Cornering Your Prey

Jacob Pearson is a developer at Legend Story Studios, and brings us the first chapter of a series of deep dives into the heroes in Outsiders, focusing on both limited and constructed play. Today we venture into the shadows with Arakni, Solitary Confinement.

You wander nervously along the edge of the canal, catching sight of your trembling reflection in its inky waters.

You hear a skittering, almost like a crawling insect scrambling across the mould-ridden rocks.

Glancing over your shoulder you check to see if it’s still following you.

The darkness peers back, all is quiet, save for the gurgling of the canal.

It must have lost your trail by now, you foolishly think to yourself, letting your guard down.

You turn back around, only to come face to face with a hunched creature swathed in torn black cloth, splattered with blood.

Its eyes gleam from behind a twisted and cracked metal mask, as it utters a wretched sound that you realize is laughter.

Arakni has found you, there’s nowhere to run.

Draft

Are you ready to live life on the Razor’s Edge?

Well tighten up your leathers and make sure to hide an extra dagger in your boot. The true Outsider has arrived to cross out names from their ledger.

Introducing the deranged destroyer - Arakni, Solitary Confinement!

Drafting Outsiders might be quite different from your previous draft experiences. Having access to multiple heroes of the same class can lead to some very interesting and dynamic decisions.

You may find yourself trying to justify playing a 19 life hero while the mysterious Uzuri boasts a very powerful effect and more life to play with.

However, this new Arakni, the absolute nutter that they are, is the only way for assassins to have easy access to go again, with almost all the common assassin cards in the set having the stealth keyword. This, alongside Spider’s Bite (the prudent assassin's weapon of choice), gives us the ability to constantly utilize a 4-5 card hand, something that Uzuri can sometimes struggle with.

When drafting assassin, the key signs that your seat is open to Arakni are mid-pack Prowls, any red stealth attacks, or red assassin attack reactions (especially Spikes - these are game winning in the right spot).

The reason these types of cards have such a high impact in Arakni is because they make your opponent question your damage output. When your opponent is facing down a stealth attack they are asking themselves “do they have an attack reaction? Or do they have a follow up attack?”

This, in combination with weaving Spider’s Bite between our attacks, makes defending very tricky.

If you want to stay open early during the draft while leaning towards our unhinged friend I'd recommend keeping a lookout for Spring Load, Looking for a Scrap, and Freewheeling Renegades.

Arakni thrives making good use out of blues. Because of Spider’s Bite activations we often find ourselves with a spare resource meaning we need some way to finish off our combat chain efficiently.

To top this off, these cards all play important roles in the other classes as well, so they are very good choices to stay open early.

At the end of a draft if you find yourself trying to decide between the two assassins, just remember that Arakni loves attack reactions and a high red count with lots of easy to deploy threats, whereas Uzuri really needs the powerful 2-cost attack actions, Isolates and blue stealth cards.

Blitz

In Blitz heroes are typically rewarded for ending the game in the fastest manner possible. With little time for setup it's imperative that a competitive hero is able to to disrupt your enemy or Blitz them out of the game with raw damage.

Arakni sits in a very unique position here. Utilizing free go again, their stealth attack action cards have debilitating on-hit effects thanks to the new tokens.

This means that they are able to threaten chunks of damage while messing with the enemy’s core gameplan.

The combination of go again means our enemies will really struggle with blocking - giving us lots of windows to punish them with attack reactions.

To facilitate this we need discounts on these reactions to maximize efficiency. Redback Shroud is awesome at achieving this.

To support Redback Shroud we need to play contract attacks from Dynasty. These attacks have nice on-hit effects like Leave No Witnesses and Surgical Extraction.

We are mostly after the 0-cost attacks to end our combat chains after the opponent has blocked and we can easily whip up a few silvers to buy back our equipment.

Typical Arakni Blitz decks are made up of impactful stealth attacks, cheap contract attacks, and military-grade levels of attack reactions. Is there anything else to a winning recipe?

You may consider adding some codexes!

These non-attack actions are very good at making trip hazards for your opponent while powering you through their defenses, and they can always pitch for a Spider’s Bite attack in a pinch. Take them for a spin. I promise you’ll have a spicy moment or two.

We’re also using our daggers much less often than ninjas or warriors would, meaning we get great value from equipment like Flick Knives, Arcane Lantern and Ornate Tessan, or finding unorthodox sources of damage from cards like Hurl.

Pushing through an ‘on-hit’ trigger from a Spider’s Bite twice per game from Flick Knives can make our opponents blocks even harder.

This often incentivises them to block early in the combat chain, allowing our nastier on-hits to sneak through.

Equipment like Flick Knives, Blacktek Whisperers, and Redback Shroud also enable us to play a ‘’bigger’’ reaction style of Arakni, playing lots of Sneak Attacks, Command and Conquers, Surgical Extraction and other big threats to close our combat chains with. Trying to bait blocks with our stealth cards can allow these threats to sneak through.

The 2-cost attacks have synergy with reactions like pummel, which can be clunky at times but offers a high level of disruption.

Lastly, don't forget to experiment! Some of the best experiences I have with Flesh and Blood are found in the depths of my chaff bins.

Arakni has treated me to a few weird and wondrous experiences and I hope they will take you down the same dark trail.

Can't wait to see you swinging daggers in the Flesh and Blood - It’s Show Time!