Welcome to Pitch It to Me podcast, a show about the
subjective past, present and potential future of flesh and
blood design. Today's episode will be about
life gain and flesh and blood. You can find us across all
socials such as Blue Sky and Instagram at Pitch It to Me
podcast. I'm fuzzy.
I'm Joel. And I'm Clark.
All right, last episode on Pigeon to Me podcast, we
established that Joel had one more chance because he kept
getting 9th place in all of his RTNS.
He had one more chance. Joel, did you get 9th at the
last RTN? No.
Did you get 10th? No.
Oh, poor guy. Yeah, I got 5.
That beat so hard I I don't think.
You think maybe, maybe we'll have to go back and see.
I'm not. I'm not quite sure if you
screaming directly. I hate it.
Or not. I didn't know what I was going
to say that actually just came out.
I. Didn't think to move back.
That was beautiful dude. We're so fucking happy for you.
Thank you so much it. Was a stacked artian too.
Yeah, Kings Laura games, our local Armory always has the best
people in all of Socal playing there.
And so you like got first place? Yeah, I was in the finals
against Tao Tao. It was like a I had a really
good lead, but he just was crawling back really efficiently
and it got down to 1:00 to 1:00. No price splits or nothing.
Nope. So you got the gold foil?
I got the gold foil too. Yeah, gold foil.
What did you get? It was metacarpus node.
That seems like a really good one.
Yeah, I was pretty hyped about it.
I was like really hoping for like a Centauri Sabre or Raiden
is like was would have been like made my day.
But any Majestic I think is super gas.
And that one's like really playable.
Yeah. So I'm hoping to cash that in
for and Kate was never going to hell out, right?
Yeah, definitely. I'm definitely selling it before
he does at least. Kano is still gonna be good in
Living Legend format, Yeah. That card's gonna be good for a
long time, yeah. Yeah so very glad that I got to
get my invite out of the way. Well, not really cuz I waited
till the end of the season to do well.
But yeah, super thankful for everyone who supported me at the
RTN because I had a very like emotional first game of top
eight. I went against the Cano and just
barely squeezed it out. So yeah, it was a big one.
It meant a lot for sure. Nice.
You know what I can't wait for? Is this next Armory deck?
I think there's like 1 unannounced left right?
Yeah. So to sort of keep the meta
interesting is they're releasing 1 Armory deck each month leading
up to High Seas. So the one in March is going to
be the Aurora and then the one in April is going to be Max.
And then we don't know the one that's coming in May yet.
And because they did Aurora, I'm thinking, do you guys think
they're going to do Terra? Oh that would be freaking cool,
not going to lie. Yeah, maybe.
I don't know what it was exactly, but I remember just
getting this feeling as maybe I was watching the 1st strike
stuff or listening to other content creators talk about the
Aurora Armory deck where I'm just like, I feel like they're
going to do the terror one. Like I think we need like the
red flourish in the way that we got, in the way that we got the
red static shock. I feel like we need, you know,
playsets of or like a place that it thrives, right?
These or even just the earth bond stuff which I think like
could even be really interesting cards to incorporate into a more
earth oriented Yarrow list. Yeah.
Or no, they're all earth guardian.
Yeah, or elemental guardian so. Or maybe like a starve out list?
I think it would be kind of crazy if like, out of the two
new heroes printed straight out of Armory decks, they're both
Guardian, you know? I'd kind of want to see a little
bit like some other heroes because Yarl was the 1st.
One, yeah, we did get Yarl. And granted, Yarl is like
totally new whereas Terra has already been printed in Blitz,
you know? I don't think this would be an
Armory deck origins because the whole point of Armory deck
origins is that they also print like a bunch of majestics and a
legendary specifically for that one here.
So it would be like the first time we see the hero in CC but
also it's not Armory deck origins so is it?
It's just a normal Armory day I think.
It would just be a normal Armory.
Day I think there's less like logistical sense because it's
not the origins and he's already existed before to me I think it
would make make the most sense because a while ago berserk and
crown of seeds banned were banned in tandem and a lot of
people suspected that like you know virgins and Florian were
the reasons why they banned crown of seeds ahead of time
ahead of Rosetta Rosetta's release.
But I think if this next army deck could be Tara, it's because
of Tara because his hero ability allows him to whenever he has a
floating resource, at the end of his turn he can pay 1 to create
a might token. And so if you have like crown of
seeds and Rampart, you'll always have that one extra for a might
token. I.
Didn't like an away some Oasis rest fights or like one cost
instant stuff and like you can just run away with the game?
So this episode's going to be about life game and flesh and
blood. And a lot of it's inspired by
some recent thoughts that Joel's been having because Joel has
been a vocal hater on life gain. I think a few episodes ago, he
kind of just like threw a hot take out there in the middle of
our episode, kind of non sequitur like where he said that
like all life gains should be banned.
I think that was your words, Joel.
Yeah, you did that that. Sounds like something I would
say but I do not recall. It was definitely like one of
those in conversation comments, right?
Yeah. So we took that out and we made
sure to base a whole episode around it.
And also, life gain is just a consistent topic that's going to
come up again and again in the lifetime of flesh and blood.
Yeah. So for today, red pitch, we're
going to talk about like some of the basic design principles of
life gain, what can make it good, what can make it bad.
In yellow pitch, Joel's going to give us some more of his nuanced
thoughts specifically, and Clark and I will eat some popcorn and
listen up. And on blue pitch, we're going
to talk about like the future of life game in the game where we
think LSS might go in the future, what could be printed in
the future around life game, stuff like that.
And then I want to stick around for our Arsenal zone at the end.
Yeah, Fuzzy, what do you got? Why don't you start us off?
So for Red Pitch, we've decided to call this Live Laugh Life
Game. So let's talk about some of like
the pros and cons of life gain in Flesh and blood.
I think most trading card games like to play around with life
gain. You know, if I can take damage,
why can't I heal some of that damage back?
It's a fun mechanic to play around, easy for a designer to
use in order to flesh out the design of the game.
Right In Flesh and Blood, because there's no board states,
because the life totals can be so back and forth, we get some
really like interesting dynamics where life game can interact
with the game and that it wouldn't in other games.
For these first couple of bullet points, I want you to think of
life gain in a very simplistic state.
In one hand, you have a block 3, on the other hand you have Sigil
Losalis. Why would I want a block 3
versus an instant that gains ME3 life but doesn't block?
The block card will allow me to stop on hits, right?
If someone comes at me with a snatch, I want to block the
snatch to deny value or leave no witnesses or Command and
Conquer. Sigil Losalis cannot block any
of those cards, whereas a block 3 will be able to.
So life gain is a little bit worse than blocking if it's not
going to be able to stop on hits, whereas the block 3 is
really bad for stopping things like a Harmonized Kodachi.
If your opponent's throwing lots of chip damage at you, like one
damage, 2 damage, maybe they have a bunch of those spectral
Shields or a bunch of little auras, then life gain can be
really good for helping you fight those strategies because
you can split the defensive value across multiple points of
damage. Of course, there's also things
like Arcane damage, where arcane damage threatens your life total
in a way that you cannot block it simply so you can run life
gain in order to counter that arcane damage.
