Howdy listeners, this is fuzzy here.
Since we're on hiatus for the rest of the year.
We're not going to be recording new episodes until 2025, but
instead we're handpicking ones from the last year to be re
released, and the first one in our docket is Aggro.
This was originally released on January 2nd, 2024, but it was
actually recorded almost two months prior to that in November
2023, almost 11 months ago. And I thought this would be a
fun episode to be released since a lot of the concepts that we
discussed are the same. I've edited out all of Turns 0
though, since we talked about some like New Year's resolution
stuff that I don't think is as relevant to today.
But if you want to hear that it's still in the episode, I
just stuck it in the back after the credits as a sort of like
outtake. So with that, hope you enjoyed
the episode. We're going to play the intro
and then go right into red pitch.
Enjoy. Welcome to Bitchitumi Podcast, a
show about the subjective past, present and potential future of
flesh and blood design. Get ready for it in your face
mile a minute explosion of action-packed podcast.
Today's episode will be about the aggro archetype.
In Red Pitch, Clark defines aggro and its nuances.
On Yellow Pitch, Fuzzy will repeatedly ask a question, is
this hero aggro? And on Blue Pitch, Joel will
talk about aggro's role in a TCG meta.
You can find us across all socials such as TikTok and
Instagram at Pichito Podcast. I'm Clark.
I'm. Fuzzy.
And I'm Joel. So for red pitch today, we are
going to start off doing, I think what we're going to do
every single time we kind of talk about these big archetype
ideas, which is defining them. So I wanted to take our red
pitch and define what is aggro in Flesh and Blood.
So aggro is probably like the most easily understood
archetype, but like when we did Control, we were talking a lot
about how Flesh and Blood Control looks super, super
different. It looks very similar here in
Flesh and Blood. Really it's just trying to deal
as a much damage. Every single hand is conceivably
possible. That's all we're really about.
We're not blocking, not in this. Neighborhood.
Yeah, this is the Blocking for bitches class.
Four card, 5 card hands. You Arsenal not to like save
something up or like play around things.
No, you are arsenaling because you just want to have that card
on another turn later. You just want more power, big
numbers, higher ceilings. That's all aggro is really
about. So when I think about aggro
heroes, I don't think about their ability to deal 12 damage
in a turn. I think of those instances where
they deal 20 damage, sometimes even 30 damage.
I feel like 13 is kind of like the base rate, like the average
flesh and blood hero is probably seeking to get.
It's probably thinking how can I deal more than 13 points,
whether that's defensive or offensive.
And control heroes are usually getting those points by like
blocking or disrupting. Aggro heroes are getting those
points with synergies in their carpool or cheating the game
rules by having above rate cards that command weird penalties
that they don't actually really care about.
Things like that, Yeah. Or just playing one giant
mountain. I also think that aggro is all
about getting and keeping tempo. So tempo is this idea in Flesh
and blood. Really.
It's an idea in a lot of card games, but it's extra important
in flesh and blood. So tempo is the idea of oh man,
how? How would I go about describing
tempo? Do you?
Want me to give a shot? Sure.
So I'd say tempo is when you are winning.
Very nicely. If you are winning, you have
tempo. If you are putting more pressure
on your opponent so you're forcing them to block, meaning
they don't have enough cards in hand in order to put back a
threat, you have tempo. In other trading card games, if
you have a bigger board state, which means your opponent has to
respond to you instead of putting on more pressure, you
have tempo, right? And there are a lot of other
ways you can think of tempo as well.
But like in Flesh and Blood, when you have a higher life
total, you often have tempo because you can sacrifice that
life in order to return more damage, which means a lot more
for your opponent. Like the fact that they have
less life to spare, right? They've you if there are fewer
options than you do. I always feel like I have tempo
when the opponent is blocking a lot and then not attacking me.
If I'm not getting attacked back after my turn I feel like I have
tempo and aggro really wants that because then you are
keeping multiple 4 card hands one after the other after the
other and that's really what they're looking.
For the only other asterisks that I'd really want to add
there, Clark is you have the tempo if your opponent has to
block. If your opponent is blocking all
the time, it might be because that's what they're doing with
their tempo. Like they're just totally OK
with that. They don't feel like they have a
lot of pressure on them. Yeah, but you can have tempo
when your opponent's at 25 life, sure.
You don't need to be like attacking for 25 to gain tempo.
You don't have to attack for lethal to have tempo.
I'm not saying lethal, but if Lexi comes at you with like a
bunch of really cool on hits or like if I'm playing Briar, which
isn't in the game anymore, but like I play like two snatches in
a turn, you know, I had to have tempo in order to do that
because I had to keep a big hand with like some stuff to give go
again. Like I had to keep at least 3-4
cards in hand in order to do that, which means that I either
took a bunch of damage to get that tempo, or I had the tempo
before and I'd already forced you to block and now I'm able to
keep the cards in hand because you weren't presenting enough
pressure. And now you have to block my
snatches because the amount of value I get from attacking is
such that even if you have 25 life, it doesn't matter.
You have to block my cards. That's what tempo means to me.
I don't know because half do is like a very particular term in
my brain. Like half do is literally.
Have to. OK, then maybe instead of have
to. What I mean is, you have a very
reasonable amount of pressure, right?
I'm really giving you a reason to block my cards instead of
what you really want to be doing.
That's tempo. Yeah, because even with a life
lead you're like, OK, can I just take 15 damage to try and close
out the game? What if I can't?
So it's an interesting position to be in because even if I have
the life, maybe I want to conserve some life and block
with maybe one card that doesn't equate as much damage as my
other 3 cards. So I'll just throw this in,
conserve life, and still try to close out the game with my
remaining cards. And there's a lot of nuance in
that have to, because that's where like misplays happen,
right? If you think you have the tempo,
you think you're presenting a problem that your opponent only
has one solution for to block. And then your opponents like,
actually, I don't care that much about this.
And then they end up like pivoting in like, actually they
have the tempo when they come back with a stronger play,
right? Yeah.
Like, that's where mistakes happen.
I think another like, core a good allegory for tempo itself.
And this is a little bit of a tangent here, but I think it's a
very important concept when we're talking about aggro as a
whole. But like, chess is the best,
like, example of tempo. If I threaten your peace, then
you have to respond by like either moving that piece or
maybe like capturing mine in response.
Like I am proposing the question that you are assumedly going to
answer with your next move. I have the tempo, you know.
Mm Hmm. Yeah, no, I like that analogy.
I I think forcing your opponent to make a decision because raw
damage doesn't like I feel like 2 Agradex can trade quote UN
quote tempo with light damp life point swings all day long until
like Clark said, you have to because if I don't, it's game
over or it equates another card like you said.
Funny. Like if you're threatening me
with a snatch and you have Snapdragon scalers to give it go
again, then I'm like, OK, I have to answer this or I instead of
living at like 2, I have to deal with another card after that of,
you know, equal pressure. Yeah, like letting this go by
ends up being way, much, way more points of value than you
were expecting, right? So like, if a snatch hits, that
could represent another 4 damage.
So that four damage attack could actually be an 8 damage attack
unless I block it, right? Doubling the value of it by
letting it hit, which is something most techs are not
going to allow it to happen. That's certainly, I would say an
aspect of tempo. I would also say, like you were
saying, Joel, that sometimes doesn't matter in certain
matchups. So I wouldn't define it by that.
I would really define it by the I am stripping cards out of my
opponent's hand and keeping more cards at the start of my turn.
