We're pleased to welcome Hamish Chisholm-Brown as a guest writer for the Road to Nationals season! Hamish is a competitive Flesh and Blood player who placed in the Top 8 of the UK National Championship in 2021. He's a member of the dedicated UK Flesh and Blood podcast, Push the Point, and will soon be attending the European Champion's Battle at the Calling: Utrecht. We're excited to welcome him on board for the season!
Welcome to my first-ever article. If you're a new player, a seasoned player, or just someone that is interested in what a British guy has to say, then you are in luck, my good fellow!
After driving home from my first Uprising Pre-release at Living Realms games with my local Northamptonshire crew, I was pondering on what I wanted to play for this upcoming Road to Nationals season. I have played many different heroes at events: from Rhinar and Levia, in the Brute camp; to Boltyn, who I took to my last Road to Nationals event. Ultimately, I couldn’t shake the urge to play the class I feel most at home with, Runeblade!
Now that Chane, Bound by Shadow is out of the meta, it leaves only two Runeblades to pick from. Both heroes were kept at bay by the star of the last season, Bravo, Star of the Show. But the age of Shadow and Stardom is over! It’s now time to go through the Pros and Cons of Briar, Warden on Thorns and Viserai, Rune Blood in the Uprising metagame.
Briar, Warden of Thorns
Briar came out the gate in Tales of Aria as a Force of Nature, winning multiple National events globally; but a Banned and Suspended announcement put Ball Lightning and Plunder Run on the naughty list! This put the brakes on her fast-paced aggro deck. Briar has now adapted again, returning to her grassroots with the likes of Channel Mount Heroic, Tome of Harvests, and Weave Earth. Earth cards have two main features, increasing physical power, and card draw. Both of these aspects are key to pushing Briars' turn from 5 card turns with base power cards, to 6 to 7 card turns and +3 power attacks!
Briar has two approaches available to her. One approach is to take advantage of 0-cost attack actions such as Ravenous Rabble, Scar for a Scar, Lightning Surge, Entwine Lightning, and Exude Confidence - letting you push multiple low-cost attacks. The other is making the big base strength attacks, such as Stir the Wildwood, Command and Conquer, and Autumn’s Touch - attacks that rival and even surpass the Brute force of Rhinar and Levia! Regardless of which avenue you choose to take, Briar can use key cards such as Bramble Spark and Force of Nature to push the base damage of these attacks to shocking numbers.
You can get further value out of Briar with her favourite keyword: GO AGAIN! You can weave your non-attack actions that increase the power together to create Go Again for attack actions with Essence of Lightning, then smash your opponent with sheer force, and follow it all up with her signature weapon Rosetta Thorn!
On the defensive side, the errata to Briar has made her Essence of Earth into a once-per-turn trigger, but this can still make non-attack actions that would defend for 2 or 3 instead defend for 3 or 4. This value generation is highly impactful on off-turns.
Aggressive heroes such as Fai, Katsu, Boltyn, and Lexi can find it very hard to stop Briar's damage output, due to their need to keep a number of cards in hand to get to the same damage output as Briar. Prism and Dromai can also find it difficult to land a Phantasm attack on her, with her having a number of 6+ power cards in her main deck, and being able to easily supplement that with sideboard cards that don't significantly impact the deck's efficiency. Couple that with the fact that Channel Mount Heroic can also put a lower base strength attack into 6+ power range, and this deck can give you space to keep the pressure on those Illusionists
This all sounds powerful and, to be honest, it is! But Briar has some chinks in her armor that can be exploited. Briar can be a hungry hero for cards and she frequently needs to weave her non-attack actions together to really get going. Heroes who can disrupt her flow such as Iyslander, with her seemingly endless amount of Frostbite generation, and Lexi, who not only attacks but disrupts hands with her on-hit ice arrows, can make life difficult to really harness the full essence of her power. Additionally, heroes like Oldhim, who is the king of defending and dismantling key attacks, can slowly whittle her down to a fallen autumn leaf. As I say, Ice could be a real issue for her.
Viserai, Rune Blood
Now I feel like I’m coming home. Where to begin?
From his release in Arcane Rising through to Everfest, Viserai gathered a lot of powerful tools to really bring him into the competitive scene. Everfest especially turned Viserai up a notch by giving him Revel in Runeblood, Swarming Gloomveil and Runic Reclamation. These cards brought him to the pinnacle of his power! Naturally, Viserai needed to be toned down, and this was achieved by suspending Bloodsheath Skeleta.
