Some Heat in Uprising: Exploring Crown of Providence and Equipment Usage in Flesh and Blood
By Dimos K Uprising officially releases this week, and with it comes something Flesh and Blood players haven’t seen in a very long time: a new generic Legendary card. Crown of Providence shares an equipment slot with the previous universal favourite of Arcanite Skullcap. Skullcap has long been the best “this class has nothing better to put here” equipment. It doesn’t allow for explosive plays like Snapdragon Scalers, and it doesn’t enable uniquely efficient 4-resource turns like Fyendal’s Spring Tunic. It really only adds three life to whichever hero chooses to run it. The conditional Arcane Barrier 3 on it rarely if ever gets used outside of desperation-blocking the 2 arcane damage from Rosetta Thorn. No self-respecting Kano player would ever allow it to be used to ruin their kill turn, but maybe it will have some use against Iyslander’s new tricks and Waning Moon. The effective Battleworn 2 effect of Skullcap is unique, as most helmets in the game either block poorly or have Blade Break. Some classes have strong equipment in the head slot and have long eschewed Skullcap as an option. These same classes will likely have little interest in Crown of Providence. For everyone else, Crown of Providence is Arcanite Skullcap but much, much better. I believe it to be a strict and universal upgrade over Arcanite Skullcap as the go-to generalist headgear. Crown of Providence has a couple of mechanical strengths and what I consider to be a major conceptual strength. Mechanically, it can attempt to fix a bad hand or a bad arsenal, and conceptually, it represents a single-card, always-present pivot card. The hand and arsenal fix mechanic has different impacts for different classes, but everyone sees a direct and strong benefit. Most generically, it can turn a card that doesn’t block into one that does. This extends to an action card in the arsenal. Swapping that out for a three-block card to use on a follow-up attack can effectively make Crown of Providence block for five. Runeblades can use Crown of Providence to filter out all non-Attack Action hands or all Attack Action hands into something more balanced. Resource-hungry classes can swap reds for blues, blues for reds, or even expensive attacks for cheaper attacks. Boltyn can turn any card in arsenal into a card that either Charges or acts as Charge fodder. Any defending hero can help mitigate the effects of Intimidate or possibly deny bonus damage from Barraging Beatdown. Recently, Hope Merchant’s Hood has been gaining a lot of popularity as Flesh and Blood has sped up. Crown of Providence has significant similarities to Hope Merchant’s Hood but with armour value. It also has a few additional limitations. If it is being used to find another blocking card to save life, it needs to be against an attack that has Go Again, which is a limitation mitigated by the two armour points it has. It can also only replace one card rather than any number of cards. However, all of this pales in comparison to the fact that Crown of Providence can apply to an arsenal card. Crown of Providence allows for one free bad arsenal choice per game. This is, I believe, massive for strategic planning and card advantage throughout the game. How many times have you been caught with an extra card in your hand because your opponent’s turn was less offensively threatening than you had predicted? Or when you held the tempo in the game and drew something so mediocre that you couldn’t play out all your cards while maintaining a decent arsenal target? Crown of Providence solves both of these issues. Guardian players are free to arsenal a trash blue card because it will still generate card advantage when Crown of Providence’s effect is triggered. Brute players can do the same. And just about anyone can benefit from being able to arsenal a surplus blue and then try to turn it into an extra red in hand next turn. The only universally perfect arsenal cards in Flesh and Blood are cards that cost 0, have Go Again, and have a stand-alone effect. There are few of these in the game, and they often don’t make it into arsenal because they will fit perfectly into the flow of any turn, including the turn that they are drawn. These cards are rare, and being able to play them out while arsenaling some extra resource card is a significant boon offered by Crown of Providence. The ability to swap out a card from hand is fine, but being able to swap a card out from arsenal is uniquely powerful. Crown of Providence provides a unique choice of using defensive equipment offensively, which is a major conceptual strength. Generally speaking, equipment in Flesh and Blood is either offensive or defensive. Explosive cards generally block poorly, or penalize a player for using them to block. Snapdragon Scalers, Heartened Cross-Strap, and Goliath Gauntlet have no defensive value, Spellbound Creepers have Blade Break 1, and New Horizon destroys all cards in arsenal when it is used to defend. In contrast, defensive equipment such as Braveforge Bracers, Grasp of the Arknight, and Tectonic Plating provide excellent armour but little explosive power. They instead offer incremental benefits. There are some exceptions in powerful Temper equipment like Bloodsheath Skeleta and Courage of Bladehold, and also in Crown of Seeds. These are cards that can be used very effectively on both offense and defense. They also happen to be some of the strongest equipment in the game, with Bloodsheath Skeleta being banned and Crown of Seeds being the focus of frequent calls for a ban. I believe that Crown of Providence will be a very popular choice for similar reasons. It won’t be as strong as class-specific explosive cards like Bloodsheath or Bladehold, but it can provide an excellent tempo swing and turn some strong defense into strong offense. Having a card that is perpetually on the board that swings from defense to offense so seamlessly is a very powerful tool that was previously only afforded to a lucky few classes. In many ways, this piece of equipment is a single-card pivot. If the game is moving faster or slower than you thought it was when you arsenaled that defense reaction or combo piece, Crown of Providence lets you switch gears for free. I think that using Crown of Providence optimally will involve a slight recalculation on when to use equipment blocks in Flesh and Blood. Arcanite Skullcap introduced this concept in certain ways, as it was common to see a “tempo block” with it. If a player knew that they were coming in for a large turn soon, they would block aggressively with Arcanite Skullcap to take advantage of the +1 armour effect from being at lower life. This would be done not to block a relevant on-hit effect (as is conventional FaB wisdom), but simply to get one extra life point of value because they expect that they will be on higher life than their opponent for the rest of the game. Similar thoughts exist for Temper and Battleworn equipment that is destroyed by its own effect (Breaking Scales, Courage of Bladehold, Barkbone Strapping, Bloodsheath Skeleta). Crown of Providence will have to be used in a similar way. Although it will always provide an extra two life in the form of armor, it may not always be used to block at the perfect time to deny on-hit effects. I don’t think this is a downside relative to Arcanite Skullcap, as the second point of defense on the older headpiece is conditional. Overall, I think that if you are using Arcanite Skullcap, you should swap to Crown of Providence. I would probably run Crown of Providence even if it only blocked for one.