Because I would say I even have the tempo if like I'm blocking
with one card, playing three and my opponent is blocking with
three returning one. Like even in that exchange I
would say I am keeping tempo cuz I'm playing more cards and they
are blocking with more cards. Yeah.
And in order to flip that around, you'd probably have to
sacrifice life, right? You might be comfortable sending
back one card hands, but it would take work to work back up
to a three card hand. It would take sacrifice or yeah,
that draws on your opponent's. Side a stumble on on the on the
other players turn, which is then when we start talking about
like pivot, which we talked a lot in our control episode.
We talked about in control, you're constantly looking for
that pivot turn where you've disrupted your opponent so much
that they aren't putting that pressure on.
And then all of a sudden you have your three card, 4 card
hand, you do that big attack and then you take the tempo back.
Right. And aggro decks going back to
our definition, like once you have this tempo, you have 3 or 4
card hand every turn, it can be pretty unstoppable.
That's the idea, at least. Yeah, those high, high ceilings,
big numbers, 20 damage turns, 30 damage turns.
I think those damage turns are also oftentimes facilitated by
power cards. And so I think this is something
I've mentioned in another episode, probably when talking
about Leviah. Yeah, you love this word.
I do love the idea of power cards.
They are certain cards in your deck that signal that this turn
wants to be 1, where you want to take damage and return more.
And in terms of aggro, it's very nice typically because they have
more of these power cards and you can like chain them together
in some really nasty ways. So some example of these cards
cash in high octane, blood rush, bellows channel mount heroic,
carnivore, rain razors. All of these cards do generally
the same thing, which is they take your damage from being your
routine 1213 a turn like we were saying and can put them way
over. Rate something I noticed that or
while you're reading those off Clark, is that the first two you
mentioned don't buff your turn in any way like cash and just
draws you cards. So does high octane with a
little bit of a asterisk there giving you extra action points
and drawing a card. But those seem a little like
underpowered compared to the ones that buff your entire turn.
So like, because like cash and if you draw to like relatively
useful, like God forbid, a defense reaction or more non
attacks that don't necessarily push damage, then those can kind
of be like just drawing cards and less of a of a power card.
Because like when you play cash and you kind of want to draw
more cards, it's not like you have to kind of bank on the on
drawing more attacks to extend your turn based on what you're
sacrificing with like your helmet to play this like off of
a singular gold token by sacrificing it, things like
that. And one thing that makes these
cards so powerful, Blood Rush Bellow Chandler, Heroic Rain
razors is like a lot of the math in flesh and blood tends to be
linear. You know, if I had a 5 card hand
instead of a four card hand, a lot of decks would get an extra
3 points of value on average, right?
So instead of like a 13 damage average, it's more like a 16
damage average, like three pair card plus your action point,
right? That's kind of the rate that
flesh and blood tends to go for. You know, like 2 cards swing for
seven, but three cards are probably swinging for 10.
Like that's kind of the way it goes.
But these aggro decks try to get multiplicative value out of
their cards. Rain Racers buffs every arrow by
two, not just one. So the value of Rain Racers goes
up with every arrow, not to mention the actual arrow itself
giving you that value when you play it.
Chanamatic Heroic gets value for every attack card you play, for
every. That's multiplication.
Yes. I would also say that it's where
a lot of aggro players can find a lot of nuance and why I
actually really love aggro in Flesh and Blood when compared to
some other games, because in other games aggro's fairly
straightforward. One drop, 2 drop, three drop.
Yeah, curve out high studded creatures, hit face, not a whole
lot going on there. But in flesh and blood there are
a lot of micro decisions about when do you take a lot of these
big turns and like, do you save your power card?
Do is there a turn where you can get better value later?
How long can you keep the effect up?
Do I like play my blood rush bellow or do I pitch stack my
blood rush bellow? Very big and it actually I've
straight up seen games one because somebody said I am going
to pitch this blood rush bellow so I can have it later on a
bigger turn. Yeah, cuz there one thing that I
see a lot of maybe not necessarily new players, but
just players in general, they'll they'll see like an Art of War,
they'll play it out, they see a second Art of War.
Now in this case, what would you do?
Would you like park it or would you send it or pitch it?
Totally depends on what I have in my hand, right?
But I will say that this happened recently in the game
and I sent it and then I drew a blood rusher bellows and I sent
that. And but the inverse can also
happen where you play two blood rush Bellows and you attack once
for like 10 on one attack. You're like, OK, block 6 my turn
now, right? And that's kind of why I think
this is where the skill and new ones comes in is when to send
these cards and when to be more conservative with them.
Because if you blow through all of your power cards or like 75%
of them in the first couple of turns, your threat density as an
aggro deck still is like OK, like you can still get to like
1315, whatever. But unlocking these high
thresholds of damage again is going to be really tough because
Agradex don't really have a lot of recursion.
It's more so the candle that burns twice as hot lasts half as
long. Yeah, I also love that you
brought that up about threat density.
Because a big issue that a lot of Agradex will run into,
especially heroes that don't quite have enough power cards
and things that make them operate good in the aggro space,
is that you'll end up in a situation in the lake game where
the opponent is just blocking all your damage and you can't
kill them. And you're thinking to yourself,
what the fuck is going on? Why can't they're at three life,
I'm at 12, Why can't I win this game?
And you're like, oh, I'm going to be smart.
I'm not going to attack with this card.
I'm going to arsenal it so I gotta have a bigger turn later.
And then you like leak a little bit of damage and then you go
for the big turn again and they're still alive.
And that happens turn after turn after turn until you get
fatigued out or you stumble enough because you only have
blue attacks left in your deck. And then all of a sudden the
other deck just runs you over, that tempo switch happens and
you lose the game. That happens to a lot of new
players when they're first playing Flesh and Blood and that
playing around that looks like pitching your power cards,
pitching your Reds, making sure that you have enough damage for
that late game situation. But I think it's also an
inherent thing that is built into aggro in Flesh and Blood,
which is aggro is big numbers and I've it is raw damage.
It's not exactly disruption or like these big evasive effects
like dominate. You're not really throwing 4
dominated attacks at your opponent.
Well probably not any hero right?
Like you have like Bravo who's really good at like 1 dominated
attack where like when he has all the tempo he can guarantee 6
damage which is certainly nice, especially when it's backed by a
killer on hit that can wreck your turn.
Or like Azalea, who has dominate and is not quite an aggro deck.
Maybe you guys would consider Azalea to be an aggro deck, but
it's more about like just landing that one solid hit,
probably not swinging for more than 10 or 12 normally, but
being able to get a lot out of it, you know?
Yeah, but you can't. You don't really see these aggro
decks with these 30 damage turns.
Also having a bunch of dominate Overpower frost bites, Like
that's not really something that works well together.
If you are dealing massive amounts of damage and also
giving massive amounts of disruption on the exact same
turn, that is overbearing and completely unbalanced.
No debt can really stand up to that.
So you either are kind of building your deck to lower your
ceiling, not present those massive raw damage numbers, or
you're increasing the amount of disruption and what I'm calling
evasion. Evasion is another weird idea in
Flesh and Blood. It's kind of like Dominate, but
there's also a little bit like Intimidate is kind of what made
me think of when I was writing Evasion here.
I think there are counter examples for what you're talking
about too though. Like I feel like Max Nitro is an
aggro deck that also has a considerable amount of
overpower. It might be like an exception to
the that like makes the rule though.
You know, like It's one thing that makes Mac unique.