And that's a concept we see very explicitly in the Rosetta
Limited format. We just saw cards like Arcane
Polarity or even Fertile Ground printed into the set in order to
give you a way to combat arcane damage where there's no Arcane
Barrier in the format. Which to remind viewers, we
really liked that design aspect and how they played around being
able to deal with arcane damage through life gain in that
limited format. I think in this case we as two
just want to point that out. That's kidding.
Yeah, I know that Ryan Gottlieb has said on podcast that he
liked Tales of Aria as a format because the arcane damage allows
the game to end. You want games to end in flesh
and blood. You don't want them to be super
grindy and last forever. So true.
And if you can't actually block the arcane damage, that's one
way to make sure that happens. However, in constructed, life
game usually extends the game. If you're playing life game and
constructed, what we usually see is it's a way for you to be
super defensive. Think about like a block card.
You have to throw it in front of an attack.
It is a interaction with your opponent.
It is a response. And if they're not throwing
attacks at you, your block cards are not going to be able to be
used for blocking. You'll have to either play them
or if they're literally block cards, they're stuck in hand.
I know Clark, you've ranted all the time about playing Victor
and getting stuck with all of your tester strengths.
Yeah, there's IP1 myself, so I can keep my test of strength in
hand, yeah. Whereas a card like Count Your
Blessings or Sigil of Solace, I can always play that card
regardless of what my opponent is doing.
If my opponent just chooses to pass to me without throwing any
attacks, well, I can still build my defenses up.
I can play them even if my opponent's not throwing any
offense. It's kind of like passive
defensive. Yes.
Now this is also notably things that other games have run into
issues for. One very famous example is Elder
Dragon Highlander AKA Commander. Back in the day, Commander,
damaging used to be a rule that existed in that format.
And then some games just said, well, I'm going to gain
thousands upon thousands of life, and the game will never
end. So they had to add this extra
rule to make sure that there was some inevitability or people
were still engaging with board states at the very least, right.
This was before, you know, the infinite upon infinite upon
infinite that can now rule that format.
Yeah. In Flesh and Blood, we often see
life game tied to instance. This is something that's like
always been present in things like Sigil of Solace, but it's
especially true now in Rosetta where we have Count Your
Blessings and Fertile Ground printed into the game.
There have been action speed life game cards like Healing
Bomb and Sun Kiss, which both basically the same.
They're cost 0, they gain you three life, they block for two,
but they don't have any go again.
Why do you guys think it is that LSS has decided that cards with
life game don't have go again? I don't know.
I think it's because if they did, they would simply be a
little bit too strong as the like the third or fourth card in
a hand. A lot of the times we sort of
talk about how decks need to work.
Certain decks need to work a little bit to get action points
and to properly utilize full four card 5 card hands.
If it's just a non attack action card with go again, that's
really easy for them to play and activate.
There's not a big opportunity cost for them.
Like if healing Balm had go again and was a three block, I
think that would be in every single assassin deck, every
single guardian deck, every single warrior.
Deck no. I think it would be in every
single room blade deck. Because it also, Oh yeah, it
would just turn on viscerizability.
Yeah, he's gone now, but. No yeah one thing I was thinking
of when you're asking that fuzzy is like oh because you don't
want to give a verdance like a stronger combo.
But these cards were printed way before Verdance is probably in
the fold and was still around when room blades cared more
about non attack actions via viceroy.
Not really gain so much but also briar.
I think they imagine that life gain is just a lot healthier if
it's played in tandem with the tax.
And that's not really what I'm trying to say.
Let me rephrase it. I think if you played life game
card into life game card into life game card, yeah, that would
be unhealthy, Yes. Right.
Yes, which is why it doesn't have go again.
If you can still play it with other cards, like a go again
attack into a go again attack into life game.
And that's a lot more healthy because at least they can
interact with most of your turn. It's the uninteractability of
life game, which is is why they have to put some control
measures on it, right? They want you to be playing the
game with the person across the table and it's really easy to
sit there and ignore them in order to do your own thing and
gain life. I think about Lorcana a little
bit. There's interaction in Lorcana,
but you build up your point total as opposed to taking down
your opponent's life total, right?
And when like Lor Khanna was introduced to me, this was
phrased as a pro in the game where it makes it more fun and
casual as opposed to like you feel like you're beating someone
you know, right? It is more approachable to a
wider audience and in flesh and blood, people who gain life are
not considered to be nicer. Yeah.
But people don't actually look forward to sitting across the
table and watching someone gain a bunch of life because they
want you to play the game with them.
They want something that they can interact with.
If I throw 7 damage at you, I can block it or you can block
it, right? But I can't block your life
game. Yeah, I also want to point out,
Fuzzy, you said that like why is it that this action speed life
game doesn't have go again? It's also interesting because we
never see those cards get played.
They're not in any decks. No one's really running healing
balm. Healing Potion is run, but more
off of the delayed value that you can get from stacking that
life game up on cards that I'll be talking about later in the
episode. I think I actually disagree a
little bit, Clark. I think now that Rosetta is
here, people who want to play life game decks have better
options. But I definitely remember like
fatigue decks had their fatigue package.
Like I've seen Talon do this right?
Like he played fatigue Riptide and he would be like, OK, let's
start with a bunch of healing bombs and sun kisses and defense
cards and see what I can beat with a deck like this.
And I've lost to decks like that when I'm playing aggro against
like Bravo, for example, you know, like people just can just
play guardian. People did this in blitz too,
right? Yoji starts with 21 hell.
So they just run healing bombs and sun kisses and block fours
and they see who they can beat with a strategy like that.
So I I don't think it's quite fair to say that they're not
played. I think they're not played
anymore because they're better strategies now, yeah.
Yeah, and the second point I was going to bring off of this fuzzy
is if the issue with life gain is that you can just play a
bunch of it all at once, instant speed life gain lets you do that
again. Yep.
Yeah, it's like a design shift, right?
Where life gain used to be only at action speed, but it has a
little bit of block value so you can run 100% cards that block.
You know you can be like do I want my life gain or do I want
to stop this on hit. Now it's a little bit more
polarized because count your blessings can't block on hits.
So your opponent gets all the block hits that they want, but
you have larger amounts of life gain.
And as we've kind of seen, like the instant speed actually makes
it harder to interact with it even still, because my on hits
like a command and conquer can kill a healing bomb in your
arsenal. It can't kill us account your
blessings in your arsenal, right?
Yeah, or like weakest link. Yeah, weakest, weakest link can
attack your CYB. I'm just gonna play CYB in
response. And gain more life than you were
threatening with Weakest link anyways.
Yeah. Yeah, since without the on hit,
weakest link isn't gonna do a whole lot.
So as we take a step back and think about life gain as a
strategy in Flesh and Blood, I think it's good to think about
what strengths and metas would life gain be good in and what
strengths and metas would life gain be bad in.
Because I think there should be an answer to both of those
questions in order for us to consider life game to be healthy
for the game. Yeah.
For example, one of its strengths would be a slower meta
is not going to be prepared for a deck that can provide more
defense than the offense you're providing.
If I'm playing a deck that's very mid rangey and I want to
swing 7 and block 6 every turn, then I'm not going to be ready
when my opponent blocks all seven and then also gains life
on top of it and isn't throwing damage.