Uprising Limited Initial Impressions - Iyslander
By: Yuki Lee Bender After having the privilege of attending the Uprising world premiere sealed event and doing one Uprising draft, I have some initial impressions I want to share on Iylsander, the hero I played the most during limited events. I want to give the disclaimer that this is based on a very limited sample size and is merely a starting place. It’s highly likely that things will become more nuanced with more time to explore and learn the format. However, hopefully this can serve as a guide that will help folks jump in to limited for their Pre-Release and Release events. Iyslander Iyslander is excellent at playing a tempo gameplan where she attacks on both her own turn as well as her opponent’s turn with arcane damage that is difficult to block, while also disrupting the opponent. She often wants to trade small amounts of damage back and forth each turn cycle, and find small advantages in efficiency as she taxes her opponents and chips them for damage on their turn. Playing as Iyslander Waning Moon is an extremely impressive weapon and I believe activating it as much as possible, especially on your opponent’s turn, is key to winning with Iyslander. As a result, this means you want the majority of the blue non-attack actions you intend to play to cost 0 or 1 resources so you can play that card and activate Waning Moon off a single blue. As Iyslander, you always want to go first in every matchup, both because you can deal Arcane damage on turn 0, usually forcing the opponent to use Helio’s Mitre right away. You also have strong turn 0 plays like Sigil of Protection, Healing Salve or Arctic Incareration which fit nicely into the decks core gameplan. Additionally, going first allows you to set up your arsenal right away to start playing on your opponents turn. Having a blue card in arsenal at all times is a huge priority and something you should actively be looking to do every turn if possible. Iyslander is very particular about her card economy, and planning this out is an important part of building and playing her correctly. Generally every turn cycle you will want to: Pitch 1 blue to play a 0 or 1 cost non-attack on your opponents turn, and use Waning Moon. Arsenal another blue non-attack so you can repeat the process next turn. Use the remaining two cards to block on your opponents turn, or disrupt/attack on your own turn. Because you are basically locked into pitching a blue to play your arsenal + Waning Woon every turn, you want your remaining two cards to be as flexible as possible. For this reason I think red 0 costs, especially ones that block 3, are premium as they give you a lot of flexibility to make plays such as defend with 1 card and play the remaining 0 cost on your turn. However, more expensive cards can be good for allowing you to take a more aggressive role in the game, and some premium 2-3 cost reds are still very good. To see the difference between 0 cost and 1 cost cards in action, consider the following hands, assuming there is also a blue Aether Hail in arsenal: This hand will likely want to pitch Sigil of Protection to play Aether Hail from arsenal, and pay 2 for Waning Moon to deal a total of 5 damage and give your opponent a frostbite. Additionally, you will want to save a blue Aether Hail in hand to arsenal next turn. That leaves you with a few possible lines for your remaining cards. You can block with Frostling and Icebind for 6, you can block with Frosting for 3 and attack with Icebind fused on your turn for 3, or you can not block and attack with ice bind for 3 fused, pitching Frostling to Waning Moon for a total of 5. Now let us consider the same hand but with a 1 cost red action instead. You still want to pitch Sigil of Protection and save Aether Hail. However your choices for the remaining cards becomes much more binary. You can block for 6 with Frosting and Red Aether Hail. Or you can save both to play Aetherhail and attack on your turn with Waning Moon for 6. The 1 cost red trades a higher damage output for less flexibility. This by no means red cards that cost resources are bad, it just means they are less flexible and so in my eyes slightly less preferred. Building Iyslander As of right now, my ideal ratios for Iyslander are approximately: 20-22 blues - prioritizing 0 and 1 cost non-attack actions, especially ones that deal or prevent damage. 8-10 reds - prioritizing 0 and 1 cost cards that deal damage or prevent damage. Attacks and non-attacks are both good at red. While Iyslander is definitely played best with a very heavy blue count, she can still function at lower blue counts. My sealed deck for the Uprising World Premiere in Vegas had 14 blues which I would put as close to the bare minimum, but still felt serviceable. Yellows can be a decent replacement for blues if you have a fair amount of 0 cost blue cards. Spellfire Cloak can also help make up for resource light hands. I ended up going 4-0 with Iyslander after starting as 1-1 with Fai, for a total record of 5-1 at the event. Here is my sealed deck for reference. I do not think this is an especially ideal sealed pool, and I’m playing quite a large number of cards I would prefer not to have to play, but Iyslander feels fundamentally very strong. Overall, I found the deck to perform much better than it looks on paper. Here are some very rough power rankings for many of the common and uncommon cards I would look to play for Iyslander in limited. Keep in mind these are only based on initial impressions and are subject to change. It is not an exhaustive list of all the cards, but generally cards not on the list I would try to avoid playing when possible. Within each category, cards are not listed in any particular order. Please remember these power rankings are only a rough guide and should not be used as a pick order. The overall composition and synergy of your deck is very important, and the value of these cards can shift greatly depending on what your deck needs. You may very well have to aggressively draft blues as you want such a large blue count and are somewhat particular about which blues you are hoping to put in your deck. Best of the best - cards I would take aggressively in early picks of the pack. Strong Playables - cards I am happy to take once I start to feel committed to Iyslander. Seeing lots of these cards might steer me into the deck. Solid Roleplayers - cards I generally am happy picking towards the middle of the pack, but usually won’t make me want to draft Iyslander. These are cards I’m generally quite happy with with when I draw them. Playables - cards you can put in your deck, but feel more like filler. Often these cards don’t feel fantastic when you draw them. .
