Stay tuned for some outtakes. Welcome to Pichitumi Podcast, a
show about the subjective past, present, and potential future of
flesh and blood design. So when James White wrote an
article all about the past, present and future design
principles, we jumped on it faster than Zen left the Blitz
format. On Red Pitch, Joel will hold
back his tears of joy post ban list.
On Yellow Pitch, Clark will give LSSA performance review of their
founding principles and on Blue Pitch, Fuzzy will sign off on
LSS plans for the future of the game.
You can find us across all socials such as TikTok and
Instagram at Pigetoon Podcast. I'm fuzzy.
I'm Joel and I'm Clark, so this is our first chance to record
since Battle Hard in San Diego, and I feel like you guys have
some stories to tell since I wasn't there.
You guys want to share something?
Yeah, we were one. We were really sad that you
weren't able to make it out, Joel, but we also completely
understand because like it, it was a.
Long weekend. It was pretty exhausting.
And this tournaments are crazy because only top 8 get pricing.
So like, you're going to have a good time, right?
Like you're either going to enjoy the whole trip and
probably not making any money back or like that doesn't sound
fun to you. I totally get it, you know.
Yeah, and even if I went down there and spiked a GE, it
wouldn't have it wouldn't have got me a spot in the top 16
anyways. So I'm like, there's literally
nothing for me to do there. Yeah.
And honestly, I should have taken the lesson for mutual
because I spent about $100 that weekend to go 1, three drop, 13
drop. Let's go I.
Had the worst luck. This battle hardened.
Like I'm pretty sure I failed to win more clashes than I won on
my victor. No joke.
Like ties and just like outright losses.
It was ridiculous. My Azuri opponent had two gold
at the end of our game like that shouldn't be happening like the
the look was in fucking sane and it really peaked when I played
also for the very first time a victor mirror in the last game
to get into the top eight of a side tournament.
Now I did pretty good in the side tournaments, right?
Pretty good in the few side events that happened.
This was a super Armory with a bunch of cold foil pricing for
the top. So I really want to get into top
eight. I'm in this victor mirror when I
tell you I I. Here's how I'll explain it.
The opponent threw Spinal Crush for 21 at me.
Jesus Christ. And the way he did that is by
having 9 gold by the mid game. By the time he cast his first
visit the Gold Main estate, it was fucking insane.
But the you were standing. Right.
There the 1st. He didn't, he had eight gold
when he casted. It for the first time, yes.
Ohh, that changes things. And nearly all of those were
from my own Clash cards. What?
He flipped a golden son twice. I was watching that game.
One both times like. God, because we were kind of
waiting for you because we were done with our flesh and blood
games for the day. So we're waiting for you to
finish the Super Armory. And so I was walking over.
I'm like, oh, Clark's fucked. I'm looking at this game.
There's like a 10/20 point life differential.
He's got 8 gold and you had like 0.
I'm like the game. Clark is losing this game.
I feel bad for my buddy and Co host.
Right. Yeah.
I tried to keep it as light as possible while also trying to
manage my incredibly tilted emotional state, but I ended up
winning that game. Now you.
Fucking locked in. It was insane.
I locked. In and I took an insane fucking
line where IE striked with go again into CNC pummel, betting
that he had AD react in hand and AD react in Arsenal 'cause he
had been holding it 'cause he knew I was getting the second
cycle for my golden sons. Wow.
And I fuck it, I dropped to two life.
He has a four card hand. I go E strike, go again.
He goes takes it, goes from 11:00 to 6:00.
I go CNC, he blocks 3. Pummel baby, I win the fucking
game. What?
Wait, he didn't block the E strike at all?
He. Didn't block the E strike, he
was holding on to a macho Grande turn in hand with 2D reacts and
he wants to hold the D reacts for what he thinks is a golden
sun overpower. Oh wow yeah that's actually
crazy dude I played that so fucking cool.
Wait so at what point was this after the the spinal crush for
21? A good 8-9 turns.
Oh wow cuz I just one I blocked very efficiently and I think I
played a great game knowing exactly when to throw damage and
he never really got to see his other.
Visit the Goldman Estates to play them.
The pop off was really kind of funny.
I think I saw Clark doing like ice a whole lap around the
building. I definitely fist bumped him
first and I said good game and I waited a little bit and then I
popped up like I made sure that I didn't like go like pummel and
he's like you got me. And then I like immediately
jumped out of my seat. I wasn't a fucking asshole about
it, all right, but. There was a lot of celebration
over with this game of flesh and blood, but.
It was really big for me, you have to understand.
Like, I had lost so many fucking clashes that day.
Oh my God. That's almost as funny as when
you died to blood that team Blitz.
Of Oh yeah, where I'm just like, good game.
And the guy's like, what do you mean you just win?
And I'm like, I can't turn on Blood Day.
I miss somebody, Bandit. Oh my God, that's so funny.
What a what a Clark way to end the day, you know what I mean?
Man, it was wild. Fuzzy.
Do you have any stories? Yeah, what I thought was going
to be the emotional story of two of us.
I knew going into it that like I had to have a good record at The
AGE open that weekend in order to secure my spot.
I was already in the top 16, but my place was not guaranteed and
I did not make any qualifying points in The AGEI went like 2-3
drop. I did.
Not have a good record. Wow.
So I was like, oh man, it's completely out of my hands at
this point, whether or not I made the AGE.
It depends on exactly who makes top 16, top 12, top 8, and
eventually when they made the announcement I was 17th so I was
out of top 16. Oh shit on tiebreakers, right?
Yeah, on tiebreakers there was like someone with the same
amount of points as me, Zayn, but he had like better top eight
runs, so he like was above me. But Justin announced that I was
the 16th player because one of the people in the top sixteen
were confirmed unavailable the entire month of September
basically. So I scraped by on a
technicality. I'm the first alternate for The
Players Championship. Wow.
So I'll still get to compete and maybe even score a little cash
money. But so like, it was just like
that cut cut. It was that close for me to like
not get the entry to the championship that I've been like
kind of working towards for the whole year.
But either way, I had a really good time playing.
I actually kind of enjoyed playing Zen at the battle hard
end. I enjoyed playing Zen mirrors.
I enjoyed like the matchups that were like challenging me.
I wasn't like winning as much as like best deck in format might
expect, but I was learning a lot.
All right, there was a lot of talk about 130 go.
Let's get to the Meet the Juicy bits of the podcast.
LSS wrote a whole article, James White from the man himself.
Yeah, about design. And we did a whole bunch of
crazy bannings. Joel, why don't you talk us
through it? So for this pitch, I titled it
No Books, No Blocks, and certainly No Bitches.
That's because we. Got a lot of.
Fucking action with the ban hammer.
Mostly for cards that are books and also draw you cards at
absurd rates that other cards don't allow you to do.
First and foremost, Art of war. Also, cuz it starts with an A,
it's a first on the list. Yeah, for so many reasons.
Fucking God finally it happened. Art of where it gets banned.
This has been abused by pretty much every single Tier 1 aggro
deck since its inception. I don't understand how this
wasn't gone a long time ago. I love art of war as like the
idea of this like flexible card use on offense use on defense.
I like it as a generic source of go again.
I even did some weird guardian brews as like a way of giving my
attacks a go again with art of war.
But you're not wrong. Like it just gets be used by
these topped acts. It's hard to imagine a fair
version of Zen using Art of War. What I really enjoyed about
reading the article was that they highlighted that, you know,
Art of War used to have a pretty big cost number one, with the
pitching of the resource and number #2 losing a card.
