Stay tuned for some outtakes. Welcome to Pitch It to Me
podcast, a show about the subjective past, present, and
potential future of flesh and blood design.
The best and only flesh and blood podcasts in the Long Beach
area. For today's episode, we are
celebrating the end of our recent hiatus for Red, Yellow,
and Blue Pitch Today. Each host will describe how
their hiatus went and how they spent all of their new found
free time. You can find us across all
socials such as Blue Sky, TikTok and Instagram at Pitch It to Me
Podcast. I'm fuzzy.
I'm. Clark and I'm Joel.
And yeah, I'm. Thinking we're back?
Yeah, baby, back to podcasting. 2025 is the year of Pidim.
We're finally going to get that fucking spoiler.
What are these years? So we took a little bit of time
off around the holidays. I think it was a good decision
to have that time off and what we're talking about the holidays
is how did you guys holiday seasons go?
My Thanksgiving sucked, both of them.
Oh no. My Christmas is good though.
I spent it with my grandmother who I did not get to see on
Thanksgiving. And yeah, I just had some low
key holidays. For Christmas, my mom always
bakes a lasagna. It's a carryover from my
grandmother and great grandmother.
That sounds awesome. Who came over from Italy.
Yeah. And I like never eat lasagna any
other time of the year. Really.
And because no like Stouffer's oven lasagna, no like.
Literally, even when I go to Italian restaurants, like I
avoid eating lasagna so that when Christmas time comes
around, we get this massive lasagna and there's only four of
us. Wow.
And my mom doesn't need it because she's healthy.
So like all the she's not eating all that cheese and carbs.
So like I have one slice and then I have pretty much the rest
of the lasagna to eat over the next like 2 weeks.
So I'm like, I'm doing good right now.
I got I got like half of a lasagna in the fridge.
Like I'm set, baby I. Can Doomsday prepper Clark with
his 18 lbs of lasagna? It's the holiday season, you
know, like it's, it's so interesting that that's the food
that just I've happened to associate with the holiday
season. But yeah.
This year we hosted both for Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve
for my close family. Or I guess it'd be extended
family, the ones that are in the close area.
Yeah. But not just like my household
and my boyfriend made steak on Christmas Eve that was
delicious. Yeah, see, maybe the trick is
just free yourself from the shackles of what, Christmas?
Food is I'm here for it. I don't think you've ever said
anything more smart yourself. From the shackles of a typical
Christmas banquet, Yeah. Cereal for Christmas dinner?
Hey baby, if that's what you like.
Enjoy it. Joel's giving us spaces.
I think we got to move on. I just, I, you know, anything
with like that much milk, namely cereal is just like, I can't do
it anymore. As a kid I used to but I I do
not like dairy as much as anymore.
So you wouldn't have cereal for your Christmas feast.
No. What What's your favorite
holiday food, Joel? I really like cranberry sauce.
That's something that my grandfather made homemade.
My mom also made homemade cranberry sauce that was fire.
Also, like, since I'm Latino, we have a lot of, like, tamales.
Yeah. I didn't have any this year,
thank God. But that's usually, like, the
staple food of of, you know, Latin households.
Yeah. My mom usually does like the
Thanksgiving dinner, but I've recently been really inspired in
cooking, so hopefully next year I can take the reins and put
together something really cool with new stuff outside of the
boring Thanksgiving. Yeah, but take on a little side
dish or something. No, that's a great idea.
Yeah, I'm glad we had decent holidays.
Are you guys ready to move on to the main topics of our episode?
You're. Yeah.
So for today's episode, we're just gonna basically recap the
last couple months, talk about what we've been doing, what we
haven't been doing. Yeah.
Because you like, miss us, right?
Like you want to hear what we've been doing for the?
Yeah, we're, we're we're really trying to stoke the parasocial
relationships with this episode. So see that it's it's just a
really long turn 0 today, Yeah. Hear all about our lives,
starting with Clark. Yeah, we're still going to talk
about some Flesh and Blood. One of the first things I want
to talk about is over the course of the hiatus, I fell in love
with Viscera again. Wow.
So like I talk about having a lot of first decks and like
first experiences in Flesh and Blood.
Like the first deck I ever played was like a Bolton deck
and I hated it. And then like the first blitz
deck I ever really made was like a Phi list.
And then my first CC list was like the viscera list.
But then like my first main was Leviah.
But I, I loved the old viscera play pattern.
It was simple, it helped with sequencing and it was great for
me to learn as a beginner. But I the new viscera lists are
just so complex, so interesting, and I've fallen in love with the
hero all over again. That's so funny to hear, which
I'm sure it's absolutely true, but when I keep seeing you at
armories, I see you draw the worst rune blade and you're like
people keep saying this hero is good but I'm not seeing it well
well to. Be fair, you know, I was
struggling for a while there because there was a very initial
list where we were all trying to do the OG play pattern, which
was like 0 cost go again Like I play my mavry and skies.
I play my attack, I attack with my weapon and like that's the
old Visser I play style. That's the basic bitch.
So, Pesse, yeah. A lot of lists were like seeing
if we could do that again with the new tools cause like now we
have Rune Ranger Swarm as like another extender we have, yeah.