Drafting 101 - Draft Archetypes
By: Yuki Lee Bender Limited and in particular Draft is my favorite way to play TCGs and Flesh and Blood is no exception. The card game I played before Flesh and Blood is Magic: The Gathering where I almost exclusively played draft. When playing Magic I honed my draft skills by consuming content and drafting as much as I could, with the best players I could. Coming into Flesh and Blood I noticed many players are not comfortable navigating drafts and I also noticed a general lack of draft content. With Uprising just around the corner, it feels like the perfect time to dive into some draft fundamentals. Draft Decks, Not Cards This is one of the most common and clichéd pieces of advice players usually receive when asking how to improve in draft. The idea is simple - by drafting cards that synergize together and all work towards a coherent game plan, your deck will function much better than if you just draft the strongest cards in a vacuum and put them in a deck. The problem with this advice is that it is easy to understand conceptually, but it is not very actionable. Exactly how one goes about drafting a deck instead of a pile of cards is very nuanced and is not readily apparent from the statement alone. The key to drafting a deck is to understand the different archetypes in a draft format. A draft archetype is usually built around a set of key cards that play well together and form the backbone of your strategy. Generally archetypes consist mostly of commons and maybe a few rares, because those are what you tend to see most commonly when drafting. The basic strategies behind these archetypes can be very simple and can usually be summed up in 1-2 sentences. Using Tales of Aria as an example, you might draft an earth Briar deck that wants to play Bramble Spark, Earthlore Surge or Weave Earth followed by a big earth attack to swing for 10-12 each turn. This might be completely different from another Briar deck which could be focused on effects that deal 1 arcane damage and Ball Lightnings to help increase this arcane damage to slowly chip your opponent out. Lightning Lexi wants to flip up a lightning attack in her arsenal and present 2-3 attacks for 5 each turn. Fatigue Oldhim is often designed to defend with 3 blocks, pitch blue earth cards to his hero ability and swing his hammer for 3-4 each turn. Each of these are examples of archetypes or strategies that these heroes can employ. Generally each hero has more than one archetype they can be drafted as; this is by design as Flesh and Blood is designed for 8 player draft but only has 3-4 heroes per set. Two players on the same hero often will not be drafting the same archetype or game plan. A good check to see if you’ve drafted a deck with a game plan is to see if you can sum up what your deck is trying to do in 1-2 succinct sentences, once the draft is complete. If you’ve drafted a deck with a clear strategy you should be able to do this. If you are trying to maximize your chances of winning you should be drafting an archetype because you identify that it is “open”. A deck that is open is not being drafted by other players sitting near you and is very valuable to be able to identify, because it means you will have less competition for that deck which should result in a stronger deck on average. This is commonly referred to as “drafting your seat” and is done by “reading signals”. These are topics that have had many articles dedicated to them in their own right and won’t be fully looked at here. However, one of the most important parts of reading signals is understanding what archetypes exist and what the key cards for each archetype is. Usually if you start receiving multiples of those key cards, especially later on in the pack, you can assume that particular deck is likely open and there’s a chance you should be drafting it. Archetypes as Roadmaps As I get more familiar with a format, I usually have a rough idea of what archetypes or strategies exist in the format, as well as what an ideal version of that deck looks like. These deck outlines are something every strong drafter I know has in the back of their mind and can really help guide you during your draft. So, what does a deck outline look like? To see an example of this in action, let’s consider one of my personal favorite's, Ice Lexi. Usually this deck wants to attack with a single dominated arrow using Shiver in order to push damage and detrimental effects. In order to fuse her ice arrows, Lexi needs to reveal an ice card which she will want to arsenal to use on her next turn. Additionally, Lexi primarily wants ice non-attack actions so she can play them from her arsenal and still attack with an arrow that turn. If you arsenal an attack like Winter’s Grasp, it ensures your next turn will be a low impact one. The perfect complement to this strategy is pump effects like Overflex, Invigorate, Weave Ice and Ice Quake which help push damage and ensure your detrimental effects connect. The key to having success with this archetype, or any archetype, is correctly identifying which cards fit best into the strategy, and perhaps more importantly, what ratio to have each of these cards in. For example, if I were to build Ice Lexi I would want roughly the following mix of cards: At least 13-15 arrows (some of these can be blues) 6-8 pumps (such as red or yellow Overflex) 8-10 ice non-attack cards 8 blues Having a clear image of what the ideal version of your archetype looks like will greatly improve your ability to draft it, as it informs your entire draft process and can act as a sort of road map to your draft. Usually, as I am drafting a deck I am trying to make sure I check all the boxes for that archetype. I like to take an inventory of what I have so far and how I’m doing during the review period between packs. For example, if I am drafting Ice Lexi, after pack 1 I might count that I have 4 blues and 5 ice cards already, but only 2 arrows and 1 pump. This tells me that in the future I should be prioritizing those premium arrows and pumps since I need a lot more of them, and while I do want a few more ice cards I can be less aggressive when taking them unless they also act as pumps. Another reason that having a clear image of what the ideal finished version of the deck should look like, is it can help you identify which cards are the highest priority to pick and which cards are the strongest signals that the deck might be open. Going back to our example of the Ice Lexi archetype, pumps are easily the