And as they printed like these fake tokens like Phoenix Flames
and Crouching Tigers like well, those are both ninja examples,
but there's. You know other ways of like I
mean being able to to banish cards, shadow cards that are
then playable out of banish sound right?
Exactly. You're right, Joel, it's a very
strong card. And I think like the big kicker
is that it's a generic card, right?
That it has a far reaching effect on the game at large
since any hero they designed in the future could be an Art of
War abuser. Yeah, your child hero could be
an art of war. Abuser.
Yeah, like basically your child playing Art of War.
Ten ways to know if your child is banishing.
Crouching Tigers to Art of War. And it also like the fact that
Art of War is no longer and the game allows them to create more
little cute token fake ephemeral shit in the future.
Yeah, and I'm glad they decided to get rid of Art of War the
like the broken card instead of like making it so that the
tokens function in a different way.
Like I think a lot of people were saying like, oh, you can't
banish like ephemeral cards to like art of worst cost or
whatever, which is a a fine worker on.
But ultimately I think they finally were like art of war has
been the crux of the issue for a lot of aggro decks because like
if you think about it, the most you could ever block with this 5
cards. And so if you're drawing like 2
cards or like 3 cards in one turn, like of course you're
going to have problematic aggro decks, especially ones like
Ninja, which creates more value the longer the chain goes.
Specifically with another car that got hit.
Bonds. Events History, which sees no
copies in CC now Bonds. Is weird because I don't know if
I ever really did this on the pod but like I was a bonds hater
when I first saw it and when it first came out and when Fuzzy
played it against me for the umpteenth time.
Yes. Because I always saw it as why
does a card say combo get another free card to throw and
that always felt weird for me and it didn't make Katsu broken.
Yeah, Katsu wasn't exactly like tearing the meta wide open.
You know, I do kind of agree that like, Bonds of Ancestry is
a really strong card and maybe like Katsu can see some other
really cool tools now that his quote UN quote power budget is
lower. Like there's a huge gaping hole
in Katsu's play pattern that is left by Art of War and Bonds of
Ancestry going away. And they did specifically tell
us, hey Katsu players, you can expect some cool expansion slot
cards in the future. Although we just got one that I
already can't play because the whole point of that card was to
play Bonds of Ancestry after it. That feels really bad.
There is now an essentially unplayable card coming out in
the next set just because Bonds is gone.
But I will say that they can give that card a ton of
relevance by just printing another thing that combos off of
anything that says Gust Wave after it.
So I encourage everyone to pick it up early because I really
think they're going to take that Bonds line of like this combos
off of anything with Gust Wave in the name, and they're going
to put that on a different effect.
I also just want to point out that like if you compare Bonds
to I think another ninja counterpart in Lava Burst, Bond
just gives so much more fucking value, right?
Sure, like Lava Burst has to be played on this long chain versus
like after just one single card, but it starts at 2 power for
zero and it gains +3, right? It's kind of arguably just as
unplayable as Bonds of Ancestry, right?
A2 for four at base with no go again versus A0 for two with no
go again. But Lava burst ceiling is five
damage. Like that's it.
Sorry. That's like it's baseline where
Bonds's baseline is 8 damage because you go get a 0 for four
from your deck. So like, I really saw Bonds as
like a very unfair card from the get go.
I'm happy that it is gone. Ninja needs to go in a different
direction than just, well, what if I just gave you more numbers
and just higher damage amounts? I one thing I did like about
Bonds and the design of combo cards in general is the
disparity between the floor and the ceiling.
That's like the whole idea behind a combo card, right?
If it's not triggered, it's bad, and if it is triggered, it's
good. And the disparity between those
is pumped to the extreme in Ninja, right?
Like Bonds was perhaps the worst rate.
So if if the combo isn't triggered, it was a 2 for four,
no go again. Awful right?
It does block for three, but it also had the best rate out of
all the combo cards when it was turned on.
It was kind of like they were experimenting with like driving
that rift really wide and you'll know like Katsu will have hands
where Oh, I drew 4 bonds of ancestry.
Not my hand doesn't do Jack shit, but it also isn't A0 cost
and ninja kind of likes to have the 0 cost.
So it doesn't fit in with that game plan.
Now I granted it's a really strong card, but that's kind of
what I saw in the design that they were experimenting with.
And maybe we can think of this as a lesson as we need to have
higher floors, lower ceilings, which is kind of where that new
expansion slot card was. 0 for four is like a pretty like high
floor. I'm like OK with playing a 0 for
four and then like it only gets a little benefit off of combo.
I sort of disagree. I think the direction that Ninja
needs needs his finality to its combos.
I think the biggest issue with Bond is like, you could keep
going. I didn't say anything like this
is the chain. This is a powerful effect and
you're like, that's it, You don't have to go again.
Like Lord of Wind, for instance, like it's not super powerful,
but it's, you know, like what, like 5 links wide or 4 links
wide with surging walming. Yeah, 4 links with Mcginchy and
the Lord of Wind. But Bonds event.
Like if Bonds event, so she said, and that car loses, go
again, we wouldn't be having this would be a completely.
Different timeline. I mean, I, I still think I mean
their whole comment of offensive overload, a single card that can
present 2 cards of value seems like the exact thing that
they're banning here. And as we get into the as we
talk about these other bands, I think we're going to see that
one card that can present 2 cards worth of value or a card
that requires a pitch. But then it gives you 3 cards
worth of value, right? Like that seems to be the
repeatable pattern that we see here and Bonds fits that
pattern. It is one card that gives to
value. And I think we've kind of honed
in on like why Bonds of Ancestry was.
I mean, we're all feeling very vindicated, I should say, and
that Bonds is gone now, but I wanna move on to some of the
other, some offenders and some like to be offenders that
they're like kind of nixing now. Yeah.
The first being cash in. I love cash in so much.
Not on anybody's radar. I think that was a big surprise
for a lot of people. And they did it now they said in
the article, right? They said cash in is not causing
problems, but if gold tokens get more common in the future, it
could be. And we have to be strict with
our design principles, right? This does not align with the new
game that we are trying to more flesh and blood into.
So we got to Kick It Out, even if it's not doing anyone any
harm or even just just sitting on the corner twiddling its
thumbs. Notably, one thing that they
said, Fuzzy, it wasn't just if gold becomes more prevalent.
They say as gold becomes more prevalent, Yeah, they're looking
to expand gold and keep gold as this thing that stays in the
game. Why wasn't Victor running cash
in? OK, continue a second.
Yeah, surely that's what they're honing against.
What I mean, I think Cash and has similar issues with Art of
War in that. And Clark, I've kind of seen
that actually both of you in your Rude Blade builds.
Vistray and Breyer would try to run Cash in to be more
aggressive. Like whenever you see it, you
get to draw two extra cards and maybe you extend your play
lines. And rune blades loved playing a
non attack action and then continuing with the rest of our
turn. I'm not saying like rune blade
was gonna like break it this upcoming metal with Rosetta
because I don't think either of them like would really want to.
Oh, I would. Have Aurora might have she she
might have sure, but I think the fact that it was generic and it
just equates to two cards like on the first time you see it was
also like something that they noticed in previous play
patterns, which is like let's yeah.
Cut it off right there, especially with money where your
mouth is Wage Gold and Crown of Dominion.