Back, yeah, that's a lot of compounding value that they're
gaining and you can't. Really be with like the deck
that you brought. I also really liked how life
gain was expressing itself in this meta in the haunted right
because like we had red line decks that had to find a way of
dealing with rune blades so they started running life gain.
Arcane Polarity was making itself into a lot of sideboard
lists. Interesting.
We would also expect life gain to be worse in a very aggressive
format where on hits are being thrown at you left and right.
Aurora does this a little bit with like, she throws snatch,
right? She does, yeah.
And she has a that's just kind of the.
Perfect example, right? She gives it go again, swings
her forward, you go. Oh no, I have two.
Count your blessings and the sigil of sauce in hand.
I can't stop this. Guess you're drawn, bud.
Or when they drop a channel lightning valley.
And if you have any instance in your hand, how are you supposed
to block out channel lightning valley?
Sindra does this, maybe a little bit less so, but just having
life gain is not enough to get around these on hits, you're
going to be allowing the aggro player to run over you and do
whatever they want. So because I was able to name a
deck for strengths and weaknesses, that is one sign
that life gain might maybe be at a healthy place in Flesh and
Blood. I think it's also kind of funny
how I mentioned mid range strategies because it's very
rare that we actually have a very mid range meta.
Yeah, our last one was the heavy hitters meta before we got the
big refresh of life gain in Rosetta the Golden Age.
We would also hope that when life gain shows up in the game
that it's not very pure defensive, that you're not able
to play a game just centered around fatiguing players out and
gaining life. I mean, maybe you might disagree
with that point, dear listener. You might be a fatigue player
that feels unnecessarily called out, but I think like if it's
very rampant that there's lots of decks that are just blocking
and not attacking some people who might not be a fan of that
game, they might not find it very interesting.
I think that would, I, I think if you looked at other TC GS and
if that was a dominant strategy in those TC GS, people would be
talking about not picking that game up.
I I guess that's a roundabout way of saying yeah, I think it's
generally unpopular for pure life game defensive strategies
to be dominant. Definitely.
And how would we know if life gain is a bad design?
I'm going to offer up two extremes.
First of all, if life gain isn't present in the game at all, then
you it would be a failure of a design because it's not being
played right, Right. I would.
You can compare it to maybe like guardian auras.
Guardian auras have not been hitting the mark for cards that
are actually played in flesh and blood, and we don't really think
of them as necessarily super good design, at least right now.
That maybe that opinion could change if we see the right like
Guardian Hero or something. Yeah.
True, Sigil Solace is just better than half of the cards
that have gained life on them. Yeah.
And Sigil Solace even only sees play in some like specific decks
that really want the life gain, right, Yeah.
On the other hand, if life gain is really prevalent and every
deck feels like it has to run life gain, or there's a deck
that can run just life gain to the point where the opponent
doesn't feel like they can deal any damage, that would be at an
unhealthy spot in the meta. Yeah, or like if any damage that
they deal just doesn't do anything, like what's the point
of throwing this attack if if that is the feeling that the
other player is having on the other side of the table turn
after turn, that's probably not healthy.
Yeah, so. With those being some very broad
generalizations as to what the what a healthy or unhealthy game
could look like with life gain in it.
I am going to hand things off to Joel, who's going to talk more
specifically about what flesh, blood, and life gain look like
right now in practice. Does me.
So this pitch is called Joel Inge and I think one of our
hosts is overplaying how upset I am with life gain at the moment.
But that's fine. I like, I like the title, it's
fine. But I I do think life gain as it
stands is broken in flesh and blood.
But I mostly think that because of the sources of liking that
exist and the lack of counters to deal with it.
And I will say I think since Cyb has been nerfed and it's
continued prevalence, but like not dominance the same way that
it did when there was blue copies of this card is changing
my perspective about life gain Because I think the aggressive
meta that we're in has like a built in counter.
But I'll talk about more later on.
The number one reason why I think life gain in Flesh and
Blood is so powerful is because decks have a finite amount of
damage that they can deal. Especially if your hero plays in
a way where you need to play cards in combination with each
other to have like explosive amounts of damage like room
blade. Or at least when Visseright will
each like chain together non attack actions and attack
actions together to have one explosive turn.
Or Rangers who buff their singular arrow with a bunch of
non attacks. They can burn through cards
really quickly and if you gain more life than they're able to
button, then it gets to that point of like, like you say,
Clark, where it doesn't feel like you're able to do anything
and you're just basically playing solitaire against
someone who's just gaining a shit 10 of life.
The caveat here is obviously weapons exist in Flush of Blood.
There's always that pitch outlet for decks that have weapons that
just, you know, can chip away at your opponent over the course of
the game. And that's a really good way to
reduce the life gap when someone all they're doing is blocking
and gaining life. However, a lot of the decks that
abuse life gain have big ass weapons like Decimated Grade Axe
or Titan's Fist or a note those or something like that.
Like these weapons kind of mitigate how much you're able to
combat these life gaining decks by having bigger and badder
hammers. I just want to go back to a
point that you mentioned, Joel, and that's that flesh and blood
is unique because decks have a finite amount of damage they can
deal. I know you mentioned that.
I just wanted to really focus in on that.
Any game with a board state like Hearthstone, Magic the
Gathering, they all have creatures that can attack and
you get infinite value out of anyone card.
True. You don't usually think of it
that way because you're you're not actually getting infinite.
Value. But in Flesh and Blood, you play
a card. It's gone out of your deck
forever. It gives you a finite amount of
hit here, and these weapons are a way for your deck to keep
dealing continual damage. The more you swing with your
weapon, the more that finite number goes up, quote UN quote.
Right? But life gain is life gain is
good on the premise that my opponent is not going to be
throwing damage forever and I just need to survive until
they're done. Yeah.
Right. If you think of it almost like a
very basic math calculation of like if I add up all the numbers
in the bottom left of my opponent's deck and then all the
numbers in the bottom right in my deck plus my life total plus
my gain life. If the numbers that I have in my
defensive value is larger than the numbers that my opponent can
have, then I will always win the game.
It's deterministic. And like you were saying, Joel,
it's those big weapons that help you push the tide.
You might think that like, you have to worry about your
opponent's life total too. But no, you only worry about
your own life total, your own blocking capability.
And then once they're all petered out, then you've
presumptively won and. Then, on the other side of the
table, we need to find a way of of getting as much of that
repeatable value out of our weapon as conceivably possible
to make our number go over their deterministic number, right?
And I think those are two really good distinctions.
So thank you both for bringing that up.
However, now Andrew, Exhibit B, the World finals of 2024 where
the Enigma player was playing CYB with all 9 copies versus I
think it was Aurora, right? Mercy Bickels.
Aurora. Yes, thank you and the reason
why this example comes up in my mind and I I understand that
blue COIB is no longer an issue, but this is like one of the most
controversial moments of flesh and blood as of late in terms of
like the mechanical parts of flesh and blood and less about
the social stuff. Because Aurora's weapon swings
for one as a base 2 if you played a lightning card.