most important and the least replaceable type of card. Without them, Lexi really struggles to have sufficient damage output, especially into Oldhim fatigue. Additionally, the cards are not very replaceable, because Overflex and Invigorate are the only cards at common which offer this effect. Weave Ice, Weave Lightning, Lightning Press and Ice Quake are all rare and are often highly sought after cards for a variety of strategies and tend to get picked quite highly. Furthermore, pumps are much more effective at red than they are at yellow. For all of these reasons, you will usually see a much lower amount of pumps and so, you should prioritize taking them when you can. In contrast, while Blizzard Bolt and Chilling Ice Vein are easily your best options for arrows in this archetype, there are plenty of other arrows that can still fill your attacking and blocking needs in a pinch. Ratios for Draft One important thing to consider when building decks is the optimal ratios for different card types in your decks. Jasin Long wrote an excellent article titled Numbers Game - Getting the Right Ratios in Flesh and Blood that I would highly encourage people to read, but I will summarize a few key takeaways they apply to limited here. Jasin explains that as you include more of a card type such as red, yellow, blue, lightning or ice, your odds of drawing that card type increases. However, the probability of drawing exactly 1, 2 or 3 cards of a given type peaks at 7.5, 15 or 22.5 copies of that card type respectively, in a 30 card deck. This gives us a good starting place for ratios in your limited decks, but don’t be afraid to deviate from them a little bit. As a rule of thumb your 30 card draft deck you should include approximately: 8 of a card type you want to draw one of per turn (ice cards to fuse with or blues in most aggressive decks). 15 copies of a card type you want to draw two of per turn (reds in most aggro decks, and blues in aggressive guardian decks). 22 copies of a card type you want to draw three of per turn, (blues in defensive Oldhim decks that want to play expensive defense reactions and pitch an earth card each turn). Discovering Archetypes With Uprising coming out soon, we will all be new to the format and we will have to discover the archetypes for ourselves. Usually in these early stages, I focus on identifying cards that feel particularly good or bad to play. Additionally, I try to pay attention and take note of any particularly effective card combinations as I play them or even as my opponent is playing them against me. The more experience I get drafting a specific archetype, the more refined my mental image of that ideal completed deck becomes and the better I get at drafting it. You probably won’t have an optimal mental image of an archetype the first or even fourth time you draft it, but thinking about your outline for different archetypes and refining them is one of the keys to learning a format. For those looking for more serious draft prep, perhaps for an Uprising Draft Road to Nationals event, I would highly recommend building multiple 30 card “draft” decks for each hero. When building these decks, I treat it like building a constructed deck where I put together an ideal or optimal version of the deck. In order to make sure the decks are close to actual limited decks I impose the following set of restrictions: 30 card decks. Commons and Rares only. Maximum 2 copies of each pitch for common cards. You may wish to limit this to 1 copy for especially contested cards like Bramble Spark or Ball Lightning. Maximum 1 copy of each rare. This exercise is best done after you at least have an initial impression of how the commons play together. The benefit to building these decks is that the process helps solidify your mental image of what the finished deck should look like and can help you identify and discover new archetypes altogether. You could take this to the next level and compare your archetype outlines with other player’s and talk about why you both chose the cards you did. It can also be fun playing these decks against each other, however I wouldn’t put too much weight on the power level of these decks, since often more powerful decks are more contested during the draft process and tend to be balanced by having lower card quality.
Rhinar vs Dorinthea Classic Battles: Interactivity and First Flesh and Blood Experiences
By: Dimos Classic Battles: Rhinar vs Dorinthea releases today. A lot of people are also releasing their own opinions about the set. The set isn’t cheap, but many people will probably appreciate the goodies it comes with. There are other cheap ways of getting into FaB, so I don’t think this is locking anyone out of the game. There are some very nifty tools in here for constructed decks, but their number is quite limited. That’s fine by me, these aren’t structure decks or staple reprints, nor were they advertised as such. The core question I want to ask is: “Is this a fun set for new players?”. I think the answer is yes, but that is because of how fun FaB is as a game, and isn’t necessarily helped by the exact configuration of this product. There are a few ways we can explore this main question. We can examine some of Flesh and Blood’s core design principles and see how it stacks up. We can also look at other comparable “starter” products historically available. To begin with, let’s dive into some FaB design principles. One of the earliest articles on the Flesh and Blood official site is this one, which opens with the idea that “[t]he ideal gaming experience involves players making meaningful decisions, every turn of the game. For a decision to be meaningful there needs to be consideration, a trade-off or cost for making that decision.” I think this is an excellent, if non-contentious point. This philosophy also comes out in the “every card matters” mantra, which led to FaB’s Drone of Brutality ban. That was something else that I was on board for. Which is why I am now puzzled as to why the Rhinar side of this classic battle is stacking up Intimidates, and using eight cards that can’t block. I think that one Intimidate is great for forcing decision-making. Decisions still need to be made, but now it’s a little bit more awkward because the card that you wanted to block with isn’t available any more. But once we get to three or four intimidates, there are fewer decisions. More importantly, it feels like there is no decision left to make. I don’t think this is a positive experience for a new player. That