Canadian Nationals Report - Steven Jennings -
The Judges from the Head TO to, Paige Smith, Jonathan Vamos and Darcy Noon all did a wonderful job running the event for Will. I recognize that it wasn’t their responsibility. They however did, Especially Paige and Jonathan, they put in allot of effort into making sure the event ran well. They judged from 9 am to close every day with little to no breaks at all. It was great to meet God’s Arena and to see their passion and dedication to this game. They have big plans and I’d be lying if I said we were in the same financial bracket as they are. They mention wanting to be the Channel Fire Ball of Canada, god speed to them. I am excited to see how they preform. Players across Canada met and clashed over the weekend and it was amazing to see Top level players from Vancouver throw it down against Top level players from Toronto. Seeing players from Newfoundland playing players from Montreal, it was all there. The players themselves made this event special. Something that goes without saying, is Flesh and Blood was a game that grew in Canada, on discord, during a pandemic. This game blew up on webcam for many of us across the country. So seeing Draco (Player from London) meeting in person Mr.Chocho (Player from Calgary) was truly special. To see Dante (player from Toronto) meet with Eric Lerer (Player from Vancouver). These were special and heart warming for me because I know that these friendships were formed ONLINE and we all looked forward to the day that we got to meet each other. When I looked across the room I knew we weren’t as big as our Neighbors to the south, but the spirit of Flesh and Blood was strong. In that room, the sound of laughter and packs being open, friends from afar meeting could be heard all weekend. It is both emotional and special to see the love and commitment that all these players showed. Edmonton, Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec, Calgary, every community across this country I call home was under one roof and in one room and I am proud to have been at this event. My hopes, though perhaps grandiose, is to see these numbers swell as the community continues to grow along with it. A major Congratulations Yuki Lee Bender, being the first female to win a National event is a very big deal. A little tongue and cheek I am happy to see Lexi win while being an Ice deck versus a Ice opponent in the north where we live in igloos and ride sleighs everywhere. I am sure there are many hungry rivals awaiting you at worlds. I will be cheering either from the aisle or from home. Either way, great job! Thank you Judges and players for this event and most importantly thank you LSS for giving Canada a National event!
Seeds of Agony Ban: Decisions and Design
By Dimos Kallouppis On September 21st, LSS announced their first balance-based card bans. I’m sure everyone has read and said a lot about this already, so I am making this article mainly an analysis of the wording in the ban announcement with some limited thoughts on gameplay. The LSS article is available here. There are quite a few things worth discussing in this ban announcement. Firstly, it is over 1000 words long. The logic behind these decisions is explained, and there was a very interesting peek behind the curtains about the design and testing processes. There is an entire paragraph dedicated to explaining the timing of the ban, and how they don’t want to interfere with Nationals season. Their admission that Chane was predominantly balanced for limited play, due to a planned season of summer Callings is enlightening, but unsurprising. I think the fact that they are balancing sets based on upcoming events is telling of the size of the development and testing team. My theory on this is that commons and rares are generally tested for balance in limited, with majestics and legendaries receiving a significant portion of testing for Classic Constructed. It wasn’t any particular majestic that made Chane very strong, it was access to a free enabling card that lets his deck do everything it is designed to do. Ira (generally considered the best hero in Blitz), does much the same. She is not strong because of combos featuring majestics, but is strong because of her consistency, utilizing commons, and rares. This premise is also in line with Levia’s cards. Her commons and rares are solid in both constructed and in limited formats. However, her majestics don’t really help her do anything other than provide utility, not provide any form of combo potential in what should be an explosive deck. I am going to continue speculating here and say that there were some eleventh-hour design changes to Levia to allow her to turn off blood debt for the turn, and her majestics facilitate that and little else. Another element that caught my eye was the statement that Chane was designed to be a “top performing deck in constructed formats.” I have seen no such comment regarding any other hero, and it is interesting to speculate on how favourites are played. Living Legend being more of a Hall of Fame and less of a balance feature is nice to hear, because Chane was dominant during one of the busiest competitive seasons of