ProTour and Calling Lille Tournament Report
By Yuki Lee Bender The ProTour did not go especially well for me this time around, so I won’t spend much time recapping it, but here is a brief summary of what happened Draft I start off the ProTour as 2-1 after drafting Iyslander, losing the mirror match in round 1 as I lack equipment to mitigate arcane damage, but I manage to win against two Dromais. One of the games I even won through a turn 3 Ouvia which I was unable to kill, but timely Singes and strong red attacks let me narrowly close out the game before hitting fatigue. CC Round 4 vs Pat Eshgy’s aggro Oldhim (L) - I wasn’t familiar with this style of play, it really caught me off guard and I quickly fell behind. Round 5 vs midrange Oldhim (W) - I managed to hit some very good sequences early and attacked for a lot of damage early giving me a huge life lead making closing out the game quite easy. Round 6 vs Pheano Black on Prism (L) We both ran very hot with him hitting double auras and me hitting strong Mordred Tide and Revel turns. At some point I have an off turn and then he chains together two Arc Light Sentinels which end up closing out the game. Round 7 vs Cayle McCreath on Bravo (L) - Cayle manages to keep disruption rolling with pummels and crush effects while I have some very awkward draws early. While I get him down to single digits the game was never particularly close. It was a pleasure to meet and play against the legend himself, I just wish I could have had a slightly more competitive game. The Calling Lille After a disappointing 3-4 record at the end of Day 1 of the ProTour I was effectively out of contention for top 8 and would need to win all 7 games in order to get a PTI, with a small chance to bubble out of top 32 even if I were to win out. With all of this in mind I decided the best course of action would be to switch gears and play The Calling so I could get a fresh start. While playing The Calling wasn’t what I had hoped to be doing going into the weekend, it was a fairly easy decision for me given the circumstances. I was on the fence between Viserai and Prism for the PT, but it became very apparent to me that Viserai was not the deck I wanted to be playing for such high stakes, despite it being a solid choice for the event. I personally found the games into Bravo or aggressive strategies to be quite swingy and not that enjoyable. This weekend I learned that I’m not really an aggro player at heart, the games are just so condensed and simply racing isn’t what I enjoy about Flesh and Blood. I start out day 1 of The Calling excited to be playing Prism for a change of pace. Round 1 - Dash - Win I fly across the world to sit down and play against a player who I’ve played numerous times while traveling to Portland and Seattle area events; small world. He was playing Dash which is a matchup I had been testing extensively with Ian Zhang since the Calling Singapore. We found that boost Dash beats out herald aggro and auras, but can be fatigued quite easily by Prism should you board out auras. The issue however, is that I expected some Dash players at this event to have a bit more midrange approach which you require auras to beat. I decided to hedge and board out only some auras and adapt to my opponent. He was on a full pistol plan and had a very good start, quickly finding his items. Luckily for me I managed to double aura repeatedly despite the low aura count and snowball the board while soaking up damage using Phantasmal Footsteps against the pistol. This allowed me to pressure him as much with auras and heralds to narrowly close out the game with only 7 life left vs two purifiers and two chambers. Round 2 - Briar - Lose I think this matchup is a lot closer than people give it credit for, but the games can be very swingy for either hero and depend a lot on how the cards come up off the top. I managed to trade life down to 28 in order to establish a few auras early. Unfortunately for me, my opponent ran very hot with an early CMH accompanied with plenty of go again attacks to go along with it. I get pushed down to 7 life through my blocks by the time CMH is off the board. I draw into a hand that blocks for 5 but can play an ALS, but my opponent has teched Time Skippers for this matchup and has the required blue and attacks to follow up and close out the game. Round 3 - Dash - Win Feeling quite confident with my hedge board into the Dash from Round 1, I decide to board the same way. My opponent is once again on Dash, but this time starts with Teklo Pounder. Drawing into some clunky hands with lots of items, he decides to take his time to try and set up additional pounders and teklo cores to help him into fatigue. I capitalize on this with some heavy pressure with Heralds and play multiple parables that he has to answer before trying to pressure. This puts him down to 20 and takes quite a few cards from deck before he is able to pivot allowing me to transition smoothly into full block out fatigue. He decks out while I still have 12 life remaining. Round 4 - Viserai - Win I like to play Auras into Viserai and find the matchup to be quite dynamic and close. I get a great start by developing multiple auras while my opponent stumbles a bit with some awkward hands. Wanting to pressure, he is forced into using Creepers early and I am able to turn off his arcane damage while still being at 32 life making me feel way