Classic Constructed
The following changes to Classic Constructed are effective from Monday, November 11, 2024:
- High Octane is banned.
- Count Your Blessings (Blue) is banned.
High Octane
A few months back when we published the updated Design and Development Principals, we put much focus on guiding the game away from cards that create extreme offensive overlaps. The most common way extreme offensive overlaps occur in Flesh and Blood is via cards that replace themselves, typically by drawing more cards.
In isolation, High Octane does not create offensive overlaps.
A truism about the Flesh and Blood game system is a permanent that can attack is worth some percentage of a card when evaluating value per card on a turn cycle basis. There are deeper layers of consideration, such as playing a card expends it from your deck while activating a weapon typically preserves your card count, but if we look at some simple comparisons, a weapon attack often provides a value proposition near equivalent to a card worth of value.
If a weapon attack can be roughly equivalent to the value of a card, it's fair to say that being able to attack with that weapon multiple times in a turn can offer value similar to drawing multiple cards.
Weapons without the “Once per Turn” limiter have been a central part of the Mechanologist class identity since its inception in Arcane Rising. It doesn’t feature on every Mechanologist weapon, but it is something we like and want to retain as “a thing Mechs do.”
In keeping with our intention to curb extreme offensive overlaps, we are removing High Octane from Classic Constructed, as was signaled during the Dev Talk Podcast at the start of October.
We did not ban High Octane as part of the sweeping changes in September’s “Rewriting the Book” announcement because at that time we wanted to focus on the core issue driving extreme offensive overlaps; cards that draw more cards. Additionally, we wanted High Octane to be legal for the World Championship, as an exciting part of the super-charged Dash I/O deck we saw Sam Sutherland and Allen Lau both take to Top 4 finishes. It’s important to note that we view explosive, powerful combos as an exciting part of Flesh and Blood, particularly at premier events where top players can both discover and adapt to such strategies. However, it’s reasonable to suspect that these decks will be subject to a greater degree of balance scrutiny after a breakout performance.
Count Your Blessings - What is a control deck?
My definition of a control deck, in the broad context of Trading Card Games, is a deck whose strategic premise is to neutralize the threats of the opponent. Once it has established impenetrable control over the opponent’s threats, the actual winning of the game becomes a formality. An additional pre-requisite, in my view, is a control deck is built and piloted to play towards a long game.
In the context of Flesh and Blood, neutralizing the opponent’s threats typically takes the form of diminishing the threat density of the opponent’s deck to the point where they are incapable of presenting enough damage to reduce your life total to 0. How you win the game after that point is simply a formality.
Count Your Blessings Enigma is what a control deck looks like in Flesh and Blood. Its strategic objective is to neutralize the opponent’s threats. Once it has achieved its strategic objective, reducing the opponent to 0 is a formality, typically achieved via assembling an “army” of Spectral Shield tokens.
There are deeper layers to this kind of deck however, such as how it must pivot its game plan when facing a control mirror, or a combo deck that can assemble a game-ending combo in the absence of pressure and/or disruption that typically stymie such decks.
From a design point of view, Count Your Blessings is an excellent example of what a control deck should look like in Flesh and Blood. It seeks to neutralize the opponent’s threats and rewards achieving a long game by how it scales over time. It also comes with some downside of loading your deck up with cards that don’t defend, increasing the vulnerability to hit triggers. There are trade-offs.
Fundamentally I don’t think Count Your Blessings is a problem. The problem is the lack of agency that currently exists to engage with control decks when they are this good.
By that, I mean the current card pool is either too limited and/or the go-to options are too easily counter-played by a Count Your Blessings player. For example, Poison the Well on the surface is a devastating card versus Count Your Blessings… except it's often quite easy to counter-play with cards like Oasis Respite, Homage to Ancestors, Life, and to a lesser degree, Sigil of Solace—especially in an open decklist scenario, such as the Top 8 of premier events.