the year and didn’t even make it halfway to Living Legend status. The considerations of limiting his power during the design process were interesting. Despite that, the costs of Seeds of Agony and Rift Bind were reduced, for draft balance. The sequence of these events is, I believe, important. It highlights that LSS is still very much a small operation, which is something I forget often enough because of the general quality of the game. Where my big reservations come from is the entire section about the Duskblade ban. It’s nice to see such a direct admission of “We made a mistake.” But it is concerning to hear about how a flavour card got added late into development with so little testing. Surely the important flavour card should get added in the supplemental set, with other Shadow/Light themed cards and an additional few months for testing. As is so rarely the case, the internet mob was right on this one from the get go. That card is crazy. It is very easy for Chane to stack counters on it, and it is decently easy for Briar to do so as well with their frequent go agains. I’m shocked that there was no additional condition for counters (dealing arcane damage on the turn, having the sword hit, etc.). It is nice to see that they’re getting ahead of the problem and not letting it warp the Nationals season though. Moving on to the gameplay impacts, I am excited that the meta is once again very open. It is no longer the “Chane plus maybe some of the new heroes who can keep him check” meta that many were expecting. Every hero may be viable now, and it’s exciting to see how testing and the meta shape up for the upcoming big events. Chane still has options, but will have to run either more non-Blood Debt non-attack action cards or more blues to consistently pay for Seeping Shadows and Howl from Beyond. Hopefully Chane players don’t abuse Howl from Beyond too much, since it’s tacitly on LSS’ Classic Constructed watchlist via Unhallowed Rites. It is a nice thing to know a watchlist exists, and I wish that LSS provided us the entire watchlist, but I’m aware that’s asking a bit much.
Reconsidering Arsenal Strategy in Tales of Aria: A New Turn Cycle as the Seasons Cycle.
By Dimos Kallouppis As our seasons change on Earth, the winds of change blow across Rathe and Aria. We will have plenty of new cards to play with and plenty of exploring to do across Rathe. A new set means a new meta to solve, and new mechanics to learn. Rather than make some bold and certainly wrong predictions about what will be top tier, I want to discuss the mechanical and strategic changes that Tales of Aria brings us. There are a couple small observations I have about design within this set, but the biggest one is how the arsenal has changed. I think that if you are going to a pre-release event, you should give some serious thought to how differently the game will flow. Arsenal management is the most important piece of strategy for a new Flesh and Blood player. Different classes play differently, but they all get the same arsenal. Arsenal strategy is pretty universal (except for the Ranger class): you either arsenal a good combo card, a defense reaction, or a particularly efficient attack. If you put a strong combo piece in arsenal, it waits there until you see the other part of your combo. If you arsenal a defense reaction, it stays there until it is used to stop an important on-hit effect or until you have a combo piece to arsenal. You can also arsenal an efficient, easy-to-play attack as a placeholder, expecting to play it out the second you get a better card to put in there. Games can be lost by putting the wrong card in arsenal. Or by putting the right card in arsenal at the wrong time. But for all the Tales of Aria heroes, arsenal management becomes an entirely separate game. Fusion is the central theme of the set, and it requires revealing a card to buff another card. In a lot of instances, you will likely be Fusing a card and not have an action point leftover to play out the Ice, Earth, or Lighting card that you just revealed. Where is that going to go? Right into your arsenal. Odds are, that card isn’t amazing. Even though there are strong Ice, Earth, or Lighting cards, it is unlikely that the one card that you are revealing to buff your Fusion card is the one card you want to arsenal. There are some important exceptions, such as the Amulets and the non-attack actions that draw a card when played from arsenal. You will want to empty your arsenal nearly every offensive turn you have, or else your turn-ending Fusions will be inefficient. Either you won’t be able to Fuse your card and lose out on the buff, or you end your turn with an extra card in hand only draw three. Because of this arsenal cycling, if you do want to put together a very strong combo, I think the best way to go about it is to pitch all the cards. Holding a combo piece in arsenal for several turns is not an appealing prospect in Aria. Lexi has to do double duty on her arsenal management, dealing with the cards revealed for Fusion that end up there, and cycling her arrows through it. Lucky for her, she directly benefits from both of these through her hero ability and bow. If I end