ahead. I have the opportunity to Arc Light Sentinel with Haze bending and multiple auras already on board, but he ends up drawing into lead the charge to clear, and pressures my life down to 22 while he is still at 18. He draws into a hand with multiple poppers facing down Miraging Metamorph and decidedes force me to have the aura which allows me to copy an Ode and really turn the corner quickly with my board. Round 5 - Prism - Win We have found that playing herald aggro with Fractals and Phantasmaclasm with Goliath Gauntlet to be highly effective in the mirror. The plan is to pressure hand with heralds, protect ourselves with yellow poppers and to try to clear auras with auras or spectral shields as much possible. Turn 0 my opponent attacks me with a Herald forcing me to block with red Wartune to avoid taking damage, he follows up with Fractal causing me to leak 5 damage and give him soul while he still gets an arsenal. The game from here is quite close and life totals remain high as we trade heralds for poppers and auras for auras, although I’m behind slightly on soul. After several turns of trading he draws into all blues and can only play a blue aura and pass. This opens the door for me to play two yellow auras and clear his aura, leaving him still stuck on blues. This leads me to snowball the board with auras beyond what my opponent can keep up. He concedes the game facing down an Erudition for 7 with Parable, Ode and Haze Bending on board for my side, life totals are 33-15. This game was an example of how snowbally and punishing the Prism mirror can be if you stumble. Round 6 - Dromai - Draw Going into this matchup I don’t feel especially confident since I lack experience but I have been told to snowball the board with spectral shields to lock them out of the game. I feel way ahead at the start, managing to clear his board with heralds and poppers while pressuring his life total. I’m up on life 36 to 14 when I decide to switch into spectral shields, but end up being unable to protect them once my opponent lands Dominia. Around this time I realize I have also been too relaxed in my mindset and that there are only 15 minutes left in the round. Trying to play faster, I make a few blunders including pitching a blue instead of a yellow, and managing my soul a bit poorly making it hard to close out the game as my deck starts to run out of threats. These mistakes continue to drag out the game and the game ends on a draw with life totals of 25 to 8. This game ended up being much closer than the life totals would have looked as I was quite close to fatigue. I ended the match being quite frustrated with myself after this match for being so relaxed in my mindset and letting the game go to time. I definitely could have won this game with better play and time management. I feel like lack of focus has been a major problem for me starting somewhere in Pro Quest season 2 or Road to Nationals and it has cost me crucial rounds. After the game I identified that my opponent was quite friendly and in my own efforts to be friendly and social I hurt my own focus. Pinpointing the cause of my poor focus felt like a big break through. Once I was able to identify the cause of it, I felt like I was able to mitigate it by making a point of changing gears and becoming more serious as the game is about to start. Round 7 - Boltyn Sabers - Win I knew I had to try to pressure as much as possible to make it hard for him to combo so I prioritized auras and played Heralds when it made sense to do so. I also made sure to preserve my life total above 35 so I wouldn’t be dead to the combo when he did hit it. My opponent was very experienced on Boltyn but ended up not seeing his combo turn until I was already presenting lethal. Had he found it one turn earlier it could have been a much more interesting game, but he ended up only being able to play a single Lumina due to forced blocks. Round 8 - Briar - Win After my previous Briar game I was feeling a bit nervous but I decided to stick with my aura plan and just play the best that I could. This game was more or less the opposite of the previous Briar game, my opponent had nothing going right for him and ended up not seeing any CMH turns, whiffing Sonata for x = 1 and revealing a blue off of Rabble. In addition to this I just continually played auras and managed to snowball the board quite heavily. After establishing my board I take damage down to 15 life in order to play Arc Light Sentinel + Haze Bending on my turn with three auras already in play. Next turn I effectively lock Briar out of the game with my aura snowball and a four card hand to pressure with. Round 8 concludes day 1 and qualifies me for day 2 with a record of 6-1-1. At this point I’m still in contention for top 8 but have to win all 5 rounds on day 2 due to my early losses and the event having approximately 570 players. Round 9 - Bravo - Win One of the great things about Prism is you get to have a few games that are close to auto wins, and while I didn’t find any of those matchups in Day 1 I was happy to start off day 2 with one of them. My opponent tried to manage key auras and race me down, but Soul Shields in arsenal made it very difficult for him to effectively pressure my life total and stop my aura snowball. Round 10 - Aura Prism - Win My opponent plays Nullrune Gloves and Crown of Dichotomy and focuses on playing as many auras as possible. He