Walking in a Winter Wonderland with Oldhim

by Red Riot Games CA

 

By Dimos

 

Oldhim is currently the only hero in Flesh and Blood to have an explicitly defensive ability built into his card. This gives him a lot of versatility since that ability is generally fed by blue cards. That means that the cards that power his big, powerful, high-cost Guardian attacks can also work as efficient defense by cutting an opponent’s big turn short through denial of on-hit effects or denial of an entire card. Resource cards rarely perform double duty like this, and it is a unique luxury for Oldhim. The trade-off is that most of the Ice and Earth cards only block for two. This makes otherwise-mediocre cards like Winter’s Grasp and Autumns touch auto-includes in just about every Oldhim deck. There are also other treasures in the three-block camp such as Channel Lake Frigid, which should be in every Ice hero deck ever. What all of this adds up to is this: Oldhim should be built like an aggro deck, not a control deck because his resource cards provide him enough defense.

There are caveats to that, such as if you’re trying to do something very, very specific like running every big defense reaction possible with the aim to fatigue other Guardians (which was recently popular in Blitz). The standard for aggro in any Guardian deck doesn’t mean a shortage of blues, it just means enough reds to see one impactful one each turn to provide powerful disruption (Oaken Old, Spinal Crush, Pummel etc.), or high-damage output (Zealous Belting, Rouse the Ancients, Enlightened Strike). This is all enabled by a profoundly flexible defensive suite of cards, primarily Crown of Seeds, Winter’s Wail, and the Guardian shields. I recently wrote an article about how good Crown of Providence is because it allows for one arsenal fix per game. Crown of Seeds lets you do this every turn. Now, prudent use of Crown of Seeds is not to use it every turn, as it often leads to awkward pitch stacks (very relevant for a hero that shines on the second cycle like Oldhim), and sometimes an Oldhim player will use the arsenal for what it is designed for and doesn’t want to lose the premium card they’ve placed there. Crown of Seeds was strong enough to get banned in Blitz, and was a frequent call for bans in the Bravo, Star of the Show era of the game. It is an insanely powerful card that gives Oldhim access to a unique speed in this game. Getting access to a second deck cycle up to three turns before your opponent is an advantage that I cannot overstate (only Kano can beat him in this race). With all of those thoughts in mind, let’s look at some specific information for each constructed format.

Classic Constructed Considerations: Oldhim’s mixture of disruption and defense allows him to excel against most of the aggressive decks in the format. He has the aforementioned flexibility to build a more aggressive deck to deal with the set-up and midrange decks that he often struggles against. In the current Classic Constructed metagame I would definitely build a more aggressive Oldhim deck. Some defensive staples like red Sink Below and blue Staunch Response are a bit too good to cut in the name of pure aggression, and red Oasis Respite is efficient defense when combined with Crown of Seeds while providing effective insurance against Kano. The rest of the sideboard space should be dedicated to some mix of aggressive cards. For Oldhim these generally fall into one of two camps: raw damage and disruption. Raw damage cards include Enlightened Strike (which is single-handedly an argument to run Snapdragon Scalers), Zealous Belting and Rouse the Ancients (and the six-, seven- and eight-power blues to support it). Thunder Quake is also a strong contender for the raw damage slot, but that slot is likely better afforded to disruptive cards. Some key disruptive cards that should be in the deck are Oaken Old (fantastic to recur with Sow Tomorrow), Spinal Crush (fantastic to Dominate with Polar Blast), Command and Conquer, Endless Winter, Tear Asunder, and even Amulet of Ice. I’m particularly keen on Amulet of Ice currently, as the relative strength of Oldhim’s Ice react has increased, which mitigates Amulet’s lack of blocking value. Additionally, triggering the effect can be an amazing end-game tempo swing on your first fused Oaken Old. Even if they can block that actual on-hit effect, the Amulet ensures that you still strip cards and steal tempo.

I am also partial to Red Disables due to the high base power and viability with Pummel (possible off of two pitched blues and a Tunic counter). Even though Crown of Providence weakens the relative strength of arsenal disruption, it is a one-time use and your opponent will be using their arsenal more than once. There are also some cards that I consider to be hybrids between raw damage and disruption, such as Righteous Cleansing (which I think that some Oldhim decks are well-positioned to run right now) and Pulverize. Both of those cards shine against certain decks and are very lackluster against others. Art of War is also a consideration for Oldhim, as it can do double duty on both attack and defense.

