing I have noticed first and foremost is the sheer amount of fun it provides. It certainly marries Flesh and Blood with the board game experience more effectively than the Classic Battles set did, while still providing ease of access for newer players. With this said, I do think that there should be at least one experienced player around the table who can help direct the flow of the game. A direct explanation of the patterns and timing of attacking, blocking and drawing your next hand goes a long way to ensuring that no one is accidentally or undeservedly ganged up on. The more experienced player is probably best suited to play the role of Brevant or Melody, as those decks can directly enable or aide other players if the balance of attacks around the table starts to become challenging for a single player. The main purpose of this article is to take a deeper dive into a bit of the philosophy and direction of casual and competitive FaB. I think Round the Table is a great window into the future of casual FaB, and the changes that have been seen elsewhere in the game tell us about the future of semi-competitive FaB. There is a lot of great stuff in the Round the Table box, including the box itself. The price is quite accessible if split across four decks for four players. It still comes out as more expensive than the average board game, but not by a tonne. The fact that majestic cards come as pairs (a Blitz or UPF playset) rather than the singletons found in the Classic Battles set is a massive improvement for accessibility for those who want to use the cards in this box set in the wider world of Flesh and Blood. These improvements in casual accessibility are all in stark contrast to one of the largest anti-casual steps FaB has taken recently: making Bright Lights’ adult heroes - Teklovossen, Esteemed Magnate, Dash I/O, and Max “The Hype” Nitro – all Majestic-rarity cards. Previously, any draftable hero had an adult token, not an adult Majestic. While we had seen some Majestic-rarity heroes in the past, they were the exception or non-competitive (except Bravo, Star of the Show, but I think everyone agrees that one was a bit of an error). The appearance rates on the Bright Lights heroes are not confirmed, but as best as I can tell, you get one of them every couple of boxes. This means that to get an adult hero with which to play with a slightly-upgraded sealed deck or an amalgam of draft decks you probably have to buy multiple cases of product or navigate the singles market for cards. This stings for me in particular since combining some draft decks is how I got drawn deep into the game. I had a starter deck previously, but being able to construct my own Bravo deck from my previous draft decks made it feel like my deck, rather than a deck. Having Bravo, Showstopper as the reverse side to my young Bravo token helped set that in motion for me. At this time, I was entirely disconnected from the singles market for any card game. I am a big fan of the singles market for cards (there is a reason I write for Red Riot Games, who offer consistently affordable singles). The secondary market provides a very efficient pathway for allowing people to play the game without lottery elements, but it also requires a high level of involvement with the game. I have dabbled in many card games, but the only one I have ever bought singles for is FaB. If one of those previous card games had made a piece necessary to begin the “full” game as difficult to find as the new adult heroes, I would have lost interest in the game. As a player who only had a shallow knowledge of these games, I wouldn’t have known that no one really cares if you use a young token as a replacement. I think the sheer amount of times this question is asked in new player groups or webpages is telling of how much information we take for granted as invested players. I cannot speak for everyone, but I really do think that Majestic rarity adult heroes are a large step backwards for integrating players into FaB. These newer players may not know enough to ask if they can use the functionally-equivalent young heroes at a Classic Constructed armory event, and it just creates a very unnecessary barrier to being able to join in. I wonder if this change is representative of a continuing divide between casual and competitive FaB? Adult formats are for hardcore and competitive players who have to either buy a lot of product or navigate the singles market, while all young hero formats are for casual players who are buying products like Blitz starter decks and Round the Table. This leaves limited play, like draft and sealed, as the only bridge between these two sides at Skirmish and Pre-release events. Will Blitz remain as a competitive format at all? We are seeing it phased out of the World Championships, and it is being replaced as the premier second-chance event at many big organized play meccas. These replacements are usually secondary Classic Constructed tournaments, draft events (likely due to the stated goal of delivering more draftable sets), or even the brand-new adult-hero focused Living Legend format. I’m not sure if this renewed format diversity is a result of the games growth or a sign that Blitz is headed to a permanent life at the kitchen table. If Blitz is phased out from being competitive at all, will that leave young heroes as purely casual options, and enshrine the now-harder-to-source adult heroes as tools only for those serious players? I’m hoping that these changes (like the adult heroes) are just LSS trying out a couple of things in an exploratory fashion, and will not be the permanent path forward. I think that it is important to keep crossover and interplay between casual and competitive FaB. I know it’s already jarring to go into a new store for an Armory and immediately realise that it was not the vibe you thought it was, whether it is extremely competitive or extremely casual. Both can be very polarizing experiences. I think things like the social play kits are interesting new touches. I hope that stores begin to run one more competitively-slanted armory and one social play event each week rather than just choosing one avenue. However, that comes at a cost of floor space, and requires a community robust and large enough to fill both events. As successful as FaB has been, it is still very much an underdog in trying to get stores to dedicate time and resources to run events and build communities for it.