That card is insane. Yeah, we have Malefic as like
another 0 cost turn starter, which is like really, really
nice for us in our cost curve. We got snuff out as like this
really incredible 1 cost to throw, which now comes in at A5
break point instead of all of our other one cost attacks which
are at the four break point, which is so much easier for the
opponent to stop the Mavarian on hit.
So like we were like, oh, let's just do the the old shit again,
but better now. It was good, but it wasn't
winning games in Modern Flesh and Blood.
And then we fell into like this hyper aggro, what has been
dubbed the pissery list 'cause it runs a bunch of yellows.
It runs like yellow malefics and yellow rune rager swarm.
It's all about just going face and like having everything be 0
cost. It was super aggro.
It had early success and then and when worlds rolled around we
got the runaways list. So I was seeing success on that
like early hyper agro list, I was doing good.
I was doing good at my armories. And then the runaways list comes
out and it's super complex and it has rune chant stacking and
like it has a better wider match up spread.
I just couldn't win a fucking Armory on that thing.
I kept going. 3121 I just couldn't win a cold foil.
So like, for a month and a half I was like winning a lot, but I
wasn't getting that top placement and I was really
struggling. Also, everyone kept groaning.
Every single time I put this right down on the table and I'm
like, the Enigma player is right there and he's one of the past
three armories in a row. Why are you groaning at me?
The what player? The enigma player, Oh, so like
why? Why is everyone angry at me?
But I've returned back to the more aggro play pattern,
especially after like dash IO is called kind of fallen out of
favor. So having like all these four
blocks isn't as necessary. And it's just been, it's been
good again. Cool.
Anything else, Clark? Yeah, I started writing articles
over the over the break. I've written 2 so far for the
Wraith Times, which working with Alex Truell over there has been
really wonderful. Dude's awesome.
He's always willing to lend a hand with editing, which I find
I'm very appreciative of because editing is like the one thing I
didn't learn how to do in school.
So I've always appreciated Alex and his help.
I've been working on a series called Armory Deck at Home,
which is a series all about building budget $50 armoury
decks for heroes and classes that haven't gotten it official
ones from LSS. I've written the articles that
help people branch out into other classes at a low price
point and try out other heroes without having to invest a lot
of money in. I'm following a lot of the same
principles that armoury decks do.
Full playsets, majestics, fairly cheap equipment right?
And I'm doing that so that there is, and then I play test them to
balance them against the other Armory decks so that everything
is sort of at the same level. If someone sits down with the
Bolton Armory deck, you can sit down with like this $50 thing
and try it out in a similar power environment.
Yeah, I felt like that, you know, you getting into your
article writing was very apropos with this.
Like what seems like a large influx of new players with
Rosetta, all the different Armory decks coming out.
And I think a lot of attention is being placed on #1 the price,
the MSRP price of some of these Armory decks and the prices of
the staples that people are going to naturally look towards
after they spend some time with the game want to upgrade to.
And finding out that there's resources for other heroes.
You know, not that you're like a main name yet, but I feel like
these could be looked at as these resources that just aren't
talked about because maybe they're like off met heroes or
they're heroes. I don't really get a lot of
attention from LSS. Yeah.
So I, I think it's a solid need to start, you know, working on
now. I'm also trying to to use them
to address some of the criticisms of Armory decks.
Like Armory decks are said that they don't have enough staples,
they don't have enough majestics in them, especially reprint
majestics. And like, those are things I'm
specifically trying to address in my list of being like, yeah,
no, to to play this hero, you just need like these majestics.
And they're cheap. So it made them work in the
list, right? So like it, I guess a great
example of it is like the price of Armory decks is pretty much
preloaded into the brand new cards the LSS is printing.
And by shifting that cost over to cards that already exist,
because that's all I have access to, I can't print new cards for
these things. I'm able to give you more
staples which can then be played in other decks in the same
class. So like for the B1 I have, I
have a crippling crush and yes, I have a starstruck, both of
which are Bravo specializations, but I also have 3 imposing
visages in that list. And I also have 3 showtimes in
that list. And I also have 3 pummel or I
have a pummel in that list. I have sink below in that list.
These are staples that you can take into other classes.
I have Commons and rares that you can take into other
guardians like buckling blow or debilitate.
And so you'll, you'll play them in other decks, like even if you
buy these cards and you're like, this isn't the hero for me, you
will still find a way of using these cards, even if they're
just for trades, right? Yeah, sounds like a cool
project. You also wrote another article
about fatigue recently, right? Yeah, that article was a labor
of love and took up a whole month and delayed a lot of the
other articles I was writing. I must have rewritten it about
four different times. If you haven't read that
article, please go read it. It is pretty much if I was given
the entire episode of this podcast to just talk, I would
have talked about what that article was.
It addresses CYB, Enigma, and the World's Finals.
It addresses some of the statements made by LSS before
and after that, specifically around control and long games.
It's interesting because I don't think it's a great article in
terms of like quality of writing, but in terms of ideas,
I think it's absolutely peak. I think in every single
paragraph I am introducing a new concept with good evidence that
says something insightful about the game.