All of those can be run by every single hero in the game, and
that's almost enough of a package right there to justify
putting cash in in every deck. But next I want to talk about
another card that Zen was a abuser of Orion of Mystic
tenants. Was that really on anyone's
radar? I mean, it fits like kind of
what they were like mass banning, which is the you're
drawing more cards that you're playing with.
And I like their analysis too. Like, even though it's
legendary, it's just not what we designed it to be or what it
ended up being. Yeah, I like how they call it
out, Like if some of these tome cards were legendary, we might
consider keeping them. But the fact that you can run
some of these other ones in multiples is part of why they're
removing it from the playlist, right?
And yeah, Oreon was definitely strong.
Like you double transcend your Kasaiya gives you your 4th
resource on a silver platter and being able to play Oreon off of
it and your new cheat card was like really strong.
And I can see why they wanted to get rid of it.
And they even mentioned like Kasaiya is part of the problem.
If Kasaiya wasn't in the game, they would consider keeping
Oreon. Yeah, what was it?
They said we were fine with it being 2.33 for three cards,
right? You had to spend Orion to play
the Chi to pitch and another card.
They were fine with that and like technically you got to net
some resources on that because you spent two to pitch, you
played the card and then you draw 3, so you do have some
resources floating. They were fine with that.
It was with Kasaya, meaning you didn't have to pitch that extra
card, which then meant that you could play it on.
Leaner hands, and it allowed you to have essentially plus one
card value. Yeah.
And then this on top of like an essential turn or an art of or
turn or both. Like it's just disgusting value,
Yeah. And if I can jump off of that
and say I think they banned Tomo Divinity for a very similar
reason. Yes, right.
Tomo Divinity, another card not really on anybody's list, but
like if you look at their principles of what Tomo Divinity
was doing, it was like. All right, this is the tone
turn. Let's see if Prism wins.
Yeah, it. And it's funny you bring that up
too because I didn't think it was like that bad of a band or
necessary of a band until the prison player started reacting
to it. Sorry Alice.
But like I can see it now. Like the the Domo divinity turns
to set up double aura or to just send like 2 heralds with like
being able to pay for the phantasmal footsteps trigger.
Like this card is a really big power piece and losing it like
like being able to, you know, pitch a a light blue with your
vestige turned on is like the same shit as the other cards
that we're talking about it. Really felt like deck building
had never really put vestige I've sold next to blue cards
before and the moment that that became the build it became 2
card draw three yeah next I think something that I'm really
happy about and a lot of kind of.
Players are like really dooming about is the tone of Aether Wind
Band that and bravo find all yeah and tomo final bravo like
this is. Exactly.
Like that was how they just stole games.
Yes yeah, that was how they just ripped games out of everybody's
fucking hands. Like I'm swinging for lethal and
I got a 20 life lead. Oh, you hit aether wind off the
top and drew 2 Blues? Guess I'm fucked.
Yep. I just find it so interesting
how they decided that like the Kano play style is one that they
no longer want to see in the game.
You know, in the same way that they don't want to see Artiford
Ninja in the game. Yep, and they specifically call
out pitch stack Kano as a healthy way of playing the game,
and I think it might be their original intent for the game as
well, that Kano is memorizing his pitch stack and showing off
his memorization skills in order to obliterate an opponent.
Right. It's very flashy and it's really
easy for Kano to blow up in your face now, especially if your
deck doesn't run a lot of Blues or if you get just a little too
confident for just a little bit. Yeah, and I, I like that it
still allows Kano to use his hero ability to have like an
extra turn, quote UN quote. But instead of like killing you
on the turn you're threatening lethal.
It's like I'm reaching my pitch stack one turn earlier that I
meticulously planned ahead of time and kept track of.
And I'm rewarded for it by using this all these cards in in
tandem to kill you, you know, versus Yeah, the casino Kano.
I think it's also it does suck for Kano players because, again,
Kano was one of those decks that was always a force in the meta,
but never the meta demon. It's not like people were like
pivoting to Kano to win tournaments.
Yeah. Like Kano always kind of got his
points when everyone else kind of forgot about Kano and he was
able to show up as this, like, meta sniper.
Yeah. Or just you have incredibly
talented players. Majin Bay battle hardened San
Diego shout outs and actually shout out is just all the Kanos
from San Diego. They did so wonderfully that
tournament. I played against two first time
Kano players. Never played the game before.
First major tournament, playing the game for like less than a
couple of months. Incredible Kano players, a lot
of respect for them, yeah. I think some really talented
people gravitate towards Kano, so hopefully with this band they
take some time to recover, grieve a little bit, but with
the space that LSS has bought themselves to design around Kano
now, like they should flourish in like a year.
Or so with the new tools in Rosetta.
We're about to see Wizards, right?
You know Ether Arc dot deck. Yeah, I'm actually a little
concerned about this because this announcement was originally
designed for October 1st. This was moved up because they
saw sentiment really dipping going into a new set release and
said I think we have to do this now to.
Keep making money, yeah? I literally keep people's
spirits up about the game. Right.
Like. Why would I invest in a new set
when the meta is not going to support anything in that set,
you know? Yeah, I know a lot of people who
are very vocal about like, if this set just doesn't do
anything, I'm done, you know? Yeah.
And so I actually think that based on their original intent
to not release this until October, I don't think Kano's
going to be at the same power. Like I think Kano is getting a
straight up nerve because of this.
Oh for sure. Unless.
Unless Kano. Players completely reimagine how
they play the deck. I don't think Kano's in the same
place now. I think we've got some really
good conversation going on in this pitch.
I do want to wrap it up though with some notable exclusions to
the Banhammer, first being blood or spells.
I think that was on a lot of people's minds.
Like why do brutes get to keep this sick ass card?
It's almost literally Art of War, except it blocks for three
instead of giving plus one, it gives you +2.
It's like better Art of War. Yeah, and it like if you discard
a beast within it's 100% better. Art of War it doesn't go over
rate until you have played a third card because it's a yellow
one for four. With go again when you played
two cards it gives +2 and +2. I'm kind of loving this because
you guys are such brute apologists right now.
You guys are trying to explain to me why this card is not as
good as Art of War, and that's crazy.
Like the way that I see it, all the sass is fine with a class
having Art of War, They're fine with Brute having quote UN quote
Art of War. And if Art of War was a ninja
class card, they would have thought really hard, probably a
lot harder about whether or not it's the right ban.
But the fact that Art of War is generic is part of why they
banned it. And Brute, they were like, okay,
you can have this one tool because it's OK.
And brute for whatever reason. But then how does that explain
Toma Divinity or Toma Firebrand where there are these siloed
cards that have been banned that provide that intense card
drawability? I think they decided Brute can
have this one and there is a restriction around it right?
Like it, The restrictions you're talking about do exist and they
do lead to a slightly healthier gameplay pattern, but I think
like Blood Brush Bellows gives you a lot of the same negative
agency that they're talking about in this article.
I think they're just willing to allow this one even though it is
an example of what they're talking about.
Tomo Divinity being like these crazy prison combo turns where
you can turn 2 cards into three almost straight up with the
Vestige of Soul. Like that's really strong.
Tomo Firebrand. They mentioned the main reason
they're banning it is for future Draconic cards, so that doesn't
get crazy in the future, you know, movie through and you
already know is crazy and it's the ease, right?