Macs unique as an acro deck. But that, that's very much a
great example of kind of what I'm getting at here is that it's
not a consistent part of their game plan.
Instead it is I have a very small amount of things that do
this for me and I need to save them for the end of the game.
And that is, it's still not, I would say a defining element
like Dominate is never going to be a defining element of an
aggro deck, but it there will be maybe one or two cards that can
provide that effect and you need to be very cautious about when
you use them. And that's where the complexity
in aggro comes in. Well, you brought up evasion,
which I thought was interesting because evasion in like
something like Magic the Gathering means your creatures
are harder to block like with flying, making it so that it's
like literally flying, you cannot block it or it says like.
Unblockable or menace, it has to be blocked by two or.
More right menace. Even death, touch or.
Protection. Yeah, I was going to mention
protection as being a kind of evasion.
Right. So all these things make it
harder to block and I think there's fewer examples.
But like you already mentioned, Ryan R with intimidate and your
dominant example. And I think there's a reason
why, because these effects are meant to like, maybe like close
out games more so than be an entire part of flesh and blood.
Because then it takes away from the term by term decision making
that is so essential to flesh and blood.
Yeah, so maybe evasion isn't quite the thing.
No, I really like this point. I think I like kind of agree
with it and kind of disagree, but the the idea that like if
you had raw damage, huge damage that also carried disruption and
door evasion, it would be very strong.
That's the point you're trying to make.
Clark Yes, absolutely. Correct.
Yeah, and it has happened in history.
Like those decks exist. They are strong.
I also agree it sounded like I didn't, but I do agree.
OK. Let's keep all of those points
in mind as we go into yellow pitch, but remember that there
are going to be lots of cases in flesh and blood in the past,
present, and future where those definitions break down a little
bit and we see different patterns, different heroes that
we might consider to be aggro that do different things, or
heroes that we don't consider to be aggro but check a lot of
those boxes maybe. So let's move on to yellow
pitch. I wanted to have a discussion
about the different heroes in Flesh and Blood and where we
have the vague ideas of what makes a hero an aggro hero.
Let's talk about what heroes in practice we actually consider to
be on that list by going through a bunch of like fringe cases.
I think like Phi is very clearly an aggro hero.
I would not consider him a fringe case, right.
Right. I'm not gonna argue otherwise.
I'm not gonna argue Pi is an aggro.
He has a lot of damage. He's really not the best
blocker. Like he runs more two blocks
than many other heroes comfortably do.
He has no real disruptive on hits.
It's just damage, damage, damage, damage.
He throws so much of it and he gets a lot of value out of like
power cards like Art of War where his seven attacks all get
plus one. He has like equipment that like
sacrifices itself for short term value like mask of momentum
depending on your build. Mask of the pouncing links.
Yeah, sorry, mask of the pump. He has a short term equipment.
Like I know a lot of Ninja players, I can't let him down
like this. He has short term equipment like
mask of the pouncing links with gets you value on a single turn,
but that value is big enough and you're not having planning on
having many turns anyway. So let me ask you guys a little
bit more of an interesting question.
Would you consider Katsu a agro hero?
Yes, I think he can be Katsu. So when I think about ninja, I
think about lots of really wide attacks, right With like I think
Katsu has a bit more going on in the on hit realm and also isn't
really building around like big Art of War attacks.
That's true, but he does set up differently and has power turns
built around specific cards and when he sees them, like when he
has Surging Strike and a whelming Gustrave in his hand
and a blue, he's like, there's a lot going on here, I probably
won't block this much because this is a power turn.
Yeah. I like your guys points as well,
like he can be very. Controlling too.
I think the fact that the word combo is literally written as a
keyword on these cards can be a little like disingenuous, you
know? Yeah, because it's not quite
combo in the TCG sentence, yeah. It's not like I get these three
cards together and they go infinite.
Yeah, but oh God, could you imagine if Katsu could do that?
But like it almost needs. That tutor ability.
Win dishonor itself, like removing your hero ability as an
on hit effect, that's some pretty killer disruption and it
can take your deck to the next level of like power.
You know, I think it was a really cool upgrade when they
printed it in Outsiders. Yeah.
And Katsu feels like a deck that I really don't see very often,
at least in our local meta. But like, feels pretty
formidable, at least in the one guy who plays.
Him. I think Katsu is that great
example of a hero that if they just got either like a little
bit more damage or a little bit more disruption, would end up
finding that space of too much of both and it would be
unhealthy for the game. The next question for you guys
is do you think Bravo is an aggro hero?
Fuck. No, I think he can be
aggressively slanted but not really in like an aggro deck.
Like true to its word. I think Bravo is a great example
of how Flesh and Blood needs. Every deck in Flesh and Blood
needs the ability to take the tempo and do something with it.
So like with a Bravo, that's being able to throw a nice
dominated attack that you're going to guarantee the crush
effect on, or like throw a pummel on top of a dominated
attack. That's what he's doing with his
tempo, but he's not designed to do that every single turn.
Yeah, I mostly brought this one up because I had Joel had made
an interesting point earlier about him.
I've also pretty friendly in the camp of him not being an aggro
hero. Yeah, because like, like he
can't. He's not an aggro deck because
like when he does have the tempo and he gets the like, like
back-to-back, like 3 blue one red hand game.
Oh, it's brutal. Yeah, no, not brutal.
You don't play the game, you're done for the for the rest of the
game until he like feels like you have enough, right.
Like with all of his disruption, like it's just really really
debilitating, but not like consistent enough to be like a
true aggro deck in my opinion. What about Dash, inventor
extraordinaire? 100% aggro.
I want to put a little bit of a honorable mention here because
like Dash Inventor Extraordinaire is that one deck
that it kind of depends on your matchup whether you're an aggro
deck or not. Like literally like the main
list that dash players are running was aggro for like 80%
of matchups, but then they'd pull a psych.
I'm not doing anything a normal aggro deck does.
I'm just blocking and playing an item, not even pushing damage
right, and then coming back with the pistol package and the
flexibility there is really interesting.
I think it's one of the only heroes that can decide after
they sit down whether they're playing aggro.
Yeah, but it's a. Little disrespectful to Bolton,
but I'll let it go for this. One.
Well, if it's supposed to be to be my next example, then I'd
love to hear what you think about Bolton.
Joel, Is Bolton an aggro hero? Before we move on to Bolton, I I
do really like the dash example and for for the record, I do
think it's aggro, but the fact that tree frog dash exists makes
it makes me also think like it could also just.
Be yeah, but what was Tree Frog Dash there for?
Tree Frog Dash was a response to a meta that was edging Dash out
of the meta. And I don't even think that that
version of the deck when it was created even got any big wins.
The wins that Dash got during that meta was on the aggro list.
Which meta was this? The most recent one?
It was played before that too. Like I I think it like just
farms guardian really well and some mid range decks but against
aggro it can kind of struggle. To yeah, completely folds it.
It it felt like a it felt like OTK viscera did like some people
just kind of go, no, wait, this deck is good guys, trust me.
No, it's really good. And then they just don't get
results with it. You're talking about like OT
Cavis right now, not like when it was the king of the Mehta.
Yes. I'm just clarifying.
I am I was talking recently. OK, OK, I know that I but the
listings might not. It existed in the same like the
only reason I heard of tree frog dash is because we have.
Two mechanologist diehards in our friend group, both of whom
were trying to figure out how to make dash work in a meta that
seemed very hostile towards her. Yeah.