So this weapon is pretty weak A1 for one value unless you're able
to play another card. But that also means if your
opponent has full deck knowledge or full knowledge of your of
your lips and can count how many threats you have and how many
lightning cards you have specifically, they're going to
run out of those. And so and then it gets to a
point where you're only swinging your weapon for one and maybe
like generating a rune chant with your grass with the arc
knight. But that's all you got in terms
of like the repeatable resources that you have to chip away at
this life deficit. But the enigma player has their
hero ability where you on each turn, if you pitch a chi, you
can generate a point of defense and and I think 2 points of
offense if you swing with it. And you have like access to
arcane barriers. So really as soon as that person
got paired into a roar, it was kind of like a done deal.
Because like you said, Clark, the numbers on my bottom right
outweigh the numbers on my opponent's bottom left, plus the
life gain plus my starting health pool, plus the virtual
amount of life that you're gaining through prevention
effects. So this is like the amalgamation
of all the things that I do not like about life gain because it
gets to a point where the weapon, so to speak, or like the
repeatable resource you have out values your opponents in a late
game where there's no cards left in deck.
It's just you have to deal with the rest of my life gain and you
don't have any cards left in deck to to deal with it.
Yeah. I wrote an article about about
that specific moment and my thoughts on life gain.
Yep, not long after it. Please go read the article on
the rate of Times. Link in the description
probably. Probably.
And in that one I noted how Enigma was specifically designed
and well positioned to make the best use out of the life game
that Cyb afforded. So Cyb wasn't like the only
reason that they won there because it was Enigma's hero
ability generating offense and defense at the same time that
really let Greg or Skowalski round the corner and start
taking over the game again. Yeah, and I remember this
sparking a really long drawn out conversation about like why
fatigue and life game game plans are so strong.
And I think Clark, you and I were sort of talking afterwards
and I mentioned one of my opinions, which is fatigue decks
when during deck construction and not during the actual game
play. Because it's it's the element of
surprise when you sit down across from your opponent and
you expect them to be this like mid range gameplay or even
aggressive gameplay. And they completely flip the
tables on you and bring every defensive card they can muster
in their class. All the D reacts all the life
game that they can. And now if you don't pick up on
it early enough, you're already at a disadvantage as a aggro
player trying to fight an uphill battle.
I think this is most visible when you play against Zarinthia
who has like the classic dawn blade plan, but also like a
really nice hatchets mid range plan, either of which are like
kind of viable. And you could maybe see it in
Armory, but also the decimator grade X plan.
And she could be running Cyb as much as she wants, you know?
And you never really know what you're playing against until
they actually, like, start playing cards from their deck.
Because just revealing the hero isn't enough.
Yeah, fatigue also just comes in with a much longer perspective
on the game than I think other strategies do.
Yes, And if you don't adapt quickly then you will easily
find yourself going oh I didn't get enough value out of that one
card that I already played. Right, right.
Yeah. If you're not planning for your
third and 4th cycle like fatigue decks are, you already lose.
And life gain is a big portion of that because not only do you
have to abuse the defensive overlap that you have access to,
like with D Reacts in the Arsenal or you know, like
Brothers in Arms, being able to use a tunic counter to turn into
a block for it can really seem like fatigue is the problem.
But I think fatigue has always been around and abusable.
But I think the life gain portion is like one of the
symptoms of like these decks popping up.
I think because at the end of the day, the defensive overlap
that they can provide, like Fuzzy mentioned, the way that it
gets around chip damage and other evasive forms of damage,
it can invalidate a lot of the value that decks have to feel
like they spec into fatigue. Decks don't need to spec for
aggro. They're already specced to beat
aggro as a strategy, nor do they really need to spec to beat mid
range. They're already designed to beat
mid range as a strategy, nor do they need to.
I mean, they do need to spec for fatigue mirrors, but I feel like
there's such a small amount of the meta game that when the
fatigue player sits down, they don't really need to worry about
what you're playing. Yeah, but I think also in saying
that Talon would disagree with me like our resident fatigue
player talent and Trent would both sit down and say no, I have
to make very major changes both to the way I play and the cards
I include in my list if I want to beat certain.
Decks. I actually think those are two
really good examples for different reasons that I brought
up already. Because the decks that both
Trent and Talon like to play fatigue on, no one in their
right mind would think maybe, maybe Arachne Huntsman.
But like Riptide is probably the last person I would expect to be
a fatigue deck. And because of people like
talent, it's like more normalized I guess.
But like, I don't think that was like on anybody's radar really
when they first looked at Riptide.
I don't know. He plays defence reactions.
You know it's right there on the card, play, defence, reactions.
Gets the extra value from them. Yeah, I think it's more of like
this disruptive mid range, you know, if you have access to a
lot of D reacts, you might as well just go fatigue.
Maybe it's more so the intent of LSS that I have in mind.
Like I don't think any of them wanted to create a fatigue here
through Riptide. Perhaps another way of arguing
your point here, Joel, is that Arachne Huntsman Trent's deck
and Riptide Talon's deck are not the fatigue decks that are
winning events, right? And so zero offense to them.
They're incredible players, and they do incredibly well at our
locals. They aren't brutalizing metas
and taking down RTNS, not really.
Which I think leads into your next point.
Yeah, and I, I think what really strengthens my argument the best
is like the decks that are already strong abuse life gain
for basically no opportunity cost.
And here I'm thinking about obviously Enigma because she
used it to grade a fight to the during the world finals, but
also Nu Nu was also in that same world's tournament with Cyb,
same top 8, same top 8. And she still continues to be
prevalent, not only because gaining life is really good,
especially when you can do it like at instance speed, but Nu
has the best disruption in the game, her mask of recurring
nightmares, obviously, when you're transcending with these
blue cards. And also she still has access to
like surgical Extraction and codex of like just a lot of
really good core cards. And when you have a hero like
this, you can easily slot in six cards to just blow out people
who only expect to end the game in the first or second cycle.
They're not thinking about the third or fourth cycle like you
mentioned, Clark. The opportunity cost for adding
life gain is also really really low when the best life gain
right now is generic right It's Sigil of Solace and Count Your
Blessings. Any deck at the bottom of the
meta that can even remotely go to a late game fatigue scenario
can and probably will run these cards and through element of
surprise or having the right meta can easily make it to a top
a of an RTN through solid play. But sure it feels odd that the
what they needed to get there was so low.
It was these generic Commons and rares right?
And they can. You can slap that into any
bottom of the tier list deck. Yeah, every hero has 9 like
Commons and rares that they don't want to play but have to.
So just take them out for extra life and you'll probably get
more out of it. Yeah.
I mean looking back to the article that I wrote, I called
on LSS main design principles that they want to do moving
forward. Class and talent identity was
chief among them, and CYB and Sigil of Solace just being this
nine card to 12 card. Just let me dump this in my
bottom to your deck. Completely invalidates that.
Absolutely. It is a little fishy that the
life game that exists in the game is almost exclusively
generic, Like there's fertile ground, like Earth Heroes, I
guess have been able to play around, play around a little bit
with the life game, Yeah. They have a lot more life gain
inherently built in, but. They seem almost afraid to have
a class centered around life gain or a hero centered around
life game. So they just stick to putting it
in generic cards and now anyone can run it.
Yeah. And they have enough tools now
in the game that it's reached a critical mass.
