Classic Constructed
The following changes to Classic Constructed are effective from Friday, January 31, 2025:
- Zephyr Needle is banned.
During the development of The Hunted and in the months following its completion, our development team recognised that Ira was poised to become one of the best decks in the Classic Constructed format. While the best versions of the deck seemed to be rooted primarily in numbers, those numbers were undeniably impressive. And no card contributed more to these numbers than Zephyr Needle.
Zephyr Needle has been a staple in Ira decks since her early Blitz days, due to her ability to keep the weapon safe against the vast majority of defending cards. However, the addition of Up Sticks and Run had erased almost all of Zephyr Needle’s potential downsides. Add in the ability for retrieve to pull even more attacks per turn out of a Zephyr Needle that had either been flicked or successfully defended, and it became clear that the retrieve mechanic and Zephyr Needle were not meant to coexist. So, we began the discussions of how we would approach the situation.
In general, experiences with retrieve in were positive, and the mechanic did a great job tying the Ninja and Assassin maps together in Limited. We were committed to the concept of dagger recursion. For a while, we considered limiting the retrieve mechanic to only daggers with 1-power or less. This was a solution, but it made the retrieve mechanic wordy and somewhat more complicated than we’d prefer for something appearing at lower rarity. There was also the fact that this carve-out only affected Zephyr Needle, and dagger identity in more modern times has been hard rooted in 1-power options.
At almost the exact time we were having these discussions, Zen was in the midst of his reign of terror, and was making the utmost use of Zephyr Needles. We began to contemplate the fact that whenever Zephyr Needle was getting into the mix, even if played fairly, it was bringing with it somewhat degenerate modes of playing Flesh and Blood. When its drawback is mitigated—either by short games or new mechanics—Zephyr Needle becomes overwhelmingly powerful.
So, we made the call that Zephyr Needle would be banned. The only remaining question was when.
We’ve talked a lot in the past about allowing players to go on their journey of discovery, and get rewarded for figuring out what the best deck is. Our initial intention was to wait and see how the Ira deck would develop and how quickly players would catch on, with the expectation we would probably ban Zephyr Needle at the March 4 Scheduled Banned and Restricted Announcement. Based on early tier lists and community decklists, it’s safe to say players have forced our hand ahead of schedule.
Back in October, when we let Kraken’s Aethervein temporarily derail a very exciting Living Legend format, we learned a valuable lesson around what happens when players quickly discover a somewhat clear best deck (https://fabtcg.com/en/articles/banned-and-restricted-announcement-oct02/).
Many will simply skip events, and see their enthusiasm for the loads of cool new stuff in The Hunted stripped away. We have no desire to let Zephyr Needle Ira wreak that kind of havoc on the fresh and exciting Classic Constructed format ahead of us.
As is often the case with bans in Flesh and Blood, we believe Ira is still a strong option after this announcement, and we are happy with that outcome. We simply wanted to bring her back to the field.
In general, we prefer to operate only in Scheduled Banned and Restricted windows, but we have been internally discussing the desire to have more frequent announcements going forward. In the future, you can expect us to schedule more Banned and Restricted Announcements in this Pre-Release window. It is a good time to address any known issues created by new set mechanics or cards.
Blitz
With Ira no longer legal in the Blitz format, and no large-scale Blitz play on the immediate docket, we are leaving Zephyr Needle legal in Blitz for the time being. We will revisit this decision at the next Scheduled Banned and Restricted Announcement.
Next Scheduled Banned and Restricted Announcement
The next Banned and Restricted Announcement will be on Tuesday, March 4, 2025 (United States time).
