Triggering Value: Triggered vs Activated Hero Abilities in Flesh and Blood
By: Dimos Embodying a hero in Flesh and Blood to battle it out against an opponent is one of the core appeals of the game. Playing as different heroes and different classes feel unique and satisfying. Loading an arrow as a Ranger feels thematically correct, as does unleashing a flurry of blows as a Ninja, or smashing through defenses with reckless attacks as a Brute. The game pairs flavour and feel very well with design. Outside of core class mechanics, this is done primarily through hero abilities. Playing as a hero comes with its own boons and banes and their abilities come in two main forms: activated and triggered. Most hero abilities are triggered, and it its my opinion that triggered abilities are generally stronger than activated abilities. In a game that is generally limited to having four or five cards each turn, paying the cost to activate a hero ability usually costs one of those cards. This puts constraints on one’s hand or arsenal, and can mean taking additional damage to hold the card to pay for the activated ability. In contrast, triggered abilities lend power to a given hand without taking cards out of it, at the cost of deck building constraints. A key to consider in your deck decisions are the relative power of a hero’s ability versus their access to power through cards in their decks. Two of the most powerful hero abilities in the game are triggered abilities that come with relatively high requirements and even higher payoffs. Katsu and Bravo, Star of the Show both have very high value abilities. Looking at the math of Flesh and Blood, and evaluating average cards, it can be seen that Go Again is worth roughly 1.5 to 2 attack power, Dominate is worth roughly one or two power (depending on if it is attached to a playable card or a hero ability). Using these conversions, the new Bravo’s hero ability gives him roughly five points of value, without costing a single card form his hand. This turns otherwise average three-card hands into 13 total damage with Dominate on the attack card and an on-hit effect from Winter’s Wail. This ability is very flavourful, as Bravo sees the benefits of Go Again from Lightning, Dominate from Ice, and a two-power buff from Earth, all of which are in line with what cards of those elements do. The other part of his ability (being able to run cards of all three elements) would likely have made him a viable hero on his own, as he sees the strength of Guardian cards, Crown of Seeds, and Action Points and Go Again via Lightning (to help deal with Spectra auras, one of Guardian’s few weak spots). But that point is mostly moot as he is about to hit Living Legend status. Katsu can see just as much value from his triggered hero ability, but only as a ceiling. Firstly, Katsu’s hero ability is dependent on the opponent letting an attack action card hit. Already this is worse than new Bravo’s because you never want to rely on your opponent to do something for you to see benefits. Once that attack does hit though, Katsu still needs to have a zero-cost card in hand to discard on the trigger. If he jumps through those two hoops, he can get up to five or six points of value from it. Upgrading a one-power blue Ninja attack for a Rising Knee Thrust with Combo is the furthest this ability can stretch, and it can be a devastating power swing (and hand fix). In a lackluster situation, Katsu is probably discarding a two-power blue attack to find a four-power zero-cost red attack, which is still valuable. While these two heroes have similar power ceilings on their ability, Katsu’s comes up short because of the numerous requirements he has to fulfill. Where new Bravo only has to meet this in deck building (ensuring a mix of element cards), Katsu needs to fulfill deck building requirements (zero-cost cards and Combo cards), a hit requirement, and a discard requirement. In direct contrast to the high power ceilings above, there are triggered abilities that provide consistent and incremental power throughout the game. The likes of Dash, Ira, and Kassai all see the benefit of their hero ability every single turn. Dash starts the game with her best item on the field, effectively saving her two resources, an action point, and having to search for the card. Kassai and Ira each receive one free point of value each turn, so long as they can meet the low requirement of attacking twice. Although these are much less flashy, they have proven extremely powerful, with both Dash and Ira dominating their respective formats for months. Consistency is very powerful in Flesh and Blood, and these abilities provide the most consistent value possible. Moving on to some of the activated abilities held by heroes, we see that they generally do what cards do. They do these things at a higher price as a trade-off for being on-demand. As with all hero abilities, they are designed to synergize with other elements of the deck, and these activated abilities are generally weak in a vacuum. Bravo, Showstopper’s hero power would be useless if he didn’t have high-power Guardian attacks to use it on, and Prism’s would be barely usable outside of limited formats without the power of Luminaris or Phantasmal Footsteps to back it up. Prism’s power nominally makes a Spectral Shield at the cost of a card in your pitch zone and a card from you soul. However, anyone who has played a Prism deck learns very quickly that unless those Spectral Shields are enabling other combos, like turning on Luminaris’ Go Again ability, they are profoundly lackluster. Oldhim’s hero ability effectively gives alternative uses to the (generally awful) Ice and Earth cards in his deck. This lets a slow Guardian deck maximize its utility and defensive options while being able to Fuse massive attacks. Each of these activated abilities effectively requires one card to be pitched, reducing the number of playable cards in a hand to three, which can leave heroes just short of combos that would otherwise be possible (such as a Pummelled Crippling Crush from Bravo). Despite these hero powers being generally expensive, the described heroes are all quite powerful and have seen success in many places. However, this power and success is largely due to the strength of their class cards rather than the strength of their abilities. Bravo, Star of the Show is what happens when you give a strong class and talent card pool to a hero with a strong ability, and I think we can all consider that