And that's what I was aiming for.
And I think that's why I delivered on.
So I'm, I'm very happy with that article turned out.
I really highly encourage anyone who's a fan of the podcast to go
read that article. I'll make sure that there's a
link in the description and everything.
Thank you. Yeah.
Sweet, I guess I can go next for yellow pitch.
Yeah. I have really been enjoying
doing pretty much nothing the last like 2-3 months.
I work as a substitute teacher and I haven't had a whole lot of
assignments lately. I had like a really good long
term assignment back in like August slash early September and
I've kind of been like writing that windfall like for the other
three months because I haven't had a lot of work otherwise.
So I've just been at home gaming a lot of the time.
I started playing this game called Deadlock.
It's like a Valve third person shooter MOBA.
It's in like closed beta. And it gives me a lot of that
same feeling that I got when I first started playing Flesh and
Blood, actually, because I've noticed that I just really love
playing like, new games where the community is excited and
like, refreshed, you know, as opposed to like, I've been
playing League of Legends for so long.
I don't think anyone's really excited about League of Legends
nowadays, you know? I mean, they're coming out with
a new little mini boss that like spawns at like top or bottom
river in a lane. I don't know.
I think there's next. That's gonna be fun.
After what, like 10 years? I know right?
The same bullshit. I mean, that's kind of cool.
They're still doing new stuff with League, but I don't think
there's as much hype around it. Like everyone's like in Deadlock
is pretty excited to be playing Deadlock, although as we're
recording this, it's kind of like cresting and it's kind of
coming back down again where like there's far fewer players
this week than there were like even 2 weeks ago.
I. Think it's also because Marvel
heroes really popped off and they both sort of exist in this
space of like third person shooter team oriented gameplay.
Yeah, I would agree with that. I just noticed our our our
friend group has been playing both games.
But I'm not here to talk about Deadlock too much, just to say
that I've been enjoying having this hiatus and not having to
worry too much about the podcast.
Well, hang on before you get off the deadlock.
Favorite character? I play in Furnace.
In Furnace gives me such an adrenaline rush when I play him.
I like absolutely love him. And then sometimes when you
queue up, you're not going to get the hero that you want to
play. That's the way the queue system
works. And I have to play other
characters and I'm like, God, this isn't in Furnace.
I feel like they're like taking my high away.
Like, like I need my fix of in Furnace, you know, so I run
around and I light people on fire and it's great.
He's like a drain tank, you know?
So that's all to say that I've been enjoying a little bit of
time away from Fab and from this podcast, and I'm ready to come
back in with a new fire lit within me, all refreshed and
ready to put my all into it. One project I had over the
hiatus that I started was what we're calling Crucible.
And for a little bit of context, as part of our Patreon rewards
that we're going to be setting up really, really, really soon,
if they're not set up already is we are going to have a custom
format each month that you can enter in.
And it's going to be different every month, Probably a format
that you've never played before. We might repeat some of the ones
that are popular, but the idea is that you're playing a new
style of flesh and blood. Like if you know, like the clash
format, the clash is a, is a custom format designed by the
community because they thought it'd be fun, right?
The idea is that we're doing something new every month and
we're calling it Crucible stylized in all caps.
If you're going to type Crucible, you have to do it in
all caps. I see.
I see typing it in lower case. I'm coming for you.
So in November I kind of did a test run and the format that we
used for November was Singleton CC, yeah.
It was pretty well received. Yeah, so you play a 60 card
deck, you can only have one copy of each card.
And the people that played were like really enjoying it.
I don't think anybody was like, this is a boring format that I'm
not getting. A lot of the deck building I
think people found interesting because you're like, well,
obviously I'm going to have one of each of all these majestics
and one each of all these Commons.
Maybe my yellow copy because I'm desperate and oh shit, I still
need 20 more cards on my deck list.
Like what the heck am I going to put on my sideboard?
Well, here's all my normal sideboard options and I need
more cards. You know, I really enjoyed
running that and I'm really excited to see what we do in the
future. So keep an eye out for our
Patreon. That way you can enter in that
tournament. I imagine the first couple
tournaments we might open up the enrollment to people outside the
Patreon just for the first couple months as we get it going
because I need players. So you can keep an eye out for
that too. If you join our discord you can
like get updates on that. Yeah.
And they'll be linked to our Discord and probably our Patreon
in the description. So kind of going on to like what
I've been doing in flesh and blood the last few months.
There hasn't been a competitive season to really work around.
That's actually not true. We did Skirmish season.
Yeah, there was a skirmish. Shout outs to Han.
Oh yeah, everybody, Han won two skirmishes because we had like 2
skirmish seasons back-to-back almost.
And he won one blitz skirmish on Victor.
So he wasn't super happy to be put on the list of Victor means
like all the people that are good at Victor, but that was
kind of exciting. And then in December he won a
second skirmish on date at all. Yeah.
Data doll. Yeah.
You're welcome. I was bullying him for the past
week to get him to play that. It's a strong hero.
He like rolled me, but I was enjoying playing Blitz.
