The “Briar Problem”, Linear Aggro and Everfest

By: Yuki Lee Bender

Post Nationals Metagame

Coming off a wildly successful Nationals season, the Flesh and Blood competitive scene has largely gone quiet, as we wait for the recently announced ProQuest season following the release of Everfest. However, it’s hard not to come across someone talking about Briar in the Flesh and Blood community and, considering her incredible run in Nationals and Skirmish Season 3, it makes sense she is the source of so much discussion. People from all over want to weigh in on the most effective bans or errata to rein in Briar’s power, while others still insist there should be no changes since the metagame seems to be starting to adapt to the deck. In this article I want to explore the “Briar problem” through a wider lens that I feel is largely overlooked right now.

First of all, let me be clear and say that Briar is definitely not Chane. In a matter of weeks following Briar’s Debut at UK nationals we have seen decks like Oldhim, Chane, Ice Lexi and Viserai successfully target Briar. This is night and day compared to Chane who was flexible, resilient and capable of playing many gameplans to account for the entire cast of heroes. However, despite this metagame diversity, I still believe Briar poses a problem for the game right now, because far too many heroes are simply not equipped to deal with her and are pushed out of the metagame as a result.

Linear Aggressive Strategies

Linear aggro decks are ones like Post-ban Chane, Briar, Aggro Katsu and Lightning Lexi. These decks mostly don’t want to block and are happy to just take damage in order to push their own aggressive gameplan and race. While I do think that these type of decks are an important part of the competitive ecosystem, in the current state of the game they can also be problematic. The issue posed by these decks is that when they are efficient enough, it means that playing a defensive strategy into these decks is not an option. A deck like Briar pushes too many breakpoints and will ultimately get through your defenses, unless you are specifically a hero named Oldhim, who is highly specialized in defense.

The problem with defending not being viable against these decks is that the rest of the heroes of Rathe are left with only two strategies available to try and compete with linear aggressive decks. You can either disrupt them or try to outrace them. While disruption is a viable gameplan that produces interactive and interesting games, the problem is that not many heroes have the tools to do this effectively. Currently the main heroes that can disrupt these decks are Ice heros through frostbites and discard or Bravo through crush effects like Spinal Crush and Crippling Crush. Every other hero essentially needs to race, which means you are playing an aggro mirror, and this naturally will lead to the most aggressive and linear deck coming out on top. In Monarch that was Chane, in Tales of Aria it’s Briar and come Everfest it could be another hero, but regardless of which hero it is, the fundamental problem will be the same.

So what can be done to take aggro down a notch? One thing is clear, aggressive strategies thrive on a combination of card draw and go again. We’ve seen this formula in all the premier aggro decks including Chane, Briar, Aggro Katsu, Herald Prism, Dorinthea and Radyn Boltyn. More than any other card, I believe Plunder Run heavily subsidizes the success of runeblades and aggressive strategies in general. Plunder run is the perfect aggro card as it provides damage, has go again and with enough go again attacks, provides near guaranteed card draw. While plunder run has been a powerful card in decks like aggro Katsu in the past, the card is especially well utilized by runeblades who get additional rewards for playing non-attack actions. It is very telling that all of the top performing runeblade decks play 6 to 9 copies of the card. 

While banning Plunder Run may provide temporary relief to the problem and may ultimately prove to be necessary, I do think the linear aggro problem will eventually come back and resurface. There is a fundamental problem posed by aggressive strategies that can’t be blocked effectively and don’t want to block in that they force most other decks to play the same gameplan. These games tend to lack depth and to feel uninteractive as neither deck really needs to concern itself with what the other is doing. Often players talk about matchups like the Briar mirror or Chane mirror coming down to who draws better.

Everfest

The more permanent solution in my eyes lies in printing new cards in Everfest or potentially other future sets. While providing more defensive options may be effective, I think having control be dominant is a problem of its own. Games dominated by blocking and trading for small amounts of damage, while very popular amongst some players, are often not the most engaging games to play or watch and can be quite long and tedious. Instead, I believe a good solution is for LSS to provide more detrimental hit effects that are available to the entire cast of heroes. Currently the only generic cards that fit this category is Command and Conquer and Pummel, however these tools are insufficient alone. What I would like to see most in Everfest is more generic tools to help combat aggressive strategies, and force them to sometimes block or incur a significant penalty. This feels like an ideal solution because it promotes interactive games that are fun both to play and to watch.

I think LSS should exercise caution when designing disruptive effects as they could easily invalidate aggro entirely if too many strong ones exist. Five card hands are a powerful and fun part of the game, and decks should want and get to play five card hands. However, I think linear aggro decks that limit gameplay to playing your entire hand aggressively is not healthy for the game long term. The real problem with a linear aggressive deck like Briar is not that she can’t be defeated, it is that too many heroes have no viable paths to victory as they are not equipped to block, disrupt or race her effectively.