a lesson learned. As always, Runeblades need a mention. Not only because of their rotating metagame dominance, but also because there are just so many of them, making up nearly a fifth of all Adult heroes. For the purposes of this discussion, I am going to consider Chane’s hero ability to be a triggered ability. While the strength of activated, on-demand Go Again is impressive, the real power of the Shadow Runeblade suite of cards comes from the triggered Soul Shackles. Additionally, the activated portion of his ability has no cost that taxes the hand or arsenal and effectively works as a deckbuilding restraint. While the “cost” of it is creating a Soul Shackle, that is only an upside, as the deck always aims to generate as many as possible as fast as possible. No one is currently playing a low-shackle game, and I doubt that anyone will unless some way is found to abuse the powers of Dimenxxional Crossroads while not automatically losing to fatigue against high-pitch decks). Overall, this is another powerful hero ability because it functions in tandem to a four-card hand limit, rather than taxing it. Due to the nature of Viserai and Briar’s triggered abilities, mediocre non-attack actions become much more valuable. Generating a Runechant or half an Embodiment of Lightning token is worth at least 1 point of value, more if the decks are looking to integrate that trigger into a combo. I think that Sonata Arcanix would be weaker as an instant, despite the fact that it becomes a strong way to end the game at instant speed (ignoring its current part in the too-strong Bloodsheath Skeleta-Sonata Arcanix combination). The value of a non-attack action card to Runeblade’s triggered abilities is very strong, especially when those non-attack actions cost zero and have Go Again. Overall, hero abilities can’t be fully evaluated in a vacuum because each one comes either with restrictions that are often hidden in the deck building process, or strong synergies with class weapons and equipment. That being said, it is clear that hero abilities are not all made equal, unlike the majority of in-deck cards in the game, which tend to follow patterns. Although the patterns of power for cards seem to be getting pushed slightly in some of the more recent sets, the general rules still hold true (red zero-cost attacks will hit for four, only defense reactions can block for more than three, etc.). Hero abilities seem to be a difficult crossing of flavour and balance, and nowhere is that more on show than with Bravo, Star of the Show.
Variance is a Feature, Not a Bug
By: Yuki Lee Bender Flesh and Blood is a game advertised to reduce variance in card games in all of the best ways and highly reward player skill, without feeling repetitive or stale. In general, it delivers very well on this promise. Cards are flexible and perform multiple roles making no hand truly unplayable. As a result, early on in the life cycle of the game, decks that were highly consistent in their ability to apply pressure and block were well suited for the long grindy games that would tend to occur. Because low variance is often such a big selling point, it is perhaps no surprise that variance has become somewhat of a dirty word in the Flesh and Blood world. The Chane, Briar and Starvo metas have all been critiqued as being “high variance” and having “casino” elements as players feel they are determined heavily by one player’s ability to draw well and string together the right combination of cards. While I think the degree to which this is true is vastly overstated and the game still largely rewards skill even in these metagames, I do think there is some merit to these claims. In this article we will explore why there has been a rise in variance and why I believe that going forward this will largely be a feature of the top decks, rather than a bug. Flesh and Blood is a Game About Big Turns The way Flesh and Blood is designed, fundamentally rewards big turns. At face value, many cards are worth about 3-4 damage, this is best seen by most cards blocking for 3 and cards like Raging Onslaught being 2 cards for 7 damage. In early Flesh and Blood games, such as Welcome to Rathe limited. It is very common to be exchanging damage close to these rates for much of the game. Bravo, Show Stopper blocking with two cards for 6, then swinging Anothos for 6 off the remaining two cards is a prime example of this. So why do these mechanics incentivize big turns? If we assume every card in our opponent’s hand blocks for 3, the total block value of their hand is 12. If our hand presents 15 damage, even if our opponent fully blocks, they will take 3 damage. However, if our hand instead does 21 damage, our opponent blocking out would take 9 damage instead. This effectively represents three times the chip damage presented by the 15 damage hand. This multiplicative effect of damage leaked on big turns leads to big turns which do 15+ damage to be worth a lot more than smaller turns that can be easily blocked. Even back in Crucible of War days, decks would try to string together powerful combinations of cards that produced about 20 damage a few times per game. These turns were infrequent as they usually revolved around one or two key power cards such as Steelbrade Supremacy in Dorinthea, or High Octane in Dash. As a result, games were often long and grindy and usually came down to setting up these cards for guaranteed big turns on the second cycle of the deck. This was necessary as it allowed you to present more damage than your opponent can block and produced these big swing turns that dictate the outcome of the game. As the card pool has continued to grow, we have seen the damage ceiling as well as the consistency of these big turns both improve immensely. This is both due to more power cards being printed as well as specific combinations of cards working together to produce more than the sum of their parts. These makes games feel higher in variance, because the swing turns are large and more frequent, and drawing into multiple big turns can make you a massive favourite to win the game. While this undoubtedly represents power creep, it is also inevitable that decks get stronger as the number of cards they can choose from continues to grow. This is a phenomenon we can observe across all TCGs. The Best Decks are the Ones with the Swingiest Turns One thing Viserai, Starvo and Prism all have in common is the ability to produce very powerful swing turns that can dictate the tempo of the