up playing Lexi during a pre-release, I’m going to be extremely cautious of any card that I arsenal that costs any more than one resource or does not have Go Again. Unlike Azalea, she cannot cycle her arsenal for free. Having to take a full turn off to play out a Heaven’s Claws that got stuck there will be a very disappointing turn. Earth has more arsenal interaction than the other two elements, and encourages the cycling of the arsenal to the bottom of the deck. This can be used in some very interesting ways, as a weaker blue arsenal card may be just what you want at the bottom of your deck to pay for that combo you just pitched. Or it can be used as a sneaky Sink Below effect so your opponent doesn’t see what power card they’ll have to deal with at the end of the match. I’ve largely ignored Crown of Seeds for now, even though it has the biggest impact or arsenal usage for Oldhim and Briar, because it’s unlikely to be relevant at pre-releases. Now on to the minor items. If you were only readying to get an edge for your pre-release events, you can probably stop here. We now have typeless damage from Lightning cards. Up until this point, all damage has either been physical or arcane. Those are technically different from loss of life, which can still happen as an on-hit effect, such as from Ode to Wrath or Searing shot. In Tales, this typeless damage exists to help make the on-hit effects of Lightning cards more explosive, as there are now cards that trigger from each source of damage. For example, Briar can trigger three different damage sources by using two cards. Pitching a blue for a Singeing Steelblade is four physical damage, one arcane, and threatening an extra source of typeless damage from Shock Charmers. Not only is that a very annoying split, it also threatens to create Embodiment of Earth tokens for her, bolstering her defence next turn. Today’s other small observation relates to cards being locked behind talents. It is now more muddled as to when and why a card is locked behind a talent. In Monarch, there was a clear distinction between class cards and talent cards. For example, the weapons of the set were not Light- or Shadow-locked unless it directly used a Light or Shadow mechanic. Hexagore and Galaxxi Black both care about cards in Banish, Luminaris and Raydn care about yellow-pitch cards and Soul. The Hatchets, Iris of Reality, Ravenous Meataxe, and Dread Scythe do not interact with those elements and are all only locked to their respective classes. When looking at the Tales weapons, Runeblade got Rosetta Thorn and Duskblade. Both are usable by Viserai and Chane, theoretically because neither interact with Fusion, Earth, Ice, or Lightning. However, both Ranger weapons are locked behind the Elemental talent this set and I have no clue as to why. Neither bow cares about any keyword other than “arrow” and “arsenal”, just like Red Liner and Death Dealer. The only other difference that comes to mind is that the Tales bows are Instants. But Ranger already has an instant in Feign Death. As such, I’m still confused as to why these bows break an established design pattern. I don’t think it’s for balance reasons, because then I would have expected to see Duskblade (most consistently activated by Chane) locked behind the Elemental talent before two bows that may have helped the ailing Azalea.
Why are People Playing Control Katsu? A Genuine Question
By Dimos K I don’t have an answer to this one and I’m asking with sincerity. Before we get into this, I want to define what I mean by “control Katsu”. If a deck has more than nine defense reactions (excluding blue Flic-Flak because that’s a resource card) it’s probably a control deck. If a deck has three red Fluster Fists and Pounding Gales, without Head Jab or Open the Centre, it’s a control deck. I’ve seen more than one claim online of “midrange Katsu” decks with 15 defence reactions and those red combo-enders. Just because you have 2 red Leg Taps and a red Rising Knee Thrust does not make the deck midrange. Aggressive Katsu and Midrange Katsu are both currently very strong, and I have no questions about either. My gripes about definitions aside, the prevalence of control Katsu in the current metagame puzzles me. Let’s take a quick dive into the long history of this deck in the brief life of FaB. The first constructed Calling event in New Zealand was won by a control Katsu deck, called Spaghetti Tornado at the time, piloted by Sasha Markovic. This was in the Welcome-to-Rathe-only days, and was something people were not fully expecting. The deck also had success as a meta call at a very Warrior-heavy Road to Nationals event in Nelson in 2020, a day after Crucible of War was released. I believe it went by the moniker of “Ninja Turtle” during that era. In both of these instances, the card pool was very different and the control Katsu decks were trying to accomplish specific things, something that I do not think the modern iterations are doing. In the Monarch meta, control Katsu seems to be confused. It is not the best fatigue deck, and it is not the best deck at pivoting towards aggressive play. It can be fatigued by Bravo and Dash. Its defenses can be smashed through