wins the dice roll and plays double aura turn 0, letting me flash in Merciful Retribution before drawing back up. Thankfully, getting to play my own aura turn 0 means I’m not too far behind and focus on managing his board while pressuring his hand with heralds. Due to his double AB setup he is quite vulnerable to Eruditions and I manage to force one through early and get the life lead. The game is quite grindy and he manages to get ahead on board with two auras to my zero, but by the time he does he is at 12 life to my 32 and has to spend multiple cards defending making it hard to keep the snowball going. Phantasmaclasm was clutch as it stuck him on all blues once and ripped a popper from his hand twice. Round 11 - Aura/Herald Prism - Win My opponent is playing the same equipment loadout and a very similar list to my own. They win the die roll and play turn 0 Haze Bending allowing me to play Genesis before drawing back up. This allows me to follow up with a Parable and clear their board while having soul and a Spectral Shield which puts me way ahead; I arsenal Fractal. After my opponent pops Genesis on their turn with a herald, I play an Erudition with Parable still in play to protect it, forcing the crown block which allows me to fractal and play additional heralds putting my opponent down to 25 while I’m still at 40. Since I am ahead on life, ahead on board and my opponent has no soul to pop my auras the game snowballs out of control for them. Round 12 - Bravo - Win My opponent is very pleasant and we have a great conversation before and after the game, but as mentioned before the Bravo matchup is very one sided. He tries to mostly ignore my auras, but my board gets way out of control. Round 13 - Oldhim - Win This is my win and in and as soon as I sit down my opponent congratulates me on the top 8. We play out the game for a few turns but Oldhim doesn’t really have the tools to pressure and clear auras. The game quickly snowballs out of control once I start playing Miraging Metamorphs for 13 damage with 3 Pierce reality in play. The game ends with me at 37 life and locks me for top 8 at 6th seed with a record of 11-1-1 after 13 rounds. Quarterfinals - Briar My opponent is the higher seed and gets to go first. My start doesn’t have any auras, but Briar’s hands don’t present much damage and I have lots of heralds, dropping him down to 20 life while I’m still at 31. At this point I start drawing into more auras and trade life for board state. I end up having Shimmers of Silver, Haze Bending and Parable in play while we are both at 19 life, with a Miraging Metamorph in arsenal. My opponent has a CMH in play with 1 flow counter, but I generally like my spot. So long as I can turtle up from here I should be able to leverage my board state and Miraging Metamorph to take over the game. I draw up into four blue auras, and my opponent plays two Force of Nature’s fused, followed by a C&C for 10 go again. I block out with Crown and my 2 blocks, and he follows up with snatch for 6 with Snapdragon Scalers for go again. He draws 3 cards and sort of whiffs, but manages to Runechant and Rosetta Thorn keeping Channel for an additional turn and getting an arsenal and leaving me at 8 life. My next hand blocks for 6 and my opponent attacks me for lethal through my blocks. It didn’t feel like there were very many meaningful decision points I could have done differently in this game. I managed to navigate myself to a relatively favorable board state, but double Force of Nature with a hand that blocks 8 is simply too much to handle. I arguably could have sunk my Miraging Metamorph in arsenal to conserve health, but I knew there was no way I could block out a second attack with one card and a tunic, so I decided to just play to the out of him not having a follow up to the Command and Conquer. Arc Light Sentinel on either of the last two turns also could have been an out, but I didn’t draw it. My opponent navigated the game very well and sequences like this are exactly why Briar had such a successful weekend. It was definitely the deck to beat at both The Calling and the ProTour. Denouement I’m quite pleased with my performance in The Calling Lille and was also thrilled to see my friend and testing partner Ian Zhang top 8 the ProTour on a near identical list. Shoutout to him for sharing his deck and sideboard guide with me, although I played a role in testing and figuring out some of the matchups too. After watching the rest of the top 8 and seeing the venue erupt with Joy when Prism hit Living Legend, we received our Gold Foil prize cards from James White himself. I saw two players from the Sunflower Samurai opening their Gold Foils right away with Usagi opening Shuko and Akuma opening New Horizon. As soon as I saw the New Horizon, I knew I had to open my Gold Foil that I had planned to save to open with friends, on the off chance I could trade for the ranger equipment. I opened a beautiful Gold Foil Spellbound Creepers which Akuma was happy to accept as a trade for the New Horizon. This truly meant the world to me and was a cherry on top of what was already an incredible weekend. Moments like these where the Flesh and Blood community comes together are one of the most beautiful things about TCGs. Now I’m a proud owner of a Gold Foil New Horizon which I can’t wait to play with whenever the next time I decide to take Lexi out to a big event is.
