Dev Download: Victor Goldmane

“You’re a long way from home, boy.”

If there was one thing Hog wanted more than all the gold in the world right now, it was to wipe the smug smirk off Victor Goldmane’s stupid face. Despite the fact that Hog was easily double Victor’s size, the rich bastard simply stood there in his glittering toy suit, smiling as if they were sitting down to lunch.

“On the contrary,” Victor mused. “I carry my home with me wherever I go.”

He hoisted his lion-crested shield. “And I go wherever I please.”

Hog snorted. “You should have stayed back at your daddy’s castle.”

“And you should have taken the money.” There was a nasty gleam in Victor’s eyes that Hog didn’t like one bit.

He raised his gigantic axe, preparing to fell the smarmy brat. With a roar he brought it down with the force of a boulder, as Victor sheltered beneath his shield. To Hog’s astonishment the axe shattered into tiny fragments as if it were made out of hound biscuits. He gawped at the fractured handle, then back at Victor’s gleeful face.

“A simple switch with a cheap fake.”

Hog suddenly felt a hot flush as his head began to swim. Struggling to keep his footing he staggered backwards from Victor, who calmly pressed forward.

“That pint you downed earlier not sitting well?”

Hog fell to his hands and knees, throwing up violently. He glanced up desperately but the golden figure was nowhere in sight. A sharp pain coursed through his spine as Victor’s heel dug into an old injury in his lower back.

“Didn’t take much for your old rivals to spill your weak spot.” Victor ground his boot in deeper, forcing Hog to eat sand. “As I said, you should have just taken the money.”

“Hog… doesn’t take bribes.” He gasped through the pain.

Victor shrugged, unhooking a masterfully crafted hammer from his belt.

“No matter. Every problem has a solution.” He lifted the hammer to deliver the final blow. “You just need to find who will sell it to you.”

Welcome to Dev Download, where we share red hot tips and tricks fresh from the game devs at Legend Story Studios so you can pick up a deck and play like a pro! Over the next week we’ll be covering how to play the rest of the heroes in Heavy Hitters, focusing on Booster Draft and Classic Constructed!

Today, we are flaunting our wealth and power with Victor Goldmane, High and Mighty!

Booster Draft

Heavy Hitters has a very dynamic limited style, featuring both multiple heroes of the same class and hybrid cards that are shared amongst them.

Victor is a defensive Guardian who aims to whittle away at the opponent's deck until they're too exhausted to fight anymore. He does this by finding ways to out-value his enemies, such as winning clashes or drawing free cards from creating Gold. The default Guardian weapon is High Riser, which suits Victor perfectly, but if you happen to snap up a copy of Miller's Grindstone, your opponent is in for a world of hurt!

Key signals that Victor is open are high defense block cards, especially Test of Strength. With so much damage being thrown around, defending for 4 and drawing a free card can make that wall just a little too tall for the opponent to climb. A good Victor deck values 3/4-defense cards highly, aiming to play only a small number of 2-defense cards to support Gold generation, such as Wage Gold. Performance Bonus is a nasty little surprise to throw at your opponent from arsenal after defending with your whole hand, threatening to draw a card to pitch for a follow-up hammer swing!

Over the course of the game, aim to keep your life total high and chip away with whatever attacks you can safely manage to throw out. It may seem like small work at first but it won't take long to put the opponent in a spot where each turn comes at a massive price. Often the opponent will be forced to take huge risks and you want to be there to punish them if things don't go their way. This is where cards like Thunk and Wallop truly shine, being both high power attacks to win clashes and offering bonus rewards for doing so. Victor doesn't have to play out huge turns like Betsy does, so you'll often find Might being more useful than Vigor. That being said, Vigor still has some decent uses such as shaving off the extra cost of a Wallop, fixing hands with no blues, or pitching your big red attacks to crack a Gold.

Classic Constructed

"Goldhim" is here, and the arena quakes with the sound of his privilege-plated footsteps! Many players will already be familiar with defensive Guardian strategies, and while Victor follows in the spiritual footsteps of these decks, he's a lot more interested in playing around with value in order to defeat his enemies. Sledge of Anvilheim finds an excellent home in any Victor deck, with so many different opportunities to cheat that extra resource and swing for 6 off a single card. Vigor tokens, Fyendal's Spring Tunic, and pitching a blue to crack a Gold to draw another blue are just some of the ways you can teach a lesson to those people who keep calling you a horse!

Test of Strength is obviously a mandatory card due to the raw value, but it pales in comparison to the terrifying Trounce! Winning a Trounce may seem a little risky, but your hero ability can easily grease the hinges. Some decks also like to play three Test of Vigor and nine copies of Clash of Vigor to defend heavily and maximise the one-card Sledge play. Unlike earlier fatigue-oriented decks, Victor actually gets punished the more defensive tools he crams into his deck, so the key is finding a small number of high impact defensive tools, and filling out the rest of your deck with high power attacks like Macho Grande, Thunder Quake, and Cranial Crush to ensure you win clashes reliably.

Why should I play Victor, he doesn't even have Crippling Crush! While Bravo might exhibit a high ceiling, Victor shines when it comes to raw efficiency. He packs his own stunning specialization - The Golden Son! Some of the most powerful cards in Flesh and Blood aren't the ones that do a single big flashy thing, it's the ones that can do many useful things in a variety of situations. The Golden Son is a prime example of a card you're happy to see in almost any situation, whether it's defending with Golden Glare, winning a clash, packing a Pummel, or closing out a game! Primed to Fight is a beautiful addition to any deck that makes Might and Vigor tokens, and of course, our old friend Spinal Crush returns to slow down the aggro arms race.

Although he's really really good at it, Victor doesn't just sit around all day defending and swinging a hammer. There are many other options to explore outside of the fatigue plan, especially when it comes to Gold manipulation. One saucy option is Money Where Ya Mouth Is and Give and Take. This nifty little combo presents 6 damage with go again, leaving a resource spare and threatening to draw a blue to pay for Sledge if it hits. If they defend with two actions then Give and Take triggers, allowing you to put both pieces of the combo back on top of your deck to use again next turn (provided you already have a Give and Take in your graveyard). At worst it'll chew through your opponents blocks, armour, and defense reactions, paving the way for your larger attacks.

Victor is that guy you love to hate. Nothing hurts more than losing to that smug grin, especially when it feels like the opponent just had everything - Gold, resources, equipment. "Goldhim" presents a new challenge for the metagame, but not one that is insurmountable. There's nothing more satisfying than winning a clash against Victor, watching him fail to bribe his way out of it, and then begrudgingly hand you the tokens he wanted to claim for himself. He's a lot of fun to play and play against, creating exciting scenarios where everything rides on the top of the deck and winner takes all...