by any number of decks including Chane, Rhinar, Levia, and Sonata Viserai. Boltyn has all the time in the world to set up against it, and dealing with Prism requires most of your sideboard to be taken up by six- or seven-power cards. It does have its good matchups, namely Dorinthea and other versions of Katsu, depending on the build. Unfortunately, Dorinthea isn’t as popular as she once was and it makes it feel like the “best” matchup for this deck is being squandered because of it. Katsu’s ability is nice to fix hands and add a bit of explosive damage but feels underutilized because the deck will rarely be playing attack action cards with Go Again or playing out entire Combo chains. There is also limited benefit to your opponent not knowing if they are sat across from an aggressive or defensive deck. That falls apart quite quickly once people identify the control Katsu deck after the second or third round of Swiss. If you’re currently playing control Katsu and you don’t want to play a midrange Katsu, swap to Dash and try it out. She does everything that control Katsu does but better. She has more explosive damage turns when they are needed, she has a better weapon. The only thing she is missing is Flic-Flak, which isn’t the dealbreaker that many people seem to think. Is Flic-Flak single-handedly that good? I think it is the best defense reaction in the game (honourable mentions to Soul Sheild and Steelblade Shunt). I do not think it makes up the difference between Katsu and other control decks though. It does make midrange Katsu a defensive monster with minimal deck changes though, and that is where the card’s strength lies. I would also like to say that I don’t mean to knock the deck if you are either a dedicated ninja player and Katsu is just your jam or you’re making a bold meta call. But if you’re playing this because you believe it’s the best deck in the meta and you really want to win, please tell me why.
A Talented Balancing Act: Sharing toys between the Shadow heroes.
By Dimos K Chane is a dimension-travelling bogeyman in the Classic Constructed format in this Road to Nationals season. Everyone needs some plan against him, whether you’re bringing Snags or are prepared to race him for damage in the first few turns, you need to show up with a clear strategy to come out on top. He’s showing up in a lot of Top 8’s and has 50 damage turns off of Seeds of Agony and Rift Bind. But I’ve written enough about Chane. One could argue too much, but he is such a meta force that it’s tough to avoid. He seeps into the shadows of a lot of ideas and strategies in this game at present. His Shadow counterpart, Levia… exists. But you wouldn’t know that from any representation she is getting in Road to Nationals tournaments, or any other tournaments for that matter. Which is a shame, because I really like her. I think the negative design space she operates in by having her hero ability deal with a negative rather than actively generating a positive is very interesting (and as always, excellently thematically executed). Unfortunately, in a game as tight as Flesh and Blood, that negative can be absolutely game-ending. In exchange for being on the precipice of taking ten or more damage at the end of each turn, Levia gets attacks that are more efficient than other classes. I think Graveling Growl and Dread Screamer are Levia’s two best cards. They’re both commons, and they are both her most over-curve cards. They both block three, and “should” cost about two more resources than if they didn’t have their additional restrictions. If I had to give out the bronze medal, I would choose Shadow of Blasmophet since it enables a “toolbox” of other cards in the Banished Zone (usually Shadow non-Brute cards or Deep Rooted Evil). But these above-curve cards rarely feel like enough of an upside to her downsides. When I play her, I feel like some of that stems from some lackluster-feeling Majestics and lack of key, unique combo cards. In general, I think Chane gets a lot more mileage from the shared Shadow cards and from his non-Talent Class cards than Levia does. Before I start making comparisons, I want to say that Levia feels really good to play in Limited formats (Draft and Sealed Deck), where everything meshes very well. Levia feels great in Limited – go hit a Dread Screamer then trigger Hooves of the Shadow beast into back-to-back Graveling Growls, all from pitching a blue and destroying your Blood Drop Brocade. That’s 20 damage from a four-card hand, using only commons. So much of her power comes from her common cards that you feel almost like you’re running at full power if you can find enough Shadow Brute cards to fill out your deck. Outside of Limited, where most heroes get more choice, Levia feels restricted. For example, within her Talent, Chane feels like he uses the cards better. Shadow cards generally do one of two things: they banish cards or can be played out of the Banished Zone. Levia wants to banish six-power cards, but only reactively, to disable Blood Debt. There is little benefit in banishing Shadow Brute cards unless you have already started the clock on yourself. Chane generally gets more value from the cards that let