And you can sit across from any hero and watch them play Cyb
against you and start like sweating as you've got to figure
out what am I doing in second, third, fourth cycle now I.
Mean talking about some of these surprises that have happened
recently. We had a Fang Cyb do pretty
solidly at some SoCal Armory. He made top eight with CYB
decimeter Fang. And then I think Agro Blaze,
another fab content creator, took a Cyb Betsy to a top four
finish. Really.
Yeah. Wow.
Also I think BWIPI in our discord channel mentioned some
Australian local taking Cyb Betsy to some top eights as
well. Yeah, I think 2 top eights with
Cyb, Rampart, Betsy, Yeah, so the like.
All you need is one good reason in your class or talent.
Warrior has decimator, guardian has rampart.
Like what else do you need? You know right?
The core is already so strong. And the reason why I think this
is such a big issue with flesh and blood, even though it's not
like the top of the metal, like destroying every Armory, every
RTN, there's not enough life gain hate cards yet.
There's only poison, the well and reaping blade, I think.
And maybe like the scythe, was it soul Reaper, Dread scythe?
That's the one. So I want to talk a little bit
about like some ideas that I have for life gain hate cards,
the first of them being potions. What I like about incorporating
more potions as life gain hate is you can easily slot it in,
just like you can slot in life gain into any deck.
And you can just sort of have it like sit on the board and like
as an instant if you're here or if your opponent would gain
life, they get that much or that much -1 or they lose that that
much, I don't know. That was a hot take.
I don't think you presented it like one, but the idea that like
items are really easy to slot into a deck I think is a little
bit radical. Well, I actually really like
this. Maybe instead of potions
talismans. Yeah, too right.
Because at least talismans have go again in the way that a lot
of the talismans have been designed.
But this idea of I can put my hate on the board and then say,
all right, life game player, can you get me to use this at a bad
time? Right.
I totally agree with that. Like having something that sits
on the board, that's not equipment, you know?
Yeah, it could also let me do it in response to a source of life
gain, right, Right. Even then, poison the well has a
similar issue of like I played it in response to your life
game. Well guess what?
I have a second life game to play on top of it.
Yeah, but maybe if we put more of those in a deck it could be
okay. Like I see that you have
countered my counter, but I have countered your counter to my
counter. Yeah, I just think there's so
much flexibility with the life gain aspect of it.
I think there should be like very, very rigid hate against
life gain cards as well-being instant speed makes it so much
fucking harder. Yeah, yeah, it's a little
ridiculous. The other idea I had was like
equipment. I think Reaping Blade is a
really interesting like game changer for Cyb decks.
Reaping Blade only works when I, the aggressive aggro player,
have less life than you, the defensive fatigue player.
It's not really going to come up all that often where my reaping
blade is taking away value. This or I and Florian are able
to leverage it a little bit more because they can pivot to more
of a rune chance stacking build or build in a more rune chance
stacking build where it's like yes, I am fine going 10 life
points below you because I can then deal 30 points of arcane
damage in a big giant burst. But then the life game player
goes OK, I'm just going to wait until I have exactly your life
total and then play my life game.
Yeah, if anything also is specifically Cyb, they're still
incentivized to play it for no value because you're already
burning a bunch of cards. Like waiting for the life game
player to do things. Yeah, that's true.
So, yeah. And and that's why I think there
should be another iteration of equipment that deals with life
gain because the options that we have in the equipment slot are
so niche and one of the most popular users of Reaping Blade
just LL. So there's already like less
options that we have now than we did like a week ago.
I think you have to be really careful with hate cards that
they are too niche. I think like people don't play a
whole lot of poison in the world right now, even though like you
can pair up against Lifegate at any time.
And I think like that's how you know, it's not going to be a
very helpful hate card is if it's not giving you more ways to
play it than hating on that one specific strategy.
You know, like null room gloves is not a good card, but we run
it because we have to, right? And my game plan gets
significantly worse because I'm running null Room gloves.
It's an equipment that doesn't do anything except help me block
Arcane Barrier. You know, if I want I wanted a
hate card to be effective, I would need to put it in my deck
list. In order to put it into my deck
list, I need to imagine at least maybe multiple games in the
tournament where it's going to be helpful.
It doesn't even have to necessarily like win me the game
when I play that card, but as long as it's not screwing over
the rest of my game plan then it's an effective hate card.
It needs to do something else right?
The best AB in your arm slot isn't nordering gloves, it's
bullseye bracing. Right, because it's in your game
plan, right? It's adjacent to your game plan
at the very least. Yeah.
So I think additional text where it says like if you're upon a
wood game, like maybe on like a generic piece, similarly to like
like Crown of Providence makes all C&C's worse, Balance of
Justice makes all Art of Wars worse, a generic piece that is
generically good, and then it also makes life gain worse.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I am slightly worried though of
that just becoming another Cano situation where it's like well
guess everyone's forgotten about Cyb, time to break it out but in
all my decks again. Yeah.
And you know, when you add more answers to life gain, you kind
of invite more powerful life gain effects to be created.
So it's a difficult thing to balance, and I'm glad I'm not
the one that has to do it, to be honest.
It's something that I've been vocal about and I think, you
know, eventually when they do print more, I hope that it's
like really versatile and stuff that you like actually run and
not another situation of like poison the well.
But I think of you apartment enough and I'm actually looking
forward to what life gain could look like in the future.
And I think Clark would be the perfect person to talk about it
right now. Yes, moving on to Blue Pitch and
the future of life gain, which is really just Clark's
opportunity to talk about different design ideas that I
think they could use to incorporate life and life as a
resource. Because honestly, the future of
life gain I think is pretty dull and uninteresting.
I don't think they should print a lot more life gain and I think
they should try to minimize its impact in the game altogether.
I do not like gaining life as a player, as a dev or someone who
likes to play dev on my podcast. That's a good line.
I also don't really like life game.
It prolongs the game and unless it is incorporated in some
proactive element I don't think it has much of A place.
It can't exist. It shouldn't be a lot.
So the first thing I want to do is really take a look at what
LSS has been doing because I think they've been really
inconsistent with life gain. Fuzzy already mentioned in red
pitch how it was all action speed or like only over two
turns, right? You had to like play an item and
then activate the item or it's just none of them ever had go
again. And now all of a sudden all the
life gain is instant speed and really hard to interact with.
So there's that inconsistency. But then there's also just an
inconsistency with rates and synergies.
Fertile Ground is conditionally on rate.
Looking at Sigil of Solace as our baseline.
A0 cost instant gain 3. Fertile Ground is A2 cost gain 5
if you have 4 or more earth cards in your bandage zone.
So you need to decompose at least twice before fertile
ground becomes an on rate card. You know, with Earth, ice and
lightning talents, I think it's also helpful to remember that
just having the Earth tag makes them really good, you know?
Yeah, still adds value to the car.
Sigilos solace is not going to turn on my decompose effects,
you know fertile ground will. So that makes it like.
Even a little bit better. Yeah, Yeah, sure.
So even when I say on rate that there's a little bit of extra
value in there because it says Earth at the bottom, Earth rate.
Yeah, it's Earth rate. But then there's CYB, which is
wildly over rate and self synergizes.
Now I know that multiple people have evaluated CYB in multiple
different ways. You're.