game for turns to come. I believe this feature is a large part of what has made them the top decks in the current metagame and is a feature shared by the former boogeymen of their respective formats Chane and Briar. While the mechanics of how each of these decks swing tempo differs, the advantage gained is very similar across the board. Viserai, as well as many of the tier 1.5 decks have the common feature of pushing 25+ damage turns in order to swing tempo in their favor. Briar with Channel Mount Heroic, Lexi with Rain Razors and Chane with Art of War are all able to deal 25 or more damage in a single turn in most games. Aggro Viserai is similar in this regard, but has a higher ceiling and is able to achieve these big turns with a wider variety of cards and also has the flexibility to sideboard into OTK which makes him edge out the others. While these high damage turns don’t literally end the game on the spot most of the time, they often functionally determine the outcome of the game. Because the amount of damage is so high and can’t be blocked entirely, it allows these decks to generate a large amount of tempo and forces the opponent to either block and take 10-15 damage, or to not block and be placed at the 10-15 life threshold where the vast majority of turns forces one or more cards from their hand. Usually, the first person who can put their opponents down to these critical life totals and keep all their cards in hand to apply pressure is the player to win the game, so it is no surprise these big turns are so important. Starvo’s swing turns look a little bit different as they aren’t as much raw damage as Viserai, but nevertheless have a lot of similarities in their ability to dictate tempo. For example, fused Oaken Old followed up by Winter’s Wail is only 15 damage total, and may only connect for about 8 damage if your opponent blocks out and has no defense reactions. However, due to the discard effect, it also allows him to maintain tempo into the next turn which ends up putting him very far ahead in terms of life, especially if this is done more than once in a game. Often Starvo games can feel close until suddenly Starvo strings together a few Crippling Crush + Oaken Old turns that completely shift the game in his favor. Prism on the other hand can double aura which asks your opponent to either take time off from pressuring Prism in order to clear auras, or to try and race. Clearing auras means your opponent has to spend an entire attack each turn clearing an aura, which in turn gives Prism more space to continue laying down auras, and forces the opponent to try and play catchup. On the other hand, if opponents try to ignore Prism’s board and race, a critical mass of auras can produce a very large tempo swing late in the game, because Prism can have powerful turns off just 1-2 cards, while using the rest to block. This squeeze on action points Prism presents to her opponents, are essentially ways of dictating the tempo of the game, and force opponents to play reactively to Prism’s gameplan. Often just one big turn where Prism is allowed to establish a board presence unpressured is enough for her to effectively take over the game. Only a handful of decks are able to effectively balance pressure and aura clearing to keep her in check reliably. Because the big turns these decks create can have lasting effects on the game for turns to come, it often feels like one or two turns alone can define the entire game, and for this reason the variance or swingyness of the games played by these decks is also larger. This variance is a very powerful tool as it can effectively allow these decks to “run hot” and give them winning chances even when they are behind or find themselves in an unfavorable matchup. As a competitive player, I actually look at the ability for these decks to swing tempo so hard as a huge asset that these decks have in their toolbox. Another way of seeing the power of these large turns is by comparing Prism, Viserai and Starvo with Dash. Dash may be very consistent, but she isn’t able to control the flow of the game in the same way because she does not have Starvo’s disruption and most of her turns are very even keel when compared to Viserai’s damage output. Even her big High Octane turns rarely push much beyond 20 damage, unless she has already set up a lot of items first. While on face value it might appear that Dash is similar to Prism because she builds up items. The difference is Prism’s auras control tempo as they force your opponent to interact with them, whereas Dash’s items do not. I personally don’t believe low variance meta with much slower games favoring decks with consistent output are coming back anytime soon. The incentives in the game just aren’t there, unless something drastic changes. Going forward into future metagames, I suspect we will continue to see results favor the decks which can produce the biggest turns.
Enjoying Commoner with Uncommon Decks
By Dimos Commoner is a format that I am really excited about, and I’m glad that it’s official now. It isn’t something I’ve thought about for a while prior to the FaB 2.0 announcement, but I’m glad it’s here now. In short, it is Blitz rules with only Common cards (plus up to two Rare equipment or weapons). I forgot how fun it was to try and make something out of very little. It also reminds me of when I was a budget player. That feels like a long time ago now. I hold a nostalgia for those days; scraping my collection together by flipping every armory promo I won to afford what felt like the big-ticket items of class majestics. I think Commoner will scratch that itch for me and many others while providing a great in-road for newer players and long-term budget players alike. I also love a format that cannot be net-decked. The small bit of negativity that I have seen online towards this format is related to potential homogeneity. It seems that a lot of people are worried that deckbuilding will not present a meaningful amount of options and that aggressive decks will dominate. I do not think that is necessarily true. I think that aggro decks are the easiest to convert from their full-power blitz counterparts, but bringing the game to a common level opens the door for so many other heroes and archetypes to shine. In this new environment, there are a few big changes I think we’ll see. Firstly, equipment suites change drastically. Losing access to Legendary and Majestic equipment changes how many heroes operate at a core level. No