Oldhim is not without his weaknesses though. While he excels against aggressive decks regardless of his deck build, he needs to use the majority of his deckbuilding space to shore up his poorer matchups into set-up decks. His weakest matchup is currently Prism, although she has been kept in check by the current prevalence of strong aggro decks. There’s a lot that Oldhim can try to do to improve the matchup, but very little that he can do effectively. Dash can be a thorn in his side, as her inevitability of setting up Pistol-buffing items outclasses his late game. Oldhim has a few tools into this matchup, with the easiest options being Command and Conquer and Pummel, with fused Oaken Olds and Pummels in the late game. Oldhim struggles more in this matchup than Bravo due mainly to a lower density of disruption in his deck. But the old Guardian tricks against Dash remain effective such as Last-Ditch Effort, Forged for War, and Tome of Fyendal. The newer threat of Dromai can be a challenge for a more conservative Oldhim list, but he can definitely hold his own with an aggressive package that includes Zealous Belting, Rouse the Ancients, Enlightened Strike to kill the threatening Dragons, with powerful Guardian attacks to disrupt the creation of, or trigger Phantasm on the other Dragons. Iyslander is a matchup that can be very difficult for Oldhim, as Iyslander’s disruption prevents Oldhim’s high-damage turns, and she doesn’t care about most of Oldhim’s disruption. Adding to that, Iyslander also has the inevitability of Frost Hexes in her deck, which can frequently result in a 20-damage game-ending turn. Depending on what you think your meta will be, you should adjust your 80 cards to favour the more prevalent matchups. Overall, I think Oldhim is in a decent spot in this metagame and can perform well. However, I think that Bravo has him slightly outclassed right now, due to the sheer power of disruption in this meta, which Bravo has better access to with his on-demand Dominate.

Erase Face has been a popular topic of discussion recently, but I am not too keen on it in Oldhim decks currently. This is mostly because it doesn’t impact the decks that Oldhim struggles with. Although it denies Prism’s Luminaris effect, it does not stop her ability to play out two Auras on a turn. It will buy you a turn, but that turn will only result in her having a stronger board state. Dromai, Dash, and Bravo don’t care about class or talents in 90% of situations either.

Blitz Considerations: I think that Oldhim in Blitz is some thoroughly trodden ground, and there are plenty of amazing, tournament-winning lists available on the official Flesh and Blood website. The one new wrinkle is the Crown of Seeds ban. The obvious replacement is Crown of Providence, which I think opens a unique door for Oldhim in the format. It allows him to run some interesting tricks with Heave cards (even mediocre ones like yellow Thunder Quake). With the maximum of 8 Heave cards (rainbow Thunder Quakes and a pair of Pulverizes), you’ve got at least a 60% chance of Heaving something on turn zero or one. That discount can allow you to play out a pummel aggressively on the next turn (which you have either a 55% or 70% chance of seeing depending if you’re running four or six). Either way, there will be some powerful damage and disruption afforded in the early stages of the game. Crown of Providence can be used to then clear out the Heaved card if it gets stuck there or if the Seismic Surges it generates get used on a more disruptive Guardian attack like Oaken Old or Spinal Crush.

Commoner Considerations: Here is what I’ve recently run in Commoner to a significant degree of success, admittedly only at the Armory level. Against aggressive, wide decks, the main gameplan is to use the defense reactions and Oldhim’s ability to buy some time until you can cobble together some disruption, as Chokeslam and Crush the Weak hit just about every fast deck in the format very hard. One of the core plays in this deck is to use both aspects of Oldhim’s ability on one turn by pitching one blue card and one red or yellow card. The floating resources can then be used to pay for Brothers in Arms, Ironhide equipment or Quell. The decks primary weakness is other Guardian decks, as other than Pummel, the closest thing to relevant on-hits in the deck are Chokeslam (which only forces them to arsenal a Pummel rather than playing it) and Icy Encounter. This means that efficiently using Pummel, Unmovable, Glacial Footsteps, and Macho Grande are your only tickets to victory. If you find yourself running into more Guardian decks, you can add extra Macho Grandes, Glacial Footsteps, and Unmovables. An additional consideration is Glacial Horns, mainly as a sideboard equipment if you think that your opponent is running defense reactions. Destroy Glacial Horns to freeze the defense reaction in their arsenal, then play out a Macho Grande or fused Glacial Footsteps to close out games or push a dangerous amount of damage. 

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