Telling me that CYB is strong I have gotten into.
Arguments with multiple people on the Internet about the way
that we evaluate CYB. Here is my base evaluation of
it, which is looking at how the rate of the individual card
played, which is that CYB is under rate for the first cast,
is under rate for the second cast, is on rate for the third
cast, and then is over rate for the 4th, 5th, 6th, and if Blues
are available, 7th, 8th, and 9th.
It is overrate for the vast majority of times you play the
card. And if you noted there that's
two underrate and 123456 times overrate.
It is three times more likely to be overrate than underrate in a
game of flesh and blood. I guess I never really thought
about it like that. No, nobody does.
It frustrates me so much because that's why Cyb creates so much
life gain and so much defensive overlap and is so easy to slot
into decks because it doesn't just go a little over rate like
some Majestics do. It goes really over rate when
you're using 2 cards to gain. What's the Max amount of life?
3 + 811 you can use two cards to gain 11 life conceivably.
That is wildly overrate. Yes.
You have to do a lot to get there.
I understand it's a big quest. It takes the whole game.
And it's also, even though we can't play all 9 copies right
now in CC, James White has stated that eventually he's
going to unban the blue 1. So it's worth thinking about
like, what will the design look like when we get there?
What would it take for a design like this to become fair?
Yes now also with this in Rosetta they printed 2 majestics
for our earth heroes that get double the value of the life you
have gained. It either makes room chance
equal to the amount of life you gained or it amps equal to the
amount of life you gained. This is Rampant growth life and
Thistle bloom life. These are cards that, by design,
ask you to find the way to gain the most amount of life in a
single instance. Now, one thing that I do like
about Thistlebloom Life specifically is that it's an
action to get that double value. So you have to play your instant
speed stuff at action speed, which then makes it interactable
because, like, actually matters. CNC actually matters.
I'm so happy that these cards actually fucking matter when the
payoff cards are actions, Yeah, because it makes me want to play
the life gain at action speed. It makes me want to play it on
my turn, and that makes it way more interactable and way
healthier. But you can see how these four
different designs that came out in Rosetta aren't exactly jiving
with each other. They're all interacting on
wildly different Nexuses and played in wildly different ways.
Another thing that I think we could look at is Levaya Plasma
FET consumed, which I know is a weird card to put in here, like
we're talking about life totals. Clark, how did you manage to
bring up Levaya in this conversation?
That's our skill, baby. I'm used to it by now.
Just go on, keep going. These new users don't even
remember the beginning of the pile.
Clark, like, had only played Levaya.
Seriously, it was just like. So here's how Levias influenced
but. If you're new to the pod, it's
actually just a Levias Bolton podcast.
That's the joke slash we've. Actually grown a lot from that
stigma, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, you've now expanded to all
other warriors. Oh, shut up now.
Levioplasm effect consumed cares about you staying above a
certain life total and having to plan your equipment block around
that life total so that you can find the space to transform into
this super powerful version and get this extra proactive effect.
I really really like that design and I think it would be
interesting if we saw similar threshold based designs that
played off of this. Maybe something like Death's
Door which would only give you an effect if you are below 10
life. And this is, this is a mechanic
here spitballing, right? You're making up on the spot.
Yes, I definitely did not write this out in the notes.
You're not referencing. You're not referencing an
existing card. No, no I'm not.
So this mechanical idea would encourage you to play around a
specific life threshold to gain this additional benefit.
I really like this idea, the idea that as a life game player
or a fatigue player that the my game gets a lot more interesting
when I go really low in my life total.
I think to make it a more interesting number, I would put
it at like 5 life. I think 5 is when it actually
gets interesting because that's actually like any attack can be
lethal, you know? Yeah, like there are definitely
decks where like if you're at 10, you're at lethal range, but
a fatigue player is probably not worried about being at 10.
They're like, OK, I've got a lot of fight lifted me, but at five
life it starts to get real. Yeah, yeah.
At Five Life, the Agri player has hope.
Maybe it could even be in a middle life total, right?
Maybe it's like if you're between 10 and 15 life.
Yeah, it could even be like indirect life gain where instead
of gaining life you return to a threshold you were the previous
turn. Sort of like a like tree of
perdition from matching the gathering.
We trade life points or something.
That's great, but I already hate that card for completely
unrelated reasons. We will not get into it.
Whatever said the fuck you. Let's just say that all my
friends are dead to me whenever I think about that card.
We were kind of assholes that day a little bit.
Oh my. God we were not.
It's fine, bygones are better as long as I just don't hear about
tree of fucking prediction. I'm not reminded of talent
backstabbing me. I'm.
Definitely asking about this later.
I also think that incremental life gain as a reward for your
proactive strategy that you're already trying to do is very
fine. For example, 0 for three stealth
attacks are kind of lame, but if I gain a life when they banish
something, they're a lot less lame.
And I like this strategy. I actually like a lot of news,
common and rare 0 for three banish a cards.
If I banish a specific type of card I get in a life.
It's kind of a nice design pattern because like a 0 for
four, it's hard to block. A 0 for three that gains me life
when it hits is still just four points, but it's easier to
block. You know, it has a little bit
more counter play to it. Yeah.
And then I get to play all the self card synergies which are
way better than the contract card synergies.
Yeah, you're the designer's allowed to layer on more value
onto the card in other ways because they've created a four
value card that is easier to block.
Yeah, it reminds me of my necromancer design all the way
back in episode 19. Damn, where I had a 0 for three
attack that scaled color wise not with its power but with how
much life it gained when it hit, it was a 0 for three that could
gain 3 life at red, two life at yellow, and one life at blue.
So incremental life gain for already playing into a strategy
feels fine to me. Because life gain isn't the
goal, it's an incremental benefit and it encourages
interaction between the players. Yeah, and for similar reasons,
and I'm going to cash in my Joel chip because I'm going to bring
a Bolton Lumen. Ascension is not broken or
people don't call it broken because of the life gain for
each card you put in Seoul. That's just like a benefit.
You get to it. Like, there's other larger
things that play when you play this card, and that's just like
the incremental life gain that just makes it a little bit
sweeter for Bolton. Yeah, it makes it a little bit
sweeter, helps the math out a little bit more, lets you take
damage to play the cool proactive card right.
Those are things that I'm ultimately fine with and I think
is a better space for life gain. I don't want to see cards that
are gaining 10 life, 12 life, double digits, big numbers.
Yeah. And like playing into these
Earth majestics, I much rather they just let that die.
Yeah. And instead focus on smaller,
incremental amounts of life gain.
It's kind of like arcane damage, right?
You need to be careful about printing things that, say, deal
5 or 6 arcane damage. Yeah.
And you can be a lot less restrained with things that deal
one arcane damage. Big numby not always better.
If anything, it makes it way harder to design.
Around big numby bad. Big numby bad.
The one place I think that larger amounts of life gain can
work is if it is paired with strategies that make you pay
life to do things. If there are attacks that make
me have to pay life to cast them, then I should have larger
amounts of life game to let me play those things.
Almost like the sigil of solace is acting like the blue that
fuels me playing the card. I can gain the life to then pay
the life and cast something. Does sound pretty badass, yes.
Do we think that would be healthy for the game?
