With the release of Everfest, we are also releasing our updates to the Comprehensive Rules 1.5, Tournament Rules and Policy, and Penalty Guidelines. We are also happy to announce that the Comprehensive Rules 2.0 is now available to preview, and will be enacted on the 14th of March 2022.
Rules and Policy
With the great success of many professional events being run over the last year, we've been reviewing our Tournament Rules and Policies (and Penalty Guidelines) and collecting feedback from our community of players and judges to look at what we can improve with our policies. To prepare for the upcoming ProQuest season, we have now published these changes to the Tournament Rules and Policy (TRP) and Policy Guidelines (PG) which are effective immediate. Among many of the changes, the three most important for players and judges to be aware of are as follows:
Players can now concede games before time is called without being Disqualified.
The concession rules for Flesh and Blood has been a topic of much debate with the rise of in-person organized play across the world. The primary issue addressed by the concession rules, is to protect players from being pressured to concede by those aiming for prizes or placement, in addition to those trying to avoid a draw after time is called. The latter of which can sometimes be where players are focused more on discussing the outcome of the game, than playing the game to completion and moving onto the next round (a.k.a. the "concession period" of a game).
These concession rules prevent players from conceding without a good reason, often unrelated to the game. However, with the rise in popularity of slower control and OTK decks, players may find themselves in a position where they feel the can not win the game, but are still many turns away from the game coming to a conclusion which creates a feel-bad experience.
As such, we are now officially allowing players to concede at any point during the game (before time is called) for any reason. We hope that this will improve many player's game-play experience overall. With this change, it is important to note the following still applies:
- A Judge must still be called oversee the concession, to ensure the player has not been pressured to concede.
- A Player can still not ask for a concession after decks have been presented.
- A Player can still not concede (without being DQ'd) after time is called without a genuine reason of why they need to stop playing the match to completion.
Major Intellect Penalties have been reduced from IP5 to IP4.
The Intellect Penalty (IP) system was devised as a measure to penalize players for infractions without giving a game loss. This is especially important as the game of Flesh and Blood is typically conducted as a best-of-1 format, and the IP system is equally harsh to all heroes without being completely insurmountable. However, after looking at the data at professional events over the last year, we recognize that the IP5 is antithetical to this idea and is essentially equivalent to a game loss.
To address this issue we have reduced the major Intellect Penalty from 5 turns to 4 turns, and will be closely monitoring both the minor and major Intellect Penalties in the coming OP seasons if they need further adjustment.
Recommended draft timing for professional events has been reduced.
With the previous draft timing recommendations, called drafts at professional level tournaments could take anywhere between 30-40 minutes. From what we've observed, the vast majority of players do not use the the entirety of the time allotted for each pick, especially in events with a large number of draft pods. Based on feedback from these players, it is both mentally taxing and un-engaging to have to wait unnecessarily between each pick. The primary goal behind the recommended draft timings is to have an unbiased and organized method for ensuring that a draft proceeds at a comfortable pace which is fair to all players, and to more accurately ensure that drafting rules are being enforced. By altering these timings we are looking to improve the player's called draft experience to ensure it more accurately aligns with a comfortable pace.
Under the new change we have reduced the estimated overall draft timing by approximately 5 minutes. We will be keeping a close eye on how the player's experience changes with the new draft timings and will look into further possible reductions if necessary.
| Remaining cards | Previous Draft Timing (seconds) | New Draft Timing (seconds) |
|---|---|---|
| 15 | 60 | 50 |
| 14 | 60 | 50 |
| 13 | 60 | 50 |
| 12 | 55 | 50 |
| 11 | 50 | 40 |
| 10 | 45 | 40 |
| 9 | 40 | 30 |
| 8 | 35 | 30 |
| 7 | 30 | 20 |
| 6 | 25 | 20 |
| 5 | 20 | 10 |
| 4 | 10 | 10 |
| 3 | 5 | 5 |
| 2 | 5 | 5 |
| 1 | - | - |
Comprehensive Rules 2.0 Preview (enacted on the 14th of March)
After many months of development, the Comprehensive Rules 2.0 is ready for the public eye. This version of the Comprehensive Rules addresses many concerns of ambiguity and inconsistency with the release of the last few sets, and establishes the framework and syntax for future sets to come.
For judges and players alike to adjust themselves to the changes, only a preview of the Comprehensive Rules has been release on the Rules & Policy Center. The new Comprehensive rules will be finalized and enacted on the March 14. The preview is subject to minor changes such as corrections to spelling/grammar, logical corrections, small rewrites, and the addition of a glossary and other back matter material. However, the preview should serve as a first look into how the new rule framework operates for the game of Flesh and Blood and we encourage you to start familiarizing yourselves before it becomes finalized on March 14.
Over the course of the next four and a half weeks, we will be publishing articles on changes to existing cards and interactions (inline with the CR2.0), with follow-up articles that explain the mechanics of the CR2.0 in-depth. We will also be looking at revamping other rules resources to accompany the eventual CR2.0 deployment, such as the release notes for the previous sets, and learn-to-play rules.