A Bright Future for Mechanologists under Bright Lights
By Dimos In Bright Lights, Flesh and Blood’s first single-class set, I was pleasantly surprised to see the variety of experiences available in limited formats. Having now played both sealed and draft with Bright Lights, I found myself enjoying playing Mechanologist heroes in ways that I previously had not. The class had historically not captured my imagination, but I think those days are over. I’m now excited to play Mech in both limited and constructed formats for the first time ever. Today we’re going to be talking through an overview of all the newness that Bright Lights brings to draft, sealed, Classic Constructed, and a bit of Blitz. In both draft and sealed, I was forced to answer a question that Flesh and Blood had never posed to me previously: Which hero and which weapon do you want to play? Normally FaB asks you which class you want to play. In my few forays into Bright Lights, I found myself largely limited to choosing between Teklovossen and Maxx as I was without significantly powerful items in both sealed and draft. Even after deciding on the vast majority of my forty cards, I didn’t know who to play. In all previous FaB experiences, I normally knew which hero I would be playing after choosing less than 20% of my card pool. Under Bright Lights, I was stuck wondering if I should play Maxx to pressure my opponents with Banksy and some potent Boost cards, or if I should play Teklovossen and take the game slow while upgrading Teklo Leveler. Ultimately, I think the correct answer for me in one scenario was to actually play Maxx with a Teklo Leveler and a couple of instant-speed Evos to get it online. That wasn’t what I did (I played using Banksy) but the fact that it was a meaningful option was something that I loved as a new experience. I have been told by avid drafters of other card games that Bright Lights is the first set that feels like it has the flexibility of other draft-oriented games. Seeing that through a FaB lens was a great initial experience, and if you have not drafted or cracked a sealed pool for this set, I highly recommend it. Moving onto the constructed side of the game, I think that there are a lot of new tools for old and new Mechanologists to use. Previously, the class had been about balancing Boost cards against items. However, this mostly happened in sideboarding and in deck list decisions rather than in-game decisions. Now with the advent of new heroes and the new Evo card type, there are more axes for Mechanologists to rotate around. With a new set of options comes new deckbuilding choices to make, including which hero to use. Never before have we had this deep of a pool of heroes within a single class. While each hero has their own preference of cards, their sideboard options are extremely wide. This is because the Mech class has a massive breadth of options. They can add more Boost cards to become some of the most aggressive heroes in the game. They can add items that allow them to do everything from building the best late-game in FaB (Induction Chamber and Plasma Purifier) to shutting down specific strategies (Signal Jammer). They can now add Evos to bolster their armor and unlock uniquely powerful attacks like War Machine, Terminator Tank, or Annihilator Engine. Most importantly, they can mix all of these strategies together and move from one to the other within the same deck list. No other class in this game can move from pure aggression to a control deck (while maintaining high block values) as easily as Mechanologists can. Before we talk about the shiny new heroes, I want to polish some of the old brass cogs. A lot of these new cards can go into old Mechanologist decks. Classic Dash will still be very strong, as her ability is always going to allow her to start with the best item in her deck on the board, which should always represent a minimum of six points of value (see: Teklo Pounder). There are some interesting sideboard options for her, with cards like Boom Grenade allowing her alternative avenues to set up for big blowout turns, like she used to do with Teklo Core. Data Doll is loving all the new zero- and one-cost boost cards like Expedite and MetEx to help play out items, but still significantly struggles against anyone with armour or disruptive effects. It’s an absolute shame that Data Doll can’t use Symbiosis Shot, as I think that would really help with the problems of only having three intellect. The main thing that interests me is that there may now be enough cards to run a redline engine for any Mech hero. We can really push the motor to its breaking point by running exclusively zero- and one-cost boost cards, Maximum Velocity, Bios Update, and the best-of-the-best items (Teklo Pounder and Teklo Core). The deck will absolutely be susceptible to fatigue strategies, but I think it has significant potential to catch people off guard. Having enough set-up items, and High Octane or Hanabi Blaster shenanigans should allow the deck to punch through people trying to improvise a fatigue strategy against it, while still being able to race more aggressive decks. I doubt this will be the premier Mech deck in the format, but it certainly looks like a fun series of options to play around with. Looking at the newest and shiniest toys, I want to talk about the man who started it all in Metrix. Teklovossen seems to be the biggest puzzle of the new set, since he can play along any of the Mech pathways. There are currently options to build him aggressively, focusing on extracting value from Boosted Evos, or very slowly and defensively to guarantee enough time to set up on his own terms. Ultimately, I think where he ends up falling on this continuum will be decided by which other decks are strong at any given time. I’m also interested to see which weapon he ends up preferring. While Teklo Leveler is very strong, I wonder if that is what you want to be doing when you could