Maybe. With the way that LSS has been
pumping out these newer modern flesh and blood heroes, I think
it could be balanced if there's a deep enough quest to get this
using life as a resource effect because we've seen how powerful
it can be in other games like Magic the Gathering.
You only need one life to win and you will go to one just to
like, you know? Freecast everything, yeah.
Exactly. So I think you need to really be
careful because life points are the most important resource in
flesh and blood and playing with that you I think there needs to
be a pretty significant cost to be able to have that effect.
I don't know, we kind of already see life as a resource in the
shadow Talent like Levia Chain and Vincette all give you the
opportunity to take extra damage in order to see higher ceilings.
Vincette can just sit there on like 2 Blood Debt Rune Gate
cards and have in the future turn like a 7 or 8 card hand and
it can be really good. That's kind of what we're
talking about, right? Is taking life in order to have
more damage come through? Yeah, and I actually think like
Shadow is one of the most powerful talents for that
reason, because Chain obviously was very strong because he hit.
I mean, obviously this is like early LSS design.
I'm not going to like beat that horse anymore.
But him being able to stack up a bunch of attacks in Blood Dead
that we're all like 043044 some of them with go again was
inherently powerful. And I think Clark and I have
talked to great extent how when Leviah rolls really well, she
can be one of the most broken ears in the game with a multiple
1 costed 6 power attacks extra action points with Skatskin
Leathers, although that's not directly shadow.
But there's these things that like compounded value, and
that's why she feels incomplete a lot of the times because she
has access to so much tools. And Vincent feels hamstrung in a
way because of Room Gate preventing her from playing
multiple cards without very precise planning ahead of time.
And using your life as a resource to store those two
Blood Deck cards you know in Vanish.
I think with all that being said, I think it is time for us
to move on to our Arsenal zone or what?
It's the part of the podcast where we all talk about a card
that we've been thinking about lately for whatever reason we
want. That one.
And we like to start off our Arsenal zone by shouting out a
Patreon member. Yeah, so we didn't plug the
Patreon at the beginning of the episode, so I guess we're going
to do it here. We have a Patreon Where?
At the five or $10 tier, you have the ability to send in card
suggestions. We take a look at everyone who
sent in a suggestion, and then we roll the dice and we randomly
select one person's card to get shout out here in the Arsenal
zone. And for today, that lucky
subscriber is. Dice roll noise.
Moving. I've actually met this guy twice
now, in person, in the flesh and blood.
Black. Yeah, we're a big fan of Mulvane
over here. He actually came down to an
Armory of ours and fucking decimated me with Riptide.
Thanks for that by the way. Bro, he's so good with that.
And he shouted out Death Dealer this week.
He says this card is insane, especially after the book
bannings one resource to draw a card.
Yeah, you spend a card on the load, but then it just replaces
itself. Pretty crazy weapon.
I guess it's to make up for the fact that the Ranger class
doesn't have a weapon that deals damage itself.
And I think he said something else.
No, that was it. Yeah, this is a This is a juicy
little card to talk about. Yeah, I'm surprised we actually
haven't talked about this card before.
And then Geno Jack actually responded to that suggestion,
Geno Jack said. Especially if there's a footnote
for snapshot interactions or the looming threat of Trish.
Oh dude yeah, snapshot with this card.
Yeah, jumping into discussing Death Dealer, I agree, Mulvane,
the card's pretty insane because it can even a lot of a lot of
the times be a free card if you pitch a resource card into it.
If a lot of people have talked about how gold is the payoff for
Warriors, because you can turn that blue into like a floating
resource and a red, and Rangers have just always been able to do
that with that dealer. Yeah, that's all.
They've just always been able to be like pitch a yellow, load a
card. I have one floating into new red
in hand. And because their cards are so
cheap already, like a lot of their pumps cost 0, their arrows
cost what like maybe one resource.
So like lately, like Azalea players have been like stitching
all of their Blues except for Knock the Death Whistle and just
playing like a very yellow line list.
I pitch a yellow into Death Dealer, I use my resource for my
arrow, and I get the extra card that's just going to be a red
that I can pump. Yeah, that's actually been a
trend in Azalea for a long time. One of my really good friends
that actually got me started in flesh and blood, Mitch.
Hey, they got awesome. Yeah, all of us really.
Mitch, Mitch from Finch, he always told me like you really
don't need yellows as this character.
You really don't need Blues as this character.
Yellows pay for everything, the the the weapon itself and the
arrow. And now that she has like this
really good critical mass of 1 costed arrows and all the buffs
are still really strong and 0 costed, it just allows you to
run like the only the best cards in your deck.
You don't really need to concern yourself with Blues or even blue
arrows. It's just all gas, no brakes.
Mulvane, thank you so much for your patronage and for sending
in Death Dealer for us to talk about.
I don't think we've ever really spent that much time talking
about the Ranger class outside of Riptide, because Kellen is
kind of our main Ranger guy and he's all about Riptide.
So it's wonderful to get the chance to expand our purview and
talk about these cards that we don't get to interact with a
lot, right? And I'm sure that many of you
out there have your own cards, like a debt dealer where you're
like, this is one of the cards that shape the way I think about
flesh and blood right now. But we're not talking about it
because we aren't around it in the same way that you are.
So if you decide to, we're in our Patreon, please tell us
about these cards so that we can get those ideas on this section
and we can talk about them. Yeah, so now each of us are
going to shout out a card. Who wants to go first?
Let's hear from RTN winner Joel Racino, who's.
So I have a card today that I didn't use at all during that
day where I won the RTN Wow. And that is Cosmic Awakening.
I've had a tough relationship with cosmic Awakening recently
because. There were several matches in
very important matchups where all I needed was to find my
second copy of Cosmic Awakening that I can play for 15 or 20 or
whatever because I have so much T left in my deck.
The deck's grinding to a close and I need to end it before I
get ended, right? And leading up to this RTM that
I won, I only had two copies because I was following like
this deck list on YouTube of a YouTube that I really like
Aurora from Flesh and blood. I don't know if you guys have
watched them at all. I think they were like a little
bit down on Cosmic Awakening because the meta is so
aggressive. But me, I was like, my meta has
a lot of slow decks. We have like enigma diehards, we
have like guardian diehards. We have people that just want to
shove Cyb and decimated great acts into decks.
So I was like, I need that third copy of Cosmic Awakening.
And then during the RTNI had multiple opportunity to play it
for like 10 or 15. And even though I love slamming
this card for 10 and 15, it just wasn't the right move.
And overall, which I liked as a blue three block.
And it was funny because in my finals game, I was really hoping
to close out the game versus Tow, Tow with Cosmic Awakening.
But. I one time I cast this card all
tournament was to win the tournament.
That would've been fucking dope, but instead I lost a copy to
Ancestral Harmony. I lost a copy to one of his
banished effects and I had to block with a third one.
So even though I didn't get to use it like basically all day,
it's probably one of my favorite cards of the Mystic talents
because it sort of means you can't fatigue any of these
heroes and I like aggressive decks that have this mid rangey
gameplay, which is what Zen really encompassed.
Well, it's not like he's gone. He still does that.