isn’t to say that Brute is inherently uninteractive to play against, especially not at the power level of a starter deck. However, the new cards brought in specifically for the Classic Battles set are cranking up the density of Intimidates that an individual card can have. The free intimidates offered by Ruk’utan (which then lead into Alpha Rampage, another high-Intimidate card) and the double Intimidates offered up by Wrecking Ball stack very easily with the 0-cost non-Attack Action intimidates in the decks. This lack of defensive decision making also applies to Rhinar’s defenses, as 20% of his deck can’t block. This is somewhat mitigated by Ironhide equipment and Rally the Rearguard. Anyone who has played with any non-blocking cards in their deck knows that there is a very real trade-off and the non-blocking cards can feel very bad. With 8 in the deck, there is roughly a 1 in 6 chance that Rhinar will draw a hand with 2 non-blocking cards. That’s probably once a game where a player will be restricted in decision-making. Including non-blocking cards in a constructed deck is a decision to be made, and is effectively choosing to assume the risk before the match begins. But in a pre-constructed deck, they offer little decision-making opportunity. My fear is that the confluence of these Intimidates and non-blocking cards will lead to a lot of games between new players that are light on blocking. Fundamentally, blocking is the back-and-forth that makes Flesh and Blood fun. One can block heavily to look for incremental value, or choose to not block and risk the life loss to have their own big turn in response. By reducing the possibilities of blocking in this set, I think that players have reduced decision-making opportunities and will become forced into playing certain turns. Protecting newer players from mistakes that feel bad is one thing, but taking away decision points also takes away their ability to willingly take a risk and feel the triumph of having it pay off. Now let’s take a look at some of the other starter products. The most basic starter set in FaB is the Ira demo deck. The demo deck did an amazing job of teaching the fundamentals of the game, with a focus on the ebb and flow of attacking and defending. Attack reactions and defense reactions are very important cards in the set, but are not blowouts, as even a Lunging Press-buffed Whirling Mist Blossom can be blocked by any two cards. These decks lack any equipment, and are only 10 unique cards at three copies apiece. This is where I think the only real shortcomings from these decks come from: a lack of replayability due to the narrow card pool, and a strong risk of running out of cards due to having 10 fewer cards than is normal for a 20-life game. These are both aspects addressed by Classic Battles, at the trade-off of other decision points. For what it’s worth, I don’t question the balance of the Classic Battles decks against each other, I just wonder if they are interactive enough, due to the defending restrictions, to make for a positive experience. Most recently, Monarch and Aria gave us blitz decks. These came complete with Mentors, foils goodies, and equipment suites. They were also chock-full of set mechanics. Some of which were (and still are) confusing. Spectra, Phantasm, text-heavy instants, heavy Banished Zone interactions, Fusing (and not being able to pitch the card used to Fuse) are all things that caused some confusion for even experienced players when these were released. This is why I think using the un-talented Welcome to Rathe heroes for this set is a great start for a new player experience. It is much less confusing. There are fewer keywords that players need to learn. But I also fear that the pendulum has swung too far to the other side and these decks may be too simple. As far as I can tell, other than the universal fundamentals of the game (Go Again, damage, defending, etc.) there are only three play-relevant keywords: Mentor, Intimidate and +1 weapon counters. I’ve played enough boardgames and ready-to-play card games in my time to know that no one gets all the rules right the first time around. Generally, it’s on the second playthrough when the game clicks for people at the table. It is on that second playthrough where the previously-misunderstood mechanics work. Since the price and art of this product is aimed miles away from any children (a group that generally benefits from simplicity in new games), I think players can be trusted enough to include a few other mechanics that give the game depth. This moves us to our final comparable: the Welcome to Rathe Classic Constructed starter decks. To me, these represent the happy middle ground between the Ira decks and the Blitz decks. These were full experiences, showcasing just about every mechanic that Welcome to Rathe offered, including items. I acknowledge that Dorinthea’s previous core interaction of needing Dawnblade to hit and have Go Again to swing a second time was confusing for first time players, so I have no issue with the changes made to that in this set. I feel that there is a lot of unexplored depth to FaB that could have been included in Classic Battles. Simply adding an Energy Potion or Timesnap Potion to each deck would have added a lot of depth. Players can generally ignore it the first couple of games as they learn the pace of the game since it still pitches perfectly, and any game is unlikely to go to second deck cycles. Then, in subsequent matches, when players understand the flow of the game, they can choose to use their potion as the powerful set-up tool that it is and explore some exciting turns that previously were not possible. Overall, I think the gameplay in this set does a lot of things right, but my core concern remains that it may be oversimplified for players, both by limiting their in-turn decisions and the amount of mechanics in the set. I’m looking forward to playing this set and seeing if these concerns are founded. I think that the gameplay in this set will be fun. I just don’t think that is the result of Classic Battles as a product, I think it is because it is hard to make a low-power game of Flesh and Blood anything but fun.
Everything I Know About Ice Lexi