Like I played Lexi and I was just running like Codex of
Frailty and Rain Razors and Three of a Kind in Blitz.
It was like weirdly not that good, but it was serviceable.
You know it was like in that like nice B tier spot.
Which is so weird cuz it's all the same cards that were
overpowered as all hell in CC 2023 for a modern flesh.
And Blood 2024, it's changed a lot I guess.
But in Armories, I've been playing a little bit of Ira,
I've been playing Kano, I've been playing Kyo.
And it's helped me realize that I really just love Ninja.
Like I enjoy these other heroes. Like I kind of like playing
Kano. I kind of like playing KO, but
like swinging Kodachi's and getting potential mass momentum
triggers or like finding huge combo lines.
Like, it's just like my favorite way to play the game.
And I get such joy out of it that I don't understand how
everybody else, like, loves flesh and blood as much because
they're not playing the fun class that I play.
Like, I don't know what you are doing.
I don't know, Joel, what are you doing?
Suffering. Yeah, I guess you're not.
Having fun? No.
Maybe. You should be playing Ninja.
He plays Zen, he's a Zen gamer. Needless to say I'm really
excited about the new set haunted.
We're going to see some new ninja support.
Syndra looks pretty cool. I think it'd be really fun to
play like a flick knives ninja. You're just like throwing
daggers all over the place, getting in a million paper cuts.
True ninja play style. We might even see some support
for Katsu more than we already know because you see retrace the
past. I'm really excited about retrace
the past as a way for us to like explore a new dynamic for Katsu
that always like seemed like something he would want right?
Being able to rename your cards mid combat chain in order to
continue into. Other combo chains seems like so
Katsu and we haven't really had that ability without losing our
headpiece before yeah. So we retrace the past opens up
a lot of new deck building opportunities that I'm excited
to play with and I'm hoping we get a little bit more on top of
that because retrace the past is surprise surprise not as good as
say both Bonds of ancestry and Art of War.
Like the whole left behind by those bands is like really
hurting Katsu especially Yeah and retrace the past like is not
quite able to complete that whole.
Maybe we'll get a little bit more to help us fill in too some
other cool like ninja majestics. Or maybe I'm just not playing it
right. Maybe if I like explore other
options in Katsu, maybe there's something there we just need.
Pudding Tam to like, come out with something.
One of you bitches need to figure out the like tap line so
I can play it. Because that's my.
Favorite line in Flesh and Blood or the ninja play style?
So when you guys need to figure that one out, yeah.
And I'm also excited for 2025 because with the new year,
there's a new competitive season.
And that's one thing I've always enjoyed about Flesh and Blood is
getting into those big events. The AGE circuit is starting back
up in January. The first month is CC.
So I got to pick ACC deck. I got to get my gears going, get
my shit together and hopefully do some well and some events.
And I would love to qualify for Nats again.
I feel like I got lucky the last two years I was able to dude
like no you. Didn't.
You've made day 2 of Nats both times played right but when I
qualified. I didn't go to a whole lot of
events, like the first year I went to A1 CC event and I was
using Briar, which was a really good hero at the time.
I'm not sure with Ice Lexi. And old time running around.
I don't think I played. It was like Lexi meta but it
wasn't ice Lexi meta if I remember right.
Oh, so it's even? Worse, and I lost to those.
Lexi's right? Like it's not like I beat any of
them. I didn't beat any old IMS.
I like played a couple people who were like locals to the
store. I remember right, Like they were
really nice, but they weren't like the top tier competitive
grinders. And I think that really helped
me a lot. And then I was able to get by on
my draft performance. But draft is always like high
variance. You never know what will happen.
So I'm hoping that I can qualify again this year, but it's never
a guarantee, you know? So I'm gonna try my best.
I really want to go to Nats this year.
It's in Vegas, which is pretty close by.
We went to Nats in 2023 Vegas trip, and it was really fun.
That was a lot. Of fun.
So like, let's be real, your car.
Breaking down on the way there was fun.
It wasn't so much as breaking down as me being a dumb ass, no.
The other guy was at least a little bit of a dumb ass.
Well. We had a lot of stuff in our
truck, you know? Anyway, I'll probably go to
Vegas anyway. Like, I don't know that me not
qualifying for Nats would stop me because it's right there,
right? It's just a hop, skip and a jump
away. Yeah, it's only about.
A four hour drive. European viewers in shambles
right now. They're like 4 hours.
That's out of my country. Oh, I've also been playing this
rogue like called Monster Train. If you like Sleigh the Spire,
you'd love Monster Train. Joel, You should download
Monster Train I'm afraid. Joel, how has your hiatus been?
Yeah, my hiatus. Was cool, I guess I got a new
job which was pretty huge for me.
I was working at this hotel that well for the viewers that are
not in California, it was 25 miles away, but in LA it's
basically like 5X. Like it was like a 2 hour drive
every day and I basically had no time to do the podcast or
armories or anything I enjoyed besides eat and then sleep.