Long Games and Fatigue in Flesh and Blood Part 1: Preparing and Identifying
By: Dimos One of my litmus tests of how well someone plays Flesh and Blood is to watch how they react to games unexpectedly going long. I define this as past 10 turns in Classic Constructed or seven turns in Draft or Sealed. At that point (unless life totals are at five or below), players should start considering how the game is going to end. Players have seen most of their decks, most of their cards are probably in the graveyard, and everyone has a good idea of what threats are gone and which are left on both sides of the field. The correct decisions to make in this scenario vary greatly based on individual decks and individual games. Some decks have few options outside of trying to end the game before turn 15 (when they will be seeing their pitch stack) by arsenalling a power card and buying time to play it in conjunction with another strong combo card. Some decks are actively looking to make it to the second cycle of the deck, since they lend themselves well to pitch stacking and conserving threats. We’ll cover some examples of how to react differently to longer games later in part two of this series, but for now I want to talk about identifying how long a game will go. The first chance you have at expecting a long game comes the second your opponent reveals their hero. Certain heroes lend themselves well to long games. Guardians love them, as does any class with a powerful weapon or a blue-heavy base. There is a very high chance of your opponent playing a long game with Bravo and Oldhim. The vast majority of other heroes* (Rhinar, Dorinthea, Katsu, Dash, Viserai, Prism, Levia, Boltyn, Iyslander, Dromai, and sometimes Briar and Lexi) all have very viable options for long games, both in their sideboard options and as intra-game pivots. What this means is that it is not always easy to predict if a game will go long. A good indicator of whether this will happen is the metagame at any given moment. Back in the Crucible of War era, it was expected that everyone had a long game plan because of the prevalence of midrange and control decks that looked to extend games. More recently, in heavy aggro metagames, you are much less likely to see Viserai with the tools to build up a game-ending 30-damage turn if the game stretches long and he has not been intentionally conserving specific cards in specific orders (Tome of the Arknight, Revel in Runeblood, Mordred Tide, etc.). He’s probably at a high fatigue risk due to his sideboard (generally) being full of aggro cards. Use your judgment in these scenarios, and have at least a couple of cards in your sideboard to help deal with longer games. Strong Generic options for these are Sink Below or Enlightened Strike, as they let you stack your pitch without the lost resources that come with pitching a strong red card. Another question to ask yourself is how likely are you to win a long game with certain decks? Guardians generally like games going long because they have strong, easily-pitch-stacked, card-efficient options in the late game. Can your deck compete with that? Or do you need to end the game before it reaches that point? Can you aim to do enough damage to ensure that your one big pitched combo is enough to close the game out? You should have an answer to each of these questions both before and during the game (the answer may change!). Now let’s imagine that you’ve sat down against a Dorinthea and are unsure if this game will go long, since she can play it both ways. There are a few signs to look out for as the game progresses. Is your opponent showing you a suspiciously low number of power cards (either playing them or blocking with them)? Are the life totals still above thirty? Has each player sighed a couple of times and played out an awkward all-red or all-blue hand? By answering these you will get a better idea of how long the game is going and whether it is an intentional plan by your opponent or if it is a mutual accident. In either situation, it behooves you to notice it earlier rather than later. If your opponent is intentionally setting up for a longer game, they are paying an opportunity cost by not playing their power cards, by awkwardly pitching reds, or awkwardly blocking with decent cards to conserve life. You can capitalise on this by pressuring in the early and midgame while setting up a coup-de-grace combo to finish them in the late game. This final blow can come either just as an arsenalled card or a fully pitched combo depending on how low you think you can push their life total. If the game is accidentally going long, you can really capitalise on it and possibly catch your opponent unaware. If you’re ten turns into the game and there haven’t been many power cards played, you know that they are very dense in the remainder of each player’s deck. This makes any cards you have with disruptive or defensive effects stronger, as they will help you survive the onslaught while protecting your own threats for later. However, if you’re wondering why there isn’t a lot of action happening on the face-up cards, it may not just be because of bad draws. It may be that there is a lot happening with hidden cards. Cards like Sink Below and Enlightened Strike allow a player to hide a game-winning combo effortlessly. Keep an eye out for when your opponent uses these effects, including when they Opt, use Crown of Providence, Crown of Seeds, or any other similar effects. Your Dorinthea opponent has played the game more or less normally, pressuring when she has a strong hand and using her high density of three-block cards when she doesn’t. At one point she pitched a Glint the Quicksilver to play her turn out. On your turn she played Sink Below, putting a card to the bottom of her deck. The turn afterwards, after she lost tempo to an explosive turn of yours, she pitched a Twinning Blade to pay for a lighter turn. At this point, you know there is going to be a Glint and Twinning combo turn, which is powerful enough in its own right. To prepare for it, you can pitch a defense reaction so you draw it on the turn where she draws into those threats. What you don’t know is what