more Skeleta combos for Runeblades, no more Crown of Seeds for Oldhim, and no more 10-armor fridges for half the classes to hide behind. Heartened Cross Strap, Goliath Gauntlet, and Snapdragon Scalers are all perennially strong options, but the format will push the power of some class commons. Of the current class common equips, Runeblade and Shadow Brute are a few miles ahead of everyone else, boasting multiple pieces that are stronger than the previously-mentioned generics. Runeblades also hold the most available weapons and common cards in general. Such are the advantages of being in three different draftable sets. However, while they have more options, they are not necessarily stronger than the other classes. Below are some ideas (not decklists, which would defeat the “no net decking” appeal of the format) to get you started for those upcoming Commoner events. As a direct opposition to the many viable aggro decks in the format, I believe that Guardians will be able to survive and play a long game, including fatigue. I am a Guardian player, so maybe I am a bit biased, but the strength of hammers and strength of late game blues is not to be underestimated. Anothos will consistently hit for four or six damage, an individual attack card will hit for about eight, and nearly every card will block for three. That’s great value while keeping your deck full of cards. Of the three guardians, I think that Oldhim is the most interesting to play in this format because of the toolbox that his hero power and equipment provide. The deck building tension of adding elemental cards while also needing to block well is an interesting one, and the games can play out in a number of ways. Oldhim also has the unique power to negate the strength of Ira’s Kodachis, which is a massive advantage. Kano will struggle very heavily in commoner, losing access to all of his card draw and the majority of his instant-speed combo tools. This means that a lot more decks will be running defence reactions, reducing the relative power of Dominate. Oldhim can get around this by building strong combos with his toolbox. Plume of Evergrowth makes a singleton copy of red Earthlore Surge always available in the late game. Giving any big Guardian attack +5 power can be game-ending. Add in the fact that Anothos makes it very easy to pitch red Guardian attacks, and a consistent game-ender will be a buffed Macho Grande coming in for 15 damage with dominate. You can add a Goliath Gauntlet in there to push it to 17 and close some games from nearly anywhere against unsuspecting and prepared opponents alike. Outside of Dominate, the on-hit effects of Guardian cards demand blocks from opponents, forcing even more cards out of their deck. Oldhim’s Snow Under and Entangle are great ways to force multiple cards out of an opponent’s hand. But despite all of that thinking and planning, at the end of the day, repeatedly swinging Anothos (or Sledge of Anvilheim) will be enough to win many games in any format of Flesh and Blood. Levia has a lot of strength in her commons, having what I think are her two best class cards at that rarity. Dread Screamer and Graveling Growl combine to deal 13 damage off of three cards while only losing one card from her graveyard (likely refilled by the card she blocked with to leave her a three-card hand). Hooves of the Shadowbeast further extend her explosive combo potential. Without having to sideboard, she pivots fantastically from a two-card fatiguing value game into explosive and aggressive combos. Ghostly Visit and Void Wraith let her play a very effective long game, particularly when combined with Dread Screamer or Unworldly Bellow. Hooves of the Shadowbeast’s unique trigger timing means that Levia can choose to pivot mid-turn about whether to go for a closing combo, or to hold off and keep playing a strong value game. Levia has at least a half-dozen hands that let her deal between eight and ten damage with only two cards, something that is very difficult for other classes to do without sacrificing blocking power. Ranger, as a class, has been designed as an anti-aggro control deck. Historically they have suffered against high-armor classes and in slower matchups. But in a format where there is so much less armor, the on-hit effects of arrows are much more likely to either hit or demand multiple cards to block. So many of Azalea’s and Lexi’s good arrows are of common rarity. My personal favourites are Fatigue Shot, Sleep Dart, and Chilling Icevein. There is a fantastic article about why Fatigue Shot is an insanely good arrow written by Yuki here. In a format where the strongest, higher-rarity cards are excluded from decks and equipment suites, the relative power of hero abilities increases. This makes Sleep Dart, an already-good arrow, even better. While Honing Hood has no defense value, it works fantastically well with both Rangers’ hero abilities. As with all ranger builds, the deck building challenge of tuning pitch ratios to arrow ratios to buff ratios is always a fun tension and provides a lot of levers to play with. Kavdaen will be very interesting in this format, despite his frighteningly limited card pool. He struggles to find 40 cards that block for three or more. Despite this, he is an absolute defensive powerhouse with his hero ability, being able to prolong games and whittle down opponents while setting up strong end-game states with Sloggism and Regurgitating Slog or a buffed-up Surging Militia (try it with Warmonger’s Recital). His hero ability has no downside in this format, as all cards that interact with Copper tokens are of higher rarity. Additionally, his previous weakness to Command and Conquer is not relevant in the format, and his weakness to powerful combo decks is also heavily mitigated. Very much a “fun” choice rather than a meta-defining deck, I think Kavdaen has high potential at any Commoner event that doesn’t have too many Guardians or Brutes running around. Some other ideas for the format: I would love to see a Commoner format that allows for generic items (potions, amulets, and talismans) all of which are currently Rare. I think it opens up some very interesting deck building decisions and potential combos because of the uniqueness and variety that the items hold. Additionally, it won’t create a massive power spike, which introducing other Rare cards would (looking at you, Plunder Run and Flic Flak). This may be a fun homebrew set of rules to really stretch the creative options in the format.