By: Yuki Bender This article will discuss my inspiration for the Ice Lexi deck that I took to Pro Tour New Jersey. I will also discuss sideboard plans and tips and tricks for some of the popular matchups. Building the Deck Lexi was at the forefront of my mind leading up to the Pro Tour, but despite all her strengths she had quite a few problems also. Lexi has always enjoyed a wide variety of builds including lightning or ice Voltaire, lightning Death Dealer, fuseless Voltaire and more. All of these lists have different strengths and are favorable against certain heros but weak against others. Lexi has always felt like she can be built to beat any hero, but being strong into all heros with one list has been a challenge. This problem inspired me to make a list that combines the core strategies of the fuseless Voltaire lists with the ice Voltaire lists. The idea behind the deck was to have most of the damage ceiling of the fuseless lists, while still having access to the disruption of ice for aggro matchups. The end product is a deck that can play the disruptive role and can find a turn with one or more Rain Razors/Art of Wars and ideally Three of a Kind followed up by 4-5 arrows to deal 25-35+ damage. This combo is usually achieved by starting with an arrow in arsenal, loading two arrows with Voltaire, giving the arrow in arsenal go again with Snapdragon Scalers, and then loading the 4th arrow with Bull’s Eye Bracers. Sometimes you can even get a bonus reload with Boltn’ Shot or Pathing Helix for a fifth attack! Art of Wars are essential to the deck's ability to go off as they can give all your attacks +1 and give you greater card velocity to find your other power cards. In general the deck is always trying to end the turn with an arrow in arsenal when possible, and actively aiming to pair a rain razors or art of war with it to set up an explosive 6 card hand. My main testing partners, Eric Lerer and Nghia Tran, really helped to refine and tune the list, although lots of other players helped us work on specific matchups as well. Eric, Nghia and I all brought the exact same 80 card list for the weekend. Eric and I both made day 2 of the PTand Nghia made day 2 of the calling. Across the three of us the deck had a 60% win rate (25-16 record) for the weekend. It was a small sample size, but overall we were very impressed with the list and feel like it’s pretty much perfect. I think Lexi has game into just about every deck in the format and in my eyes is comparable to the big 3 decks - Chane, Starvo and Prism. Here is the exact 80 I took to Pro Tour New Jersey. Class: Ranger Hero: Lexi, Livewire Weapons: Voltaire, Strike Twice Equipment: Bull's Eye Bracers, Fyendal's Spring Tunic, New Horizon, Perch Grapplers, Snapdragon Scalers (3) Blizzard Bolt (red) (3) Bolt'n Shot (red) (3) Chilling Icevein (red) (3) Endless Arrow (red) (3) Fatigue Shot (red) (3) Ice Quake (red) (3) Lightning Press (red) (2) Lightning Surge (red) (3) Pathing Helix (red) (3) Searing Shot (red) (3) Sleep Dart (red) (3) Three of a Kind (red) (3) Art of War (yellow) (3) Blizzard Bolt (yellow) (3) Bolt'n Shot (yellow) (3) Chilling Icevein (yellow) (3) Fatigue Shot (yellow) (1) Frost Fang (yellow) (3) Rain Razors (yellow) (3) Amulet of Ice (blue) (3) Bolt'n Shot (blue) (3) Channel Lake Frigid (blue) (3) Frost Lock (blue) (3) Ice Quake (blue) (2) Icy Encounter (blue) (3) Winter's Bite (blue) For those of you hoping to fit Shock Charmers or a bit of extra arcane barrier I might look at cutting Searing Shots or some of the lightning cards for the Prism matchup. However, I haven’t tested these configurations exactly, so you will have to make sure you aren’t giving up too much equity in that matchup. Prism is quite tough and requires us to play a lot of sideboard cards to keep up with her. Sideboarding and Matchups I will break down each of the popular matchups with the sideboard guide and some key notes for the matchup. The cards listed as sideboard are the ones that should remain in your deck box. Play everything, except for the cards listed. Starvo Board out: 3 lightning press (1) 2 lightning surge (1) 3 chilling ice vein (1) 3 chilling ice vein (2) 1 frost fang (2) 2 searing shot (1) 1 perch grapplers Against Starvo we hedge against the aggressive variant as it is the most popular. True control shells that play a bunch of extra 3 blocks + defense reactions are a very hard matchup as they can fatigue us but also punish us for taking too much time off to set up a big turn. If you know you are going to be playing against control, don’t be afraid to bring in lightning surge and lightning press to have a bit of extra reach. The good news is, aggressive Starvo lists are a very solid matchup for us, even if they board in 6-9 red defense reactions or not. In this matchup we need to prioritize maximizing on hits to keep them off their game while we try to set up a big 25-35 damage Rain Razors turn to push them to a life threshold that forces them to block for the rest of the game. As a rule of thumb you want to start the turn with Blizzard Bolts when possible and attack with Sleep Dart or Fatigue Shot as late as possible. This type of sequencing can lead starvo to take damage from the first attack just to realize later that their unfused Spinal Crush won’t be effective at all thanks to Fatigue Shot. The matchup can be quite swingy, and if they manage to go on a roll chaining hit effects they can run you over, however we also have our fair share of explosive hands and can high roll them just as hard. On the whole, I would say aggro Starvo is close to 50-50 or maybe slightly favored for Lexi. However, due the raw power of Starvo I’m never excited to be sitting across from one either. Aggro - Runeblades/Lexi/Katsu/Boltyn Board out: 3 lightning press 2 lightning surge 3 red fatigue shot 3 yellow fatigue shot 3 searing shot 1 perch grapplers Aggro is this deck’s bread and butter matchup and you can expect to be highly favored. Similar to Starvo, the general gameplan is to disrupt as much as possible while pressuring some damage, and then to have a big 25-35 damage turn off art of war, rain razors, and three of a kind to lock away the game. In general you want to block as little as possible and focus on maintaining heavy disruption to prevent the swing back. The priority is still often arsenaling an arrow, however red Ice Quake, Channel Lake Frigid, Winter’s Bite and even Icy Encounter can all be serviceable and situationally quite powerful as well. Against Chane specifically, trying to pressure them with frost bites and sleep dart is particularly troublesome, as both of these interfere with their ability to make soul shackles. When you are threatening frostbites, if they want to block out and still make a shackle it usually requires them to keep a blue in hand as well. I have definitely had