So it was pretty miserable. I mean I got my bills paid, I
got to eat, so that was cool. I was very grateful for the
opportunity because it was my first job after being laid off
the previous year. But now I have a new job where I
have better pay, the work is more fulfilling so I'm like
enjoying my work. I have more time to go to
armories which is clutch and especially so since new
competitive seasons are rolling up next year.
So super grateful for my new job.
Aside from that, I also got my PQ qualification.
So we had a a Proquest season. London.
I can't remember when to be honest with you, but I won on
Zen. So for some context, I saw, I
think it's Fire Dog. He did really well with Bolton
and got like top eight at a calling like right after Rosetta
came out. And I was like, OK, if he can do
it, maybe I can do it. And I couldn't because Bolton I
still feel like sucks in a room blade meta, especially since it
was like a few weeks after his performance.
So like, you know, no, that's definitely, yeah.
And I also tried Dash. IOI was like, if I can't, like
basically my school of thought these days is like, if I cannot
play Warrior at a competitive level, I'm going to play
whatever the best deck is. And I thought it was Dio and it
is, or it was, excuse me, but I suck at that deck and I don't
really like playing it. So I just stuck with Zen, who I
think is in a really good spot right now.
I was talking with one of our locals last night, I can't
remember who but the way he is now is so fun.
He's very mid range still with like explosive turns.
If he was like this like when he first released, he would have
been fine. He would have been a perfect
hero. It was very reminiscent of Briar
after her like several bands, some tweaks to her kit and she
was fine. She didn't LL for a long time
because she was just a good and balanced hero with like, you
know, the specialist doing really well and you're like you
obviously you Fuzzy did did well in Briar after that.
So yeah. So I just stuck to my guns
because I played it during Nats when he was at full power and
stuck with him. And I I've been getting really
good at the deck and ended up getting my PQ qualification.
So I have plenty of time to prepare for Pro Tour London next
year, which I'm excited about. Aside from Flesh and Blood,
though, I've really been enjoying not playing Flesh and
Blood for the past like two months.
I haven't really been playing at all other than like, you know,
last night actually, we had a really fun Armory.
We had a viewer shout out to Mulvane come through and I
pulled out my Decimator hatchet Bolton list that I built right
there at the Armory. But and I played Yarl The the
Armory deck could have had a few more armories.
Yeah, I've just been enjoying not paying attention to it.
I've noticed myself that like, because especially when I had
less free time, like I put a lot of pressure on my flesh and
blood and performance to like really enjoy my nights off by
taking the pressure off and just going there to enjoy myself.
Like, and I know it sounds crazy, but like if you know me
personally at all, I cannot do anything casually.
Whatever I pick up, I have to figure out like, what is the
competitive circuit look like? Like how can I get really good
at this game or whatever it is? So taking a step back and not
putting so many eggs in one basket has been really good to
like mentally reset and get passionate about the game again.
So I don't know if you've noticed, but Warrior still sucks
and I don't care what anyone says.
So I'm really have high hopes for haunted in terms of like,
you know, what my competitive season is going to look like,
whether it's on Warrior or another class.
So yeah, that that's pretty much it with Flesh and Blood.
And then in my other like sections of free time, I've been
playing a lot of Dark and Darker, which is a game that
I've been obsessed with since like their first or second play
test and their alpha or beta or whatever.
It's a pretty cool game. Yeah, it's a lot.
Of fun, very punishing, very difficult to master.
So it's a bit been a good time sync for my break and flesh and
blood. How would you describe?
This game, Joel, in 20 words or less, you can.
Take longer no dark and darker is like this medieval fantasy
rogue length where you basically play like dungeon and dragon
characters. Like there's fighter, barbarian,
wizard, rogue. Shut up.
We. Don't we don't talk about Rogue.
And so you just, you know, go in the dungeon, kill some some mobs
and skeletons, some spiders and get some loot.
And there's a lot of really cool progression in the game.
Now. I play with one of our other
locals, Ben, shout out to Ben. But yeah, that's really been
taking up a lot of my time and mostly just getting lots and
lots of sleep, lots of rest. And and it was funny too,
because we all had like separate goals for ourselves for the
hiatus. And one of mine was to like,
really get invested with TikTok. And for those of you who don't
know, when we first started the podcast, I really wanted to like
be the TikTok guy at the podcast.
And that just never panned out due to several like big shifts
in my life in terms of free time, in terms of financial
security, all that stuff. I mean that job.
That you took in LA, Like, I don't think people really
understand how much that impacted your life.
But you were like literally doing nothing but driving.
For your free time, yeah, like 4 hours a day of driving.
Just. It was just abysmal.
And then we had an announcement saying that Tik Tok's getting
fucking banned. So.
All that being. Said, I don't know, you know,
what my next like, string of content ideas will be for the
podcast, but I'm excited to, you know, dive more into it and
like, really flush myself out as a content creator, you know,
because sometimes it can just feel like you're just doing a
podcast and I want to do more. Than that the exciting year
2025. Yeah, we'll see.
I think we're. Really going to grow a lot in
2025. I think we all have some some
really cool goals going on. I'm actually really excited
about your future here in 2025, Joel.
Yeah, we'll see. Well.
I mean like I think of the three of us here.