Yeah. I also think like Brute in
general is such a good breaker of control decks that this is a
good way of leaking damage versus the hyper fatigue decks
or the the decks that just like want to sit back and block all
day like it makes. And you're playing fair most of
the game as brew other than like KO and Levia pre art of war
band. And so like this one turn, we
get to break parody and get a little bit more value for your
for your car, just like fine in out in my opinion.
And you guys are right that like a random discard is a lot less
abusable than a banishing of a token Crouching tiger.
Yeah, if lutterish fellow said beat chest on it.
Way different, holy shit, way different cooking, but I think
that's about it. I think we covered most of the
bands other than like Telma Firebrand.
But like, who the fuck was playing that anyways?
But now I want to hear about Clark and his analysis of Fab's
old design principles. So why don't you take it away,
Clark? Yeah, So James White, thank you
for coming in. I'm just going to be sitting
here in the back of the room with my little clipboard.
Pretend like I'm not even here. Just do your thing, baby.
I'm not even here. So I'm going to do a little
performance review of the past five years.
Now I have AI know I haven't been playing for the full past
five years of the game. You're a new hire.
I'm a new hire and so it's a little weird for me to be the
one in this position with the clipboard, but we're going to
get through this together, OK? There's going to be a
conversation afterwards. It's going to be OK.
So in the article they talk about taking a long term look at
their guiding design principles for the game and they started
with their initial game design principles.
Literally a sheet of paper that they sent to every single LGS
with the starter kit, probably also with like the IRA starter
decks, I would imagine, right? Like this is this is the
beginning of flesh and blood. And therefore starting design
principles were start full, reduce variance, every card
counts and reward good decisions, not good luck.
So we're going to be talking about these four, how I think
they started and how I think they've changed to today.
And the first thing I want to put out there is this is really
more of a sales pitch, right? I think so.
To me this reads as a sales pitch if you go read the
article. Which by the way, certified
banger. But when I read these, it really
sounds like it's trying to tell an LGS, hey, this is what's good
about the game. This is how you sell the game to
other people. Me, I'm not like other card
games. And it's not.
It's not, Yeah. I would say just about every
single one of these is fulfilled by two rules in the game, the
pitch system and drawing at the end of every turn.
Like all four of these principles, I think, are
fulfilled by those two things. I feel like the equipment.
The equipment did with the start full, yes.
Yeah, but like reducing variants, making every card
count, and then like having to win the game over multiple turns
rather than like a single turn or a single draw.
I think all of that is dictated by those two rules.
The fact that your cards that you play are also the cards that
you pitch, and they have this color scaling system, right?
More resources, less power, more power, less resources that trade
off the pitch system. It reduces variance because it
means every single hand that you draw, you have the ability to
play something or block, right. Every card counts.
You're going to see every single card in your deck because you're
putting it back into your deck. No cards are wasted.
They're always either interacting in the game in some
way on the combat chain. You're playing it for its effect
or you are pitching it to play other cards, so every single
card in every single hand matters.
You're never going to have a dead draw like in Magic when
it's turned 20 and you're like, oh boy, my 16th land.
What a top deck. That's never going to happen in
this game, right? Every single draw is going to be
important to your game plan and the way that the game shakes
out. You all like if there's an out,
you can draw to your out and you can do that every single turn.
And I love how in the article they don't say Magic the
Gathering but you can like feel it coming from their
description. Oh yeah, yeah, like fuck that
bitch in particular, but we're not gonna.
Compared to some other game systems that load variants onto
the ability of players to access base resources plans.
Often when a player lands on the wrong side of this variance,
it's right there in the Wow. Actually fuzzy, now that you've
said it. Like a catty little bitch.
Like I didn't see the magic reference, like I didn't see
that, but the moment that you're like Lance, it's right there in
black and white these. Are the skills I bring to the
podcast as the token gay? And then finally, I also think
drawing every single turn means that like no one single hand is
going to make the difference in whether or not you win or lose
the game. It's it's going to have to
happen over multiple turns because you're seeing your
entire deck, you're having at least what, 15 turns?
Yeah, there's not going to be one single turn that wins you
the game, right? It's going to have to be an
accumulation. So one is I think they
accomplished these four things from the get go, and I don't
know if that has been like guiding design principles ever
since, if that makes sense. When we also talk about like the
eras of the game, there was like Fab at the beginning, which was
what? Welcome to Wraith and Arcane
Rising. And then there was like Fab one
point O, which was like Monarch and Tales of Aria.
And then there was Fab 2 point or no, it probably went past
that, right? Was dynasty.
Would we include dynasty in this dynasty outsiders.
So like I, I started playing the game in Fab 2 point O.
But if you look at Fab one point O and then look at the cards
that they're banning. I'm just saying.
I'm just saying you. Know I have always felt like
they should just ban like a bunch of fucking majestics for
the first couple years of the game because they're just.
They're just getting more powerful the more or the larger
the card pool. I think a lot of players in this
game, especially a lot of the storied older voices, really
need to be aware of how much nostalgia they have for the
beginning of this game. Yeah, a lot of these broken
cards and cards that are breaking the game are these
older cards. Like I remember how many times
someone said, like, Oh my God, Living Legends, the best format
right now. Like, that's the, that's the
best. That's real flesh and blood.
That's the flesh and blood I fell in love with.
And I'm like, that's just as fucking broken, if anything,
more broken, right? When we talk about our
degeneracy episode, Zen is the only like current hero that we
are really spending a lot of time talking about.
Apart from that, it was all the heroes that living Legend out.
So I think the game's always kind of had issues with balance
and adhering to like healthier game principles.
I think it's because when they looked at these four points,
start full, reduce variance, every card counts and reward
good decisions, not good luck. I think that it was already
being accomplished as long as you had cards that could pitch
and not win the game in like a turn.
Yeah, so take that, LL enjoyers. Moving on.
I do want to talk a little bit about the every card counts
because they gave another really good insight.
They repeated this insight. We've heard it before from LSS,
but I want to reiterate it. Not every game, not every hero
is looking to go to second cycle, nor should they.
But it needs to be a very important part of the meta game
and happen often enough that players are always having to
think about it. I think that's the right sweet
spot. It's a very specific sweet spot,
but it sounds right, you know? Yeah, if it, if it becomes every
single game, you have to pitch stack or if it becomes every
single game, it doesn't matter what you're pitching because
it's going to be over in the first five turns.
It's not a healthy game. Yeah, like at some point the the
core mechanics who you're playing with, IE pitching like
that has to matter beyond just like getting just enough Blues
to play your powerful cards and the and then the game's over.
Like you have to face the consequences of your actions at
some point. And that's why I like control
decks because they force you to go to second cycle and test like
the mettle of the aggro player or the the person like putting
on the aggression. 100% and I love that we do have those decks
to do that too because as an aggro player, I do enjoy having
to think about my pitch stack and plan it out accordingly.
I really enjoyed doing that for Victor for the past two months.
It's like paying attention to my pitch stack and making it all
work nicely. But really it's that fourth
point that I think there was the most conversation on.
It's also what they wrote the most on.
Reward good decisions, not good luck.
Do we think LSS has been doing that?
I don't know if we're looking across the whole game's history,
I think there have been definitely times where aggro
decks have been at the forefront, and those can be very
swingy based on what cards you draw and at what time.
You know, like if Briar gets Chinaman Heroic, that's pretty
good. But also like there have been
control decks along the way that reward that really tight play
style. Like you're talking about Joel.