my fair share of games in testing where Chane ends the game on 2-4 shackles, not because we killed them that quickly, but because there were multiple turns where they just never got the chance to shackle. Lexi Mirror Board out: 3 press 2 surge 3 red fatigue shot 3 yellow fatigue shot 3 art of war 1 snaps In the mirror I would always assume they are on ice as that is by far the most challenging variant for us to play against. Ice is heavily favored into any of the lightning variants as your taxes are super effective and your output isn’t too much lower. This is the one matchup where I would actually prioritize going second if you can as your disruption is especially effective against Lexi and the match is almost entirely determined by who controls tempo the best. Should you fall behind on Tempo, you will often just have to block out and look for a chance to pivot where they either have minimal disruption or you are able to play Three of a Kind or Channel Lake Frigid to force a pivot. These two cards are keys in the matchup as they are some of the only ways you can effectively regain tempo against another Ice Lexi deck. I also value the Perch Grapplers in this matchup as blocking an extra on hit can come in clutch. Art of Wars come out in this matchup because they don’t block and often require at least two other cards in hand (one to pitch and one to banish), which is not a luxury we usually have. It is worth noting that Sleep Dart can be particularly frustrating to play against if you have an attack in arsenal face down as it turns off your ability to open up an arsenal slot with New Horizon. For this reason, I would lean towards arsenaling ice attacks if you see your opponent playing Sleep Dart and putting themselves in a situation where they can swing back. Prism Board out: 3 red chilling 1 yellow chilling 3 sleep dart 1 frost fang 3 amulet 3 art of war 1 snapdragon scaler Against Prism we are trying to go as wide as we can while pushing as many breakpoints as possible, so placing an attack in arsenal is very important in the matchup. Pressuring her life total as heavily as you can is essential, as she will eventually overrun you with auras if you take it slow. Frostbites and Fatigue Shots are very strong in the matchup as it makes her C&C or herald crack backs much weaker. Prism is a tricky matchup because Arc Light Sentinel and Parable of Humility present a few unique challenges for the deck that you need to be aware of and modify your gameplay to account for. Parable of Humility turns off a ton of breakpoints but also turns off Boltn’ Shots go again. You may wish to sequence Boltn’ Shot as your second arrow or to give the attack go again with Voltaire to play around this in some spots because Parable ending your turn will often lose the game on the spot. Lightning Press and Rain Razors however can be sneaky ways to turn the Boltn’ Shots back on, and there are quite a few mind games you can play when deciding which mode to choose from Voltaire. Arc Light Sentinel (ALS) can completely blow out your giant combo turns and lines up very well against a deck focused on using Three of a Kind and Rain Razors. As a result, I found it most effective to actually minimize how much I set up and save cards, to make it harder for them to get value out of their ALS turns. There are lots of subtle ways to do this but here are a few key ones: Just play your Rain Razors anytime you have at least two arrows that benefit from it, a 4 for 0 go again is very good. Play your entire hand against Prism rather than holding back that vanilla 4 damage attack to set up a bigger hand next time. This way, if she does slam ALS the next turn you can probably still pop it, double arsenal and you got a whole extra attack compared to if you did not play the last arrow. Attack with an arrow with go again first, then play Three of a Kind. Yes, it breaks the chain, but at least you make them commit to one attack before stopping your Three of a Kind turn. Also, they are usually scared of committing footsteps when they see Lightning Press and Rain Razors in the list. When you activate Voltaire ask if they have any responses before revealing the arrow. Choosing +1 or Go Again is part of the resolution of the ability and can’t be responded to. Once the arrow is face up in arsenal, you have priority and she does not get to take any actions until you take another game action, such as attacking with the arrow. Prism is one of the few matchups where Art of War comes out, because it incentivizes you to play into big combo turns which aren’t effective against ALS. Instead, Lightning Press has been a spectacular replacement as it can pop a herald, threaten footsteps, force an on-hit, help you turn your Boltn’ Shots back on against parable and close out the game. The general gameplan is to maintain pressure as much as possible and kill auras occasionally. You are essentially trying to do your best Lightning Briar impression in this matchup. Which aura is most important depends on life totals and on the board state but in general the kill priority is: Parable of Humility Shimmers of Silver Haze Bending/Genesis (early in the game only) Pierce Reality (early or mid game only) Ode - this one can go up in priority if they have multiple other auras. Ignore everything else unless it's relatively free to pop the aura and it’s early in the game. At some point you will have to choose to ignore auras and just try to close out the game. Just make sure you aren’t ignoring Shimmers or Parable as both of those are extremely potent in late game racing situations. With practice I believe the matchup is quite close to 50-50, with most of the games coming right down to the wire. Oldhim/Fatigue Board out: 3 sleep dart 3 red fatigue shot 3 yellow fatigue shot 1 perch Against fatigue we bring in a few extra reds so we don’t deck quite as quickly. We have not tested the fatigue matchup extensively, but this list is definitely better equipped than most ice lists to deal with it. I personally managed to beat an Oldhim at the Pro Tour by playing double rain razors and Three of a Kind followed up by 5 arrows for a total of approximately 40 damage. This matchup revolves around your ability to alternate between big 6 card hands and smaller turns where you set up your 6 card hands. Additionally, the bigger your one combo turn is, the more likely you are to be able to punch through for lethal. The deck is overall decently well equipped to deal with fatigue, but it can still be a tricky matchup regardless.