I expected him to tell already, but it's one of my favorite
parts because you can be aggressive, you can be mid
rangey, and then randomly at the end of the game you can send
something for 15 with inherently bad cards, especially if you're
running low on combo cards. So yeah, that's the card I
wanted to shout out because I placed a lot of importance and
included 1/3 copy and took out probably some other cards that I
could have really used and didn't get to use it at all.
So I thought that was really funny.
Clerk, you're doing go next. I'll be nice and quick with my
card. I'm talking about Arc Lightning.
It is a yellow 0 cost 2 block card that is lightning room
blade. It's an Aurora specialization
and says whenever go again resolves deal one arcane damage.
It also gives your next action card that you play go again and
it has go again itself. This card can very very easily
get 3 value on a turn, extremely easily get 3 value on a turn,
and that's already better than a yellow head jab Like even at its
floor it is incredibly good right?
Like it's only bad as a one card play.
Oh no, like it's bad as a one card play.
I'm so scared like even if it's this and a blue that's still arc
lightning pitch to grasp swing sword.
Yeah. That's still 123 sources of
arcane damage. And then the sword for two.
So it's a 2 card 5.
With the rune chant that you made, it's a 2 card, 6 off of a
yellow and a blue. Oh yeah.
Yeah, like it's floor is still incredibly high.
And I've heard people say like, actually this card like isn't
even that good. It's not incredible to like
build your entire deck around it and then try to like make the
fleckerwisk combo happen. But also you can just do that
with this card. You can just like play 3 crazy
brews and healing pots and potions of strength so that you
just go flicker risk fuse arc lightning and then you just
activate ten sources of go again to destroy your.
Oh, get the activated ability as going.
Yeah, that's so funny. All the activated abilities of
potions and gold tokens and equipment and weapons now just
have one extra value plastered onto them.
This card can easily reach the six arcane damage that I would
have to set up multiple interactable malefic on my board
with and hit like a rune Chan generator in my hand on the same
turn. Like a Revel or a Deadwood Dirge
for my Mordrtide. But Mordrtide was a red card and
this is a yellow. Arclighting is really fucking
strong and if Aurora becomes the best deck in format like these
last little RTN results may imply they are, I think this
could become the next card in the crosshairs for a ban.
Interesting. What about you, Fuzzy?
You've been pretty quiet over there.
Yeah, so I have been playing a whole lot of Flesh and blood
lately. I've still been kind of enjoying
my little break off. The closest I've come to
building a deck just to like jam Montalachar was when I was like,
I don't even know why I was looking through.
I think I was editing our episode where we talked about
delayed value and I was looking at all the guardian auras
because we were talking about guardian auras.
And I saw one that I always like, wish was playable, and
that's Emboldened. Oh, that.
This was draft chaff that I've don't really talk about a lot
but it's always been one of my favorite cards.
Embolden is A4 cost guardian action aura with go again and
when it enters the arena if you control another non token aura
you draw a card and at the beginning of your action phase
you destroy embolden and then the next guardian attack action
card that you play this turn gains plus 5 power and this aura
blocks for three so without the drawing.
A card you're. Paying 4 for the aura with go
again to give +5 to your next attack.
That's a lot of tempo you're giving up to play this card just
to get plus 5, which isn't the worst thing in the world,
especially when you pair it with some really cool guardian cards.
Like all the crush effects have these really nice on hits.
Or maybe like thump, which was from the same set, Tales of
Aria. Oh, we thumping where you can
like give the thump, dominate and discard a card on hit just
because you pump the thump. You'd be a thump.
What a great little turn of phrase.
So. Naturally, say you're pouring
for your. Chaff, right?
You see Embolden, you're like, okay, So what guardian auras can
I play in order to get the card draw off of Embolden?
And if you're looking through the Guardian pool, there's some
go again auras, but there's not a whole lot of them.
The big ones I think are actually in the talented pool if
you're an Oldham player or a new Yarrow player.
There is some really good. Auras that are already being
played by Guardian now, such as channel like Frigid.
Yeah, that's only cost curve channel.
Like frigid cost 2 and this cost 4 so you could.
Pitch 2 Blues to play channel like Frigid, ruin your
opponent's day, and then immediately follow up with
Embolden which punishes your opponent for not being able to
to play their whole hand. Because now that you've set up
Emboldened, don't you want to protect your aura?
That way you can cash it in on the next turn.
How are they supposed to punish you for playing Emboldened when
you have channel like Frigid out?
I know you just kept a four card hand.
You probably had to take a bunch of damage to do that.
Yeah, but you have channel like Frigid out so.
So you may have given them a frostbite.
Yeah, that's really good. It's yeah, not that bad,
especially. Because we're already playing
channel like Frigid in NRL list, you would also do like channel
Mount ISON and then A. Blue plus a fine dolls and get
this same turn off on a three card hand.
Yeah, admittedly a little bit less disruptive and you have to
run tunic, which like in Guardian.
There might be other stuff that you want to run, yeah, but a lot
of guardians like Tunic I've. Definitely heard guardians are
like, well, am IA tunic guardian or am IA tectonic plating
guardian. Yeah, yeah.
So that's what I've been thinking about lately.
I saw this combo channel like Frigid in Embolden and I was
close to building it on Talosar, but you couldn't pry me away
from all the editing I've been doing for the last couple weeks.
So maybe if I'm lucky, I'll. Get to maybe like sleeve up
Yarl. I don't want to buy a $60.00
fucking Armory deck to put Embolden.
Well, that's fine. I already did.
You can just take it from me. Yeah.
Yeah, I would love to do that sometime, maybe at a future.
Armory. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So I brought a copy of. Embolden for each of you
because. I like to do that here on the
podcast, One for you and one for you.
Thank you, Fuzzy. And look, it even has your
signature. On it.
I love that you've been getting so much better at your
signature, Fuzzy. Thanks, Clark.
I've been practicing. Yeah, all these.
All these weeks you've been giving you a sign card 20. 5
It's getting really clean consistent too Well, thanks for
podding with me boys. I think that's.
All about we have to. Say yeah, I think we've talked
enough for one night. Yeah, I.
Was yapping today. We be yapping, but if you have
things that you'd like. To yap about in our.
Patreon section, feel free to join us.
We talk all about Arsenal's, Arsenal's own stuff.
We talk about Crucible stuff. We'll see you there.
And until next time, guys, bye. Bye everyone, bye.
Pitch It to Me podcast is hosted by Joel.
Rosinos Clark Moore and Fuzzy Delt.
Our executive producer is Talon Stradley, our logistics
coordinator is John Farkas, Music is produced by Dylan
Hulse, logo is designed by Han V and our sound mixing is done by
Christopher Moore. Last but not least, thank you
the listener for taking the time to listen to our podcast.
Be sure to give us a follow on your favorite social media
platform at Hit to Meet Podcast. I'm fuzzy.
I'm Dirk. Read that off with you.
Well, Joel has more credit claim to going second.
Wow, my name is second in the list.
This is before yours, but you took.
His spy so I just. Automatically go left, I get
pushed back three resources, gain 6th life.
But if you're at deaths door, gain 10 life instead.
Jesus. Because that just becomes the
gym leader super potion, right? It's just like, that's so real.
I almost killed this fucking dew dog.
Dew dog collar is crazy. Oh my God.
But they only use it when they're at red.