Utility in Defense in Flesh and Blood Part Two: The Weaknesses of Inflexibility

Utility in Defense in Flesh and Blood Part Two: The Weaknesses of Inflexibility

By Dimos. K

Last week, I discussed how the added defensive utility of the new Unity specializations bring a different dimension to each hand when they are drawn, and to the deckbuilding process as a whole. In Flesh and Blood, options, and cards that do multiple things well, are synonymous with power (see Enlightened Strike and Command and Conquer as two controversially-ubiquitous examples). In sharp contrast to options, lets have a bit of a chat about Levia this week. She’s a hero who has so many of her defensive options taken away from her by virtue of her card pool and hero ability. 

I have a soft spot for Levia, I think her decks are very fun to play in any format, but none more so than in draft. I think she has a lot of interesting deck building options, from her traditional beatdown aggressive style to a slower, value-based style. This value-oriented style is my personal favourite, and I detail it towards the end of this article because I don’t think people are giving her the credit she deserves in limited.

Levia is generally written off by large swathes of the community because of how many different resources she has to manage. And for generally having too many downsides, many of which lead players to lose the game on the spot. Fundamentally, what Levia is missing in draft and sealed is defensive utility. She loses defensive utility because of how her card pool spreads her so thin across many different resources. Levia needs six-power attacks to interact with her hero power and Brute card abilities, she needs to manage the number and nature of cards in her graveyard, deck, and banished zone simultaneously. While doing all of this, she also has to deal with pitch ratios like every other deck. There is a natural ebb and flow in every game of FaB as players draw perfect hands, strong hands, or borderline-unplayable hands. It is within this variance where you want your deck to have defensive utility. If your opponent draws the ideal hand, you may just have to block with everything to deny their on-hit effects. If you draw a terrible hand, the most efficient thing to do may be to block with most of it. Losing key aspects of this axis can put you in a very awkward position, and you had better hope that their offensive capabilities more than make up for their lack of defense.

Many of Levia’s cards cannot block. Deadwood Rumbler and Smash with Big Tree are Common staples that have the required six power. Majestics such as Shadow of Blasmophet and Deep Rooted Evil, which can offer her conditional offensive utility, also do not block. Already, Levia has lost the ability to defend how she wants. One would expect a hero who needs to fill her graveyard to be able to do so via blocking flexibly and effectively, but with so many non-blocking cards, Levia is forced to do so by playing them or discarding through her Ravenous Meataxe. However, her main lack of defensive utility comes from the Blood Debt that she stacks into her banished zone over the course of a match. Sometimes in FaB you just need to throw your whole hand on the table to block, pray you live another day, and try to claw your way back afterwards. Levia has challenges with this, because if she is left with fewer than two cards, she is almost guaranteed to take a substantial amount of Blood Debt damage.

These issues hold her back in both constructed and sealed formats, and certainly pose challenges in the draft format. However, I do think she is much more capable in draft than in any other format. I find that when playing Levia, there are so many decisions to be made, so many odds to be weighed, and so many different lines to take in each hand and through different match-spanning strategies. She is my favourite hero to draft in Monarch for exactly this reason. She also tends to be under-valued by other players and it becomes quite easy to get her nearly-mandatory and incredibly powerful Hooves of the Shadowbeast footwear.

Take these following tips as an invitation to draft her in your upcoming prereleases or at your national tournaments. Levia decks can be very rewarding and deeply interesting at any skill level of draft provided that you have a game plan. I am by no means the world’s foremost expert on Levia, so I advise you to seek out further information such as this great piece. As I mentioned previously, something that I do not think is discussed often enough in draft Levia is a low-Blood Debt or value-based engine. The main goal of this deck is to try and mitigate Levia’s lack of defensive utility. I don’t think that this is the strongest possible Levia deck, but it can be very strong and has taken me through at least a couple of undefeated draft pods. For most of the game, you are trying to force as many back-and-forth two-card hands as possible. This is something that other heroes in the format generally cannot best Levia in, unless there is a profoundly strong Chane deck. Red Deadwood Rumbler makes for some of the best two-card hands in the set, threatening eight-damage and providing an advantage against other Shadow heroes. By lowering the amount of Blood Debt in the deck, Levia also has access to powerful generic hands with Warmonger’s Recital and any two-cost attack such as Stony Wootenhog or Adrenaline Rush, since she is not always racing to activate her hero ability.

The key to these decks are cards that can be played from her banished zone. Ghostly Visit, Void Wraith, and Howl from Beyond are amazing, and Levia can use them to build her own very powerful and efficient weapon in a format without powerful weapons. In this value build, Unworldly Bellow is also a key player, as it works perfectly with Void Wraith – dealing nine damage with only two cards in hand - while cycling another Void Wraith or Ghostly Visit from your graveyard into your banished zone for next turn. 

Unworldly Bellow also adds some of that key defensive utility to Levia. It is a card that blocks three while not being an attack action (excellent against Boltyn), and it contributes well to modular hands. I discussed the importance of modularity, and being able to turn your strong four-card hand into a strong two-card hand when pressed to block here. These are all key aspects to a value-centric engine that seeks to mitigate Levia’s lack of defensive utility. Add in a couple of Rally the Rearguards or Ironhide pieces to make your non-blocking cards block when you need them to, and your Levia deck is flying. Most importantly, your Levia deck is powerful and efficient without requiring cards that everyone else is desperately fighting over, like Dread Screamer. There are a few exceptions that you will have to fight over, as I do believe that Levia decks will always need Hooves of the Shadow Beast and Ebon Fold.

This type of deck is one that is not without its risks, since it is still Levia, but I have found it to be a great deck to steal draft armory wins with – even if you don’t manage to get a single Dread Screamer. Generally, this deck also needs some type of closer, but a single Convulsions from the Bellows of Hell is normally more than adequate, especially when played after a high-pressure turn fueled by Hooves of the Shadow Beast. Even on a build with less Blood Debt, you will still have some Brute cards with Blood Debt, and you will carefully have to manage them like you would with any other resource in a Levia deck. 

Overall, Levia has some of the best closing power in the game, through the aforementioned Convulsions, big Hooves of the Shadowbeast turns, Writhing Beast Hulks, her signature Soul Harvest, or even fatigue through regular Unworldly Bellow and Void Wraith or Ghostly Visit pressure. With all of this in mind, I think it is important to remember that Levia can be immensely powerful in the long game, so long as you can keep alive throughout the process, in spite of her lack of defensive utility. I encourage everyone to give her a try in draft, and even if you don’t like the playstyle, you’ll at least learn how to better play against her.