the sunk card is. As the game progresses, I would keep a sharp eye out for key threats. I would especially be trying to count exactly three Steelblade Supremacies. Adding Steelblade Supremacy to the Glint and Twinning combo is probably Dorinthea’s strongest move, and you will need to be prepared for it if it comes up. This preparation can either come as pressure, disruption, or defense. Now that you’ve identified that the game is going long, it’s time to figure out exactly how long this game is going to go. Is it likely to end on turn 17 or 18 when your opponent plays out their pitched combos? Or is it going to be a war of attrition where two aggro decks try to slam blue cards into one another? You are exactly half of any game of FaB**, your goal is just to make more than half of the impactful decisions. Hopefully you decide to have it end in your favour. Most games end in the second cycle because either one player has a better pitch stack and begins to dominate the match, or because players get antsy about going to a full fatigue state. This fear of fatigue can be due to inexperience, time pressures, or just because their deck is poorly suited for it (often indicated by the lack of a strong, stand-alone damaging weapon). I don’t believe that a state of fatigue is something to be feared, you just need to know what you’re getting yourself into. Fatigue can manifest itself in a few ways in FaB, mainly as soft fatigue or hard fatigue. Soft fatigue is when a deck is out of its power cards. If you’ve played out all your reds, odds are you’re dead in the water unless you have a weapon that hits for four or more damage. Hard fatigue is when you have zero cards left in your deck and can’t block. If you have a high life total, you’re probably aiming to hard fatigue your opponent using your life to preserve the number of cards in your deck. Meanwhile, your opponent on lower life is going to try to run you out of threats and soft fatigue you. It is just a matter of who can be more efficient and generate incremental advantage through the second and third deck cycles. In the current meta, where Guardians are a very present threat, you should be prepared to respond to a long game. This response should include both pre-game and mid-game decisions. Bravo lists are generally focussing on a high density of disruption cards and may not necessarily be looking to play games as long as they used to. Regardless, they still can play a long game very well if the game shifts that way. I think this a good time for midrange decks to toss in a couple of late-game cards and catch some of the more aggressively-leaning Guardians a little bit off-guard and complacent. Once you’ve answered all the questions posed above and decided how you want to steer the game, you need to enact that plan. The actions and reactions you take from this point forward will determine how the game will end and if you can close it out. That will be discussed in part two of this two-part series. * Kano can play a “long game” by digging for his second cycle with his ability and a plethora of draw and Opt effects. However, that will happen very quickly and the game will be over one way or another before you even think about seeing your second cycle. ** Except Ultimate Pit Fight and PvE, but both of those are still floating in the aether waiting for their time to fully come to Rathe.
Making Damage Hurt in Flesh and Blood
By: Dimos Dealing damage to your opponent in Flesh and Blood is the driving point. It dictates the flow of the game and the ultimate winner. Trading equal damage back-and-forth is only really relevant if the life totals are close. Once someone pulls ahead on how much damage they’ve dealt, the game has shifted entirely for both players. It stops being about eking out incremental advantages and building them and becomes about keeping up the pressure or surviving the onslaught until the tide can turn. Some decks are in their sweet spot trading two-card hands back and forth for the majority of the game. If you present six damage to these mid-range, mid-pace decks, there is no jeopardy for them while blocking. You are basically playing their game. In order to make damage hurt in FaB, you need to force your opponent to make difficult decisions or back them into a corner. Generally speaking, each incremental point of damage that you can push against your opponent is worth more. The relative value of a point of damage skyrockets once you go beyond what someone is comfortable or capable of blocking. Dealing 20 damage on one turn is orders of magnitude better than dealing 10 damage for two turns in a row. This is because dealing more than 12 damage in a turn nearly guarantees that your opponent actually takes some damage. Damage matters when it reduces your opponent’s life total, but it also matters when it forces them to block beyond their comfort. Either way, by presenting 20 damage, you’re inflicting some significantly painful decisions on your opponent, even if it takes a lot of combo cards and on-board resources (equipment, items, etc.). While the game rules currently have three types of damage defined (arcane damage, attack damage, and untyped damage), I find that this is not the most useful way to think about damage. In my view, there are three relevant classes of damage in FaB: raw damage, damage with positive on-hit effects, and disruptive damage. Each one of these will see players respond differently to the changing scenarios. Breakpoints are a key element in all of these damage types because they force your opponent to make difficult decisions. I previously wrote about the value of breakpoints here. Raw damage, that is just a number with no tricks or frills attached, usually hits the hardest. My main message for raw damage is that it doesn’t matter until the very last life point you have. Okay, maybe it sometimes matters a bit before that for certain cards that deal hard-to-prevent damage on your turn like Reckless Swing, Steelblade Shunt, or some arcane damage effects. But generally, so long as you have at least one life left, your opponent doesn’t have Go Again, and their attack doesn’t have an additional effect, you’re probably