you banish cards, since his Shadow Runeblade Cards are generally stronger than the Shadow cards that can be played out of Banish. Levia can use these cards to banish a Ghostly Visit, which is fine, but Chane does it better. Levia can also banish a six-power card if she is in a pinch. Playing a card to not attack and just get yourself out of a pinch doesn’t feel particularly satisfying, nor does having to face your opponent’s full-strength hand afterwards. Chane and Levia both like cards that can be played from Banish, such as Ghostly Visit and Howl from Beyond, but for very different reasons. Chane just gets to play more cards and add to the total amount of red cards that he can play from his Banished Zone. Levia likes to have the options to play those cards if she ever finds herself with extra action points or resources. Let’s go in-depth into how the mechanics of these cards work, how they end up in the Banished Zone, and compare how Levia and Chane use them. Levia has to work to get cards into her Banished Zone. This can be done with Shadow of Blasmophet, a similar deck-banishing effect, or from her graveyard through an additional cost on her attacks. Most often, she needs to play them out or block with them first, which can be tricky, since nearly every card that can be played out of Banish is below curve or cannot block. For example, red Ghostly Visit and Wounding Blow both block for three and hit for four, but Ghostly Visit costs one resource compared to Wounding Blow’s zero. If a card cannot block, then the most common way to get it into the graveyard is by playing it. This feels especially bad with Tome of Torment. The upside here is that Levia can recycle the cards that she has played from the banished zone, and generally only needs to run one or two copies of cards that she can theoretically play three or four times in a game. In contrast, Chane gets cards into his Banished Zone automatically at the start of his turn but struggles to recycle them. Chane’s way feels better currently. Tome of torment, when played from Banish, effectively converts an action point into a card in hand. Chane has an excess of consistent action points that Levia does not, through his hero ability (which can always give Tome of Torment Go Again to start a turn), Mauvrion Skies, and Seeping Shadows. The latter two cards usually mean that even if Chane uses his ability to give Tome of Torment Go Again, he can still attack at least twice. In order for Levia to use Tome of Torment out of Banish, she needs to find a spare action point, which is a rarity. It is nice to have an option to draw an extra card when you roll a six on Scabskin Leathers, but that is not something that feels good to bet on when the price is a red card that doesn’t attack or block, or do anything out of hand. Tome of Torment is fine out of banished if you get lucky, but you need to get it there first. Unless you banish directly from your deck with Shadow of Blasmophet, you won’t be happy when it comes around. Additionally, Levia can generate Go Again on her attacks from Dread Screamer, but the spare action point afterwards isn’t great to use on Tome of Torment, since you’re effectively just fishing for a worthwhile card to arsenal. Even though Tome of Torment is a card shared between the two, Chane makes much better use of it five times out of six. Shadow puppetry does everything you want in a card. It strengthens attacks, gives them Go Again, and gives them an on-hit ability. It’s a shame that the on-hit ability benefits Chane more than it does Levia. Levia can hope to get lucky and see a card that can be played out of Banish on the top of her deck and maybe get a Ghostly Visit or Void Wraith into play, but Chane can see any number of cards in his deck and be happy as he plays out a Bounding Demigon or Unhallowed Rites. Levia also can’t rely on the on-hit from Shadow Puppetry to turn off her blood debt since the opponent has ample opportunity to block. Guardian of the Shadowrealm is a very dangerous design space in this game. A defense reaction that can be played more than once is uncharted waters in Flesh and Blood. There is a very good reason why Remembrance cannot bring back Reactions, since they are very strong. Guardian of the Shadowrealm needs three very specific things to happen before it can be played again, which is a very high bar. And I believe that the bar is as high as it needs to be. But because of that high bar, taking a whole action point and two resources, it is very difficult to effectively recycle. Levia’s main weakness is a lack of spare actions points, and I don’t think a Chane would want to divert resources into pulling it out of his Banish. This is the only Shadow Majestic that I think favours Levia, but comes with such a high burden that it barely counts. Carrion Husk is a card that is perfectly balanced between the two Shadow heroes. They both significantly benefit from it but in different ways. Chane’s aggressive game is on a clock from the turn where he makes his first Soul Shackle, and having six armor to block any on-hit effects that will slow down your aggressive plan is a massive aid. The fact that you will take damage every turn