be playing Evo upgrade cards. Terminator Tank or War Machine at their max power with a single blue are extremely efficient, and pitching a second card to shoot Teklo Leveler seems lackluster in comparison. In the early and mid game, Teklovossen often finds himself pitching five resources to activate his ability and play an Evo Sentry equipment as an instant. This gives him an opportunity to use Teklo Plasma Pistol to shoot for an extra two damage with that resource. Maybe that is more useful than a weapon that costs three resources at that same point. Or maybe Teklovossen just becomes the next ultra-fatigue deck and runs nothing but defense reactions, Oasis Respite, Scrap cards, and high-blocking Evos. While I think that this is the least interesting of his builds, I do think it may be something that other heroes will need to have an answer for eventually. He is certainly the hero that I will be funneling most of my interest towards, and I hope that as time goes on his deck and techniques continue to be dynamic and interesting. I’m sure that the existence of Singularity also has many other people champing at the bit to test things out. I’m also quite interested to see how Teklovossen’s deck changes in Blitz. I fear he may fall into the quagmire of most other set-up decks in the format. It becomes apparent for many decks that the lower life totals don’t provide the time necessary to upgrade your board. Maybe this is where a Boost-heavy version of the deck shines, seeking to get Evos out as quickly as possible. This would let you play Singularity (which is probably just an automatic win in Blitz) or to simply convert boosted cards to armour blocks for some incremental value. Moving on, Dash I/O has an extremely unique ability, and the potential to have a five-card hand each turn. I think this deck is rife with potential for shenanigans and some really interesting strategies and tricks. The fact that items cannot block in Flesh and Blood (and the massive liability that provides) is probably the only reason why this deck isn’t crazy right out of the gate. I think it has the potential to get there, with some very interesting paths to explore. System Reset can be a single card that can charge up Symbiosis Shot with up to twelve points of damage. More obvious tricks like using Boom Grenade as an attack reaction in aggressive decks will certainly see their time in the sun, but I’m really curious about the weirder items in the set. In particular, I think that the Backup Protocol cards show a lot of potential. Plume of Evergrowth was my favourite card in Tales of Aria draft because it turned your worst blue into the best card in your graveyard. Likewise, the Backup Protocols let you do something very similar. Recycling a Pulsewave Harpoon on demand when your opponent thinks they’re safe to hit you with a set-up combo turn can be backbreaking. Regarding new Dash, I think I’ll stick to limited formats where I can play with my new favourite hero art in Dash Database, as I don’t see myself being passionate about figuring out Dash I/O in Classic Constructed. However, I think that many other people have a passion for the deck and the most interesting things from Bright Lights will come from their efforts with her. Finally, we come to Maxx. I don’t think he has anything super unique or earth-shattering about him, other than possibly being a more efficient avenue for existing Mech strategies. He makes good use of the new Crank items, as Banksy can allow him to apply pressure with them across multiple turns. He also plays very well with all of the Hyper Driver synergy from both Bright Lights and Dynasty. His ability to use cards like Gas Up to their fullest potential makes his aggressive potential immense as well. Gas Up is a card that looks a lot like Belittle to me. Gas up represents one resource for four damage and go again, while Belittle represents one for three. Gas Up can fetch a Hyper Driver from the banished zone, which will represent three resources across three turns while Belittle can fetch a blue Minnowism (its most common usage) to represent three resources on the same turn. While Belittle is probably better due to more flexibility in game and in deck building, it is one of the strongest cards in FaB and is banned for a reason. I would gladly take a marginally-worse Belittle in a lot of my decks. I really do think that Hyper Drivers with Gas Up (and to a lesser extent Re-Charge!) are the main reason to play Maxx. And while you’re playing Hyper Drivers, why not have fun with one of the craziest combos in the game in the form of High Octane and Nitro Mechanoid? Nitro Mechanoid can attack more than once per turn if you have excess action points, and High Octane does exactly that. In addition to being super fun to build, it’s a great way to overcome fatigue against decks that try to just block out Boosting Mechs. At the end of the day, and at the end of each day where I play with Bright Lights cards, I am very happy that the Mechanologist-only set has managed to capture my interest and enjoyment as a non-Mech player. I think it’s great that LSS has managed to do this and I have a renewed faith in the fun that they can provide for single-class sets in the future. I do have my qualms with the set (Majestic-rarity heroes will be discussed next week), but I’m having a lot of fun with it. My enduring question is whether or not this will change the Classic Constructed landscape at all, or if that will only have life breathed into it when old heroes like Lexi and Iyslander rotate through the Living Legend system. I know it is very early, but my initial impression is that there is a very high chance that classic Dash may get a couple of marginal upgrades but otherwise remain the dominant Mechanologist. This would leave little room for new specialists like Maxx and Teklovossen to come in with their Hyper Driver and Evo toys in a competitive manner, which would be a shame.