Deck Upgrades: Climbing up Mountains of Majestics and the Ladder of Legendaries
By: Dimos Flesh and Blood is a card game that can easily cost an arm and a leg. Unfortunately, I don’t live in an area where I can sell my actual blood to buy cards, so I’ve had to make do in more creative ways. The official announcement of the Commoner format got me thinking back to when the total cost of my deck was about 10 Canadian dollars and the process with which I ended up with an Oldhim deck featuring five legendary cards priced at an insane $100-250 each. I personally think that this is too expensive for cards and would never have gone out of pocket for these. At heart, I am a budget player and think that there is a meaningful amount of learning to be done in the cheap end of the pool. I want to demonstrate that one doesn’t need a $1000 buy-in to play the game, even at a competitive level, and that there is so much game to be explored in the process of organically building a collection. In case you don’t want to read my FaB life story, here are my general guidelines for organically building a collection: Start with a starter deck, either made by LSS or by your local shop. Starter decks aren’t always the best value, but they are great at teaching you how to play the game and, more importantly, improve at the game. Practice makes perfect, learning how to play a common deck uncommonly well will go far. Play around with deck building too. Most communities will have some way of getting you bulk commons for free and rares for dirt cheap. Enter events and don’t be discouraged by early set-backs. It will take time to win. The participation and consolation prizes mean that you will still walk away with value. Learn why you are losing. Analyze your games after the fact. Could you have done anything to have won? Although this isn’t the most fun thing to do, it is the most effective way to improve in any game. Having a consciousness about your losses is the fastest road to winning. Keep an eye out for limited (draft and sealed) events and Commoner events, these offer a level playing field for those with $10 collections and those with $10,000 collections. Even though the price to enter a draft event can seem high, nearly every LGS will make sure you walk away with value after the event, either in the form of packs, in-store credit, or extra Armory participation prizes. Decide which class you like to play in constructed formats and practice. Learn the ins and outs of what the class can do on a budget. A deck running a $100 Tectonic Plating over a $0.05 Heartened Cross Strap loses access to Bravo’s most powerful turn: A Dominated, Pummeled, Crippling Crush. Focus your early upgrades on key Majestic cards. Powerful attacks like Crippling Crush, or combos with Majestic equipment like Courage of Bladehold or Vexing Quillhand. You don’t need to do it on your own! Talk to people at events and make some friends. Those new friends will probably let you borrow some of the key cards that you’re missing. This is a great bridge in the intermediate stages of deck upgrades. Win a few more events, and roll that into a key class Legendary equipment. Many of these are key enablers in the decks in which they operate. Tectonic Plating makes 5-cost Guardian attacks amazing, and Mask of Momentum makes Katsu’s hero ability twice as strong while ensuring that there is always a reason for your opponent to block. Try the water at some slightly more competitive events. Road to Nationals and Proquests offer strong prize support from both LSS and (hopefully) your local store. Keep an eye out for windfalls. Some stores still have prizing from previous armory kits or events that are now more valuable. They will eventually host an event where these can be won. I won a cold foil Ira at a random event with little fanfare that I attended on a whim. While that may sound extremely lucky, I have rolled the dice of attending “small” events many, many, many times. Other stores will host cash-prize events or win-a-box events. Anything bigger than an armory but smaller than a Road to Nationals is definitely worth entering. Although this advice straddles finance and gameplay, always remember that it is a game and the main point of this collection-building process should be to have fun. Once it stops being fun, it stops being a hobby and becomes a job. At that point, you’re better off working an actual job and earning a consistent, reliable paycheque. FaB won’t be that unless you’re one of the best, consistently playing internationally at the highest levels. To give a general outlook on my philosophy of the game, I currently consider myself a “high-level casual” player. I like going to events and giving them my best shot with decks that I think are both strong and fun (or occasionally bad and fun). I usually attend a couple of the bigger local events like Skirmishes and Proquests when they come around, but I don’t grind practice or strictly enforce rules against my opponents. When building a deck, I rarely playtest it enough to fine-tune the last few, very tight sideboard slots to improve ultra-specific matchups. Despite all of this, when I am playing a game, I am doing my best to stack and track pitch orders, keep an eye on my opponent’s graveyard, and keep my win conditions and outs consciously in my mind. I am trying to win the match. This philosophy has led me into some interesting situations at Flesh and Blood events. I attended Canadian Nationals with a mostly-untested deck, full of borrowed cards, that I picked up three days before the event. I managed to make top 8, but found the matches much too stressful to be enjoyable. I am lucky enough to be cash-positive in FaB (even when excluding windfall prizes like gold foils and some high-value cold foil heroes), and I fully intend to keep it that way. I have generally only ever spent money on event entries, relying on the spoils from those to fund any card purchases. I started playing FaB during Welcome to Rathe Alpha, although I didn’t receive any kind of early adopter bonus. In the 30 or so packs of Alpha and Arcane Rising 1st edition that I opened, I managed to open a total of zero Majestics or cold foils. You don’t need to be self-made when it comes to starting FaB, and nor should you! The communities (at least in every community that I’ve played in) are very supportive. I have borrowed Legendaries from people, and I have lent Legendaries to people. My first real placing at an armory was with a fully borrowed deck. An experienced player at the shop I was playing at noticed I was playing with a Dorinthea starter deck (featuring a single “upgrade” in the form of a Crazy Brew). He offered to let me play with his full-power Dorinthea deck, complete with Legendaries and Majestics. This generosity won me a few packs and a cold foil Kodachi, which was the first promo card that I sold to help fund future events and my card collection. It was a while before I won my next armory, but at that event, my friend and I both placed well enough to win a cold foil promo and a mat. He was on a budget deck that he borrowed from me. I, like many other players, have a plethora of stories about success with borrowed cards, or the fun of watching someone succeed with cards that they’ve borrowed from you. I also attribute my success in this collection-building endeavor to developing local knowledge. Knowing which LGS’s like to run which types of events (and which of those events you’re strongest at), and what their usual prize support is goes a long way. The easiest way to do this is to get involved with the local community and ask around. This is usually easiest to do via social media. FaB seems to centre around Discord and Facebook (at least in the anglosphere), so check there to see if there are resources online for your local community. Once the ball started rolling at armories, and I knew where other armories were being held, it began to snowball. Armories became Skirmishes became Road to Nationals and my decks went from being full of Commons to Rares to Majestics to Legendaries. It really is those first few steps, and the learning that comes with them, that are the toughest. But I think it is a game that is worth learning and I think it is a game worth playing at any level. All of this history is well and good, but promo cards were easier to come by and more valuable back in the day. Participation in Skirmish Season 1 was easy since they were all online and they offered cold foil adult heroes as raffle prizes. Armory promos hit an all-time high in the Crucible era, when I sold a couple Kassais for over $250. Despite recent declines in contemporary promo pricing, it is still very possible to fund a collection through rolling event winnings. Armory mats are now the consistently highest-selling items from the kit, and those are given out in raffles or by the People’s Champion system. It is rare that I have seen a new player show up for a few weeks to an LGS and not leave with a People’s Champ mat. Additionally, there are still high-value armory kits that are getting released. The recent Spectra aura armory kit has prizing that can fund nearly any Legendary card from a first place. FaB rewards people for playing it. If this is a path that interests you, just get out there and do it. There is no substitute for playing, and that’s what the game is for.