And it's not like every Meadow was always dominated by a brain
dead aggro hero at the top. And there's even a lot of skill
expression in those decks. Maybe I'm biased because I like
to play aggro decks, so I like so and I feel challenged when I
play aggro decks at tournaments. You know, I think there's a lot
that I'm trying to think about and there's ways that my plays
been increasing in skill over the last time.
Like I'm always learning a lot in this game and I feel like
those good decisions are rewarded as I'm learning and I'm
ready for them to pay off in the future.
And I can feel when I'm making bad decisions and I get punished
for it more so than just like I know my tournament is because
I'm not lucky, you know? So it's a so it's a half and
half answer. Yeah, I think rewarding good
decisions has become so baseline that when good luck happens and
when the variance happens, people really pay attention to
it. And then they're like, oh, this
game was decided by luck. When in reality, I just think
there's some really, there's some good fucking players at
this game. And a lot of players know how to
take the right lines very often. And so like, I think that a lot
of people is just making the right decision after making the
right decision. And then like, oh, you had the
good luck. You drew the three Blood Rush
fellows in the top half of your deck, and games like that
happen, and they should happen, right?
Like that. That's another thing that they
mentioned. Variance is good and important
to the game, right? You don't want a game with no
variance because then there's no reason for anybody to play it.
There has to have different things have to happen.
And if you're playing a deck that is not favored into a match
up, don't you want to be able to win that match up?
There has to be some variance. You have to be able to have a
draw, or the opponent has to be able to draw worse enough that
you can win those games. And everybody wants that because
you will eventually be the deck that has to do it.
You can't pretend like you're always going to be playing the
top deck and then want to win every single time except the
mirror or based on deck choice. Variance is good and important
and healthy, but I think we are so often forgetting that and
focusing on when it works against us.
I definitely did. That really resonated with me,
I'm not going to lie. But also, sometimes it just
fucking sucks to play the 3070 matchup or the 2080 matchup.
So like, I don't completely disagree.
LSS did say, you know, like a big thing of rewarding good
decisions, not good luck is like agency.
That was that's a new word that they are adopting.
And I'm sure we'll talk about that in blue pitch with you
Fuzzy. But like when it comes to
agency, there are different kinds of agency and different
levels of agency that is acceptable and unacceptable.
And it's going to be interesting to see how they shake that out
over these next couple of sets. The very last thing I want to
talk about is parody. A good part of this good
decision idea that they discussed was this idea of
parody and offensive overlap. Ultimately why they banned all
of these cards is because they said that it provided, and this
is an exact quote, extreme offensive overlap.
This is the part of the article that resonated the most with me
across the entire thing. I mean the bans are a big deal
but it's kind of like those 3 words kind of guide to me why
they chose each of those specific cards to ban.
Yeah, so there's nothing wrong with some offensive overlap
being able to deal more damage than the opponent can block
because it means that life will be ended, go to zero, and then
it will end. And that is the way that game
should be ending. I know that our good friend
Trent, with his fatigue bravo, would prefer it that he's like,
ah, yes, by one blew in hand and you have nothing.
I win. Hammer, Hammer.
Hammer. Hammer.
Hammer, hammer. True.
Flesh and blood, true flesh and blood or talons.
Always joked about winning the game with one plague hive in
hand because he just gets to pitch it over and over to the
bow to give like random blood. So funny.
So like, I'm sure some people love the idea of that, but
that's not where the game is supposed to end.
The point is when it's extreme. And one of the ways that they
intended for parody to be broken was through being able to
Arsenal an attacking card so that your 5 attacking cards go
against their four defending cards and you guarantee to leak
some damage. Well, that's not enough because
there's defense reactions, right?
That you can put in Arsenal and then play from Arsenal.
And they're also overrate blocks, and if I recall
correctly they were printed. And welcome to rate.
So this has always been a fucking problem in the game.
Oh my God, we've heard we've heard literally James White,
like maybe he complaints not the right word, but he was like we
think printing sync below and faith for scene like in the
first couple of sets was kind of a mistake because they they
break this parody. It makes it harder for the game
state to end when you can block with cards in Arsenal.
And so we'll if, if this continues to be an issue and if
they find that like, oh, we don't want to push the power too
much, but games aren't ending fast enough, I'm going to say
this and this might be this may not pay off for a couple of
years. I can see them banning fate for
seen In Sync below. 100%, yeah. Specifically because of this,
because they're like, look, we tried pushing the damage to go
over those tools and it didn't matter.
So like now if the game starts just getting too slow and that's
a big problem, I can very easily see them cutting these two
insane staples. Especially off the backs of
banning all these really powerful cards, like there's got
to be some course correction, some sometime down the line
where the defensive officers are just too great.
Yeah, I know we talked to, I've heard talks on our Discord.
This is might be conversations I was more of a lurker for than a
participator. But people have wondered like,
are we going to keep ratcheting up aggro so that it can get over
the defenses of control decks? Are we going to keep ratcheting
up control decks so it can meet the blazing power of these new
aggro decks? And it seems it's like LSS is
taking this opportunity to let's all cool down a second and slow
the arms race so we can get back to a more healthy state for the
game. Yeah.
And ultimately, I like that their guiding principle is
agency. The last thing that they
mentioned in this section is that there are cards that take
away agency in very powerful and meaningful ways that they are
keeping their eyes on but they have currently deemed
acceptable. Ren, the Ledger, Warmongers,
Diplomacy, Sirens Call, and they often complained about Arclight
Sentinel. All of these cards have their
own conditions and difficulties and counter play that I think so
far makes them all right. Match up dependency.
So many things go into these cards being fair or not fair,
but as it stands, I think that those are also cards that could
be looking on the complete ban list in the way that these cards
were banned simply because they take away that agency too much.
And that's it. That's all I got for yellow
pitch. I'm going to look down here and
check the little boxes. You got 5 here, only a three
there. You know what?
James White. That's a passing grade.
Flush and blood is saved. This game has been pretty fun in
the last five years. We have been.
We love it so much we did a podcast about it.
Joel's like I'm going to reserve con, let's talk about in blue
pitch if we think the game will be fun for the next 5 years.
So I'll read off the four main principles and we'll talk a bit
about like the different aspects that they think make up each
one. Flesh and Bloods design and
development principles 2025 edition are class talent and
hero identity, empowering agency, having every card count
and having paths to victory. OPA.
Do you guys think they put this in a specific order of like
priority to them? Oh.
That's a good question. I.
Didn't tell. Right now I do think there needs
there. There's a lot of work to be done
with class talents or specifically talents and hero
identities for sure, so that wouldn't surprise me if it was
an order of priority. Well, I don't know if the class
talent, hero identity is the most important principle that
LSS has, but if you're trying to think about like, OK, what am I
going to put on my flesh and blood cards, it's a very easy
one to look to 1st. You know, you want your cards to
feel good, embody a certain flavor, and the specifics can be
guided by the other principles. So I wouldn't be surprised if
this first one is the the most dominant in how they come up
with new cards to add to the game.
Yep. Also makes it very easy to sell
the game. I want to play the game by being
a fancy ass wizard. Good for you.
Here's Icelander the ice wizard. Does she cast spells?
You're goddamn right she does. And notably, this replaces the
start full aspect from before. One thing we didn't quite touch
on before is nowadays James White and LSS don't consider
start full to be a functional principal.
Instead, it's just true, which is different.
That that's kind of what I was saying about like how the like
original principles were just kind of like the rules of the
game make. That happen like you don't need
to design a card in order to make your hero start full
because it's just how the game works, right?