Considering Charge: Exploring Alternative Resource Mechanics in Flesh and Blood
By Dimos Last week we took a dive into the alternative resources that make Dromai a strong hero in Flesh and Blood. This week we are looking at the opposite side of the alternative resource coin: Boltyn. He has been historically plagued by needing a card each and every turn to Charge in order to make him operational. Some commentators have likened this to a perpetual Intellect penalty, like Data Doll. I don’t quite agree with this evaluation, but Boltyn definitely feels short changed in the cards-per-turn economy. Let’s take a look under the hood of Boltyn’s unique resources and see how the numbers shake out. Boltyn’s resource math is much simpler, or at least has fewer variables, than Dromais. Each card in his soul represents either one instance of Go Again (worth about 1.5 points of value), or one damage (from Beacon of Victory). This is the only alternative resource he can move from turn to turn, unlike Dromai who can move all of her resources across turns. Additionally, Boltyn’s ability to use multiple resources carried over from previous turns effectively is heavily limited. Dromai naturally carries over the value of each existing dragon, whereas Boltyn can only give each attack Go Again once per turn. Add in the requirement that one card go to Charging for the turn, and Boltyn’s options grow thinner. With Dromai’s ash having a value of nearly two resources for each token, and dragons holding their combined attack and health value, Dromai has sticking power across turns. The buffs that Boltyn receives from having Charged in a single turn are generally restricted to the text on his cards (and therefore limited to what is in his hand at any time). The exception to this is his conditional power buff, which struggles to provide more than two points of value on a turn where it is active. His cards do become much more powerful after he has charged, threatening card draws, intense amounts of damage, or extreme resource efficiency. What this results in is an alternative resource system that ends up almost as binary options: Do I have a card to charge this turn, and if so, do I have enough soul to unlock the full text of the cards in this individual hand? The only saving grace of Boltyn having to operate within these limitations is Beacon of Victory’s ability to search for any card he would want. But even this power is still largely limited to a single turn. The addition of Bannerets has given some incidental value to Boltyn’s charging, making them a strong value proposition when things line up. However, the fact that he is limited so severely by not effectively carrying resources across turns, while those resources also cost a card from hand each turn, make it a challenge for him to be as consistently powerful as Dromai. With that said, he does have much more explosive potential, albeit exclusively through the use of Lumina Ascension and V of the Vanguard. Now that we have looked at the difference between Dromai and Boltyn’s resources, we can see the recurring theme that being able to move power across turns is much stronger, as it allows for repeated presentation of value. Consider a brief thought experiment: What if Dromai had to put a card from hand face down under each dragon she made (except Aether Ashwings), just like Boltyn has to do to charge? Let’s also assume that each dragon now has a reduced resource cost. The one-cost dragons, which are generally lauded as being “ash neutral” would make sense to cost zero in this scenario, as the red card you normally pitch to pay for them and generate the ash is now under our dragon. Putting a card under the dragon instead of ash leads to very similar outcomes within an individual turn. However, it makes it much harder for Dromai to set anything up or build a large board to snowball the game. She loses the ability to ever summon three dragons in a turn, and she would find herself fatiguing very quickly instead of pitching strong red cards to come up in a second deck cycle. She also loses the ability to stockpile Ash for back-to-back power turns. The above scenario is worse for Dromai in nearly every way. In a lot of ways, this is what Boltyn has to deal with through his Charge and soul mechanics. Consider a corollary thought experiment where Boltyn adds a token card to his soul every time he pitches a yellow card. He begins to feel a lot more like Dromai, and he feels so much smoother. I think there is a “walk a mile in others’ shoes” lesson to be had here. Having played these modified heroes across my kitchen table, it shows how much impact small design changes can have. As the above scenario highlights, the fact that Boltyn loses a card each and every turn stings and can hamper eventual payoff turns. While combo pieces and in-turn investments are very crucial for tide-shifting turns, you don’t want to make that investment every turn. Energy Potion is one of my favourite cards in this game, but I acknowledge that it is a very situational card that exists to solve specific problems and go over the top in certain matchups. But no one wants to play an Energy Potion each and every turn to power their deck’s engine. Sometimes that’s what Charging a card