Something I have been pushing for with 2024 design and development is getting more cards into print that interact directly with specific card types, zones, and game states. In short, to give players more agency at the card selection level to respond to what’s going on with different metagames. Because there is typically about 9-15 months between design and printed cards reaching you, you’ll see the first instances of this design intent in The Hunted, with more following in sets throughout 2025. One such example from The Hunted that has already been previewed is Jagged Edge.
Jagged Edge
Saying all that, until the card pool offers players more options to engage with Count Your Blessings control, we are lowering the ceiling on the archetype by removing Count Your Blessings (Blue) from Classic Constructed. There is a good chance we will return this card to Classic Constructed in the future, so hold onto the extended art Count Your Blessings promos coming in the December Armory Kits, and remember Count Your Blessings is legal, and very relevant, in the Living Legend format.
Blitz
The following changes to Blitz are effective from Monday, November 11, 2024:
- Zen is no longer Living Legend status.
- Belittle is banned.
- Hadron Collider is banned.
Zen
As announced during the Keynote in Osaka, the threshold to attain Living Legend in Blitz is being aligned with Classic Constructed at 1000pts (until now it was 500pts for Blitz). All heroes on the Blitz leaderboard will have their current points doubled, with the exception of Zen, which returns him to official Blitz tournament play. You can see the detailed explanation in the Keynote video.
Belittle
With Zen returning to the format, Belittle is moving to the banned list for the time being. We will review the results of Skirmish Season 10 and consider the possibility of Belittle rejoining the format on the next Banned and Restricted announcement. However, at this time, we want to cautiously welcome Zen back to the arena.
Hadron Collider
This one may come as a surprise. To date, Hadron Collider has been a modest draft playable at best.
With the release of Armory Deck: Dash, Data Doll received two new SIPSIP (Start in Play, Stay in Play) equipment that super-charge her ability to churn the top of her deck into offensive output. We love to see Data Doll finally at the point of being tournament viable, but we need that viability to not come in the form of degeneracy. Hadron Collider provides Data Doll with a density of damage dealing items that enables a consistency and frequency of games ending within 3 turns that is beyond what we think is healthy for the low life total Blitz format.
We will be monitoring Data Doll closely during Skirmish Season 10 to understand if this ban achieves the power level we are aiming for.
Living Legend
The following changes to Living Legend are effective from Monday, November 11, 2024:
- Open the Floodgates is restricted.
- Star Struck is unrestricted.
Open the Floodgates
Full powered Kano decks running the maximum 9 copies of Open the Floodgates in addition to the traditional suite of "draw 2" cards that don’t exist in Classic Constructed, are rising to the top of the format as seen by Peter Buddensiek’s winning decklist at the Battle Hardened run alongside World Championship: Osaka. While Living Legend is the place to do the most powerful things in the game, Kano with this much draw power is ending games too quickly, too consistently. Therefore, Open the Floodgates is restricted to a single copy per deck.
Prior to the printing of Open the Floodgates, Kano was a top contender in the Living Legend format, as seen by Alexander Vore winning the Battle Hardened that ran alongside Pro Tour: Amsterdam in July. As such, we expect Kano to continue being a top deck in the format following this restriction.
Star Struck
As the format has evolved over the year since its inception, it’s come a long way from the days of Starvo domination. We now feel comfortable giving Bravo back full access to Star Struck.
Commoner
The following changes to Commoner are effective from Monday, November 11, 2024:
- Aether Ironweave is banned.
Chane has posted a dominant run across Commoner Gold Foil events over the past few seasons. Aether Ironweave is a significant enabler of Chane’s offensive overlaps, offering the most value from the chest slot in the Commoner format, an advantage Chane doesn’t need to remain at the top of the field. Therefore, Aether Ironweave is banned in Commoner to close the gap between Chane and the rest of the field.
Next Scheduled Banned and Restricted Announcement
The next Banned and Restricted Announcement will be on Monday, December 16, 2024.