Revisiting Board State: Chane and Prism
By: Dimos Kaloupis As discussed in a previous article, one of my core philosophies in Flesh and Blood is that you can generate a huge advantage by having usable cards outside of your hand. With the release of Monarch, each new hero acquired unique ways to build their board state. For example, Shadow heroes can interact with their banished zone and Light heroes can utilize their Soul as an alternative resource pool. The two heroes that build board state to create massive advantages the most interestingly are Chane and Prism. However, this board state is much more transitive than the strong board states built in previous sets. In contrast to Dash, an old powerhouse, whose item-based board state was as permanent as could be, Chane and Prism use their board as resources but those states can be interfered with by their opponents. (Yes, technically Argh, Smash could interfere with Dash, but that was only available to Brutes). As a brief recap to what I consider elements in a board state I offer the following list: Weapons, equipment, hero abilities, items, auras, and now, cards in soul and playable banished cards. Chane and Prism, in line with their Shadow and Light natures, build opposite boards. Prism builds herself a positive board. She creates new types of auras, and unlike auras in previous sets, these are not time-sensitive, but interact solely with the opponent’s attacks and damage. Chane builds himself a negative board, where he has access to one-time playable cards that deal damage to him if they are not played out immediately. There are few ways for your opponent to directly interfere with your banish zone, but by pressuring cards out of hand, it can be difficult to move all the Blood Debt cards out of the danger zone. What this dichotomy ends up meaning is that Prism is a hero who can easily snowball out of control, whereas Chane finds it easier to work into tempo swings to mount comebacks, but has a less powerful (but still strong) snowball state. Both heroes have weapons that are quite weak when viewed on their own. If Prism is on the back foot, she often has no weapon, and Chane’s most popular weapons (Nebula Blade and Galaxxi Black) when not supported by other cards only hit for one or two damage . However, Chane’s weapon is inherently stronger when combined with his basic hero ability and the frequency of being able to play cards from his banished zone. With one card in hand to pitch, Chane can still come in with a respectable weapon, which is the most basic board presence one can have. In contrast, Prism needs either a card in her soul and a card to pitch or an active aura to utilize her weapon. But enough comparing and contrasting, it’s time for a deeper dive into how each of these heroes build and use their unique boards to overwhelm their opponents defenses. Let’s take a closer look into Prism’s board state and how it offers such a strong snowballing effect. Neither of the Illusionist weapons can attack on their own, they require auras to present any threat. The Illusionist legendary equipment is really only useful if you have a four card hand (two cards to attack with and likely two cards to pitch with). Prism can only consistently build her board state through resource-intensive ways, but does have the benefit of doing it at instant speed. Her hero ability costs two resources and a card from soul, Prismatic Shield costs three resources and the card itself to play, and all of her Light Illusionist auras cost a minimum of four resources. At its absolute cheapest, Prism’s weapon will cost her two resources to make, and it may be destroyed by the opponent. Add to this the low block values of Prism’s cards and her equipment, and she has difficulty mounting a comeback. Herald of Protection can be an excellent way to build a board state and is often a good way to fight some tempo back, but it is very dependent on your opponent and lacks consistency. On the flip side of all of this, if Prism is in the driver’s seat, she is nigh unstoppable. If she does have a four card hand to make the most use of her Phantasmal Footsteps and Luminaris, she can mount strong pressure just from her hand. Add in a few auras poking for one damage at a cost of zero to attack with, and any opponent will begin to feel the pressure. If a Prism is running an Iris of Reality, maintaining a strong board state is even more critical as Illusionist attacks will not have nearly-default go agains. Prism also has access to some amazing breakpoints, both her weapons attack for annoying amounts (one and four), and her basic red attacks hit for seven, all with on-hit effects that allow her to further develop her board state. I predict that there will be very few Classic Constructed games featuring a Prism that will be nail biters, as her advantage and disadvantage states are quite extreme. Success with Prism will come down to a good player debating with themselves when exactly to commit hard to building their board state, and how much damage they take for the privilege to do so. One or two well timed plays from an opponent can bring it all crashing down, but once the ball starts rolling it is difficult to stop. In the exact opposite form to Prism (LSS does an excellent job in theming their game), Chane’s Shadow cards build himself a negative board state that he is incentivized to burn through quickly. As an additional contrast, Chane can swing tempo better than just about anyone else in the game and can choose when to move from defence to offence with devastating consequences. When Chane is behind and blocking with three or four cards from hand, he is likely not too worried and will often be waiting until he has a critical mass of Soul Shackle tokens to unleash a 10 card turn by playing cards from his Banished Zone. But before we get into nonsensical 30 (or more) damage turns, I want to talk about Carrion Husk. Carrion Husk adds a new dimension to the idea of board state in that it comes with both its own clock and its own time bomb. It blocks for six, an absolutely insane number for a single card, but requires specific management. It is an excellent coach for new or less experienced players to learn about the idea of pivot turns. Chane ramps up his lethality over the course of the game as he increases his Shackle count. Therefore, using the Husk to block a big attack coming at you when you have decided to go hard onto the offence (and swing at your opponent with four cards in hand and six cards playable from your banished zone) is something that every Chane will do, every game. Because Husk gets automatically banished once Chane falls below 13 health, players are forced to consider a proactive timing in the block, rather than saving it for a very late Hail Mary play. Once you do block with Husk, you had better be presenting very strong damage in return because the Blood Debt is unavoidable. Chane develops his most threatening turns in two ways: by pitching cheap Blood Debt cards early to banish them when he has many Soul Shackles, or by keeping cheap Blood Debt cards in his Banished Zone for a few turns to build up a strong head of steam. The most common candidates for this are Seeds of Agony and Rift Bind, because of their synergy. Both of these strategies are pricey, either in tempo or in direct life loss. The payoff, however, is the highest of any hero in the game. Chane can present over 60 damage across three turns once he gets into the swing of things. The trade off is that after those three turns he is most likely going to have zero cards left in his deck, and therefore the dependency of banishing cards means his board state fizzles instantly. After he runs out of cards to banish, his most-used weapons will be threatening two damage per turn. Chane is the ultimate example of “use it or lose it” in Flesh and Blood. Overall, the release of Monarch has brought new complications and depth to Flesh and Blood, and to how cards and the strength of a board are evaluated. The movement away from a generally-static strength from board state, like that in Welcome to Rathe, into a much more dynamic and transient strength from board state in Monarch will show itself in how tempo moves and shifts in the games that you play. But at the end of the day, having cards on the board in addition to in your hand in any form is still a massive advantage and can provide a winning game plan, or just that little edge you need to close a game.