by Red Riot Games CA

By: Yuki Lee Bender

Ever since Michael Hamilton took down US Nationals and the World Championship with his attack action focused Iyslander list, it has been a deck on everybody’s radar. However, Iyslander might also be one of the most challenging decks to play that Flesh and Blood has ever seen, and can be quite punishing if the pilot makes too many mistakes. Additionally, because the deck is mostly made of blues and almost all the blues are cards you sometimes want to play, there are many microdecisions that can all add up over the course of the game. Only in the hands of a true master can Iyslander really dominate and reach her full potential. 

 

There are still so many little tricks to learn with a deck like Iyslander, but I consider myself a very experienced Iyslander pilot and have managed to take her to a top 4 finish at Canadian Nationals 2022 and top 64 finish at Worlds and would like to help you improve your game. I hope this article can help both new and highly experienced players improve with the ice queen herself. Many of the pitfalls in this article I have seen frequently even amongst top level player’s tournament games.

While Iyslander has lost Hypothermia and Amulet of Ice in the recent banned and suspended announcement, I believe she will still be a strong contender going forward. 

 

Maximize the value of your hands.

Michael Hamilton is well known for promoting the idea of maximizing the value of every hand in order to win turn cycles. The idea here is simple, you want to use your hand in the way that maximizes total damage dealt + total damage prevented. For example, if you consider the following hand and ignore arsenaling:

 

Red Fyendal’s Fighting Spirit, Blue Aether Hail, Blue Polar Blast, Blue Brothers in Arms

You can block for 9 and gain a life for a total of 10 points, or you block for 5 and attack for 7 and gain 1 life for a total of 13 points of value. You should take the second option as it is the higher value play, and usually when you maximize value in this way you are giving yourself the best chances of winning. This idea can get tricky to execute when you start factoring in unknowns or try to figure out the value of on hits, but this idea is the foundation of the Iyslander deck and underpins all the other ideas in this article so I wanted to briefly introduce it. A good starting baseline is a card is worth 3 points, although in constructed many cards may be worth even more than that. If you are curious to learn more about this concept, Michael and Roger have talked about it extensively on their podcast.

 

Play your reds

This might sound obvious, but generally attacking is much more efficient than blocking. A Fyendal’s Fighting Spirit and a Polar Blast represent 5 points on defense but 8 points on offense, so you pretty much always want to be playing them out instead of defending with them. This idea follows directly from the previous point about maximizing the value of your hands.

However, what might be less obvious is that this idea is so important that if I have two reds in hand I’m pretty happy just playing one and arsenaling the second one. Iyslander doesn’t have that many reds in deck so you really want to try to make sure you are utilizing them as much as possible. Iyslander’s ability might let you play blues from arsenal, but as we will discuss next, that’s often not the most efficient play. Unless there’s a really key disruptive card like Channel Lake Frigid against an aggressive deck that you want to get in arsenal, you are probably better off just arsenaling a good red. This help ensures that you can have an efficient proactive play on as many turns of the game as possible.

Of course, there will be exceptions where you need to block a particularly threatening on hit, or you simply have too many reds to play them all, but in general you really want to try playing your reds more often than not. 

 

Don’t over prioritize playing and arsenaling blues

Playing a blue from arsenal and activating Waning Moon on your opponent’s turn is a bread and butter play for Iyslander, but that doesn’t mean you have to do this every turn. One of the easiest traps to fall in to as Iyslander, that I see many well known players make, is trying to play a blue from arsenal too often. Even if you consider playing an “efficient” blue like Aether Hail you are spending two cards to deal 5 damage and give a frostbite which is pretty below rate unless your frostbite is actually preventing your opponent from dealing damage. Additionally, if your opponent has extra resources floating or cards in hand that they couldn’t use otherwise, you may be getting even less than 5 points of value from this play. As a result often just blocking with those two cards for 6 is better and you shouldn’t be afraid to do this.

One of the places this comes up most often is in the Oldhim matchup where Iyslanders will sometimes play blues when Oldhim is holding on to two cards after presenting an attack. Even if they are holding a blue and a pummel, you are probably giving them the opportunity to prevent 3, damage with their blue and arsenal the pummel meaning you traded 2 cards for 1 card and 2 damage. Not a great deal for you. The same reasoning also applies to if they have a card in hand and an arsenal, or two extra resources floating, you are probably losing out on this exchange.

Instead, if the opponent only has one card left and none floating, the play gets a lot closer since you can potentially keep them off arsenal or force them to take the full amount of damage for it. Sometimes an attack reaction like Pummel is particularly difficult to play around and using your arsenal to get information by seeing how much they pitch can be valuable, but be careful not to lose too much value by playing into their extra cards. In a similar vein, Cold Snap and Polar Blast can often be better played earlier in the chain against decks that go wide as it helps you effectively plan your hand.