I mean, I've, I saw it rose to popularity in like the Starvo
meta cuz then she could reliably block out Starvo and then like
in the long game, you know, pistol it out.
And I still like it in slower metas.
So Bolton, yeah, Joel, I'd love to hear your opinion on.
Bolton, yeah. So Bolton, I think is actually
all three. OK, He's.
Aggro 3 deck arc types. Well, I'll go, OK, you're right,
you're right. I think it's three, maybe all of
them, but I think it can go between like aggro, mid range
and combo very, very easily. And it has been because that's
the only viable deck that's been around for a while other than
like the fatigue list. What makes bulbs in an aggro
deck? So.
And I also kinda wanna clarify there are different ways to
build different heroes. You know, like if I sit down to
play control Katsu, that's not acro, right?
Yeah. But like in the quote UN quote
aggro versions of each hero, like, does it really shine?
And like, what is it about it that makes it acro?
Because the answer is a little bit different depending on the
hero that we're talking about, you know?
Yeah, with Bolton, yeah. So when you switch to the rating
game plan, it's gonna look different whether you're playing
it against like a Ranger or like a guardian or a Brute.
Like against guardian, you're going to want to like block
really efficiently and maybe like throw a little small
attacks to build up your soul and then have like one turn of
like 20 damage. And then like do that maybe one
or two, two more times until they get into like a blocking
range against Bolton, which if you're blocking against Bolton,
you probably lost. Like that's one thing that
Bolton does really well is closing out games versus playing
against like an assassin or a Ranger where you're just kind of
like going whenever you have to, whenever you're like able to,
even if it's four or five card tans, you're just going to push
as much damage as you can. And you're pretty good at
leaking damage because a lot of these characters have three
blocks, but they're attack action.
So it turns all of my my attacks in like 04 fours, things like
that. And then there are decks like
Dash who has a lot of like raw damage but doesn't have any like
really good on hits. So I have time to set up my
perfect combo and just kill them in like 1 turn or maybe 1.5
turns and I spend like the next two or three turns closing it
out. So in that situation you're
blocking a lot more, right? Like if you're against a dash,
you would not be considering yourself an aggro deck.
Exactly. Yeah, and it's all in the same
list, which is what's interesting.
I don't think he's aggro at all. Like how I I can see where you
there's like the combo version where it's really about playing
like two or three Lumina ascensions on the same turn and
then swinging as many times as possible with your weapons to
gain like 30-40 damage turn. That's also gaining you 10 life.
I played against that version of Bolton.
That's definitely like combo in my mind and I can see how you're
kind of playing aggro where you're trying to attack a lot
more often and your power turns will be around this these Lumina
ascensions, but I still don't really see how you are regularly
pumping out 20 plus damage with your 4 card hands.
It's getting easier like dust hold on gave us some neat tools
to give us like more sources of go again and attack reactions
that buffer attacks to enable our hero ability.
Yeah, so it's getting a lot easier as time goes on.
But I think he was, that's why like you can't give him super
overstanded cards because he has on demand go again on anything
he buffs. And he's getting really
interesting tools to buff his entire turn.
Yeah, he's gotten more aggressive, but once again, I
think he kind of falls into the same place as Bravo for me.
He's a mid range deck that can take and keep tempo.
Again, still not aggro though like it that is different to me.
Every deck in flesh and blood needs to be able to take and
keep tempo, needs to be able to push damage.
Once they are once the opponent just goes passed back to you.
Like if you're if you're only playing 2 cards, your deck is
not well constructed. But I still I I don't put him in
the aggro category where that's where he wants to be doing.
I think. I think he wants to block with
at least one card every single hand.
I think he can, but even with your argument before, like not
really having any on hits kind of coincides with Bolton really
well because like the only on hits you have would be put more
stuff into Seoul or draw a card. You would say Bolton has built
an evasion though. For sure.
Yeah, he has built an evasion. But like one of your biggest
complaints about Bolton was just what happens when the opponent
says no blocks and you can't give go again.
Which is just the fact that that can happen, I think completely
excludes him from being in the aggro position.
Because if I just pass back to you, you throw a three cost
attack and you charge once and you have no way of giving that
go again. I'm just laughing to the bank.
Sure, I'll take 3 damage and come back at you with a four
card hand. Yeah, but that's also like any
deck that I've played against any deck of yours that I've
played combo where I'm just playing one and that's it.
Yeah, whereas Raiden it's it's a lot easier because like Via the
deck is more built around it, Right, exactly.
And I'm also prioritizing different cards, like the same
cards are gonna be blocking cards and like via the Vanguard
is I would consider a power card in the combo list.
I'm never playing it unless it's like towards the end of.
The day unless it is the. Combo turn.
No, not even then because it's it costs one, which is I don't
want to be pitching that turn. Whereas in Raiden I'm setting up
for that and then I'm having like, you know, if I have that
on top of like take flight and other like really cheap cost at
a tax and it can be a true aggro deck.
I. Was just going to say, I feel
like when I the times that I have played Bolton, he can
really value a four or five card hand really well.
Like the power really does kind of shine through where he can
capitalize on it as long as you're throwing in some pumps in
there and that kind of feels like an aggro deck.
Is he just pumping out like 1516 damage?
Kinda like if you can still play your entire hand and they're
blocking and you count the numbers like after the blocks
have been declared as your points towards your like damage
presented, then that could kind of be like 16 plus really easily
for sure. So I get what you're saying,
Joel, about him kind of feeling like he was designed to be an
aggro hero. Yeah, he's getting there.
Like, you'll still have awkward hands, but we just got like a
really sick headpiece that basically changes like the
entire build again, even after Dussel Dawn changed the entire
build again, yeah. Are there any other interesting
heroes that you think kind of toe the line between aggro and
non aggro Clark? Who?
Me. No, I definitely didn't have
something in my section that just got pushed into this one
word. Hey, what's the most iconic
aggro deck in Magic the Gathering?
Burn red deck wins. Burn.
OK, what's our burn deck in Flesh and Blood?
It's Kano guys. Kano is aggro.
Like everything, burn in. No Kano is burn.
Because red says one mana for lightning bolt, we say one
resource for critical strike and it's 5.
It's not the same thing, it's not the same thing.
OK never mind. Fuck this analogy.
Kano is an aggro deck. He is all about presenting
massive amount of numbers. He does best when he has large
hands where he's just pitching a lot of Blues to play a bunch of
cards off the top. Like I think OK, the tempo thing
doesn't quite work for him, I will admit that.
But he also has like power cards to play around.
Blazing Ether is very much one of these.
He wants to park that in Arsenal and wait for his big combo off
turn He wants. He's also looking for what's the
one that tutors out things. Lesson in lava.
He has the big power cards that push his damage on a turn.
He has the equipment that you sacrifice for value in storm
striders that you mentioned with a katsu earlier.
Yeah, I think I like 90% agree with you, Clark.
Yeah. He's an aggro dad.
I don't on principle cuz before we didn't have the conversation
about Bolton on the pod. We did and now I'm like you
think Cato is an arrow deck but Bolton isn't?
I'm sorry, is Cato winning or losing in the first three or
four turns of a game? No.
Yes, yeah, Cato is winning or losing very, very early on into.
A game? Oh, wait, no, sorry.
Like 5 through 7. I misunderstood what you're
saying. I think OK, you know is like
whether or not you get your combo piece.
I think he's like more combo than any other deck in the in
the game. I think that you're right the
biggest, but also that's not fun.