You've always sort of. Put up some of the best results
and I think you've gone the farthest in tournaments.
You improved your standings in Nats over the past two years.
Yeah, I had a really hot. Run on that first day of Nats.
That fateful first day, yeah. And like, I think that you can
easily do that again. I think like when you're locked
in, man, you're locked in. And it sounds like you're in a
position to be locked in this year.
Oh yeah, we have a. Stable.
Good. Employment that doesn't eat up
your entire fucking life like. You can actually go.
To armories, especially competitive armories in the area
like I I think you're really, really set here to be to, to go
on some impressive runs yeah. And if they make daggers?
Good. It's all over.
Yeah. Oh, more I guess more like if
they make swords. Good, right?
Either or, I'll take it. Either or at this point, yeah.
But yeah, that's all I got. It's been a good hiatus, good
break. So excited to get back into the
the the swing of things. Should we go to Arsenal zone?
Sure. Listeners, The Arsenal Zone is
the part of the podcast where we all shout out a car that we've
been thinking about lately for whatever reason.
Clark, do you want to start? Sure, I'll start.
The card that I want to shout out is Malefic Incantation.
I love this card. I talked in my pitch about how
my love for Viceri was renewed and deepened over the Rosetta
season, and a lot of that is due to this card.
This is a synergy piece that does so much of what Viceri
wants and is so fascinating in its design and what it does, and
it's made me rethink what room blades do.
So it enters as a 0 cost aura with 3321 counters on it based
on what color. And then when I attack with any
Attack Attack action card, the next time I attack with an
attack action card it makes a rune chant.
This is like a bad. Card right?
Like it gives you one value on your turn, it can only give you
1 value on your turn. I don't even I know you're
trying. To like start one place and then
end another place for your little like explanation
argument, it's a little journey. Do not agree with the premise,
it's just good. Good card.
There's no like, any way you look at it, it's fucking
busting. I don't care.
No, like strictly. Numbers it isn't, but it's
because of how it works with Viscera as a starter, because of
how it let us plays through Warmonger, because of how it can
produce double value off of Mordred turns.
Like the card becomes busted. It only becomes busted within
the wider context of the game. It's power creep through synergy
in a way that like revitalize the hero and in a very
interesting way, let's Viscerae play in the way of storing power
for spike turns, which is way different than the old play
pattern of like trying to keep this consistent 12 to 13 damage
every single turn. We're like having turns where we
only really attack for like 4 or 6, but we made a bunch of rune
chants and then on the next turn we use those rune chants and
then we have like a 18 damage turns.
So we sort of like come in these waves and these ebbs and flows,
and it's all because of this one card.
It is so cool. I love the design and I love
what it does for the room Blade class.
Also just it made Vincet so much more playable.
Yeah. And like that's.
Extremely nice too that other room blades got to use this card
as well. I think it's a really cool.
Card I feel like the red 1 is like overtuned in visserie.
I feel like the amount of value you can get out of it
considering that like it works with mordred in a way that room
blood incantation never did you know or that you're playing
attack action cards as viscera. So that's even though you're not
going to stack with it necessarily, you still can kind
of do a little bit of stacking with it because you can keep
playing stuff and not worry about the fact that you're not
pushing offensive value if you can't, you know, yeah, it helps
you carry those. Room blades into the next turn
really it like makes all the cost reduced cards way more
playable. Yeah.
Like there's a. Lot of synergy with this card,
it's like dripping with it and that's why you guys are able to
play the yellow ones that only give 2 at face value.
The yellow one is terrible. It's like a yellow head jab.
It's not that good. It's a worse than a head.
Jab it only gives you 2 value. Yeah, the yellow head.
Jab only gives you 2 value. Oh, sure.
OK, that's why you. Don't play yellow Head Jab, but
you do play yellow Malefic Contagion because the synergy is
so much so good. Yeah, I.
Also again want to say I think everyone deserves their malefic.
Every class, every talent, everyone deserves their malefic
for my card. I want to talk about Violent
Dynamo, and there's a bit of context you need here.
So a long time ago in one of our episodes, I made a joke about
like how I stay up at night thinking about how I can get
Valiant Dynamo Senator counters off of swinging twice with
decimated grade acts, and Fuzzy really liked that joke.
I I don't know how much he likes my jokes usually, but that's
probably like one of his top five of my favorite jokes.
It's just such a clear image. To me, like you're sitting up in
bed, you're staring at the ceiling, eyes wide awake, and
you're thinking about like testimony to create X valued
Dynamo. Here are all the cards I can
give go again. And it's like all shitty.
Well, like I totally like. Empathize with like just kind of
obsessing over like how can I make this combo work because
that's what makes trading card games fun is like here's what
are these synergies like what's the most extreme example of like
how this could possibly be playable so anyways.
I figured if I'm not winning I should be having fun.
And for those of you don't know, most weapons can only swing
once, but with Luminous Ascension, if you've charged for
the turn your weapons and get plus one, they can attack twice.
And whenever you hit, you reveal the top card.
And if it's a light card, it goes to your soul and you get a
life. Otherwise it goes to the bottom.
And so that's the only way I can swing twice.