The Spectre of Spectra
By: Dimos K Flesh and Blood is a game that prides itself on consistency and balanced cards. There are limits to what a card can and cannot do. For example, only defense reactions can block for more than three without some difficult or expensive condition. The base power for an attack card is four plus its cost, again barring conditions. The Illusionist class is one of the few exceptions to this idea. The average Illusionist attack has two more power than it should, but also has Phantasm. This is a mechanic that breaks the cost curve of the game, but is mostly fine because of its large drawback. Your extra damage (and often strong on-hit effects) can be entirely blocked by a single card. There are some issues with this, mainly with classes who don’t run six-power cards and have been iced out of competitive play because of it. Poor Dorinthea. This mechanic on its own is interesting, it establishes the theme of the class and effectively rolls it into gameplay. However, it left Prism with a massive weakness: any deck that has 6-power attacks as resource cards. Guardian and Brute frequently run thirty or more cards that can pop Phantasm. To make up for this glaring weakness, Prism gets access to another unique keyword: Spectra Spectra is the messiest keyword in the game. The amount of rules clarifications, specifications, and changes that have been required for it since Monarch was released outstrips any other interaction in the game. Every single event I go to, either as a player or judge, always has Spectra as the single most frequent point of confusion. I am inherently wary about design when a keyword creates this many issues. Spectra is also probably the most powerful keyword in the game right now. The fact that Spectra prevents the attack targeting it from resolving Go Again is massive. I wrote a large amount about board state, and the sheer power of permanent effects that stay in the arena (weapons, equipment, items, etc.). Auras with Spectra end up doing one of two things: stick around for a long time, or require the opposing hero to take most of their attacking the aura and not Prism. Outside of Go Again, it is extremely difficult to generate action points. Currently, the only cards that can generate action points that help destroy Spectra are: Achilles Accelerator, Time Skippers, Scabskin Leathers, Hooves of the Shadow Beast, Lead the Charge, Sand Sketched Plan, High Octane, Timesnap Potion, and Blink. Back Alley Breakline can also technically generate action points, but only in a roundabout way. From our list of action point-generating cards, there is only one that does anything beyond generating an action point. High Octane is a great card, and shines fantastically against a Prism focussing on Spectra auras. Outside of Mechanologist, there are no beneficial ways to generate action points. In essence, generating an action point costs one card from hand, and using that to destroy two Spectra auras in one turn usually takes at least two more cards. The best trade any non-Mech hero can hope for is three cards (or a piece of equipment and two cards) to destroy two Spectra. Three cards is also generally the cost to Prism to put up two auras (assuming it is one four-cost Light aura and one blue Illusionist aura). The main difference here is that Auras do something while in the arena, or have strong effects on their destruction. The trade is the same number of cards between both heroes, but Prism sees a strong upside. This fits generally with the play pattern of the game, as basic 0-cost attacks hit for four while basic cards only defend for three. Except that auras are generating way more than one point of value for Prism. They are generating at absolute worst, one point of value per turn as Luminaris attack, in addition to what their actual effects are. From a design perspective, Flesh and Blood is a game built around Go Again to generate action points. By removing that as a viable option for most classes against a Spectra-heavy Prism, it severely restricts the options that classes have against the hero. I think that the power of Spectra was very well-balanced when Prism was limited to a maximum of 15 expensive-to-play Light auras. But with the advent of 12 more free blue auras, I think the Spectra snowball is dangerously close to tumbling out of control. Luminaris hasn’t gotten a mention yet this article, but it should because the card just does so much, and it is what makes the blue auras effectively free to play. Non-attack actions that don’t have Go Again are usually awkward, but with a source of infinite Go Again from Luminaris, dropping a blue aura at the end of the turn is always an option with little opportunity cost. If a Light Illusionist is going to exist, I would love to see LSS print more cards that generate an action point and do something else. This is to effectively parallel the Spectra auras that cost an action point to destroy and do something else while they are present or destroyed. Alternatively, expanding the non-token aura-destroying class options beyond Runeblade’s Runic Reclamation and Wizard’s Scour could be interesting to see. All of this and I haven’t even talked about Miraging Metamorph, which is probably one of the highest power cards to grace FaB so far. But that’s for another time.
Electrifying the Metagame with Lightning Death Dealer Lexi
By: Yuki Lee Bender Lightning Death Dealer featuring Snap Shot was the first deck I built when Tales of Aria released after reading Karol Ruszkiewicz’s article on fabtcg. Chaining together Snap Shots to go wide and draw lots of cards for a big combo turn is exactly the kind of thing I gravitate towards in TCGs. However, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t quite make the deck feel as good as I wanted it to. Some major problems were that the deck had trouble utilizing New Horizon since Death Dealer requires an empty arsenal and sometimes even though you draw a bunch of cards, you don’t have a way to use all those cards other than Shock Charmers. Drawing cards is great, but you need to actually play those cards for it to be real card advantage. After a bunch of testing I eventually shelved the deck and wrote the idea off as not quite good enough. Leading up to Everfest we caught wind of the Briar errata and upcoming bans and many people speculated the meta would slow down as a result. Because of this, I was once again drawn to Lightning Death Dealer as a way to possibly attack the early Pro Quest meta since linear aggressive decks tend to perform quite well early in a format. As I was looking to update the deck, I decided to browse through all the cards I could play and Flock of the Featherwalkers immediately caught my eye. We’ve seen how powerful this card can be in a deck like Chane who is able to give Flock go again using Snap Dragon Scalers, Shadow Puppetry and Art of War. However, Lightning Lexi is even better than Chane at using Flock and in my opinion is the best Flock user of any hero in the game. Not