He's a lot. He's like the aggro deck that's
closer to combo or maybe the combo deck that's closer to
aggro. You know, I feel like the
difference is that like you can look at your 4 card hand and
sometimes it's trash where like you're this is not the term
where you're gonna deal 20 points of damage, you know, You
know, I would say 75% of cane returns, you're dealing like 6,
you know, and blocking two, maybe a little bit more with
some nuance there, but like maybe 9 instead of 6.
You know, like how can you say it's an aggro deck when you look
at Phi, who's like, I'm going to present 15 every turn, 15 every
turn, and Kano is doing half that.
Because he doesn't have any disruption, he fits all of the
little points I set up in my red pitch.
Is a lack of disruption? Does a lack of disruption define
aggro? It was definitely like one of
the points that I made in red pitch, yeah, but I guess I
wasn't getting 24 to five card hands a red deal.
The cards are expected more for damage than blocking.
It's about big numbers, high ceiling.
Clark, you said to yourself that anybody had like every deck
wants to have a plan for when they have tempo.
Like just like Bravo can use A5 card hand like you said, Cano
can also use A5 card hand but that doesn't automatically make
him an aggro deck using your standards.
Oh yeah, but that's not my one argument.
I have all these other arguments.
Well, I have to go 1 by 1 because you keep going to the
list every time I start to argue against you.
I think it's cute. I think it's like on the same
level as like everything's kicker and magic.
But is it really? No, he's a combo deck.
He is about trying to set up a bunch of the big cards off the
top, putting those E pots out, having the fine dolls
activation, parking the right car in Arsenal for Storm
Straight. Oh my God, I ran out of breath.
I didn't know that could happen. Oh.
No, it happens. Parking the right car in
Arsenal. Like he's definitely more of a
combo deck, but I think he has these very Aggroy elements
actually. And I think you see it the most
in blitz. Like in blitz, he's going to
wait for you to be empty handed throwing lethal and then he's
going to try to deal 20 plus off the top.
You know what might be like skewing our definitions here?
I think Kano might be the only combo deck.
He might be, No, I think nitromecanoid a little bit.
Aren't those decks kind of fast as well?
Because you're boosting and pushing a lot of damage as you
collect your hyper drivers. It's it really depends the way
that a lot of Max's have been building their like high octane
nitromechanoid decks right now it really is.
The sooner you get nitromechanoid the faster you
win and the earlier you get it on the field the more likely you
are to win. I haven't.
In that way it makes them combo. I have yet to have the privilege
of playing against Nitromechanoid.
I'm excited for the day where I get to like, is it down against
one of those? I think that's an interesting
debate for the combo episode because I disagree with that
very heavily. Yeah, that's true.
We were talking about like Bolton being a combo hero too.
Even then, it's like, how fast can I do it?
And Kano has this way of like when it's time to put up or shut
up. And then you're just dead
instead of like, OK, now in the next few turns you're dead, you
know, but I think that really speaks to how unique the design
of flesh and blood is and how it like really changes like every
definition of the other trading card games.
Cuz aggro, it's like, you're right, like volcano does fit a
lot of those boxes and like we were just talking.
And yet, and yet he's like very different in the same way that
like Exodia and Dash getting all of your pistol items like your
plasma purifiers and your contagion engine.
Plasma induction chambers and induction chambers.
Yeah, but that doesn't equal game over.
It means like the end is near, right?
It doesn't mean the game is over, which is interesting.
So that's what all I got for yellow pitch.
Joel, what do you have for us, for Blue?
Pitch, I'm glad you asked. So I wanted to talk about like
how aggro fits in the meta of like TCGS and FAB as a whole,
right? To me, I think aggro is always
the strongest at the beginning of the meta.
It has the craziest out lines, it has like the most flashes
combos. Like I think most people
gravitate towards aggro to experiment and that's usually
where you like. For instance, I think of when
Phi first got released, before his effect was even revealed,
they banned stubbies from blitz. They were like, guys, this is
cool, but we really need to address this or we'll have
another like Viscera fiasco on our hands.
Yeah, it takes a while in order for us to figure out that
control decks are strong. You know, like Oldham took a
while for us to like ban Winter's whale like card is very
crazy strong. Probably the strongest weapon in
flesh and blood. But like it didn't get banned
until a long time. Well, multiple sets after Tales
of Aria was. I was gonna say Dusk Blade.
Dusk Blade didn't even make it, so we go play it's.
An aggro card, it's more obviously broken.
Yeah, that's true. I'd also say aggro is easiest to
evaluate like any deck that you have.
Just goldfish 100 games for each deck.
Which one has the highest average damage that is the best
aggro in? Case you guys aren't aware of,
the term goldfish here is like imagine you're sitting down to
play flesh and blood against a goldfish.
So is that what it means? Oh my, that is so stupid.
So you're not playing against a person, you're just kind of
running through your own lines and kind of imagining like, oh,
maybe I can block with this card.
Like not actually playing as attacks, but imagine blocking
with this card and then what would my hand look like if I do
this? You're kind of like running
through your deck without it having an actual opponent.
That's what goldfishing. Is and that's a great way of
testing aggro decks because aggro decks want to keep their
four or five card. Hands so that your opponent can
do nothing. Goldfishing.
This is actually great practice for aggro players because you
just go, what's a good, how do I get the most damage out of this
hand? And then when you go play in
real life, you do the same thing.
You can't do that with control. Yep, you need an opponent.
Exactly. Whereas I feel like aggro in
that sense sets up the meta to what it is like the rest of the
decks have to decide how to deal with it.
And it's very polarizing in that way.
Like it'll really change. Like for instance, I have a
couple pet heroes, obviously Levi and and Bolton.
So every meta, if they are not at the top, I have to figure
out, OK, I can do my thing that my hero was designed to do.
But those one or two heroes at the top, I have to figure out
how do I interact with those? Do I have to be more defensive
against them or do I have to tweak my deck in a way where I
can, in this specific moment or with this specific tech card,
overpower them and kind of take the tempo?
Like I have to be very calculated about it because
that's how polarizing aggro is in a lot of ways.
And one good example of this is Lexi with the the latest meta,
she pretty much changed the play style of two, maybe one
technically, but one hero that was traditionally an Agri hero,
but literally flipped the script and was a fatigue hero for like
one season. And then she left that being
Briar. Like Briar since her inception
was a menace with like her ball lightning sting, a sorcery and
channel mount heroic and and you know, channel mount heroic after
that. Even then she was like still had
some really good defensive capabilities but she could not
out damage Lexi with her on hits with her draw power.
So they had to use defensive cards and just like completely
change a deck to deal with Lexi. Same with old him.
He was leaning a lot more aggressively before he left and
then the only time he was winning once Lexi got really
good was by trying to fatigue her.
You have to play really, really tight and block every single
card, every single point of value because the on hits were
that impactful that you had to play tight.
Yeah, you pretty much said this already, Joel, But I just want
to add like that aggro inherently is going to be able
to get in the meta first as new decks are being evaluated.
Again, I'm just kind of rehashing what you guys were
saying, but like, imagine a new set comes out and you're like,
oh, there's a really cool control archetype that's
printed, and there's a really cool aggro archetype that's
printed. And both of them seem like they
have the potential to be really strong.
It's going to be the aggro deck that puts up tournament results
first, because the control tech deck has to figure out what the
meta looks like before it actually starts to get tuned.
It's very important for control decks.
Yeah, control is always responding to the aggro deck.