Some good rules of thumb to make sure you are getting full value out of arsenal are:

• Reds are almost always more efficient arsenals then blues
• Don’t forget that playing your arsenal is two cards, the card in arsenal and the card you pitch. Polar Blast and Cold Snap cost 1 card.
• Count how much damage you will be doing after your opponent’s extra resources and compare it to the damage you could prevent by blocking instead. You mostly want to play your arsenal when it’s the higher value play.
• It’s okay not to have an arsenal. Often I’m pretty happy to just block with 3 block blues like Aether Hail, because 2 cards for 5 damage and a frostbite is not fantastic.
• Polar Blast and Coldsnap are almost always better placed in arsenal than used to block for 2 as they represent 3 damage and a frostbite.
• Wait to see if you can get value out of your frostbite. If you can stop an extra Teklo Pistol shot or Rosetta Thorn swing, or at least force them to use a tunic counter, the play is much more attractive. You also sometimes get extra value by making your opponent try and play around your potential disruption for longer.
• If playing your arsenal isn’t efficient this turn, you can just leave the card in arsenal and use the card you would have pitched to block instead. I often find myself waiting multiple turns for an opportunity to get value out of my arsenal.
• Try to line up your 2 cost blues with your tunic counter, as it makes your tunic worth 3 damage thanks to Waning Moon.
• Insidious Chill is a big commitment and usually needs at least two activations to pay off. Carefully consider how many additional turns you expect the game to go and how many premium fuse cards you have left before committing it to arsenal.

 

Account for on hits and disruption

Iyslander is a deck that often wants to block with exactly one to two cards and keep the remaining cards to play, so it’s very important to be aware of what kind of disruption and on hits a deck is likely to be presenting you with, and to block in a way that helps account for that. Essentially, you want to make sure you always have an efficient play and you want to avoid being unable to play your reds due to your opponent’s disruption or on hits.

Against go wide decks like Briar, Dash and Fai if you know you only want to block with one or two cards, a common strategy is to wait until later in the chain to start blocking to play around Pulsewave Harpoon or Snatch. You don’t want to be stuck choosing between letting snatch hit or playing your red, and if you hold three cards until Dash’s 3rd boost card you can most likely protect the card you want to play.

Against a deck like Oldhim or Bravo you want to try to find effective ways to play around Pummel so that you aren’t wasting a card if they don’t have it, but you still have an efficient play that uses all your cards if they do have it. Arsenaling reds naturally helps against pummel, as you can save two blues, one to pitch and one to arsenal and if they have pummel you just forgo your arsenal that turn. Alternatively you can keep a red and a blue in hand and if there is no pummel simply play the red from hand, or if you get pummeled discard the red and play the red from arsenal. Arsenaling a 0 cost blue like Energy Potion, Amulet of Ice or a cantrip like Polar Blast can also help you effectively play around pummel by allowing you to keep two blues and a red and either arsenal or discard the second blue. 

Make your disruption count!

Have you ever played Iyslander and slowed your opponent’s turn down to a halt with Aether Ice Vein or Channel Lake Frigid, but struggled to actually make progress and get ahead in life? It’s a common pitfall that even experienced players fall into sometimes and can be avoided by trying to make sure you are always thinking about how to capitalize effectively on your disruption. Usually this means looking for a chance to either push damage or to set up additional permanents.

Aether Ice Vein, especially with additional discards from Amulet of Ice and Insidious Chill are a great way to take your opponent’s hand, and against decks with low Arcane Barrier often push a lot of damage all by themselves. However, Aether Ice Vein is best utilized when you can arsenal a high damage blue like Emeritus Scalding, Ice Bolt or Aether Hail to force through damage when your opponent can’t pressure. Alternatively, you can use the space to allow you to play an expensive setup piece like Insidious Chill or Frost Hex. 

This idea is especially important against decks with high Arcane Barrier, and it can sometimes be worth saving Red Aether Ice Vein in arsenal against these decks if you don’t have a good follow up. Otherwise, they might just do nothing but prevent damage and have you burn your Aether Ice Vein and discards for little to no value. Notice that if you are more patient about waiting to play your arsenal when you can get value from it, as discussed in the previous section, then you are naturally more likely to have a high damage blue already in place when you draw the Aether Ice Vein. If you already have an arsenal in place you can even pitch the card you fused with to present additional damage across the turn cycle to help punch through decks trying to play defensively.

Similarly, Channel Lake Frigid is a great way to blunt the offense of aggressive decks, however timing and follow up are both key to effectively utilizing one of Iyslander’s strongest cards. In general, I usually want to save Channel Lake Frigid for when my opponent has kept a 4-5 card hand. Often they take damage to play these hands and saving it for a big hand helps ensure you will be able to shut down their massive Art of War, Channel Mount Heroic or High Octane turn. Additionally, if you are able to wait to line up Channel with your tunic counter you can get an extra three damage from Waning Moon right away. The other key to maximizing channel is planning your follow up

Against low Arcane Barrier decks like Fai, Aether Ice Vein pitching an ice card is often the best follow up as it offers additional disruption and pushes damage since they can’t effectively block arcane. By comparison, following up with a Wounded Bull will often just encourage your opponent to block with 2-3 cards instead of trying to play through your disruption. That doesn’t mean Wounded Bull after Channel Lake Frigid is not a good play, it just means that ideally if you are going to play Wounded bull to keep you Channel around, you also want to try to make sure you can arsenal a damage spell or Insidious Chill to capitalize on their future off turn.

This isn’t to say you can never simply play out an Aether Ice Vein or Channel Lake Frigid without good follow up. Sometimes you just need to stem the bleeding and swing back tempo in your favor. However, trying to make the most of the opportunities presented by your premium disruption can really help you get ahead and convert the advantage into a win.

Hopefully these tips can help you level up your Iyslander gameplay for ProQuest season and beyond.