And I had already charged one earlier.
And so when I did the Fateful 2 double swing with Decimeter, the
card that I revealed off of Luminous Engine was my third
Luminous Engine. So it's literally the only
Dynamo counter I removed that whole night.
But I did it and now I can finally rest God bless.
People aren't ready for. Joel 2025.
He's finally getting sleep. It's all over for you bozos.
What do you think you're gonna lie?
Awake thinking about next. That's a good.
Question What's your next white whale?
My next white. Whale is how to get 3 fealty.
As fast as possible. Yeah, that.
Or maybe some like tap shenanigans.
I want to do the whole like tap line.
Maybe in Zen. Like tap Zen.
Yeah. Yep, that's my next white whale.
That leg tap. Rising knee thrust hurricane
technique hurricane technique or I.
Think it's pounding Gale that's the fist.
Line Damn it doesn't come out pounding Gale.
Is pretty good. It is true.
Yeah. Yeah.
Anyways, that's my card. What do you got?
Fuzzy? All right, so as is.
Tradition on our podcast, A tradition will be continuing
into 2025. Finally I could start getting
more. Cards.
I have brought a copy. Of the card that I'll be
shouting out for each of you, and I'll be signing it so you'll
have a fuzzy signed card. For the card that I'm shouting
out. I tend to do whatever draft
shaft I have laying around. Don't get your hopes up, but
I've been thinking, not necessarily this month, but
especially in October, November, there was a lot of discussion
around this card called Count Your Blessings.
Oh my God, it's not the promo. Count Your Blessings.
I gave you earlier. What the hell, Fuzzy?
Well, I would date. Multiple of those which I don't
have in order to gift with both of you and I want to keep my
promo. Count your blessings.
So count your blessings at red costs two and you gain X life
where X is 3 plus the number of count your blessings in your
graveyard. The yellow will be X + 2, the
blue will be X + 1, and the first count your blessings
sucks, but the 9th count your blessings.
Oh boy, that's at least 10 life you're gaining off of 1-2 cost
instant. It's hard to play around an
instant other than the fact that it doesn't block right.
That's the whole weakness for count your blessings is your
opponent can do whatever they want.
You're just going to have more life when when they're doing it.
Supposedly. But you're also pairing it with
all of these D reacts to shut down the important on hits and
suddenly you have a really toxic defensive deck that is taking
the world by storm to the point where LSS felt the need to issue
a ban list when an enigma running count your blessings 1
worlds and everybody cried. Everyone in flesh and blood was
super disappointed to seek out your blessings win world except
me. I thought it was kind of cool,
you know, I, I think there was AI.
Think everybody cried is a great way of describing this, whether
they were tears of joy or tears of derision, not derision.
Pain. Trauma, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. It feels like the Kano.
Check Kano is kind of annoying because his he's not super
dominant in the meta. The wizard guy Kano but if you
don't run arkin barrier on your sideboard you get scammed.
And Count your Blessings feel similar where like there's cards
like grave keeping, which you can use to get some value
against Count your blessings, but like you're not going to run
grave keeping unless you're planning on facing Count your
blessings. And at least with Kano, it's
faced up right? When you play against Kano, you
know, every arcane barrier that I have in my sideboard comes in
on this matchup with somebody else like Durinthia, Riptide,
fucking Rhinar Ira. You don't know if they're
running Count your blessings, but they could.
You just have to kind of like keep an eye out at the tables.
You have to scan around, you have to do your scouting, which
is awful, right? Like you don't necessarily want
a meta game where you have this boogeyman where you never know
when it's going to pop up. You can bring Cyborg tools
against it, but are you 100% sure which matchups you're
supposed to bring it in for is really sketchy?
Sometimes in top eights it can be nice, right?
Because in like world's top 8 or calling top eights, I think they
have open deck lists. So you have a little bit more
knowledge that makes it a little bit harder.
Is that the main thing that you sort of struggle with CYB with
in terms of like as a design piece of like how it's a hidden
information that just so dramatically warps play
patterns? I think there's a lot of things,
people. Could dislike about it design
wise. Oh for certain, I've.
I've thought about a lot about. Cyb over the course.
Of these past two months, I also don't think it's.
Quite as bad as people like are dooming on it for I do think it
was strong and it when they banned the blue ones at ACC so
you can only play Reds and yellows.
I think that probably got it to a better power level.
You know, even though you can't run like the power fantasy of
all nine right like it's a card that you it's only really fun to
run all night. I think in my opinion, a lot of
people are running sex and still.
Still feeling good about it so. It is also like raising
questions, like you wrote a whole article, Clark, about
control and what it means to play control and where the
future of control could be for the format for the for the game.
And when James White said count your blessings is Hallmark
control in flesh and blood. It was kind of a radical
statement, right? But also as an aggro player, I
kind of like the challenge that it presents because it says like
you need to be swinging your weapon more.
You need to make sure you're getting value out of your cards.
You know, and I'm going to be able to hopefully land a lot
more of my on hits and might do my game plan, but I have to play
a very like specific version of it that I don't normally get to
play against other control matchups or even against other
aggro matchups. So I kind of like that it exists
in the game, but not 100%. You know, I have mixed feelings
about the card. I did enjoy running it in
armories when I was playing IRA. I remember why the IRA was.