And I also think that's part of why they're able to ban cards
like cash in now cash in if you'd like have it like look, it
says in our book here that you wrote James, like it says start
full cash in. Does that Crown of Dominion cash
in embodies that design principle of the game.
So by kind of removing it as like, hey, this is what we want
to see and making it more like, if you happen to do it, that's
great and natural. It allows them to look closely
at like, what's really healthy and unhealthy, you know?
I know it's a little bit of a tangent.
We're supposed to be talking about the future.
Class talent and hero identity does seem like a really good way
for LSS to center themselves and focus on what makes the game fun
to play. And I'm looking forward to the
future where they make more solid class talent and hero
identities. Do you feel like they've been
able to preserve a unique mechanical identity for each
class and talent so far? I think some of them, some of
the classes are struggling more than other classes because I
don't think they're quite delivering on the fantasy.
I think that's a term you'll hear a lot in game design,
especially like board game, card game, video game design, right,
is like delivering on a fantasy. And I definitely think that like
Warriors right now have a pretty weakly defined fantasy.
I don't know what a big fancy warrior turn looks like.
I just don't know what it looks. I know what a Guardian 1 looks
like. It's called throwing spinal
crush for 21. And it happened to me the other
weekend. I don't know what warriors, big,
flashy, Oh my God, they did. The warrior thing is.
It's usually just blocking. That's my big turn.
Bro I blocked 8 and then I threw a yeah I.
Won that turns like gold in the Art of War.
What? It doesn't buff weapon attack.
What the fuck am I supposed to do with this card?
Warriors attack with weapons looks at every other hero in the
game. Moving on to point #2 empower
agency notably replacing reduced variance.
The nice thing about this transition to me is that reduced
variance is like, Oh yeah, I love a game that's going to
reduce variance because it's going to give me more agency.
And here they're putting it right there in the design
principles. We want to empower agency.
That's the the, the end goal they're looking for, not the
means to the end, like how their principle is now focusing on the
positive things that they can put into their cards to increase
that agency versus working to provide to themselves as a
counterexample to other TCGS at the time, Magic the Gathering
Lands, and we're focusing here, they say create, curate a card
pool and meta games where players have choices that allow
them to meaningfully engage with the game plan of their opponents
and victories earned through an accumulation of many good
decisions. They want that agency to be the
source of victory and what makes players feel good.
Yeah. And I would say the first and
most obvious thing they need to do is give some classes more
tools to deal with Spectra. Yeah.
Especially if they're gonna like, not do anything about the
Spectra that exists. Yeah, they've said they're not
printing it more. It still exists.
And notably, in the article they do say Guardian and Warrior will
be given tools to help increase their agency in upcoming sets.
I've heard that before. Well, hopefully they're able to
hold to that design principle and give us that empowering
agency in the future. They also double down on every
card counts. They want meta games to have
archetypes where every card in a deck plays a meaningful role in
determining the outcome of the game, something they stayed a
little bit before. We've kind of talked a little
bit about what that looks like, right?
Going to second cycle sometimes, not necessarily all the time.
I also really like the wizard cards that have been printed,
specifically that ones that say instant discard this amp one.
Yeah, but I think fixing the problem with your Blues being
shitty in Wizard, like they don't really do all that much
unless they're being bumped by some other anthem effect, like
being able to scrounge at the last bit of arcane damage to
close out a game or maybe get a surge going off or whatever.
I think that's really cool design and I love the modality
of these utility Blues, specifically in the wizard
class. More to come, obviously or
hopefully. Yeah, they they first sit in
heavy hitters and it was such a rousing success that they they
brought it here. Yeah, I haven't thought about it
like that, Joel, where like my shitty blue block threes in my
deck that served that sort of function can also have
intentional card choices that can help my game.
And that could be one way in the future that they explored this
design principle specifically. Let's go on to their 4th tenant,
Paths to Victory. I like these parts because they
sound kind of legalese like they're like, OK, here's what we
intend. Specifically, offer players
strategies and card synergies that can create game states
slanted towards offensive advantage so that most games end
with one hero being reduced to zero life.
What does that mean bro? It means they're OK with
generally aggressive plans doing better than defensive plans in
general and that people will lose as opposed to like getting
decked out. If you get fatigued to death
then you would say the game did not really end with one hero
being reduced to zero life or skill issue.
True true. Like it could be the result of
like misplays, but that in general they're OK with
strategies being overpowering slightly.
It's these extreme offensive overlaps that they don't like.
I think for this first line I will measure their success on
how well they're doing in this with what does Talon's riptide
list look like? Because if he thinks that he has
to be throwing attacks to win the game, then we are in a
healthy spot. If you can just run trap dot
deck, then this is not healthy, right?
All I have to do is block every single turn and I have 70 cards
in deck and three remembrances so I will win the game.
Talon is the Canary in the coal mine.
He I legitimately think fatigue riptide decks are the Canary in
the coal mine for this strategy. That's funny.
Now, it does say slanted towards offensive advantage, which is
doing a lot of work here. But in general, we're expecting
offensive decks to be the the default in the game, right?
Well-being able to block out until your opponent stumbles, I
think that's an important part of the game and like games going
for a long time, right? The ability for them to just be
like, I'm throwing 10 and you're like, who?
Block 12? Yeah, yeah, like I know I'm on
one life, but like who? I get another turn and then
they're like, oh man, I didn't draw any attacks.
And you're like, this is it. This is my chance.
Yes, very important part of the game, I'd agree.
This also, and I'm going to leave it here, this also kind of
means that they're not going to print alternate win cons anytime
soon, which is kind of lame in my opinion.
Yeah, that's kind of like what I'm hearing.
But they do have something to say about like Otks and one turn
kills. Yeah, which are like our version
of alternate wing cons and flesh and bled the watered down
version their second bullet point.
Again, I think this tempers what they're talking about with this
positive victory primarily disperse offensive advantages
across multiple turns rather than in single bursts of output
so that victories are in through the accumulation of many good
decisions. They're trying to focus on good
decisions lead to a win, not good luck, quote, UN quote.
And when you think of like Blood Rush Bellows being like, you
need to see two or three of them in order to win the game, I
think that would kind of be an indicator that it's an OK card.
Yeah. If you're if you're like ever
forced to block with it. If you think of like Prism or
Zen entirely winning the game bust based off of 1 power turn,
then that would be a little bit counter to what they're trying
to make the game look like, yeah.
Another thing that I kind of love about this is we already
see it in their rune blade design.
So initially they were printing a lot of cards that gave you
power on the turn itself, but then they start shifting in.
A lot of the rune chance generators give you rune chance
over multiple turns. Room Blood Incantation and
Malefic Incantation being 2 specific cards that I can point
at and be like yes this is a red that gives you 3 value 3 rune
chance over three turns but they still have go again so that you
can keep playing your game plan on the turn that you play these
cards. Kind of like have been set like
probably isn't going to have any OTK times anytime soon, whereas
chain used to, Yeah. And lastly, for Paths to
Victory, they want us to know that they're going to require
combo and one turn kill decks to complete a meaningfully
difficult quest. That's the literal word.
They use quest to execute their fundamental kill turn.
So they're OK with having these crazy combo decks.
And they specifically say examples include Viscerae or
Florian OTK requiring many turns to establish the quantity of
rune chance required to OTK, or a Kano player completing and
memorizing their pitch stack over many turns.
Yes. Now this was something that we
talked about in our degeneracy episode as being unhealthy for
the game. And they kind of said psych
bitch. This is perfectly.