afterwards is less relevant since the game will be over, one way or another, within a couple turns anyways. In Levia it can be used much more flexibly over the course of a longer game where Levia is controlling, or in a more aggressive game. In either instance, Levia sets her own timer by being able to turn off her Blood Debt each turn. By the end of the game, you wont even notice that one extra blood debt in the pile of 15 others. Ebon fold is an emergency button that Levia can press if she has a two card hand and no way to banish a six-power card. It can be used offensively if you happen to have a Shadow card like Ghostly Visit in hand, but is usually better kept around in case you need to not kill yourself on a turn where you draw an awkward hand. It’s a card game. You can have the perfect 80 cards in your deck, but you will always see bad hands every so often. When Chane puts this hat on, it becomes a fantastic offensive option. Not only are most of his cards playable from Banish, they get stronger when played from there. This can function as either a turn extender or a turn enabler (such as by banishing Rift Bind to activate its effect). Overall, I think that Chane gets more use out of the shared pool of Shadow cards. It would be very interesting if Seeping Shadows was a Shadow card instead of a Shadow Runeblade card. I would gladly run more blues in my deck for guaranteed Action Points. It is tough to run cards like Lead the Charge since all they do is generate an action point. It blocks poorly, does not have six attack, is not a Shadow card, and is not a Brute card. So much of Levia’s deck space is occupied with cards that keep the Banish train fueled and/or have six attack that any non-blue non-attack action has a very high bar to clear if it wants to slot in. Blasmophet may hunger for flesh sacrifices, but Levia hungers for action points. To get away from the practical side of actually playing the cards in this card game, and to go more towards design elements, I want to mention a couple of things. I think the usage of Talents is a great design space that creates a mix of flexibility and specificity. In Monarch there are multiple crossovers between cards that multiple heroes want. Shadow heroes compete for Shadow cards in draft, Chane and Boltyn compete for the cards that focus on “3 or less base power” and Levia and Prism focus on six-power attacks and those attacks that benefit from having a higher base power, like Zealous Belting. I also think that when it comes to recursion of cards in games, caution is definitely the way to go. As much as I like Levia, I would rather her be underpowered than able to infinitely play cards out of her Banished Zone and never run out of threats. Trust me, I’ve tried building a recursion deck, it underperformed and I couldn’t find an infinite loop to exploit.
The Warriors of Rathe
By Dimos K Across Rathe, heroes fight one another for many reasons – pride, national service, survival, and money to name a few – but few heroes are as seasoned in battle as Warriors. Currently tied for the most-represented class by hero count, and likely the most-played class throughout the history of the game, Warriors force the opponent to come well-prepared and knowledgeable. LSS has said that the Warrior class is about “being engaged in battle”, a thematic concept that comes through very well when playing against them. Once again, I am impressed at how well themes make their way into gameplay and feel fitting over the course of a match. The central theme that connects each of our three Warrior heroes, Dorinthea, Boltyn, and Kassai, is this idea of engagement in battle. Each expresses it slightly differently, but bringing Attack Action cards against any of them weakens your defensive options. Defending with an Attack Action card will either trigger Reprise, or a buff on the incoming strike. Dorinthea is most likely to have cards with Reprise, Kassai most commonly runs Cintari Sabres, which get buffed when blocked by an Attack, and all of Boltyn’s attacks get the same buff and a potential Go Again once he has charged. And all of them can run Glint the Quicksilver, an amazing card that makes any opponent think very hard before they commit to overblocking an attack from any Warrior. Overblocking is tempting because Warriors come with plenty of on-hit effects. Dawnblade becomes stronger as it hits, half of Boltyn’s attacks have on-hit effects that let him draw or build his Soul. Defense reactions are generally your best bet for countering a Warrior’s offence since they can dodge Reprise and prevent any buffs to their attacks. What all of this adds up to is a very high burden on the defending player. Blocking against Warriors the trickiest in the game (except possibly Wizard). A common reason why Warriors are excellent at beating newer players is because of the knowledge required to block against them. By blocking Dawnblade for six from hand, one could assume safety since most attack reactions grant +3 power. It takes knowledge to know that Singing Steelblade often comes in for +4, or that Twinning Blade and Glint the Quicksilver can nullify the block entirely. It takes knowledge to know when to