feels like, but it is almost never what pitching a card to make an Ash token feels like. Because of the design-based nature of this alternative resource tension, I’m not sure that any amount of buffs to Boltyn (through Bannerets or other incremental means) will solve this issue. He can certainly become an insanely powerful hero through the Ranger treatment, by printing enough standalone power cards to overcome the weakness of his alternative resources. Give him Twomina Ascension, which can just be a fourth, fifth, and sixth copy of Lumina Ascension in his deck, he would become a very powerful hero. Overall, I think that ash as an alternative resource is a much more elegant and flexible resource system than soul, and it is no surprise that Dromai is a more powerful hero than Boltyn because of this flexibility. I haven’t talked much about the design elements of ash against soul, but it is the multi-turn design, and token nature of ash that allows it to function so much more smoothly across a dynamic game, with a constantly evolving strategy, than soul can. Boltyn basically has to commit to his strategy when choosing which weapons he presents: a build-up to a one-turn killer combo with Cintari Sabres, or a continuously aggressive strategy with Raydn. From a rules perspective, there are some elements of ash that can be confusing or unintuitive for those without a judge certification. The main example of this is the creation of ash from Dromai’s ability being too late to use as a target for a dragon being made, but not too late to use to make an Ashwing from Rake the Embers. However, once a player understands this odd interaction, the smoothness of the ash mechanic returns and becomes a fun management puzzle throughout the game for Dromai players.
Ash Analysis: Exploring Alternative Resource Mechanics in Flesh and Blood
By Dimos In Flesh and Blood, there are three main resources that you use each turn: the cards in your hand, your action point(s), and the resources generated by pitching cards. There are also peripheral resources like life, the number of cards remaining in your deck, and your usage of equipment. Juggling all of these throughout the course of a game is often challenging enough without introducing more complex management mechanics. Currently, there are four heroes who exemplify this in game. Levia has to manage her graveyard for a high density of six-power attacks, Dromai has to manage her ash, and Boltyn and Prism, Awakener of Sol both have to manage their souls. Levia’s management changes as the game ebbs and flows depending on what hand she draws. Prism’s management is quite binary – if there is a single card in her soul, she can generally do what she wants. Many of the uses of her soul rely on a card having been put into her soul, usually resulting in a net-zero scenario. Boltyn and Dromai, however, have much deeper management mechanics in my opinion. This pair of articles will dissect how these bankable, usable resources have similarities and differences, and why ash is an inherently stronger mechanic. Ash being a stronger alternative resource mechanic is also part of the reason why I think Dromai has seen so much more success than Boltyn, as I will discuss next week. For today, we’ll take a dive into the numbers behind Dromai’s dragons and ash. In order to evaluate the differences between these two resource mechanics, we have to take a look at some of the numbers. We’ll start with Dromai and ash. The easy math on ash is that it should be worth about two points of value. Ideally one wants to pitch blue cards, generating three resources, instead of red cards, which generate one resource and an ash. Therefore, in order for one resource and an ash to be worth three resources, an ash should be worth two resources. But the great thing about ash is that it lasts until it is used, functioning almost as a more restrictive Energy Potion. Being able to develop a permanent board state for later use is generally a good tool to have in this game, as I’ve discussed previously. Moving on to Dromai’s dragons, which are all permanents (stay in play until they’re killed), have Phantasm, a health value, an attack value, and usually have Go Again. Phantasm generally allows a card to get two more points of value than would normally be allowed. Comparing Brutal Assault and Enigma Chimera shows us a clear example of this in its base form. Each dragon’s health value effectively represents damage that is being redirected from Dromai to the dragon, functioning as life gain (unless Phantasm is triggered). Each dragon’s attack represents stacking damage each turn since Go Again is so readily available to them via Dromai’s ability. This leads us to three different scenarios for our dragon math: a dragon is destroyed by Phantasm, a dragon is killed by opposing damage next turn, or a dragon is let to live for two or more turns. Let’s examine two different dragons for this purpose: Azvolai and Kyloria. Azvolai costs one card and one ash to play. In our first scenario, you receive one card from your opponent if it is popped by Phantasm. When this happens, you are now down an ash but otherwise even. If Azvolai is allowed to attack, it will deal three damage, and demand three damage to