only can Lexi give Flock go again very easily by flipping up a lightning card, but New Horizon means you can almost always arsenal the card you reveal off Flock if you play it at the end of a turn. Flock Lexi Class: Ranger Hero: Lexi, Livewire Weapons (1): Death Dealer Equipment (7): Fyendal's Spring Tunic, Heart of Ice, Ironrot Gauntlet, New Horizon, Perch Grapplers, Shock Charmers, Snapdragon Scalers Core (46): (3) Electrify (red) (3) Enlightened Strike (red) (3) Entwine Lightning (red) (3) Flock of the Feather Walkers (red) (3) Lightning Press (red) (3) Lightning Surge (red) (1) Pulse of Volthaven (red) (3) Snap Shot (red) (3) Flock of the Feather Walkers (yellow) (1) Lightning Press (yellow) (1) Lightning Surge (yellow) (3) Snap Shot (yellow) (1) Blink (blue) (3) Electrify (blue) (3) Flock of the Feather Walkers (blue) (3) Frazzle (blue) (3) Lightning Surge (blue) (3) Snap Shot (blue) Sideboard (26): (3) Fatigue Shot (red) (3) Frazzle (red) (1) Frost Fang (red) (3) Snatch (red) (3) Fatigue Shot (yellow) (3) Frazzle (yellow) (2) Frost Fang (yellow) (3) Light it Up (yellow) (2) Blink (blue) (3) Heaven's Claws (blue) See the full deck at: https://fabdb.net/decks/xgJwARym/ Ultimately with how the meta shaped up, this deck didn’t completely get there, but I believe it remains a solid Tier 2 deck and is quite a bit more powerful than Lightning Voltaire lists. Given the right metagame or a few more tools this deck could definitely be a major contender. Alternatively, if people are able to shore up the Runeblade and Starvo matchups I believe this list could be an excellent choice. Flock Death Dealer Lexi just has very high and consistent damage output. I ended up playing this deck at Fabled Hobby to a 4-2 finish, beating two Prisms, Starvo and Oldhim but losing the Death Dealer mirror to Isaac Jessen and losing a very close game to Levia where I did not play around c&c pummel. Pros The deck has a high damage ceiling of 30+ damage The deck consistently can deal 15+ damage across multiple attacks and break points Few non-attack actions means the deck rarely has non-functional hands The deck is heavily favored into Aura Prism The playstyle of the deck is quite fun, there’s lots of interesting decisions and you get to draw a lot of cards. Cons Playing the deck optimally can be quite difficult, there are many lines and sometimes you need to think about what you might draw into. The deck is extremely fragile, it plays many 2 blocks and has little armor. Most disruption is effective against you, but especially arsenal disruption or Spinal Crush as you are heavily reliant on getting Go Again from your arsenal. Runeblades can be a tough matchup as they have similar output but lots of armor, but you can definitely race them if your draws line up well. Starvo can be very scary depending on their draws and how they build, their disruptive tools are highly effective against this deck. The deck has very few flex slots which makes the deck less flexible than most decks. Gameplay The idea of this deck is to start with some way to get Go Again, usually with a Quicken token or a lightning card in arsenal. Using this you can chain together Flocks and other go again attacks to go wide with all the cards you draw off of Electrify and Death Dealer. If you want to see examples of the deck in action, there are gameplay videos available on OK&Y’s YouTube channel showing both the Prism as well as the Dash matchups. One of the most important parts of piloting this deck is ensuring that on your next turn you are able to empty your arsenal with your action point still up, so you can make use of Death Dealer’s card draw. The most ideal setup is to end your turn with an arrow and a lightning card in arsenal, so you can then start your next turn with that arrow. This is especially good for Frazzle as it lets us maximize the fuse effect by starting the turn with it. Examples of good arsenals: Arrow + any lightning card with Go Again Arrow + Flock (with a quicken token to start the turn) Any one card + Quicken token. Lightning card in arsenal Enlightened Strike in arsenal Examples of risky arsenals: Snap Shot (requires you to draw lightning to fuse) Entwine Lightning (requires you to draw lightning to fuse) Examples of poor arsenals: Any card without go again, with no quicken token or lightning card to clear it. Tips, Tricks & Rules Interactions This deck has a lot of tricky rules interactions that are important to understand. I have summarized some of the key ones below: When you activate Death Dealer as an instant it gives you an action point, because the ability has Go Again. This is just like using Spellbound Creepers with a Non-Attack Action that has Go Again. You do not need to have an arrow in hand to use Death Dealer’s ability as an instant to get Go Again, because loading the arrow is a “May”. If you do not load an arrow you still get your action point, but you do not draw a card. If Snap Shot has Go Again already, and then you activate the bow as an instant, you now have two action points (one from Snap Shot’s go again, and one from Death Dealer). If you have both an instant speed activation and a regular speed activation of Death Dealer, you get to choose which one to use. Frazzle applies to the whole turn, even if you break the combat chain. It also applies to Shock Charmers and to Electrify. If you fuse an arrow as you attack a Spectra, you do not get the fused effect because the arrow does not resolve. Frazzle and damage prevention are both replacement effects. This essentially means that if the attack is not fully blocked you always apply frazzle’s +1 effect first and then the damage prevention second. This works exactly the same way as Ball Lightning. If you want full details on this rules interaction I would recommend reading the fabtcg article which outlines it. Sideboarding Whenever I sideboard with this deck I try to run 18 blues, 21 arrows, 21 lightning cards. I usually do not run more than 6 red arrows, because too many arrows are very hard for the deck to properly utilize. Having yellows helps mitigate this because they double as resource cards. Vs Prism/Control +6 Frazzles +3 Yellow Fatigue shots +3 Snatch +2 Blink (vs non prism decks that play c&c) +1 Iron Rot Gauntlet -1 Shock Charmers +3 Heaven’s Claw -3 Blink Vs Runeblade or aggro decks you want to disrupt +6 Frazzle +3 Light It Up +2 Blink +3 Frost Fangs (If you go second) +1 Snap Dragon Scalers -1 Perch Grapplers Vs Katsu/Ice Lexi +6 Fatigue Shot +3 Light It Up +2 Blink +3 Frost Fangs (If you go second) +1 Snap Dragon Scalers -1 Perch Grapplers Vs Starvo +6 Fatigue Shot +3 Yellow Frazzles +3 Frost Fang +2 Blink In general sideboarding revolves around either more into damage or more into disruption. Figuring out exactly which disruptive tools to include is a bit tricky, I’m not entirely sure Frost Fang is the best choice, but I’m also not sure what’s better. Ice Quake seems like a reasonable include at first glance, but often underperforms when you draw it late in a turn.