And because it's very linear, how to evaluate aggro decks,
there's going to be a clear winner, sort of setting the
pace. And then all the control decks
get to sort of revolve around that deck and figure out what is
my hero's way of dealing with it?
What is this hero's way of dealing with it?
And then you start building, you know, your triangles and your
polyhedrals and all the different, this percentage
against that hero and that win percentage against that hero,
and it becomes a whole diagram. Although in flesh and blood
that's also a little bit not true, at least right now.
We've seen some very stable metas where, like, they've
released set after set after set, and the aggro heroes are
the same list that's been around for, like, years.
Yeah, Seriously. Yeah.
Also, hey Dromi, can you get bad pretty soon?
I'd appreciate that. No, she's always getting better.
Tom of Imperial. And that kind of bleeds them
into my next point really beautifully.
And I I just want to, I love the fact that flesh and blood silos
like aggro decks and makes them unique.
Like it's not all vanilla numbers like similar to fire or
dash. Like we have characters like we
have characters like Visserai and Lexi who spread out their
damage in very unique ways and their counter play or their
counter heroes based on how they interact with the aggro hero
makes the meta like very settled in a way.
And then every other deck that wants to specifically target the
number one deck has to now contend with the counters to
that. And if they don't interact in a
perfect triangle, you'd have an even larger meta share of the
top 2 to 3 heroes. If you can't beat B&C Hero,
you're not even going to get close to a like when you're
getting paired up at a tournament.
I'm so glad you brought that up Joel.
About like each aggro deck being unique.
I kinda used to think that wasn't true.
Like take a card like scar for a scar is like a great aggro card.
It has it's a 0 for four go again.
That's lots of really good value.
It has a break point and you're gonna have lower health anyway
cuz you don't give a shit about blocking, so you're trying to
just send damage. And I've kind of realized, like
now that you brought it up, that there's actually lots of good
aggro decks that don't run Scar for a Scar.
Like even the generics that just seem like really solid aggro
generics, lots of decks have good reasons not to run those
generic ones, like the our mechanologist aggro decks, they
want to run as many mechanologist cards as they can.
They cannot afford to run generics.
Or Alexi has a focus on arrows. She wants to run those arrows as
much as she can. That's the silo design that
you're talking about that does permeate a lot of aggro decks,
just not like Briar. They did not do a very like they
silo job. On briar or they just like yeah
the silo. Each aggro deck is doing
something so uniquely different. I love Viceri because I feel
like every attack I'm technically presenting 2 break
points, a physical and an arcane.
And the more regularly and efficiently I can do that over
the course of a turn, the more damage my opponent is going to
leak and the easier it is for me to win.
And you know, that's it gets harder.
Like when I was playing Visserie in the most recent meta, I was
really struggling because I needed to have a sideboard plan
to beat Lexi and a sideboard plan to beat Dromi and a Cyborg
plan to beat Bravo and a sideboard.
And it just, I ended up with this big clutter of cars and it
was diluting the main game plan. And it's why I think this or I
ended up not actually doing well in that meta.
Even though I think with Rosetta Thorne, he still had some of the
strongest turn by turn damage output in the game.
For sure. It was because all these other
top heroes, he couldn't deal with all of them.
And because of that you needed good gem.
Luck to to put up results. Yeah, seriously.
Or you needed to like go to the nationals tournament and then
wait till everyone's scrubbed out and play in the Calling.
Cuz then there's less like Lexi's theoretically in the
larger pool. There's gonna be more rogue
heroes. God, I fucking wish.
Played against 2 fucking. LEXIS.
Nice. Yeah, unfortunately it's not a
science. Like there's so much colloquial
conversation that sometimes isn't represented in statistics.
Sure, and then sometimes the statistics, if you don't have
the right measures, ends up completely misleading you on
where things should be. I've watched a lot of video
essays and statisticians talk about how to measure video game
metas it it's very interesting. As a translation, like, you can
bring whatever perfect tech you have for that one hero, but
you're going to get dumpstered by everything else like you
pretty handily. Yeah, Yeah.
Or you could only find what you were there at a counter and
just, like, wipe the floor clean, Right.
There's always just like after you lose the first game, there's
just there's just this purgatory of like O and one aggro decks
that couldn't hack it. And now you have to deal with
all these rogue decks that you're horrible into because you
weren't tagged for them. So there's definitely that
aspect in in tournament results. Another thing I wanted to talk
about is we've already alluded to it a little bit and how mid
range and combo decks can sort of masquerade is aggro decks
when the time calls for it. When before old him rotated, I
found him to be very aggressively slanting and that's
a of style of old him that I really enjoyed where you focus
on like the big 66 cost 10 power attacks like Glacial footsteps,
Thunder Quake. You throw some pulverizers in
there, but you still wouldn't be an aggressive or an aggro deck.
You just be like aggro old him. You have to kind of like say
aggro and then the name of the hero.
Yeah, I have to do this to beat a specific deck.
You know what I mean? Yeah, in that sense, aggro
really just means aggressive, not quite the aggro archetype.
Similar similarly in the mid range category like Levia for
instance, I don't think she would be ever considered an
aggressive deck. I think brutes are more mid
rangey but blutter spells which you mentioned earlier.
Clark is a power card and let's brutes compete with aggro decks
on like one one to two turns per game in the sense that I can
break my normal numbers of like maybe 6 damage per turn or 12
until like 18 or even like 24 damage in one.
Turn brutes always kind of look like they want to be aggro
decks, but with the way that they play their four card hands,
they actually kind of don't want that because you discard a card
at random, you actually always want to be blocking with one
card, right? Then pitch play the card so that
you're guaranteeing the one card in hand getting discarded so you
get the exact effect you want, right?
Or like if you have multiple non sixes, you would block with this
non sixes so that you get it out of your hand exactly right.
Which even though you're trying to be more aggressive, like
masquerading as an acro deck, it's actually like more mid
rangey in that instance and then continuing with your aggressive
turn on the other side of the spectrum.
Like combo decks I think are really interesting to look at
because combo decks, they really focus on a few getting together
a few pieces all at once and either end the game or put
yourself in a winning position to close out the game.
But these combo decks also have really high stated cards, so
sometimes they can they can be more aggressive than the aggro
decks in the sense that like they can just close out games
really quickly. Kano for instance, not an aggro
deck by per SE, but if he finds all of his pieces really quickly
he can close games out quicker or on the same rate as an aggro
deck. Combo faster is very good, just
draw better forehead. Also very much how the current
Max decks look, Yeah, with, you know, if you can actually play
Nitromechanoid on turn 3, you are feeling God like, yeah, like
that game is in the bag because now you're just waiting for Twin
Drive Hyper or Twin Drive High Octane.
Oh yeah, And just multiple yeah, you're just waiting for that to
happen. And that's when you that's like
the combo part, right, is once you get that multiple action
points of Nitromechanoid out, but it's in it.
It's also super aggressive because you're looking to throw
a lot of attacks out in every turn by turn.
Right, you still have your overly stated mechinologist
cards to get you to a place where when you do land that
nitromechanoid, the game is over.
On the topic of like combo being aggro, I think that there's also
an aspect of following your opponent's lead.
Like you know, when you're playing Oldham and you have to
pitch stack because it's Oldham. And even like aggro decks are
like planning for the fatigue Strat with and you're playing
Kano and you want to assemble your combo.
There's a lot higher bar set for like what your combo has to be
in order to actually be the combo.
Like you need to take the time to set out energy potions and
suddenly your game plan becomes a lot longer as you assemble the
perfect pitch stack and aimed to deal 100 damage in turn instead
of 30. I wish that was an exaggeration
too. Yeah.
