This October, Flesh and Blood celebrates its 5th Anniversary. Over that time, we’ve released 14 sets containing over 3,000 unique cards, with another 3 sets finished and in production that release in 2025. It’s been an incredible journey to see FAB grow into a global game, loved by fans around the world.
This article was originally intended to be published as part of the 5th Anniversary content running during October (the previously announced October 1 Banned and Restricted announcement). After further reflection, we think it’s in the best interest of fans to publish this prior to the Rosetta World Premiere so the new format can be evaluated with clarity from the get-go and fans can make informed decisions when acquiring cards for the Rosetta season.
Prior to Flesh and Blood’s release on October 11, 2019, we spent years designing and developing the innovative game system we know well today. Our learnings from that initial creation phase and the formative years post-release pale in comparison to what we know today due to years more of internal play, and from observing many exceptional TCG minds around the world push the game system and its pieces to their limits.
Continual learning and improvement are one of my personal lifelong disciplines and a core internal value of Legend Story Studios. I also believe that learning and improvement require self-reflection. As we approach our 5th Anniversary, it’s time to reflect on where we are and act on what we’ve learned about the strengths and vulnerabilities of our game system so fans may continue to play great games for the next 5 years and beyond.
Revisiting the Flesh and Blood Design Principles
When FAB launched in 2019, we sent local game stores across the world a welcome kit that included a booklet stating the Flesh and Blood Design Principles. This is the section from that booklet:
Reflecting on these Design Principles today, some have held true, some have been eroded, and one is no longer a functional design principle but rather a statement of fact.
I. Start Full
This holds true but is no longer a functional principle. Instead, it is a statement of fact about how the Flesh and Blood game system works.
II. Reduce Variance
The innovative pitch system that FAB introduced to the TCG industry continues to uphold the original intent of this design principle. From the first turn of the game, players are guaranteed access to the game system base resources required to play the game (resource and action points), compared to some other game systems that load variance onto the ability of players to access base resources. Often, when a player lands on the wrong side of this kind of variance, they don’t get to meaningfully engage in the game.
Not all variance is bad, and in fact, I believe variance plays an important and positive role in game design. However, variance that results in players failing to meaningfully engage in the game is what I consider negative variance. This is often referred to as agency, or lack thereof. FAB’s pitch system solved this from a resource system perspective and continues to function as a standout feature of the Flesh and Blood game experience. However, loss of agency has crept into Flesh and Blood in other ways, and at levels that we view as being undesirable for the long-term health of the game.
III. Every Card Counts
For the most part, this principle holds true. It is archetype and/or match-up dependent, but that has been the case for a long time. We don’t see every game getting to “second cycle” as a mandatory requirement to satisfy this principle, but we do want second cycle decks to be a meaningful part of the metagame.
IV. Reward Good Decisions, Not Good Luck
A game of Flesh and Blood is intended to be won from incremental advantages gained through the accumulation of many good decisions. We don’t see the current state of the game as having a problem of rewarding “good luck,” but rather that the accumulation of many good decisions is too frequently being undermined by extreme offensive overlaps.
At its simplest level, Flesh and Blood is a game of 4-card turn cycles, where each player is looking to come out ahead after smashing their 4 cards against their opponents. The quest we offer players is how to break this dynamic. The arsenal is the simplest example of how we enable players to set up game states that create 5 vs 4 card offensive overlaps (unless, of course, the defending player has a defense reaction in arsenal, then it’s parity at 5 vs 5). Equipment is another way to ratchet up your offensive and/or defensive virtual hand size.
It’s always been our intention to offer players ways to create offensive overlaps so the majority of games end with a hero being reduced to 0 life rather than 0 cards in deck. As of late, offensive overlaps have become too extreme and too frequent, to the point where the principle of achieving victory through the accumulation of many good decisions has been eroded. The most egregious culprits are cards that immediately net additional cards without costing an action point or are playable by heroes that are easily able to generate or bypass action points.
There are many ways you can view and quantify agency. Arguments can be made that effects such as Red in the Ledger, Warmongers Diplomacy, Siren’s Call, Arc Light Sentinel, ward board states, and even dominate are examples of diminished agency. However, there is a massive difference between effects that diminish or restrict agency, and the topic at hand, which are extreme offensive overlaps that result in a player being reduced to 0 life. There is no greater loss of agency than the game ending from forces that a player had no reasonable way to interact with. This is the most extreme loss of agency that we are looking to temper.
Reflection and Course Correction
Where to from here? Firstly, it’s time to update the design principles that will carry us forward into the next 5 years and beyond. While the initial principles were constructed to be our tentpoles for the game’s design, it is critical we now broaden these principles to cover the game’s development as well, guiding the two connected but independent functions that exist within the process of creating Flesh and Blood.
