Getting Lost in a Deeper Card Pool
By Dimos In Welcome to Rathe, every class card only interacted with other class cards. Hero abilities were also generally reliant on class cards. Bravo was the only exception to this, but all generic cards that could be used with his ability had no on-hit or Crush effects. Additionally, class cards generally also only interacted with either weapons or attack action cards, rarely both. Moving on to Arcane Rising, this premise generally continued, with very few exceptions and only one that was relevant in constructed formats (Tome of the Arknight). In Crucible of War, there were some interactions but they were still semi-dependent on class cards. Hit and Run for Warrior and certain on-hit effects from Mechanologist attacks come to mind. Generic cards interacted more broadly and with other generic cards in these sets. And those generic cards were powerful, as a necessity. With only one or two sets in a class-based game, early generics had to be strong in order to provide buildable decks in Classic Constructed with a limited card pool. Let’s take a look at everyone’s most loved or hated card: Command and Conquer. In Welcome to Rathe and Arcane Rising, there was no class-specific way to buff it or to give it go again. Only generics would interact with Command and Conquer. Then Monarch came along. Every hero had Class and Talent specific ways to buff Command and Conquer’s power and give it go again. Shadow has Shadow Puppetry, Light has Seek Enlightenment, Levia has Convulsions from the Bellows of Hell, Chane has Seeping Shadows, Boltyn has his hero ability, and Prism has Phantasmify and Luminaris. With the introduction of Talents, which offer semi-generic cards that usually interact with all cards that a hero can access, generic cards can become very strong. I think this is an interesting tension in designing the game. By offering a breadth of options in limited formats through Talents, the number of options are magnified in constructed formats because of the existing generic card pool from previous sets. This trend continues in Tales of Aria, where Talent cards affect all cards and even all attacks, in the case of Icequake. The most salient example is Emerging Avalanche or Strength of Sequoia when compared to Emerging Power. The Elemental Guardian cards may be the first examples of power creep in Flesh and Blood, depending on your definitions. It is clear that Emerging Avalanche can do a lot more. It is, in a vacuum, strictly better than Emerging Power. Its buff applies to a broader range of attacks, and it has an optional bonus on play. Whether this is actually power creep comes down to how one values Bravo’s on-demand dominate ability combined with Guardian’s on-hit effects. I don’t think this is power creep, but it is something to keep an eye on. The one thing that is clear is that Emerging Avalanche has a much broader range of applications by virtue of it being able to buff Talent cards in limited formats, which translates to being able to buff all cards in constructed formats. In a non-rotating game like Flesh and Blood, this new norm of Class and Talent cards interacting with all cards can lead to a lot of shenanigans. The burden of playtesting becomes a lot more extensive, as each new card that interacts with all cards needs to be considered against all those other cards. As a recent and salient example, we can examine Briar’s hero ability. Briar, by virtue of her multiple talents and class, has access to the biggest card pool in Flesh and Blood. She is also one of two adult heroes with a generic hero ability, with the other being Bravo. Briar’s generic ability applies to attack action cards and non-attack action cards, which are the majority of game pieces. In combination with Lightning cards, which are chock-full of go again and damage buffs, generics such as Snatch and Plunder Run become very powerful. The deck is not overpowered, as it loses to plenty of other decks, but it is strong. I am curious if this archetype of deck was discovered in playtesting or if it was unforeseen. Flesh and Blood has done a great job of avoiding power creep so far, but the interaction between Talent cards, Talented heroes and generic cards may be a difficult design puzzle to continue navigating. Power creep has been the answer to the ever-growing number of interactions in other non-rotating card games, and I wonder what Legend Story Studios’ solution will be.
Does Every Card Still Count?