So when we look at aggro as a whole and we see like certain
decks over performing or other decks just not quite able to
weather the storm, like by being defensive.
What I find most interesting in TCDS is how they approach
banning or buffing other strategies.
Like for instance, Lexi has been a menace.
Not for a little. It's like been like 7 or 8
months. So much so that I've known a lot
of people who like to have taken breaks, myself included, from
Flesh and Blood all together. Because now I'm forced to either
put in reps to a hero I've never played before, it being the deck
itself that I don't like, or, or one of its very nuanced
counters. Or I can just like kind of take
a break. Because LSS has shown us that
they were really willing to let us all suffer so that she gets
LL so that they don't have to design around her anymore when
giving support to her other Ranger counterparts, Azalea and
Riptide. So I'm wondering from you 2,
when do you think it's appropriate to ban an aggro deck
for it being too oppressive? Or is it?
And like, how do we have to look at the rest of the meta
intrinsically and to determine whether or not the rest of the
field has the tools to deal with Lexi or deal with the premier
aggro deck? It's funny because Lexi is like
definitely strong but when you think of a long term balancing
situation she's not as strong as other really strong decks have
been if that makes sense. Lexi is still very much beatable
if she draws a bad hand or whatever.
Where if you think of Starvo Bravo, start of the Show or
Chain or like Briar before the Rada, like these are decks that
were like really, really unbeatable if you weren't
playing a top deck. Whereas you can still kind of
compete right now with a lot of like BT or Heroes, you can still
play them to some success. And I think that's the reason
that like LSS is hesitating on like really hitting Lexi, even
though like as a player, like Lexi feels like she defines the
meta, even if that's not even necessarily true.
It feels like it's true that Lexi is so strong that you have
to be like either playing Lexi or Dromi, which kind of like
counters Lexi. Yeah, I think, I think Alesis
actually handled it perfectly. I think maybe some people who
are more competitively minded than me and have gone to like
way more callings, PQS and all that, they would have a much
different opinion. But as someone who's just been
playing the game at Armories and going to the occasional
tournament, I think they handled the Lexi situation perfectly.
They waited for her to actually reach that point and then they
evaluated where she was in Living Legend.
People were like, man, she just missed out on Living Legend in
this past meta. So what now?
You nerf her into the ground and then she never leaves the meta.
She's always just hovering on that fringe.
No, you have one more little bout one month and a half where
you still have to deal with her. And it's also right at a time
that they printed a bunch of new cards.
So maybe one of those cards provides an answer that can make
the game more interesting. I mean, Droma has been way
bigger. So like I think, I think they
handled it exactly right. I think it, I don't know what I
would suggest differently. You know, like I'm not
necessarily coming with an alternate plan.
Yeah. But I do think this meta felt
really stale for a lot of people because it has kind of felt the
same since Outsiders, right? That was three sets ago when
Lexi really rose to power, and Dromi was pretty strong at that
time too. And those are the decks that
everyone uses to define the meta right now.
And none of the other heroes have really like that have come
into the game in those last six months, have really changed
that. And I don't know if that's where
LSS wants the game to be like that, consistent over time, but.
But I I truly think that Ranger was not intended to be like the
premier aggro deck. I think they have way more on
hits to be like a really unique mid range or control deck.
And the fact that Lexi is that way is because of Voltaire.
Like if they just banned Voltaire and let her find her
way as an ice hero again. I think letting people keep like
the true Lexi fans play Lexi and not the meta chasers play Lexi
would have been more healthy for the game and let people keep
their hero around because I think.
Every hero, no matter how egregious they are for the meta,
there's some group of people who love the hero, love the lore,
and I think that's pretty substantial for flesh and blood,
especially since, you know, they're increasing the amount of
points that events give out. So these heroes are going to be
leaving at a more rapid rate. And so if we don't like become
more active in the tweaking of the meta, it's just going to
look weird like with more of these stale metas and like, like
bleed most of their player bases away.
Well, that's the end of my rant. Slash leviad cope slash Lexi
bitching and moaning. With that, you guys want to move
to the Arsenal zone. Yeah, let's go to the Arsenal
zone. Do you want?
Me to start. Yeah, Fuzzy, what do you got
first? So our Arsenal Zone is the part
of our podcast where we each shout out a card that we've been
thinking about lately for whatever reason, be it good or
bad. I'm not sure what time we're
releasing this episode, but we're recording it in like the
1st of November. So it's like in the middle of PQ
season. So I'm like only going to draft
PQ's this season. I've been playing a lot of draft
and the last one I went to I scrubbed out.
But there's a certain picks in the draft that I really stand by
and this is my Co PM today is I'm telling you that it is
pretty nice to pick yellow jumpstart.
My word, Yeah, yellow jumpstart. It is a 2 for four yellow boost
that blocks for three. And if you control a hyper
driver, it costs one less to play.
Now this card is very mid, but it can supports a lot of
different ideas that you might be going for in draft.
In Max, this could be a one for four red.
Max loves one for four Reds. You know you pitch a blue to
play this with a single hyper driver out and you can still
swing with Banksy after. That's a 2 card 7 and all that
jazz as a 2 for four yellow. That's also kind of playable.
Like if it's in the late game you could certainly be doing
better things with your two for with your resources, but
pitching one card to swing for four like hitting that break
point can be pretty nice. Very serviceable.
And it's a yellow you can pitch for late game.
Exactly. Yellow's not quite as good as a
blue, but this has a little bit more punch than a lot of like
Blues that exist in the game, and you're gonna end up having
to take a lot of yellows anyway. I think this is a pretty good
one. All the two for four yellow
boost cards are probably pretty good.
I like this one, especially in Max.
You can also kind of play it if you get the hyper drivers and
like maybe dash and in teclovosin.
I would take this card if I needed a block 3 and there
weren't other block threes. So jumpstart, it's just OK, but
it's so good at being just OK that I.
Want to shout it out? I'm glad you said that last.
Part I'm not saying Jumpstart is like God's gift to Bright Lights
draft, but it is very serviceable.
So I brought 2 copies of Yellow Jumpstart to sign and give to
you guys. Aren't you happy Yellow Yellow
Jumpstart? I picked up two copies in my
last Bright Lights draft and I lost for other reasons.
I can't say shit. I scrubbed out two.
One for you and one for you. Thank you Fuzzy Fuzzy.
So for my card, it's time for me to talk about one of my most
hated cards in Flesh and Blood. Oh God, this is the one I wasn't
preparing. Teclocor.
No Teclocor. I've had a lot of deep soul
searching in preparation for this moment.
Everybody in this group knows how much I bitch and moan about
Teclocor, and that's why I'm going to say Teclocor is fine.
Wow, what is this? No, I grow.
This is character growth. Is this a bit?
No, look, I really do think that Techno Core is an incredibly
strong card that people do not nearly evaluate as much as I
think they should in terms of like today we're talking about
agro, the ability to start with resources to play the cards and
make it easier. Because normally you always
think, well, this is my pitch card and then I can play the
other three cards. But now you could conceivably
play everything in your fucking hand.
Because as long as you boost, once you use your Techno Foundry
Heart to turn that free yellow that Techno Court gives you into
a free blue, that is typically what you're expecting in your
hand to play the three cards. Like it's a really strong actual
thing. I think it is very, very
powerful to have free resources. Yes.
But you don't get to control them.
You don't get to pick and choose when you get 2 free resources
you have to get at the start of your turn.