In the current game, Viserai's strength comes from being able to attack on two fronts, physical and arcane, making it more complex for opponents to efficiently defend. Playing cards like Mauvrion Skies into a Spellblade Assault really helps to set up the split attack approach and creates awkward blocks. Then, to really put on the pain, Viserai can play Swarming Gloomveil or Rune Flash to follow up for free, before finally hitting them with Rosetta Thorn! That impact isn’t even factoring in that all these attacks can be amplified to greater heights with Mordred Tide and Revel in Runeblood!
Viserai's attacks can be pushed even further with more complex lines of play using one of the most powerful pieces of equipment in the game, Spellbound Creepers. Mastery of this piece of equipment is going to see your win-rate go up. It's not an easy feat to sequence your cards correctly when any non-attack could be played as an instant, but it's worth every bit of time to get to grips with the mechanic!
If playing aggressively is not your thing, then you can always do the classic 'build a lot of Runechants' and then, in one turn, defeat the opponent - this is known as OTK! A word of caution though, it is not as easy as you may think. Trying to stop damage and keeping key cards in hand is difficult, but this is when you need to look at your health as a resource. Cards like Mordred Tide, Oath of the Arknight or Runeblood Incantation followed by Read the Runes lets you maximise your hero ability to reach that critical number of Runechants, while defence reactions help to mitigate as much damage to yourself.
Unfortunately, the good old days of using Bloodsheath Skeleta with Sonata Arcanix to execute a killing blow from as few as 12+ Runechants are gone. This means your target number of Runechants for an OTK strategy is now more around 20+. One key aspect of this approach is not building your OTK finish from the start. You want to be trying to get their Health total into the low 20's before building for that final turn.
Viserai can also access cards in his deck and graveyard with two key cards: Become the Arknight and Rattle Bones. This allows him a lot of flexibility; with the ability to replay key cards that may have been used to block or have been played earlier, this can make the Arknight ascend! He also has access to great cards that disrupt any heroes’ powerful auras with Runic Reclamation, or cards that can impact an opponent's hand if not dealt with correctly; such as Consuming Volition.
So, with all these tools, I feel Viserai is in a great spot to put aggressive heroes under pressure! This mostly due to them needing a full hand to apply good pressure back, a theme with Runeblade it seems. The Illusionists aren't safe from this Runeblade either. Mauvrion Skies gets its 'on-hit' effect when attacking into Dromai's dragons, allowing you to clear dragons and push arcane damage with the same attack, while Prism fears the on hit effect of Runic Reclamation!
Now for the hard matchups I think he will face. With Bloodsheath Skeleta out of the picture, Oldhim and possibly Bravo, Showstopper are challenging heroes to beat. They have an impressive number of blues and each have the ability to dismantle your turn. Oldhim can use his sheer stopping power and ice cards to force Viserai into tough spots. While Bravo can limit your hand with Crippling Crush, Tear Asunder and/or a naughty Pummel. You may need to slow your pace down and make Runechants to beat those towering titans.
Lexi is another hero that can really dismantle Viserai's hand and deal some impressive damage at the same time. With cards such as Chilling Icevein, Blizzard Bolt, Frost Lock and Sleep Dart; they really aim to impact Viserai’s turns to maximise his Runechant generator and overall play. Uprising has also provided a card that, in my opinion, straight-up ruins Viserai's whole turn. It is as bad as a Command and Conquer into Lexi. But I'll let you figure that one out!
Some less prevalent heroes that can give both these Runeblades a hard time are:
- Dash can take advantage of her recently added tools such as Signal Jammer and Dissolution Sphere. She also has a high blue count and can play with a lot of defense against physical attacks to control the game.
- Both Brute heroes can push high damage spikes to any hero! Never rule the power these guys can present out when you think they haven’t got a big turn.
- Kano has always been a menace in any Runeblade's side! His ability to come out with powerful arcane combos is something to fear! Runeblades don’t usually have enough deck space to sideboard to keep that damage down and make an effective turn.
Overall, this Road to Nationals season is going to be very exciting! I think the Runeblade class is in a healthy spot in this meta but I'm sure I’ll see some surprises as people figure out more powerful decks and strategies with the new heroes in Uprising! My 'what’s hot and what’s not'' take for the season will be: Dromai will gain more traction as the season goes on as people soon discover the best ways to maximize the flow and pace of the game while creating a board state. Briar will take on the mantle of Aggro followed by Fai, Katsu, and Lexi. The King and Queen of Ice (Oldhim and Iyslander) will be there to fully disrupt the flow of the proactive heroes, but will need a solid plan to manage the elusive Illusionist. I'm excited to see this progress!
Hamish Chisholm Brown is a competitive Flesh and Blood player and author of content relating to gameplay and strategy. The opinions expressed in the above article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Legend Story Studios.