okay with taking the damage. Very broadly speaking, a card without an additional effect will deal one more point of damage than an equivalent card with an effect. Over the course of a turn for a very aggressive deck, that can be three or more damage. This allows you to get your opponent into kill range a meaningful amount of turns faster. More importantly, it makes it easier to get over the 12-damage golden threshold that guarantees you’ll be pushing past what your opponent can block. The sheer power of cards without on-hit effects, such as Scar for a Scar, Ravenous Rabble, or Shrill of Skullform make it much easier to push damage against a player that is blocking very aggressively. By contrast, Brandish or Drowning Dire are much easier to block out, while costing the same or more, due to the lower attack they have to compensate for their additional effects. The main advantage of raw damage’s higher numbers lets you threaten to end the game sooner. Some simple but solid advice: If you can threaten a lethal amount of damage, do it. Use your equipment to force it, use your arsenal, or bluff an attack reaction that could end the game. Throw everything and the kitchen sink at them. Especially do this when you notice your opponent is trying hard to keep cards in their hand (such as by blocking with armor), as now your raw damage has become disruptive to them. Hidden information is particularly useful at this stage of the game, and even a bit before it. There are countless games that have been decided because someone over- or under-blocked an attack that was followed up with a Razor Reflex or a Pummel. The second class of damage to discuss is damage that comes with a positive on-hit effect for its controller. For these purposes, I consider cards that gains effects on the dealing of arcane damage to also be on-hit effects even though that is technically not the official terminology. These effects can be the drawing of a card, the creation of a token, or the direct compounding of further damage. As in any card game, drawing cards is a massive advantage in FaB. Going from a four-card hand to a five-card hand (six counting your arsenal) almost ensures that your damage will be able to go over the top of how much your opponent can block. Cards like Snatch and Whelming Gustwave are staples for a reason. Drawing a card allows you to continue a turn that would have otherwise ended. On-hit Go Again allows you to do the same thing, and the prime example of this is Razor Reflex. The chance to follow up the attack with a weapon swing usually means that if red Razor Reflex provides Go Again to an attack, it will deal an extra three or four damage in addition to the three-damage boost it gives its target attack. Effects that create a token (such as a Runechant or Spectral Shield) or offer compounding damage (as many Lightning and Wizard cards do) are effectively the same. All cards in this class generally boil down to one idea: block this or take a disproportionately high amount of damage. While cards with on-hit effects generally deal less damage than their raw damage counterparts, if their on-hit effects do trigger, the reward heavily outweighs the initial reduction in power. Fundamentally, this puts a significant burden on your opponent to navigate those waters carefully. One wrong step and they could get blown out by a Razor Reflex and Snatch combo, a surprise Blazing Aether, or multiple Shock Charmers triggers. If you are defending in these scenarios, consider what dangerous cards your opponent has left. A good risk assessment considers both the likelihood of disaster and the severity of that disaster. Generally speaking, these positive on-hit effects shine against those who don’t want to defend or cannot defend efficiently. Consequently, they often lose heavily to decks that can defend efficiently (see Katsu vs any Guardian). The final class of damage that I’m discussing today is disruptive damage. This is the only type of damage that demands an immediate response from your opponent. At 40 life, your opponent may not care about taking 10 damage, or about taking eight damage and letting you draw a card to arsenal. But they are forced to care if your attack is threatening a discard. If they are okay with taking damage, it means they think their four- or five-card turn is better than your turn. By providing some disruption, you could be preventing them from playing Revel in Runeblood or another powerful turn-extending source of damage. However, I will provide a caution to anyone who is aiming to swing tempo with a single turn of disruption: You cannot simply take 15 damage to throw out a large disruptive attack in the middle of the game. Your damage rate is lower by virtue of having the additional effect, and you have no guarantee that you will draw another disruptive card to continue providing pressure. When you try to swing tempo with disruption, always have at least one turn’s worth of a back up plan. Play the Crippling Crush if you know that you can follow it up with the Spinal Crush in your arsenal. Take some damage to play a strong Chilling Icevein turn, knowing that you have an Ice Quake in your arsenal for next turn. The other side of the damage coin is life. In many card games the idea that “life is a resource” is gospel. In Flesh and Blood, I think that this is less true. Life is a literal resource in some instances, such as on Blood Debt cards, but I do not consider it a resource in many other instances. One exception to this is in specific combo decks, like a one-turn-kill Viserai deck, a combo-oriented Kano or Iyslander deck, or the even more niche combo Briar deck. Life is a resource in those decks as it buys time to set up the combo. This is certainly a resource, but in nearly every other instance of Flesh and Blood, life is inextricably linked to tempo. Due to drawing a new hand each turn, that is always the same size as it was last turn and the same size as your opponent’s hand, Flesh and Blood makes it difficult to build a board state. (However, having a strong board state can be crucial, as I have discussed previously). Without a controlling board state, one can expect that each 4-card