The Rules of Engagement in the Early Everfest CC Meta
By: Yuki Lee Bender With the fresh bannings and erratas in combination with the new Everfest season, the Classic Constructed metagame is once again wide open. However, as we enter the early Pro Quest season, we have begun to see decklists emerge from testing groups and from CC events like SCG CON and early Pro Quest events. In this article I will outline the strengths and weaknesses of what I currently see as the pillars of the format. The decks I have identified are not necessarily the de facto best decks, but instead the most popular and polarizing strategies that shape the early Everfest metagame. Identifying these decks is valuable because it helps players identify what they should be expecting and preparing for and explains what restraints decks face. Bravo, Star of the Show It certainly took less time than expected for Bravo, Star of the Show, to start making waves. While many players cite the large card pool he has access to, I would argue the addition of lightning cards and the Bravo specialization to Oldhim’s card pool is not especially significant, since the lightning cards are not really on plan for what Guardian is trying to do. What has been very powerful however, is focusing on the hero ability and chaining dominated Oaken Old and Crippling Crush to pressure your opponent’s life total and hand. We’ve seen lots of well known players like Tariq Patel and Rob Cygul praise the list which has been credited to Matt W. Additionally, Star of the Show managed to win SCG CON, while also taking 5 spots in the top 8. We have continued to see success from Star of the Show in Pro Quest week one and going into week two you should definitely have plans to combat it. Strengths: Star of the Show is especially good at dealing with aggressive strategies as he can grab and hold tempo very effectively, and just a handful of dominated attacks for 11 followed by the winter’s wail are already enough to push card hungry aggro decks into must block territory. Additionally, he has access to Awakening which allows him to reliably find his key threats against decks trying to race him. The aggro decks Bravo seems to prey on are decks like CMH briar, Aggro Viserai, Katsu and Lightning Lexi, which tend to play many 2 blocks and also tend to require lots of cards in hand to have respectable damage output. Against these decks the disruption is key, and Bravo can often get very far ahead early on and push these decks onto the defensive. Star of the Show is also very good at making up for his weaknesses with the ability to run hot. Not many decks can stand a chance against the best draws that Bravo has available. This ability to never be totally out of a matchup as well as the raw power level of the deck makes it very powerful and hard to fully account for. While purely defensive decks like Oldhim have shown some success against Star of the Show, they generally struggle into Prism which makes them not the most viable option for combatting Star of the Show. Weaknesses: Star of the Show is very threat light due to the heavy requirement on Earth, Lightning and Ice cards. Realistically, he only has 3 copies of Oaken Old and 3 copies of Crippling Crush and maybe some chances at recursion with Remembrance or Pulse of Candlehold. However, on the turns when Star of the Show is not drawing these heavy hitting attacks, he may only be able to swing an Autumns touch for 9 dominate on a red, or 7 dominate on a blue. Additionally, when he is not able to activate his hero ability he tends to only attack for 4 to 7 damage. This means decks that are able to slow the game down with big defense reactions like Unmovable from the arsenal can buy a lot of time to set up their own gameplan. In particular Aura Prism, Dash Control and OTK Viserai are able to minimize the damage they take and capitalize on pushing their own proactive plan on his off turns. Additionally, Star of the Show plays a lot of cards that block for two and generally wants to keep his entire hand so he can leverage his hero ability and fuse or pay for his big attacks. Because of this, decks that effectively attack the hand on a consistent basis can get out ahead, and force Bravo to play defense which is not where the deck shines. Examples of these decks include Ice Lexi and more assertive Bravo decks that run pummels and have access to big defense reactions like Unmovable and Staunch Response. Finally, Chane has also had some early success into Bravo, I suspect largely due to his trusty Carrion Husk which can blank an Oaken Old turn. Additionally, since his hero ability provides card advantage, he is able to have decent turns even when cards get taken from hand. Conclusion: Bravo, Star of the Show is quite a potent answer to aggressive strategies. Given the early success and popularity of this deck, I expect its metagame share to only rise, and players definitely need to come prepared to beat it. Remember, either being able to fight the deck for tempo or being able to slow down the game with big defense reactions and capitalize on his off turns are both recipes for success. Bravo will still be able to win some of these matchups, even if he is unfavored, just due to the incredible ceiling of the deck. However, I do not expect Showstopper to be as dominant as players learn to adapt their decks to account for him. Prism Prism is a hero that has seen some success in premier events in both the Monarch and Tales of Aria metagames. Additionally, Prism got some incredible tools like Miraging Metamorph, Shimmers of Silver and Haze Bending which all help her be proactive and snowball her board state using auras. Strengths: Prism in Everfest now has a certain amount of inevitability. The introduction of 0 cost auras like Shimmers of Silver and Haze Bending make it very easy for her to set up multiple auras and get value out of them even if they die. Because of this, the approach of taking it slow and managing her auras and spectral shields is far less viable than it used to be. Decks may well have to manage some of her more threatening auras like Genesis, Shimmers and Parable, but be finding