Uprising Draft Through a Casual Lens

by Red Riot Games CA

By: Dimos

 

I’ve seen a lot of discourse, particularly during the current Nationals season, about the quality of Uprising as a draft format. Some people think it is too high-variance and doesn’t reflect player skill, while some others think the opposite, and that it rewards strong drafters. People like it, people don’t like it. But I don’t think that it is a contentious statement to say that Uprising is a punishing draft format. A lot of games can be won or lost in the drafting portion of the game rather than in the playing portion of the game. Both are important parts, but I think that winning or losing before you draw your opening hand is a bad feeling for someone who is just playing this for a bit of fun. In general, there is little room for error, or even creativity, in this format, and I think that is less of a positive experience for casual players. This article is trying to put into words why Uprising may not be an ideal draft format for casual or unstudied players, but also why that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s bad overall.

It is shocking to me how noticeable it is that there is one fewer card per pack. Even though the total pool of draftable cards to players is only reduced by 7% (45 versus 42), the amount of buffer room for non-playable cards drops by as much as 20% (15 versus 12). I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that Fai is the most drafted hero and also has a lower deck-building threshold, only needing 29 cards instead of 30. The single Phoenix Flame that starts in the graveyard goes a longer way than people think. To compound with the fewer draftable cards, it also feels that the generic cards in the set are… not stellar. In most decks, the common generic cards are usually just some blue filler cards or are tech cards against other specific decks. Part of the reason that these generics feel lackluster is because a lot of them are only applicable against certain matchups. Uprising draft demands that decks have a sideboard. Oasis Respite is necessary against Iyslander, but can often be a dead card in hand against the other two heroes. Singe is needed for wizards to deal with Dromai’s Ashwings, but is far below rate against other heroes. The list goes on. So now we have three fewer cards in our total pool and a few cards dedicated to our sideboard of answers. As the margin of how many unplayable cards you can draft thins, it means that early draft mistakes can echo much louder into the gameplay. That is not necessarily a bad thing, but I think that it makes things harder. People should be given warning and have an expectation that the draft can often overshadow any in-game decisions you make, much more so than in other FaB sets. At the end of the day, I find that the universal litmus test for deck success is if you can beat an average Fai deck. Can you compete with a consistent 12 damage per turn in one way or another (more damage, disruption, creating dragons fast enough, etc.). Because of this consistently high damage output, it is not uncommon for these games to last three turns or fewer. Over so few turns, it is easy to feel that there is not very much agency in the game itself, and it is only after the fact that many players realise that they lost the game during the draft phase.

Uprising is a format that is quite reliant on sending and reading signals. That is a hard thing to do. It is a very particular learned skill that changes with every new set of cards. Cards that would be amazing in other sets, like Scar for a Scar or Breaking Point are often considered good-but-not-great in Uprising. This demonstrates that the context within a set also matters significantly in the draft. You are not evaluating individual cards that are passed to you, you are evaluating them against every other card in the set and how they work or don’t work within their own ecosystem. Because of the nature of generics in the set, it is often difficult to stay open while drafting a decent card in the early stages of the draft. This necessitates an early commitment, often before solid information flows down from the other side of the table. Newer players and experienced players alike can easily fall off this tightrope and end up with a deck that just feels dead in the water.

There are also some slightly unintuitive elements of the Uprising draft format. I don’t think these are inherently bad, but they certainly steepen the learning curve. In every other FaB draft format, the ideal split of heroes is the most even split possible. The 4-hero sets of Welcome to Rathe, Arcane Rising, and Monarch thrive on a 2-2-2-2 split. Tales of Aria is generally at its best in a 3-3-2 split. Anecdotally, I think that the better Tales of Aria draft will have Lexi as the two-player hero in the format due to the higher amount of specific interactions necessary and the general importance of Over Flex as a card. In contrast, the general consensus for Uprising draft (or at least what has been told to me by better-practiced and more serious players) is that the draft thrives on a 4-2-2 split, with Fai as the four-player hero. If a newer player doesn’t know this, or isn’t familiar with the amount of redundancy on Fai’s cards (having multiple different 0-cost, 3-damage Go Again Draconic attacks), then Fai may go under-drafted and may gain the ability steamroll the comparatively weaker Dromai or Iyslander decks. This should be an exception in drafts, not a default for an evenly distributed draft. Additionally, Uprising has some complex rules interactions that use priority at times where it was previously not relevant, namely Iyslander attacking Dromai’s allies at instant speed in the layer step. This is often a difficult realisation for newer players to make, and can often be quite punishing. Not only is this an inherently challenging rule, it is one that is usually necessary for Iyslander to make use of in order to preserve life and play an effective game against Dromai. This is another learning curve for players new to Uprising to have to overcome.

My personal gripe with the format is that I don’t like playing as Fai, and I don’t like how much of the draft that closes me off from (half of it, going off the 4-2-2 split discussed earlier). He isn’t a playstyle that I enjoy. Unlike Katsu, who can be built in a range of different ways, I haven’t found any alternative decks for Fai that are fun for me. Occasionally, Fai has access to different play patterns, but that is generally reliant on his opponent having a lackluster deck rather than his own deck being something interesting. All of that is fine, not every person will want to play every hero. However, in any other format, you’re losing fun across one quarter or one third of the hero pool, whereas in Uprising you can lose out on more.

With all of this being said, I have played plenty of fun, interesting and enjoyable games of Uprising draft. But I have noticed that most of those games go very long due to both decks being generally weak. There are some interesting decisions to be made in late-game Dromai mirrors as players are desperate to keep their last red card and are holding back their last reliable damage source in the form of a sole Ashwing. Likewise, Iyslander mirrors can end in a reverse arms race where whoever tries to deal arcane damage to the opponent first will end up losing because instant-speed damage abilities resolve against their order of play.

If you go skiing once every couple of years, you won’t be racing down the black diamond runs. People should advise you not to rush into them headlong, for your own enjoyment. I think that Uprising falls into the same boat. This is a slope that is best enjoyed by people who practice the hobby regularly. Others may end up stumbling and tripping their way through. Uprising can be a very interesting draft format, but there is a very steep learning curve that everyone should be aware of before jumping in. Casual players may not be aware of all of these things.

If you are considering running Uprising draft at an event, I would urge you to ensure that the majority of the participants are either very familiar with drafting card games as a whole or that they are particularly experienced Flesh and Blood players. If you have newer players, I would encourage you to run a different draft format first to familiarize players in a more forgiving environment. I think the friendliest draft formats are Welcome to Rathe, due its strong focus on fundamentals and more simple rules suite, and Tales of Aria, because even inexperienced drafters will end up with strong decks by simply matching the colours of the elements. On a more procedural note, if you have newer players at your draft, please put tokens on the table before the first pack is opened. It is an invaluable asset for a newer player to have hero and weapon texts on demand when evaluating a card. 

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