Now Han, I love you. Han, you always try to argue but
it's an item, it's a non block. I have to, I can't play anything
after Techlocore and it's like, yeah, that's not a fucking
issue. You just play it at the end of
your chain. Like you just do that instead of
your pistol shot. Whoop Dee Doo.
It's not that big of a downside. It can be a downside when you
end up with one of them in hand in a really tight late game
situation. It can be a downside when you
pitch it away and then you never actually end up getting any real
value off of it being in your deck.
Like I think that it is a fair card really.
What makes me so frustrated with it is it comboing it with Spark
of Genius. You mean I get to play a card
for free that tutors out the teclo core?
Again, the big downside of teclo core is it being in your hand,
being a non block. OK, no, no, no no no.
Now you just can put it on the field.
You get to completely avoid that downside and then you get to
draw a card to Arsenal that's actually kind of stupid, but
Spark of Genius is a fair card. Whenever you're trying to get an
item of cost one or two, then it's completely fair.
It's just this tiny little sliver of play when Han throws a
throttle and a zipper hit and a zero to 60 at me and then he
goes spark a genius free Techlocore.
I'm like, motherfucker, you just drew 15 damage at me and now
you're setting up for a bunch more like hyper powered turns.
Go fuck yourself stupid. But again, when I really
properly evaluate it, neither of them are broken cards.
Neither of them really make dash this insane meta defining thing
because they are balanced. It's also like when every deck
has their strong stuff, like that's dash of strong stuff, and
you're talking about like the strongest place that dash can
make, you know? Yeah, the strongest place that
other heroes can make are a lot stronger than that, definitely.
It is fair. I am in.
Joel, take it, Take, take, take the Arsenal zone from Sorry, I
can't. I need to go take a shower.
I'm shocked. I did not expect that.
So listeners, we have been seeing this on the notes, like
in and out of episodes for like weeks.
Now she keeps saying like I think this is.
The yeah, he's like about Techno 4 and I thought he was just.
I thought we'd have to cut the whole thing out with how many
cuss words he had, but that was anyways.
For the meme, we have to never release this episode, Yeah.
I did such a good job of expressing myself.
That was that was beautiful. Honestly, it.
Was a piece of art, yeah. Wow, OK, well I wish I didn't
have to follow that up. So for my card, we're releasing
this around Thanksgiving time, like in November in general.
So I wanted to talk about a card that I fucking hate.
And it gives your opponent stuff and you stuff.
It's just in the spirit of Thanksgiving.
It's like giving your opponent a smack in the face and that's
codex a frailty. Not only does it give you back
your favorite card in graveyard that you blocked with or played
with I. Love that card.
Yeah, it's great, but you also get a frailty, so it's like I
give you a gift and I smack you in the face with it.
And I have to discard a card and.
You have to discard this. Price is man.
And he gets a pond. And I get a ponder, see, we both
get something out of it. It's an equal exchange, right?
No, no, I, I'm, I'm really just done with this card.
I think the biggest reason why I don't like this card is because
Lexi had access to it which made it really hard to feed Tigger
and the longer the game went the more options she had to use it
with. Now that it's in the hands of
the the assassins and like the worst Rangers like it's I think
a better card and more in the line of like what it was
intended to be. So that's my card for today.
Codex of Frailty. I hope we see you in a more
balanced light and not in the absurd, unfitigable Lexi
monstrosity that you were. All right, well, I think that's
the end of our episode. Thank you so much for listening
to our ranting. Bye listeners.
Happy Thanksgiving. Maybe, depending on what time
this gets released. Bye bye
Pitcher to Me Podcast is hosted by Fuzzy Dope, Clark Moore and
Joel Racinos, Executive producer Talon Stradley, logistics
coordinator John Farkas, music by Dylan Holtz, logo by on V
sound mixing, Christopher Moore and last but not least, you.
Thank you for listening. Please give us a follow on your
favorite social media platform at Pitcher to Me Podcast.
Happy New Year. Happy New Year.
New Year's is a time for us to look back and reflect as well as
prepare for the future. Isn't that right, guys?
Yes. No.
New Year's is an arbitrary date
in the calendar. That doesn't matter.
Well, I think it's a really arbitrary time to do reflection
and you're. Goddamn right it is.
So we're really happy with like, how the podcast has been doing
the last six months. We started back in like, July,
August, right? And we thought it might be cute
to do a couple like New Year's resolutions for where we want
the show to go in 2024. Yeah.
I think first of all, like it would be really cool if we did
some more video content. Like, we haven't really made
like YouTube videos, but that's something that I would love to
do with you guys in the future, like produce some extra content
to go on YouTube deck texts or other things.
Yeah, like I, I there's a specific video idea that I had
in mind for a while now, like a sort of like a panel discussion
where we just engage with more of the community members of FAB
like in Socal and just like talk more about like things that
aren't in the current Med escape.
Like, you know, like sticking to our core philosophies for the
podcast and just have like a more collaborative effort with
like the people that we talk to everyday about flesh and blood.
Yeah. I definitely have the goal of
just trying to make it to a year.
It's, you know, Speaking of arbitrariness, it's like, when
are we a real podcast? Was it when we first started
making episodes was when we were able to keep it up for a couple
months? Is that one year, 2 year?
Is that a certain listener account?
I'm not really sure, but I feel like one year is nice because I
really get to say that I put my all into this project and that I
was able to let it, I was able to sustain it for such a long
time. Yeah.
And that seems like a really wonderful, interesting thing to
be able to sort of tuck away in my little personal resume.
Yeah, definitely a whole year of podcasting, like it's taking up
a good proportion of my life already.
And to do that for a whole year definitely would feel like an
accomplishment if it already feels like an accomplishment.
Honestly, I'm really happy and proud of the show and I'm
excited to keep doing it. And when we hit that like 5052
episode mark, like it'll feel really, really powerful.
Oh yeah. Speaking of things that we've
already done this year, we launched our Discord and that's
such an amazing feeling to see people that I've never heard of
before join our Discord and talk about our show.
It's been so, so nice. Yeah.
I'm like, oh, I don't know who you are.
I don't know your real life. Name.
It's crazy. It's nice.
It means that other people are listening to us outside of the
like, friends and family category.
That always also made me feel like I made it right.
We're a real podcast. People I don't know listen to
us. I think like going into the next
year, the next steps if we like, want to make the podcast more
formal and more professional and a bigger project would be like
potentially getting our own website, pitch it to be
podcast.com. Yeah.
Tell your friends or like a Patreon page.
So we could potentially turn this like little hobby that
we're spending a bunch of time on into a show that could
potentially make us a couple dollars on the side.
Or potentially, we could use that money from Patreon to work
directly with other artists and creators, collaborators, to
produce like an even cooler, more well-rounded.
Project Yeah yeah like that's what I've also really enjoyed
about the Discord is seeing everyone's like different ideas
like and having one place to like just work with them.
You know I think we've already gotten like a a few ideas like
for our next episodes. But thinking about how we can
you know pour more of our energy in a different way and maybe
make some of these like ideas that people have into like real
life artwork or real life cards that we wouldn't see exist like
in fleshable unnecessarily. But just seeing like what we can
come up with as a community would be really cool to to watch
out for too. I think that's what like what
people really look forward to as a content creator.
And I I'm personally excited about that.
In addition to, you know, possibly making like it an
income off of this, but you know.
So overall thank you guys for listening and we're excited for
the next year and see what seeing where it takes us.