Fine in LSS opinion because it takes a long time to set up.
They're OK with it. They have to make many good
decisions along the way, like doing efficient blocks and
keeping their life total up in order to maintain the strategy.
Yeah, I think for Florian it makes a lot more sense than for
Viscerae, because with Florian you first have to turn on your
hero ability and then you have to spend the turns building your
room chance. And it's I so far you can't do
the same thing with the same card.
I guess you could argue Germinate kind of does that, but
it doesn't decompose so it doesn't get you any closer to
your hero ability. But that is an earth card that
both makes ruin chance and helps delay the game by making
embodiments of earth. So aside from one card, Florian
looks like the healthy version of this.
I think for this or I the argument is that you need to
keep a lot of cards in hand, which means that you are then
taking a lot of damage to efficiently build the ruin
chance. But I've been doing some
building and there are some turns where I can build 20 run
chance in a turn. I don't like hearing.
That it is. It is doable, so I'm a little
concerned on what visserie, OTK and the turtle burst strategy is
going to look like. And when they say complete a
meaningfully difficult quest, that's kind of subjective,
right? You know, like what defines if,
if, if a deck is doing really well in the meta, that's kind of
a sign that it's not that difficult, right?
And this is the kind of the first hint maybe that they've
talked specifically about what strategies should be at the top
of the meta and which strategies should not.
Well, I will say now that the conversation is on Rune Chant
stacking like when it was the premier deck in the format with
Bloodshield Skeletta, I think we had a lot less tools to deal
with life gain and really defensive decks.
And now some examples of decks that I think could really punish
strategies like that is Kasai specifically because she has one
of the only like long lasting allies that you have to like
declare an attack to kill because room blade for Rosetta
has already seen some support where they can destroy auras
with non attacks. So like Prism really isn't going
to be like the standout destroyer of these decks.
Also like Victor being able to play cast homes to make a really
fat CNC maybe with a pummel to like stop all D reacts to
destroy whatever combo card you have in arsenal.
And I think wizard 2 like if you give Kano enough turns, like if
he you know churns through his deck quicker than the viscera or
Florian Cam. Like they can obviously set up
the perfect kill turn and kill you.
So I'm excited to see how we deal with these decks with the
tools that we have now, if these strategies become like more
powerful than they used to be. Yeah.
I feel like they can really offset these, these concerning
OTK decks by following that second principle of empowering
agency. Yeah, If we are able to give
most reasonable decks agency into these strategies, because
obviously not all the decks will have the agency, but if you give
enough decks the agency into these strategies, then it will
be OK. Yeah.
I think my biggest take away from these new principles and
the biggest contrast I see from the old ones that they published
was that like the old principles read to me as a fresh new idea.
You know, like if I go to you tomorrow, Clark, and I'm like, I
just had the best idea for our trading card game.
I'm going to talk about it in these terms, right?
I have this new idea where like it'll feel like you start full,
every card's going to count. It'll reduce variance and reward
your good decisions. It's like a little like elevator
pitch, right? No room blades?
What Fuzzy? I never said that.
And this is literally used as marketing material for new LGSS,
right, To get them excited about the game and encourage them to
run more events. But now they're like, we need
more mature design principles. We need something that we can
hold ourselves accountable to so that we know we're creating a
fun, healthy game that's going to last a long time.
That's what flesh and blood needs now.
We had the buy in. They they sold it to us, right?
Like, we're all in. I bought it.
Yeah. So now it's good that they can
communicate to us. Hey, we understand our game.
We're ready to have a healthy and enjoyable game for the long
term. We're in it for life with AY
life. This is season 2 season finale
and season 3 is going to be a fucking banger.
Exactly, they're going to stick season 3.
They fixed some some plot holes. They killed off the the hero
with the plot armor. We're Gucci.
We're getting there. And I'm excited for the future.
Ned Stark lost his head. Yeah, whatever that means.
Oh, maybe this will be a good time to just talk about little
tangents, little footnotes. In the end.
For instance, they mentioned that for Blitz, they're looking
at the format and they recognize that it can use a couple changes
that could make it like an actually good format.
And they said that they could be implemented prior to the next
scrimmage season starting N30, which is like really soon.
Wait another. Scrimmage season.
It's the only time we can get blitz LL points.
It's part of why Zen rotated so fast, because we only get like
two or three of these a year. So you only have a couple
opportunities to LL. You have to like fucking pump
those LL points into the system and Zen took them all and
gobbled. Them.
God I wish this was video recorded.
Were there any other like ending things that anyone wanted to
mention? I'm finally excited about flesh
and blood again like this. Gave me a lot of hope for sure.
Yeah, Miss, Miss Bailey, you've been pretty, pretty down on
because I think you had heavy hitters.
You saw the resurgence of your class.
Yeah. You saw them get some points but
still struggle. And you were like, man, you
really could have done more for Warrior.
And then literally the very next season, they took what little
Warrior had away. Yeah.
And I think that. I think it killed your energy
for sure. And I think, I mean there's a
pattern too, like when I want to like grind for an invite and I'm
playing the top deck in the format and I'm bored stiff and I
don't and I like stop playing that deck like I did.
I did the same thing for Starvo. I played Starvo for a while and
like gave up on the deck because it was so boring.
Like it's just not what I want for flesh and blood.
I want grinder games. I want longer games.
Done. It's also not what you like
about Flesh and Blood. True.
Yeah, I think that's gonna be so important that people start
communicating and the way that they start talking.
The games I like in Flesh and Blood.
Yeah. Because you will have games that
you don't like in flesh and blood.
Because guess what? Different people like different
things about flesh and blood. Holy fucking shit guys, there's
a difference of opinions. Wait, people don't like fatigue
mirrors? I liked brain dead at grow
mirrors. They didn't feel brain dead to
me. Yeah.
But if he means people stop complaining, I'm willing to
ditch him, you know? Yeah, I'm willing to let them
go. It, it reminds me of how like
during heavy hitters, there was a lot of complaining about this
is just a numbers meta, man. No one's doing anything cool
anymore. Then Miss Vale.
Everyone's like, why is the game so broken, man?
Why can't we go back to the good meta hitters?
It's like, motherfucker, I saw your tweet.
Yeah. I think you need to get off
Twitter, Clark, when you're noticing how the different
complaints don't line up with the same people.
Twitter is just not the place for sane people, I swear to God.
Well then, lock me up, baby. All right.
My last aside that I want to mention all of these cards
except for Bonds of Ancestry, our legal and living Legend, and
I actually like this. You can play your one token copy
of Bonds of Ancestry. Sure, but I love this because it
means that when heroes Living Legend out, people are going to
be excited to go play them in the Living Legend format.
Because right now, if Leviah was the LL, I would not give a shit
about playing her in Living Legend and I would never play
her in Living Legend even if I love that deck with all of my
heart. I'd be like, why would I bother
playing against all those broken old decks?
But if someone goes well, you get to run Ardivor and I'd go,
what? What'd you say?
Come again? I get to I get to play Ardivor.
All right, hold on. This changes the entire way I've
been playing this deck. OK, wait, I can run Slytherin
Shadow Pede now And like, Deeper and Evil get so much better.
And like, wait a minute, they printed this other card into
future set that I don't know yet.
And like, that's so much. Better with Ardivor, Yeah.
And you can play Blood Rush Bellows too.
Let's go. And Ardivor.
