Drone of Brutality is back from the grave that it never actually makes it to in game. When I first read this, I was surprised and gleeful. Surprised for game design reasons, as the reasoning for the initial Drone ban in 2021 left it in no uncertain terms that Drone broke the game and was hardly a Flesh and Blood card. I briefly discussed my thoughts and agreement on the ban, even though I personally enjoyed the card, here in 2021. I was gleeful on hearing this news because Drone being back makes Merchant heroes and all of their goofy potential playable. Not good, not competitive, but playable.

In retrospect, it was odd that LSS chose to exclude Drone from future printings of Welcome to Rathe without discussing the impact that the card has in draft. In draft or sealed Welcome to Rathe, getting your hands on two Drones of brutality (of any colour) makes an average deck become fantastically powerful. Complement those drones with a couple defense reactions like Unmovable to help make the games go longer, and Drone becomes an almost auto-pilot win condition in all but the highest levels of draft play. Removing the card from future printings of Welcome to Rathe also removes it from limited formats, which is where it is a larger offender in my opinion. However, while Welcome to Rathe draft has not evolved by virtue of being a closed set, the Blitz metagame has due to the introduction of new cards, and that is the key reason given for the unbanning of this card.

Cards are increasingly breaking the base rules of the game. Not to the same degree that Drone did, breaking a “core design tenet” of the game, but they are still breaking previously established formulae. As the design space for cards fills up, and LSS can’t print more cards in the vanilla attack cycle (Raging Onslaught, Brutal Assault, Critical Strike, and Wounding Blow), cards become more complex. That leads to a higher frequency of cards that do more. The recent Codices are a great example. Each one has three to five different effects to resolve. Even the new arrows in Outsiders like Infecting Shot are more complex. They have an on-hit effect and a conditional buff from an Aim counter as well. My point here is not that there is power creep in the game (there is, but that’s a story for a different day – look at Quivers), but that there is an increase in complexity and versatility of the average card. There is also a lot of fun to be had in cards that break the design of Flesh and Blood. 

Illusionists are some of the most popular heroes in the game and have had excellent successes competitively and casually. Summoning dragons as Dromai is something that I think is very far removed from the basic design of the game, but works well and is fun. Permanents as a whole work against the basic design of the game. James White has stated that starting with your equipment and then using it throughout the game works to evoke the idea of becoming fatigued, tired, and weary as a battle continues on. By developing permanents on the board in the form of Items, Allies, or Auras opposes this idea. But I think it can be a good opposition when applied correctly, which it generally has been. The question that remains now is: Has the standard for “game-breaking” changed enough for Drone to work again? I’m curious to find out.

The logic laid out this time states that Blitz is such a fast format that slower decks could use some more tools. Drone is one of these tools that LSS believe can be brought back without being “problematic”. There is always a tension in Blitz due to the lack of sideboard. Midrange and lighter control decks that usually want to run some key defense reactions like Sink Below or Fate Forseen are heavily punished due to the existence of Kano’s arcane damage. This leads these decks to lean more aggressive and creates an arms race. That arms race has led to a Blitz ecosystem that many people call a “two-turn format”. Because of this, I’m not sure that reintroducing Drone into the system will make a significant difference.

There are three possibilities that I can see happening from a Drone reintroduction, not all of which can or will happen immediately: it has small impacts for mainstream decks, it creates a new staple to put in decks, or it only impacts casual play and oddball decks like my Merchants. Firstly, there could b little impact outside of a couple of fringe decks getting marginal improvements but not making a big splash. Chief among these is likely Ira, who can make a dangerous two-card hand from Drone. One Kodachi swing and the ability-buffed Drone is eight damage with awkward breakpoints. This is extra dangerous in the late game. The overall question is whether games will actually make it to that late game state? Against aggressive decks like Dash and Chane, Ira can definitely get there through the use of Flik Flak. However, against Kano the game will be forced to end earlier. Which requires Ira to build more aggressively, which reduces the strength of adding Drone to the deck in the first place. Perhaps this is a meta call, or perhaps this remains as a sleeping dragon until Kano inevitably hits Living Legend status.

The second possibility is that Drone becomes a powerful element in Blitz and nearly every deck is required to run a few copies to be able to continue blocking in what would otherwise be a fatigue state. I don’t think this is a particularly desirable situation because that is one of the few stalemate situations that can exist in this game. Also, it was the reason Drone was banned initially. With the continued existence of Kano in the format, I don’t see this being an immediate concern. That being said, Kano looks like he is next to hit Living Legend in Blitz, so the options for deckbuilding, and the inclusion of defense reactions, may be blown wide open soon enough.

The final option is that Drone just doesn’t matter at all and is relegated for use in decks that are prone to fatigue at the best of times. Decks like Shiyana, Genis, or Kavdaen are the three main contenders for this. These decks really need something like this to be even a touch more viable. In their current forms, it is difficult to close out games against an opponent who knows how easy it is to fatigue these heroes because of their lack of a permanent weapon or class benefits. Classes that have weapons with a power value will always be able to present damage just by pitching a card. Classes that have support weapons (bows, staffs, orbs or scepters), have other ways of avoiding fatigue, either by building a board state or having access to readily-available and effective combos. Our Generic-limited heroes listed above have no such luxuries. However, with Drone back, they can build a weapon of their own, within their deck, that they can swing to avoid fatigue.

I think that there will be a fun Armory-level Kavdaen deck that can come from this advent. With a suite of defensive cards to survive, a high number of blues to regularly trigger his hero ability, and some form of combo threat with potions, a two-cost attack of choice (Surging Militia, Demolition Crew, or Command and Conquer). Here is a very basic list that focuses on a core of defensive cards and life gain, designed to whittle down your opponent with Kavdaen’s hero ability. Game closing options include looping Drones for fatigue, Last Ditch Effort, and swinging big with a Demolition Crew and Pummel. But if you want to have a bit more fun with it, Mage Master Boots and Tome of Fyendal is the first combo I would add. Additionally, Heart of Fyendal is great in this list, but I have excluded it for price reasons. Overall, I think that the reintroduction of Drone will eventually be interesting to Blitz. But for now, I think that Kano’s continued threat will make it challenging to use to its full potential. 

As a post-script: I don’t think that the removal of Drone from some Welcome to Rathe printings and then legalizing it again is a problem. As a rare, it is still much more plentiful than any Majestic-rarity card in FaB. Additionally, even with its reduced availability, it is still much more available than any Crucible of War rare, simply due to Welcome to Rathe’s higher print run.