Dope, I remember sitting down next to.
Bill Dauer, one of our locals, and I sat down and my opponent,
who was not Bill. Bill was like, to my left, my
opponent was like, who are you playing?
And I said Ira. And Bill next to me goes, oh,
you're playing Ira? No way.
That's awesome. I love Ira.
And then somebody next to Bill goes, yeah, but he's playing
count your blessings, Ira. He goes, what?
Screw off fuzzy Bill Dozen. So I wanted to mention it
because it was something that was really like relevant during
our hiatus. We didn't get the chance to talk
about it a lot on the podcast, but bring it up now.
It should have. Had a whole episode.
If we were, you know, yeah, I have some.
Choice words about kind of your blessings.
It also gets added to that. List of like things that are
more relevant in living legend that might make you appeal,
might make the format more appealing to you.
Oh yeah, Like you said this like on our podcast one time, Clark
and I like really love that where like every time we ban
something, but it's still in LL, it adds to the list of pieces
and ideas that really make the LL format different than just
like a stronger version of CC and can give people reasons to
go to the format in the same way that a rotation would.
You know, our ban list is kind of like that rotation where like
if you want to play with Art of War, you have that piece in
Living Legend. If I want to play with Bonds, I
have my one copy and I can write in Living Legend, right?
Yeah, that. Yeah.
I forgot about. That that's funny.
That's the one. Copy you get one red bond.
That's so don't make us regret it.
These tired time fucking. Starbos over there like hmm,
somersault like the 8th somersault of the game.
It's like Yankee getting away with.
This Yankee. Playing Okanos, he only has the
one. That's.
So funny I'm rewatching. Breaking Bad.
And that's just so fucking funny.
Man. Well, that's about all I have
to. Say about count your blessings,
wait, I think all life. Gain should be banned outside of
Earth. Oh.
Even Sigil Solace. Yep, everything that's
interesting. I think the.
Decks that have life gain should have life gain and every other
deck should fuck off until we get more support for it.
What about like, find us fighting spirit?
Where like, you have to have less life in order to gain life.
Yeah, all of it, all of it gone, I think.
I think live game. Might be the most toxic way to
play flesh and blood. It's the.
Defensive overlap, right, that
we were sort of talking about right before we went on hiatus.
Yeah, Like, yeah, they were, they were super conflicted about
this offensive overlap. And then they just like print a
card that has this massive defensive overlap where it's
like, oh, you didn't present 12 damage.
Well, I guess I'm just going to gain 8 life now.
And you're like I also. Think like just flush and blood
in general just hasn't been around long enough to kind of
develop it as a balanced play style and then develop relevant
counter strategies to it in the way that they've done for
blocking cards, like with the intensive values.
And for that reason, all of it should just be gone.
That you can, you know, design stuff freely as LSS.
Yeah. And James White.
Like literally said that in the ban and restricted when he was
like we're taking blue count your blessings off the market
because flesh and blood doesn't have the counter play in order
to make this like healthy for the game.
And then he ended with a promise slash threat, which is that it
will come back someday once he feels like they're.
Where is that counter play in that?
Thanks for podding with me, boys.
Wait, Fuzzy signed the card? Oh yeah.
One for you and one for you. Thank you, Fuzzy.
Thanks for podding with me boys.
Woo, we're back. Hit him back on the menu.
We are so fucking back. Until night time guys, bye.
Pitch it to Me podcast. Is hosted by Fuzzy Delp, Clark
Moore and Joel Racinos. Our executive producer is Talon
Stradley, logistics coordinator John Farkas.
Music by Dylan Hulse, logo by Han V, and sound mixing by
Christopher Moore. Last but not least, we'd like to
thank you, the listener. Thank you for tuning in.
Please give us a follow on your favorite social media platform
at Pitch It to Me Podcast. Are you excited for Haunted?
No. That's just all Facade.
I feel like you and I are very similar in there, Joel, where
you're like, oh, they're printing new Warrior cards, OK,
because. Every single.
Time someone's like they're doing reprints see and see
reprint I'm like OK like I don't I'll believe it when I see it
yeah yeah, exactly we're. Very believe it when.
We see it I've. Been around the block.
I've heard these promises before.
They're seen the spoilers before.
Yep. Yeah.
So yeah, it's like that line. From Avatar the Last Airbender,
fear has replaced where trust should be.
Where was I from? It's like Guru Patik.
Says that when Appa goes on his like little lost Appa journey.
Oh yeah. That was a troubled time in my
life watching that. That whole that whole season bro
that arc was fucking. Raw it was, dude.
Like what the fuck this is a kid show also.
Guru pati like. What an insightful asshole,
right? Great character.
Whenever we talk about this, I have this image.
In my mind where somebody comes up to jump in turn comes up to
James White and it's like James White drew my one the pro tour.
She's rotating out like now and he's like, Oh no.
But I committed to printing a new dust in this next 6
expansions. This is going to look really
silly for the next 678 expansions.