And then people get excited about taking their deck to the
next format. Yeah.
And that that is going to be meaningful for the health of the
game because Magic has had that standard went out.
And then you're like, wait a minute, let's see if I can turn
this into a Modern deck. Or for the big boys, vintage.
Sure. Wait, is it legacy that I like?
Which one has Reckless Reanimator?
I don't know. Nerds.
Pretty sure that's legacy with Gristlebrand.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Legacy.
I love legacy. Yeah, all.
Right, boys, we're ready to move on to our Arsenal zone.
Sorry. I don't think anyone was
prepared for that. That's funny.
Yeah, let's do it. What's the Arsenal zone though?
Arsenal Zone is the podcast. Aren't you gonna bully Joel
about it? I've been trying to like set
this tradition of like bullying the person who asks what the
arsenal. Arsenal zone is the part of the
Joel, why don't you? Tell yeah, Joel, you're asking
the question, Mr. Smart Guy. Well, since you asked the
Arsenal Zone listeners, is the part of the podcast where we
talk about a card A. Card.
Yeah, it could be one that we like, 01 that we don't like, oh,
and one that we like to not like.
Oh yeah. Either way, we're going to talk
about it right now and I'm not starting.
So when do you start? I can start.
It's like as this tradition. I brought a copy of the card
that I'll be shouting out, ready to sign and give to you guys.
You have literally never done this ever before in Are you
getting a signed fuzzy? Card.
Hey, yo. I'm shouting out a card.
Now that I think about it, there's like 4 cards that I'm
missing from. I have them.
Oh. OK, slave, I have two of them.
Good to me. I'm shouting out a card that was
not banned, but oh boy did it get worse.
You might be thinking OK, spawns of ancestry left the format.
Wait, Crown of Dominion? We're getting Crown of Dominion.
Good guess but it is a common but it is an equipment
headpiece. You may be thinking Bonds of
Ancestry just got banned which means it's a lot harder for
Katsu to run Dishonor. Well I mean he can run it, but
is he going to do anything if he can't turn it on?
Because you can't play Bonds of Ancestry so you can't like
actually take away people's hero abilities.
So you might be thinking, what if I ran Mask of Many Faces?
But I have bad news for everybody listening to this
podcast that was thinking about running Mask of Mini Faces in
Katsu. And that's that you're not
allowed to name a card that is not legal in the format that
you're playing, and that includes banned cards.
So you actually cannot run Mask of Mini Faces and use its
ability in order to give a card the name Bansif Ancestry.
I'll just read the card really quick because that's a good
habit that I forgot to do. It's Blade break, one on a
headpiece and it says instant cost one resource.
Destroy mask of mini faces and name a card that's legal in the
format that you're playing in. The next attack action card you
play this turn gains that name, so that card will have two
names, which is kind of sick. I kind of love the idea of a
Ninja player running this and then like.
Totally getting the judge, no? No like.
As they're as they're winning the game, like as they play the
last card in the opponent's like I have no cards in hand.
You got it. They go hold on instant destroy
mask and mini faces naming Gristlebrand, Gristlebrand.
And it's like, that's not a fab card.
They're like, bitch, it says a card.
Not legal. So how does that work for
schwum? Can you make?
Can you name? You wouldn't be able to.
It has to be a legal card that. Card sucks.
Isn't that sad that like Dishonor is so empty but it is a
blue block 3 that's 0 cost, which means that if you already
have it and you like the art, you could put it in your deck
and it can turn on your kanachis.
It's playable. Turns on your Karachis, works
with, you know, flick Flack. It's a combo card still.
That that is a better selling point for it than stab wound.
We've talked about this for way longer than I thought we would.
Clark, do you have a card? I do have a card like you,
Fuzzy. I picked the card that got so
much worse, Cranial Crush. I can't crush and stop people
from drawing cards anymore. They're drawing all these cards
when no one's drawing any cards anymore.
What the fuck? So now it's just a six cost 8
power card I guess. And blue block 3 and a blue
block. Three, it's kind of like the the
hat balance of justice yeah like when are people drawing 2 cards
anymore? A lot of.
Cards got like a lot worse off of this just because they were
designed to take care of these things.
It's not like like azaleas playing three of a kind, you
know? Weakest Link got a lot worse, a
lot less instance. I mean, we're getting a bunch of
new ones in the schedules, but like we lost a lot of playable
instance here. Good.
I'm trying to pay less than $20.00 for that, yeah.
Nice shout out. Yeah, yeah.
Joel, would you like to shout out a card?
Oh, me, Yeah. Yeah.
So for my card, I'm shouting out an oldie.
Some of you young UNS out there might not even know this card
exists. That's so crazy.
That's crazy because I see it in the notes and it was my first
headpiece. Yeah, and this card also used to
cost $200.00 and I was gassed at getting this card for 180.
That's probably less than 50 bucks now.
And that's Arcanite Skullcap. So Arcanite Skullcap for the
Unanointed is a legendary headpiece with one Battle
Warren, but if you have less life than your opponent, it
gains plus one block and Arcane Barrier 3.
And the reason why I'm shouting it out today is because I think
this card might be kind of good because Verdance is going to be
gaining a lot of life. And there's a lot of Amp in the
set, which I don't want to be paying more than three for or
running a lot of AB slots for this hero.
And she's probably going to have a lot more life than me at
certain points in the game, like especially for going up and down
and trading life. So I don't know, I'm probably
coping right now and no one here agrees with me, but I think this
card could be kind of cool to maybe experiment with, but I
just wanted to shout it out. You know, like take the life.
The conditional AB is like a little bit feels bad because you
want to be able to consistently block against them, but it's
very efficient if you were trying to.
It's one of the only ways that all heroes can get to large
amounts of AB, you know. Without sacrificing a lot of
their game plan, right? Hannah can block for three
still, yeah. I mean how many decks already
run the generic headpiece? The Crown of Providence is the
the balance adjustment. There's room for it for sure.
There's a lot of room for it in lists.
Get your copies now everyone before it's bikes.
It's too late, I bought them all.
Welcome sneeples to market Monday.
Buy your fucking arcanite skull caps.
Shadow steeples. Shout out the sneeples.
But yeah, that's my card. Wanted to talk about it.
Wanted to highlight that I spent 180 on it.
So that was an amazing shout out.
Thanks. I love this podcast.
It was great. We haven't recorded in two
weeks. What's up with that?
Yeah, we need to record. Tomorrow.
Honestly unironically I was like not looking forward to recording
like at all specifically because of like Partha must fail.
This game's been weird. Yeah, it's been really bad.
No one's liked it for the last. Two, the mood's been down.
Yeah, for sure. Now I just have so much I want
to talk about. I'm so re energized from this
band list so shadow LSS. Plus we're getting 2 new room
blades next set. Oh yeah, I forgot about that.
All right. Bye.
Bye everybody. Until next time, guys, bye.
Pigeon to Me podcast is hosted by Fuzzy Del Clark Moore and
Joel Racinos. Our executive producer is Talon
Stradley, 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.
Then you don't. Then I.
Still get to play Bonds because I had.
It in our school if I. Eat.
Bonds of ancestry from your board state and then call judge.
Oh yeah, yeah. Then that's very interactable.
So yeah, you could eat the Phoenix farm, Clark, That's the.
Assumption. That's the answer to all your
problems. Eat this.
Can't like this. Can't if I eat it first.
I swear it's on the combat channel.
He ate it. Where's the evidence?
Look in my mouth.