turn cycle is worth roughly 10 to 15 life, either in blocking or attacking. This makes it difficult to use life as a resource to drop low on health and then make a significant comeback, unless you have something very specific and deliberate in mind. When I say this, I mean to go beyond the thought process of “I’m being presented 10 damage this turn, but I can hit back with 15 immediately afterwards”. Something specific and deliberate can be taking a lot of damage because you know you will be drawing into your pitch stack now and will be able to throw out back-to-back-to-back powerful turns. Unless you have some multi-turn or game-closing plan, I think it is almost never worth dropping more than one turn cycle’s worth of life below your opponent. There are many roads to go down to get your opponent to zero life, and each deck will focus on a different class of damage to get there. It is important that you know what type of damage your deck is trying to deal, and it is important that you know what type of damage your opponent’s deck is trying to deal. Without a clear image of these game elements in mind, you can quickly find yourself too far down the slope to climb back up, or too low on life to mount any meaningful counterattack.
Iyslander primer: key cards to consider when building the Ice Queen (part 2)
By EthnicSmokea In part 1 we discussed Channel the Bleak Expanse, a card that can be quite devastating against many of the current aggro decks when played at instant speed on their turn. In part 2, we will discuss the disruption we want to do on our turn. Command and Conquer / Erase Face What am I, an ape? Physical attacks? In MY wizard deck? Yes (except the ape part). Let’s go over the reasons why these cards shine in this wizard deck in particular. 1: Your opponent’s armor Back when Kano was the only wizard in town, aggro decks could afford to ‘disrespect’ Kano and not bring any Arcane Barrier equipment, with the idea being that if they do run into the 1 Kano in the room (you know who you are) they can just try to race them. For example, if I were to bring Briar to a tournament, pre-UPR, I would have been reasonably happy to only have Shock Charmers as my protection for Kano’s Aether Wildfire turn, and stick to my gameplan of going face the rest of the game. Of course, this does not always get you there, but it gets you there enough times to not need to dedicate more sideboard slots for a deck you are already quite unlikely to face. However, this gameplan does not work against Iyslander - she will slow you down and chip away at you while doing so, and so the aggro decks now have to bring AB. To give a specific example: you don’t want to have your turn abruptly ended by a Hypothermia or Channel Lake Frigid but also be unable to pitch your remaining cards to block the follow up 3 damage from Waning Moon. So, with the aggro decks now packing AB, we can punish the consequences: their equipment with block values on them are now collecting dust in their sideboard. And that means that while the aggro decks with fridges (looking at you, Runeblades) are usually somewhat resilient to cards like CnC and Erase Face, they no longer have this resiliency when against Iyslander. Couple this with the fact that a lot of the cards in these aggro decks block for 2 (looking at you, Fai), CnC and Erase Face become even more difficult to deal with. 2: Iyslander’s playstyle thrives on 2-3 card hands The combination of Iyslander’s hero ability and weapon, Waning Moon, means that we are very incentivized to use at least 2 cards on our opponent’s turn - 1 card to play from arsenal, and 1 card to pay for it and waning moon. This leaves us with at most 3 cards on our turn, and to keep this cycle going, ideally we use 2 of them and arsenal the third. This means that we are looking for the most disruptive thing we can do with only 2 cards, which is where Command and Conquer and Erase Face fit in perfectly. Not only are they on-rate for damage (note that they do the same damage as a red Aether Hail + Waning Moon on your turn), they have potentially devastating on-hits on an already armorless opponent. So, either your opponent is forced to block with cards from their hand (thus reducing the damage they get to deal you next turn), or they take the on-hit effect (thus also reducing the damage they get to deal you next turn). This means that you can afford to block less on their turn, and so allows you to keep up the tempo. 3: It gives you the edge in the mirror Um, what? Iyslander doesn’t care about either of these on-hits. Yes, that’s true. A CnC against Iyslander just prompts them to respond with that card in arsenal, and Erase Face’s on-hit only matters on rare occasions. To understand why these cards are still good in the mirror though, let’s take a look at the chest piece both players will bring: Alluvion Constellas. Since 1 charge on this is half an activation of Waning Moon, we can equate 1 charge on this being equal to 1 resource. That means that this chest piece basically says “the first point of arcane damage you block each turn is free”. This generates a lot of value in the wizard mirror where both opponents are firing arcane damage at each other on both turns, but what if you were the wizard that was firing physical damage on your turn instead of arcane? You force your opponent to use 2 cards to block 6 physical damage instead of giving them the option of using 2 cards to block 6 arcane damage (say, if your alternative was an Aether Hail + Waning Moon), which, with this chest piece, effectively denies them 1 resource that turn cycle. Might not seem like much, but in a long game (and the Iyslander mirrors do go long), it adds up. Conclusion And that concludes this 2-part series on the cards which I feel are being overlooked in Iyslander. As with most card choices in Flesh and Blood, these are not always going to be auto-includes, particularly since the nature of the hero is such that it needs to adapt to what it is trying to shut down. However, with the current trajectory of the meta, Channel the Bleak Expanse, Command and Conquer and Erase Face are all cards I will look to consider for any Iyslander list.