kill, effectively being worth six points of value from a single card and an ash (great value!), and it has Go Again, allowing you to extend that value further. The six points of value mentioned above assumes that you have nothing to use your Go Again action point on and is assuming your opponent has exactly three damage with Go Again on their next turn. It is worth more if they do not have that perfectly efficient play. If Azvolai is left to survive for anything more than one turn, it becomes worth an additional three points every turn and quickly gets out of hand. Kyloria costs one resource, one card, and an ash. However, if you pitch a red card, Dromai’s ability makes an ash, meaning Kyloria usually costs exactly two cards. For those two cards, you get either one card to trigger Phantasm (a net negative), six points of value at minimum between its attack and health (not terrible), or a continuously scaling value of four damage and potentially drawing a card every turn (fantastic once again). This math can get even better when you factor in the Phantasm-avoiding dragons like Miragai or Cromai. In short, all of Dromai’s dragons can create board states which easily spiral out of control unless the opponent has specific and efficient ways to deal with them. This is also thanks to the Luminaris-like effect of Dromai’s hero text. All of this value advantage comes from the fact that ash and dragons both have the potential to last multiple turns. This multi-turn value that oftentimes provides efficiency the first turn that it is played is a unique advantage for Dromai and allows her to compete at the top of the FaB meta right now. Without a six-power attack to trigger Phantasm, each of Dromai’s dragons becomes a good standalone play within any given turn cycle and quickly becomes some of the most efficient value-based plays in the game if they remain unanswered. The drawback of Phantasm is very real for Dromai, as it also removes Go Again from her dragons when triggered, shortening the turn and reducing the value of that cycle. However, if Dromai can manage to set up a turn where she can create three dragons, even if Phantasm is triggered, her remaining dragons still require answers from the opponent. Any time I am playing Dromai and I have a three dragon turn, which usually happens about once a game, even if Phantasm is triggered on one of them, I am happy having two bodies still on the board. This often nullifies my opponents entire next turn, leaving the door open for a strong play from me next turn. Initially, I did not think that Dromai’s playstyle would appeal to me in constructed formats, as it seems somewhat antithetical to the direct combat and back-and-forth elements of Flesh and Blood. However, introducing the alternative resource mechanic and an entirely new axis on which to evaluate card value have made it an enjoyable deck for me to play. I recommend trying her out if you never have before, if only to learn some good tricks against her. With all of this said, I do think that Dromai does have many dull matchups that frequently feel like non-games because she can have such a large advantage against classes without natural Go Again who do not use six-power attacks as resource cards. Next week, we will look at the thankfully-simpler math behind Boltyn Charging his soul and compare these two resource systems. As a spoiler, I will say that I think Dromai’s ash and dragons are stronger because they last across multiple turns, whereas Boltyn struggles to carry any earned advantage between turns. We’ll also consider how slight tweaks to the design of these mechanics can radically change how they operate.
Grand Archive Store Championships
As we wind down to our final days of the current set of Grand archive, our fire champion makes what could be the last run of the fire Lorrain deck. Who better to show off how strong this character is than our very own top 8 reginal placing player Alessandro Venditti!!!! Here is his event winning deck https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/cSYGJGOx687JAtG1YApG
Grand Archive Regionals Results
We are happy to have had the privilege to host the first regionals in Canada. With that said there were 113 players in this event. Making it the largest event to date for Grand Archive in person! We hope to see more events in the coming months and years. We also hope to put on our own events at these events and have the strongest players show up! Here is your top 8 Deck List from this event 1st: Alex Chong https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/OUSvJvbnKKyLRbohrjcF 2nd: Stephen Man https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/us8OwrANmhLihoJVL98J 3rd: Eason Chen https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/doBeLWEITXV4wTnpTV2M Matthew Vo 4th https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/7EqHLUN9l4dMnapuhmNm Cem Mtlu 5th https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/1seoT90iadcZzs9DdxLu Richard Ng 6th https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/fJz3yMUf6BlcQUcNIJtA Alessandro Venditti 7th https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/cSYGJGOx687JAtG1YApG Richard Dinger 8th https://build.silvie.org/@Dezmu/1syqY1d7iJmNhaw88Coy Meta Break Down