Flesh and Blood Design and Development Principles 2025
The following Design and Development Principles serve to guide us in the creation of game pieces using the fundamental building blocks of the Flesh and Blood game system. The fundamental building blocks being:
- Action points
- Resource points
- Intellect
- Life
- Power
- Defense
- Abilities
I. Class, Talent, and Hero Identity
- Create heroes that embody the essence of their class, talent, and character.
- Cultivate and preserve a unique mechanical identity for each class and talent.
II. Empower Agency
- Curate a card pool and metagames where players have choices that allow them to meaningfully engage with the game plan of their opponents.
- Victory is earned through the accumulation of many good decisions.
III. Every Card Counts
- Curate metagames that include archetypes where every card in a deck plays a meaningful role in determining the outcome of the game.
IV. Paths to Victory
- Offer players strategies and card synergies that can create game states slanted towards offensive advantage, so that most games end with one hero being reduced to 0 life.
- Primarily disperse offensive advantages across multiple turns rather than in single bursts of output (so victory is earned through the accumulation of many good decisions).
- Require combo and one-turn-kill (OTK) decks to complete a meaningfully difficult quest to execute their fundamental kill turn. (Examples include Viserai or Florian OTK requiring many turns to establish the quantity of Runechants required to OTK, or a Kano player completing and memorizing their pitch stack over many turns.)
Secondly, it’s time to remove some cards from official tournament play that are root cause enablers of extreme offensive overlaps.
The following cards are banned in Classic Constructed and Blitz effective September 9, 2024:
- Art of War
- Bonds of Ancestry
- Cash In
- Orihon of Mystic Tenets
- Tome of Aetherwind
- Tome of Divinity
- Tome of Fyendal
- Tome of Firebrand
The following cards are restricted in Living Legend effective September 9, 2024:
- Bonds of Ancestry (A deck can include 1 copy of a card named Bonds of Ancestry)
Art of War
Art of War has been one of the pillars of competitive play since its printing in Arcane Rising. This is the most consequential of the cards being removed from Classic Constructed and Blitz.
Some people might ask why Bloodrush Bellow is ok while Art of War isn’t? On the surface they are both cards that cost 1 resource, and trade 2 cards for 2 cards with a power buff as the (typical) pay-off.
Art of War being a Generic has meant it has enjoyed the privilege of interacting with every additional card that has been printed since its original release in February 2020, compared to Bloodrush Bellow which is siloed to only Brute heroes.
As the card pool has expanded, numerous ways to “cheat” Art of War’s cost have emerged, such as Shadow cards that can be played from the banished zone, Phoenix Flames returning to hand, and Crouching Tigers created in hand. This is the Art of War “fodder” that currently exists. There is a lot more valuable design space we want to explore in the coming years that Art of War would continue to exploit if it remained legal. Art of War has been a suppressive force that we have had to continually design and develop around, while also being the most notorious card on this list for creating the kinds of extreme offensive overlaps the updated Design and Development Principles are aimed at curbing.
Bonds of Ancestry
We banned yellow and blue Bonds on the Banned and Restricted announcement just prior to Pro Tour: Amsterdam. We expected this to bring Zen down a notch while leaving him as one of the best decks for the Pro Tour, which he was. We’ve had Pro Tour Zen, now it’s time to bring Zen’s power apex back to the rest of the field.
As seen in numerous live stream games from Pro Tour: Amsterdam and subsequent Callings, Zen is regularly able to present offensive overlaps that are beyond the agency thresholds we have talked about in this article, enabled by Bonds of Ancestry (red), often without Art of War.
We acknowledge that this is a tough pill to swallow for Katsu fans, but frankly what Katsu did with Bonds of Ancestry was also beyond reasonable. Saying that, we will look to give Katsu fans new support in future expansion slots to fill the hole Bonds leaves behind.
Bonds of Ancestry has also made its presence heavily felt in the Living Legend format. For the same power level and repetitive play patterns reasons that have seen it removed from Classic Constructed and Blitz, Bonds of Ancestry joins the restricted list in Living Legend.
Cash In
Cash In is not currently a problem, but as Gold becomes more prevalent, the cost to draw 2 cards becomes lower and lower. We are banning Cash In before that time comes.
Tome of Firebrand
Like Cash In, Tome of Firebrand is not a problem right now. However, as the Draconic card pool grows, the quest to enable Tome of Firebrand only becomes easier.
Orihon of Mystic Tenets
Orihon of Mystic Tenets being legendary is indicative of how we were thinking about card draw when it was designed back in early 2023.