Walking in a Winter Wonderland with Oldhim
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.
Iyslander primer: key cards to consider when building the Ice Queen (part 1)
By Pankaj ( EthnicSmoke) Bhojwani I have been testing out Iyslander in Classic Constructed for a few weeks now (over Tabletop Simulator, since the physical cards only became available this past weekend), and have gathered some thoughts on certain key pieces that I think are being overlooked. With the meta still being very fresh, this is by no means a definitive guide on cards that absolutely must be played in Iyslander, but rather a primer on what cards should definitely be considered when you are looking to build the latest wizard to enter Rathe. Channel the Bleak Expanse The story around this card is the epitome of the idea that “you cannot build a control deck until you know what you are trying to control”. Not that Iyslander is a full control deck (and to be honest, archetypes like control/tempo are pretty murky in Flesh and Blood anyway), but you get the idea. This was not a card I had in the first few iterations of my list, but it become something I looked towards when I realized that the only games I was losing when against Briars/Fais/other aggro decks were ones where they managed to resolve multiple Belittles over the course of the game. Since most of Iyslander’s “bread-and-butter” disruption taxes your opponent 2 resources on their turn (referring to cards like Winter’s Bite, Arctic Incarceration, Aether Icevein, and to an extent, Cold Snap), Belittle perfectly answers Iyslander’s disruption as it immediately provides 2 resources to your opponent (when used to find a blue Minnowism, which most players will do when against Iyslander), on top of being attached to a 3-power go-again attack. While most red-heavy aggro decks can be slowed down tremendously by being taxed an extra 2 resources, Belittle solves that issue for them and so I looked into Channel the Bleak Expanse as an answer. Note that ‘silver bullets’ (i.e. cards that don’t do much except answer a very specific threat) are typically bad in Flesh and Blood (for example, Dissolution Sphere in Dash as an answer to Viserai). However, it turns out that Channel the Bleak Expanse does a lot more against the popular aggro decks right now than just neutering Belittle. Against Fai, it also stops Art of War, Flamecall Awakening, Engulfing Flamewave and Mask of Momentum. Against Briar, it stops Force of Nature, Snatch, Tome of Harvests, Gorganian Tome, Sonata Arcanix (playing CBE in response to a Sonata that they pitched for is pretty much game-winning on the spot) and any cards they might want to fuse. With Viserai potentially having a resurgence right now, CBE can also hit Become the Arknight, Drawn to the Dark Dimension and Sonata (again). These cards, along with the fact that some players are looking to play yellow Belittles as well as the reds, means that you can safely arsenal CBE and reasonably expect to be able to hit something with it on your opponent’s turn. The drawback of CBE also must be discussed, and that is the fact that it stops your own fuses. However, since you are the one in control of when the CBE enters the arena and when it leaves, you have a lot of agency over how much this really affects you. Note that keeping CBE around at the end of your turn is optional, i.e. you can choose not to keep CBE at the end of your turn even if you have the required number of ice cards in the pitch zone, allowing you to fuse that blue aether icevein you put in your arsenal when it comes to your opponent’s turn. So really, the drawback of CBE only affects you when you play it at instant speed on your opponent’s turn and so CBE is still around when it comes to your turn. But, how much fusing are we trying to do during our main phase anyway? Red Aether Icevein is definitely one of them, and maybe Encase (though I am not opposed to blocking with Encase if I just used a CBE on my opponent’s turn), but aside from those the disruptive attacks I believe we are most happy to use on our turn do not require a fuse at all - and that brings us to part 2.