By Dimos A couple months ago, Legend Story Studios revealed their first ever ban list, consisting of a single card name: Drone of Brutality. They laid out some excellent reasoning for doing so. The card was not overwhelmingly powerful, although it was used in some powerful strategies. It was banned because it was out of sync with the rest of the game’s design. The specifically cited tenet in the article is that “Every Card Counts”. Drone of Brutality always stayed in your deck, so it could be used to block or attack indefinitely without running the risk of decking out, and the game’s designers wanted to force meaningful decision-making around either playing or blocking. I was a big fan of this ban because it showed a commitment to a game design philosophy that makes Flesh and Blood the calibre of game that it is. Knowing that every single card that I bring in my 60 card deck matters influences my deck-building significantly. In order for a card to be put into a deck I need it to meet all the criteria of pitch curve, block value, play or attack value, synergy with the other cards in the deck, etc. Unlike other games, deck building in FaB is not “put in an engine and fill out the deck with cards to let you get to the engine faster”. Flesh and Blood is clearly designed with this in its consciousness, as nearly all cards that allow you to search the deck are class-specific and all the good ones are locked to individual heroes (except Belittle/Minnowism, I guess). With all of these excellent design decisions made, and with every card distinctly mattering, why am I still wondering if Every Card Counts? In short, because of Chane’s hero ability. In a game of Chane vs any other hero, Chane can see every card in his deck before his opponent sees half of theirs. This is based on the current very aggressive strategy that nearly all Chanes are running as of today. Assuming Chane makes a Soul Shackle every turn, he will see 60 cards of his deck after eight turns, or 72 cards of his deck after nine turns (excluding the possibility of drawing from Art of War or other played cards). In contrast, the opponent will generally see between 32 and 40 cards in this same timeframe. Once Chane has seen every card in his deck, there are only one or two meaningful turns left in the game as all but four cards will be banished via Soul Shackles. So either Chane wins the game with a big 12-card turn, or he runs out of steam and cards in his deck. With no cards left to banish, Chane is left helpless and the remainder of the match will generally be his opponent repeatedly swinging weapons while Chane cannot block. By this end-game state, Chane has seen every card in his deck, and he has been allowed to complete his game plan and try to accomplish his end-game. Meanwhile, his opponent has seen, at absolute best, 40 cards from their deck. The game will be over one way or another well before any card that Chane’s opponent has pitched will become relevant (pending deck shuffling, which is a rarity outside of Katsu’s hero ability). I have played more than a few games against more than a few Chanes since the release of Monarch, and from the opposing side of the table, I can say that it doesn’t feel to me like Every Card Counts. It feels to me like all of his cards matter, and about half or two-thirds of mine do, because that’s how many cards get seen through the relevant parts of the game. Drone of Brutality was banned because the copies of it didn’t force meaningful game decisions. Playing against Chane, a significant portion of my cards do not force meaningful game decisions once deckbuilding and sideboarding are complete, because I can be confident that I won’t be seeing them all. I acknowledge that deckbuilding and sideboarding are important strategic elements to the game, and are some of my favourite elements, but actually playing the cards onto the table and making meaningful in-game decisions are both arguably more important. Now the discussion of “fun” will come into play, which is very subjective. But I do not think it is a bold claim to say that we play games, including Flesh and Blood, because they are fun and that it is more fun to beat someone than it is to watch them beat themselves. Conceptually, I think Chane is very interesting, but in Classic Constructed practice, I often find games against him to be unsatisfying, win or lose. Perhaps this is magnified by the fact that he is currently overrepresented in the meta. One could make similar complaints about an aggressive Boost Dash strategy, but that never became a meta force and did not force the issue. I also feel that because Boost dash could pivot to a slower end-game if needed, that the games held more variety. I think Chane in Limited formats is great and is a lot of fun to both play against and as. Even in Blitz, I think he is fine. The core difference between Classic Constructed and these smaller-deck formats? Chane gets to see proportionally more of his deck while his opponent sees less of theirs in Classic Constructed. I think that is where the pain point lies. I also want to take a moment to say that although I consider this a hiccup in the otherwise splendid game design of Classic Constructed, that does not take away from the game as a whole. A set of cards has hundreds of variables and countless interactions with all past cards, the fact that there have been so few missteps is very impressive. Just because I think there is a flaw does not mean that I think the game is lacking or the developers are any less great than they were a few months ago.