Part of the problem with Orihon is what Twelve Petal Kasaya became, making Orihon an easily enabled 2 for 3 card exchange rather than the original design intent of a 2.33 for 3. Saying that, we are now at the point where Orihon, even limited to a single copy per deck, is simply misaligned with the updated Design and Development Principles.
Tome of Divinity
Like Orihon of Mystic Tenets, Tome of Divinity has a design intent that you complete a quest (getting a card into your soul), to yield a 2.33 for 3 card pay-off. If you pair it with Vestige of Sol, you get a more attractive return of 2 for 3 (with additional flow-on value gained from Vestige when pitching cards drawn from the Tome).
Compared to Orihon, Tome of Divinity is generally a better designed card. The quest it asks of you is more meaningful, and the downside of Tome is higher, being a yellow with no defense value. The real strike against Tome of Divinity however, is being able to play multiples in the same turn, often resulting in hopeless game states for the opponent.
The outcomes Tome of Divinity creates are often different from what other classes are doing with card draw. Typically, it doesn’t lead to immediate combat damage overlaps, but rather the deployment of multiple auras that create board states that are overwhelming and unreasonable to deal with. The game may continue to be played for several more turns, but the game fundamentally ended at the point that double Tome of Divinity was played.
Tome of Fyendal
Tome of Fyendal, the original draw 2 printed all the way back in Welcome to Rathe, in many ways is what card draw should look like; it consumes an action point. The problem is its Generic status, meaning it can be played by heroes that are efficient at generating action points, such as Mechanologist and Lightning heroes, or are able to bypass action points altogether, such as Wizards.
With Rosetta releasing new Lightning and Wizard heroes, Kano feasting on the influx of new Wizard cards, and Dash I/O receiving more support with her Armory Deck in October, the true cost of Tome of Fyendal (an action point) becomes easier to bypass than ever before.
Tome of Aetherwind
Tome of Aetherwind has some reasonable qualities to it. It consumes an action point and has significant downside when it’s drawn out of sequence, being red and 2 defense. It also ticks the Class Identity box of the updated Design and Development Principles. That being said, both Kano and Oscilio are easily able to bypass the real cost of this card.
Tome of Aetherwind sits at an awkward crossroads, where its either unplayable by Wizards that can’t easily bypass the action point cost (Iyslander, Verdance, Emperor, Blaze), or it’s used for the purpose of doing degenerate things (Kano, Oscilio). It’s hard for a card of this nature to ever occupy the middle ground of doing “fair” things.
Notably Absent
Why are Three of a Kind, Tome of Harvests, Tome of the Arknight, and Tome of Imperial Flame not being banned?
Three of a Kind and Tome of Harvests both have natural limiters built into them that prevent multiple copies of themselves being played in the same turn, and/or impose constraints on the volume of cards that can thereafter be played.
Tome of the Arknight has enough (positive) variance built into it for us to be comfortable letting it stay.
Tome of Imperial Flame imposes a high deck construction burden, comes with defensive vulnerability, and most importantly, it does not net cards outside of a few Phoenix Flame interactions that currently exist. Should there become more ways to return Phoenix Flame to hand (or similar red “fodder” generators), it is possible that one day Tome of Imperial Flame may need to join the other forbidden books of Rathe.
Wrapping Up
These are some big changes. As I’ve written about in the past, our philosophy towards using the banned and restricted lists is not only about addressing card interactions that create negative play experiences, but also as a tool we use to actively manage our constructed formats.
We acknowledge that following the changes today, there will still be some match ups in Classic Constructed that have polarizing play experiences. For some of those classes, such as Guardian and Warrior, there are cards in upcoming products that we believe will help them wrestle back some points in those match ups.
For Blitz, we are taking some time to look at the format more holistically and consider a number of potential changes that could be implemented prior to the next Skirmish season starting November 30.
In the coming weeks, I will be discussing these changes and the bright future ahead of us in a podcast with Senior Game Designer and Lead Developer Bryan Gottlieb. We invite you to join us on the official Flesh and Blood YouTube channel.
Their Legend Lives On
Farewells are always hard. We know there are many fans who really enjoy playing with some of the cards being banned today--particularly Art of War, which has been an iconic part of Flesh and Blood over the past 5 years. I’m sorry that a good thing has come to an end in Classic Constructed and Blitz, however the legacy of these iconic cards, and your chance to keep playing with them, lives on in the Living Legend format.
Living Legend is a format we are putting our support behind, as seen by its inclusion in Skirmish season 9 currently running, and again in Skirmish season 10 running later this year, in addition to its debut as a Calling format in Chicago on December 14-15.
Living Legend is the home for the most powerful heroes and cards created and is where you will be able to continue playing with these iconic cards for many years to come.
Next Scheduled Banned and Restricted Announcement
The next Banned and Restricted Announcement will be on Monday, November 11, 2024 (United States time).