themselves forced to race much more than before. Additionally, Prism has always lined up well against Guardian, and Bravo, Star of the Show is no exception. While new Bravo definitely has some tools to combat the Light Illusionist, Prism is quite comfortable playing Soul Shields, Sink Belows and Unmoveable to slow the game down. Additionally, the discard effects from Crippling Crush and Oaken Old are less effective than usual against a class that can play at instant speed to get around them. While I do think Prism is quite solid into Star of the Show, don’t count the Elemental Guardian out completely, he still definitely has some tools to fight back. Weaknesses: Prism has historically had a hard time into Runeblade as both Monarch Chane and Tales of Aria Briar gave her a lot of trouble. The large amounts of split damage and go again tend to make it hard to establish auras, and more aggressive Herald plans tend to be outclassed by the more explosive aggro Runeblades. While Prism gained a certain amount of inevitability and is better at setting up her auras even through go again, Runic Reclamation represents a huge problem for the light Illusionist. The breakpoint of 7 is very challenging for a class with very little armor and the value the card provides is unparalleled. Additionally, Runeblade continues to be able to pressure her shields and manage her most threatening auras with their abundance of split damage and go again. Similarly, go wide aggro decks that can maintain pressure while managing auras like Lightning Lexi and Katsu can also have quite a decent matchup into the more aura centric Prism builds. Conclusion: Not many decks can compete with Prism’s endgame and the aura snowball now feels somewhat inevitable. Decks need to have a plan to manage Prism’s most threatening auras and close out the game in a timely manner, before she manages to get too far ahead. In general, Prism forces the metagame to be more proactive, and will make it very hard to play hyper defensive decks like Oldihm so long as she is prevalent. Aggro Runeblades - Viserai, Briar and Chane Runeblade has been a very strong class historically and despite the bannings still looks to be well positioned. They got some truly incredible tools in Swarming Gloomveil and Revel in Runechants that allows for Chane, CMH Briar and Viserai to all play very explosive aggro strategies. More OTK oriented lists like the one Hayden Dale won Australian Nationals with are also still quite strong, and can also board into effective aggressive plans, however they seem to have been less popular so far than more dedicated aggro lists. Here is a more hybrid OTK/aggro Viserai list I have been working on and have been quite pleased with. Strengths: Runeblade has very high damage output and due to the split damage and ability to go wide, tends to be very hard to block out. Additionally, in a new format where the metagame hasn’t been fully established, aggressive strategies tend to flourish. This makes any of the Runeblades a very appealing choice, and I would expect all of them to be represented early on in the Everfest metagame. Conclusion: Early Everfest decks will need to find a way to combat the raw aggression of Runeblade. However, purely defensive decks like Oldhim may struggle into OTK Viserai and Prism, so players may need to find more proactive and midrange strategies to counter these decks. So far Dash, Ice Lexi and Star of the Show all seem to have potential to keep up with the aggro Runeblades of the format. Honorable Mentions - Dash, Lexi & More I think there are lots of decks that are poised to do quite well and are currently underexplored. However, they do not make it onto my list as defining pillars of the format either because they place fewer limitations on decks playing against them, or because they seem to be less popular, at least for now. In week one of Pro Quest season we have seen Ice Lexi be a popular choice to reign in Star of the Show and so far she has had multiple top 8 finishes. Additionally she is quite strong into runeblade and has a respectable Prism matchup. Overall Lexi is proving to be a strong choice, against multiple tier 1 decks and is definitely a deck that should be on player’s radar. My current build of lexi looks something like this, however I’m sure more tried and tested lists will emerge as decklists begint o get posted. While we have seen a bit of Dash in early Pro Quest season, I think overall the hero is quite underexplored at the moment. Dash has a very good matchup into prism due to her ability to be aggressive and gain extra action points to manage auras. Additionally, she naturally plays many defense reactions in the board allowing her to grind out Star of the show. While Dash has traditionally struggled with Runeblade, Signal Jammer and Dissolution Sphere are great new tools that should help shore up this weakness. Additionally, Dash is quite a solid pick against Ice Lexi as she functions well on hands with many cards as well as hands with few cards. While players are still largely sleeping on Dash, it wouldn’t surprise me if she comes out in full force later in the meta and becomes a top tier contender. She certainly seems to have all the tools needed to compete and strong matchups across the board. Going into week two of Pro Quest season, I want to either play one of the top decks or play a deck that has some game into all of the pillars of the format. So far, it feels like every deck has some favorable matchups as well as some challenging ones. Players will have to do their best to predict their own local scene when selecting a deck to play and do the best they can to shore up those challenging matchups. Overall, this feels like a very healthy place for the game to be in. Hopefully it will continue to stay this way as we see the metagame continue to shift and evolve. I’m really looking forward to seeing what other decks emerge as players have more time to test, build decks and prepare. In particular, I am curious to see what Ninja and Warrior have to offer as I think they both got some new tools and we haven’t seen much from them so far in the Everfest metagame.