block Boltyn’s Charge attacks. Do you take 3 damage and let him draw a card from Bolt of Courage and hope his turn ends there? Or do you block it to deny the draw effect if you think he has an Attack Reaction in his hand. Blocking against Warriors is uniquely taxing and is one of their main strengths. Unless you know exactly what your plan is (based on what their plan could be), the only way to effectively block a Warrior is to have half your deck made of Defense Reactions or Non-attack Actions, depending on the Warrior. In a game as strategic as Flesh and Blood, being able to mentally burden your opponent on your turn is a very large advantage. In comparison to a class that does not have on-hit effects and doesn’t care how their opponent blocks, such as Brute (tricky Barraging Beatdown plays excepted), when an opponent is against a Warrior, the vast majority of the game happens on the defending turn. It is an excellent way to disrupt your opponent’s gameplan without running negative on-hit effects like Command and Conquer. Overall, blocking against Warriors is hard, and they will generally force you to play around their gameplan than allow you to play to your gameplan. With all of those commonalities discussed, let’s move on to what makes each Warrior different. Beginning with Dorinthea, who is the most difficult to block against. This is because most Dorinthea decks are comprised of 50% or more Attack Reactions, many of which carry strong Reprise effects. Which means unless you’re packing 30 defense reactions, you’re going to have to do some guessing as to how to block throughout the course of the game. In an earlier article I discussed how the hidden information Dorinthea has in the form of Attack Reactions is one of her biggest assets since it forces commitments from an opponent who is often lost. And if that opponent overcommits, then that’s a free card to arsenal to come back with next turn. I’m not going to turn this into an article about how to block Dorinthea, since that has been discussed by the experts over at Session Blood here. Boltyn requires the most game knowledge to play against. I choose the term game knowledge here deliberately, because Dorinthea certainly challenges her opponent to know what is in her deck, but once you understand the relationship between Reprise and the threat of Twinning Blade, you’re pretty much set for the broad strokes. Boltyn has more tricks up his sleeve since he can give anything that is buffed Go Again. Being able to buff cards with his own ability (putting the burden of blocking on his opponent), or through Non-Attack Actions or Attack Reactions leaves him with no shortage of options. Beacon of Victory alone gives him a fantastically adaptable gameplan. It can be an Attack Reaction that hits for +1 and searches for a Lumina, or it can hit for +20 if you spend your game charging Soul – amazing versatility and, I think, the most powerful card that lets you search your deck printed to date. Lumina allows Boltyn to do literally everything he wants to do: get a buff, threaten an on-hit effect, and replenish his soul. Because both of these power cards happen in the middle of the turn, they are less face-up than something like Steelblade Supremacy and can catch people unaware. Obviously, V of the Vanguard is a powerhouse on its own and is one of the few times where Boltyn really doesn’t care what you do because he’s going to power through for free anyways. If you haven’t played Boltyn with Halo of Illumination, do it. It is a fantastic way to get that extra card into your Soul and forces your opponent to fear you even when you have an empty soul. Kassai is very much the black sheep of the Warrior class. Hailing from Volcor instead of Solana like the other two, her main theme centres around value. Discounting resource costs every turn is a very nice hero ability, and fits very well with her theme as a mercenary. Kassai is amazingly effective at out-valuing her opponents. Red Driving Blade and two swings of Cintari sabre is seven to nine damage off of only two cards. Those numbers rival Ira. Had Ira not been so dominant in Blitz, I definitely think that Kassai could have been a similar menace, but with ten armor instead of four. She also excels at modular hands. Her two-card hands are excellent, as are her three- and four-card hands, meaning she can block as required and will not lose out offense come her turn. This is another strength she shares with Ira, and a large advantage she has over Dorinthea, who has notoriously weak two-card hands. Kassai can have a strong two-card hand with a Driving Blade and a blue pitch, and she can have a very powerful four-card hand by adding a Hit and Run and a Snatch. All of this comes with the well-hidden information of strong Warrior Attack Reactions peppered throughout the deck. In general, if you want to force your opponent to do a disproportionate amount of the mental work during the match, play a Warrior. And if you are playing against a Warrior, be careful how you engage them in battle. They will always have a Reprise, riposte, or parry waiting for you in the form of an Attack Reaction, card-buffing static effects, or a Steelblade Shunt.
