One of the four design tenets of Flesh and Blood is “Every Card Counts”. What we mean by this is that during most games of Flesh and Blood, both players will see every card in their deck at least once. As each card is drawn, a player must decide what role that card will play towards their strategy to win the game.
One of the tension points which we believe underpins interesting and meaningful gameplay is when players are forced to evaluate the cost of defending with high impact cards, the trade off between 'defend what my opponent is doing' vs 'the cost of no longer having the high impact card in my deck'. Examples of cards like this are Steelblade Supremacy, Bloodrush Bellow, Forked Lightning, Crippling Crush, High Octane, and Mugenshi Release; to name just a few.
As Flesh and Blood tournament play has developed, and competitive decks have become more refined, we have come to learn that Drone of Brutality is undermining the core design tenet of “Every Card Counts”. The inclusion of Drone of Brutality has led to play patterns where, effectively, this becomes “Every Card is Expendable”, because Drone of Brutality is the inevitable factor that will eventually win the game.
The agonizing decision of whether or not to defend with an important high impact card is supposed to be a beautiful feature of Flesh and Blood gameplay. Drone of Brutality has significantly diminished this and, in doing so, has undermined a core Flesh and Blood design tenet. For this reason, all versions of Drone of Brutality are banned in Blitz and Classic Constructed formats, effective as of March 26, 2021.
With respect to this ban, Drone of Brutality will be removed from future printings of Welcome to Rathe Unlimited.
Blitz
- Drone of Brutality banned as of March 26, 2021
Classic Constructed
- Drone of Brutality banned as of March 26, 2021