Classic Constructed
The following changes to Classic Constructed are effective from Monday, July 8, 2024:
- Bonds of Ancestry (Yellow) and Bonds of Ancestry (Blue) are banned.
As is always the case when a hero exists squarely on the border of very good and too good, the topic of Zen bans has been hotly debated in the halls of Legend Story Studios for weeks now. Over the course of planning, we identified no fewer than five viable paths forward, including taking no action whatsoever, all of which had their own unique ups and downs baked into their prospective outcomes. Explaining why we finally settled on the decision to ban Yellow and Blue Bonds of Ancestry will require me to lay out some significant context, so come along for the ride.
Zen was the final hero in Part the Mistveil to reach a finished state. This was not borne of a lack of focus or effort—Zen simply kept breaking. He was breaking not in a back-to-back explosive turns type way, but in an “attack for 400” type fashion. The focus on Crouching Tigers and Zen’s intended identity as an aggro-combo deck left balancing Zen a monumental task.
While a hero that explosive is troubling, we also often found that nerfing even a singular element of his kit could turn him into an unplayable wreck that folded at the barest hint of disruption. Frankly, this makes sense. Threading the needle on the development of a glass cannon aggro-combo deck is a massively challenging task. In the end, I’m extremely proud of how our team delivered on Crouching Tiger Zen—a powerful deck that has both appropriate vulnerability to disruption and very occasional capacity to play through it. This vision for Zen was embodied beautifully in the deck Jake “The Baker” Warburton used to win his ProQuest+ at the UK Games Expo.
But of course, there is Bonds of Ancestry. I’ve been asked several times if our team explored Bonds in Zen lists, and the answer is absolutely yes, but this is a clear example of a time where the real world just did it better than we did. With so much focus placed on getting Crouching Tiger Zen into an acceptable place, our Bonds lists were not refined enough to showcase the true ceiling of the archetype.
Furthermore, Zens in our internal environment were born into a very different metagame than those in the real world. Unlike Zen, our Nuu lists had reached a point of refinement, were thought to be among the best decks in the new metagame, and were more than ready to prey on a deck that was looking very susceptible to disruption. Indeed, folks like Pankaj Bhojwani, Andreas Ventzel, and Juha Saarnilampi have shown that our belief in the power of Nuu was not misplaced. Because Nuu was a ready-made predator for Zen heavily represented in our metagame, our Zen lists played things a bit safer than those in the real world, and tried to find resiliency in the face of massive amounts of disruption. This again led to us underestimating Zen’s ceiling.
These factors combined to unleash a deck on the real world that falls ever so slightly outside of our acceptable power ranges. Yes, the deck is targetable, vulnerable to disruption, and ultimately beatable… but despite all of this, occasionally Zen just blows you up and leaves you feeling like there was nothing you could have done. We are sympathetic to the idea that sometimes playing against Zen just doesn’t feel like you are playing a typical match of Flesh and Blood.
Make no mistake--it’s a good thing for there to be novel and atypical play experiences in a Flesh and Blood metagame. Not to invoke further controversy, but we view Kano as a deck that typically does a nice job of offering this type of metagame curveball. In this case, however, the curveball has become the pillar the metagame is built upon.
We do not regret that Zen has had this memorable run, and there have been great games of Flesh and Blood played by many different heroes this Nationals season. It’s time for a slight reset though.
As mentioned, there were multiple avenues available to us to tame Zen’s power. Options like Stride of Reprisal could offer us a light nerf akin to when Bull’s Eye Bracers was banned in Lexi. Removing Ancestral Harmony could tone down the variance and take away both a key blue card and an anthem. But seriously, is there anyone who watches Zen do its thing and doesn’t view Bonds of Ancestry as the clear source of degeneracy?
Beyond concerns about power, decks that go hard on Descendent Gustwave and Bonds of Ancestry tend to play out turns in very similar fashion over and over. They are constantly reaching into the deck to search. Their turns almost by design copy the blueprints that previous turns laid out. While such analysis is nebulous and subjective, it seems clear to me that the thing that was causing games to stray from the beautiful bedrock of typical Flesh and Blood was most often Bonds of Ancestry.
However, Bonds of Ancestry was created for a very specific task. Bonds of Ancestry was designed to break Katsu from the shackles of extremely predictable combat math that could always be simply defended against by players who knew the matchup well. I’d say Bonds performed admirably in this role since its release in Outsiders. Katsu became a true threat at any tournament, but he did so in a way that felt like an extension of his original play style and in no way problematic. We did not want to bring Katsu back to the dark pre-Outsiders days.
For this reason, we have taken the unprecedented step of banning Bonds of Ancestry in only its blue and yellow forms. This is not a banning style we intend to employ often. Laying out the circumstances of this ban in great detail hopefully makes clear why we felt this approach was the perfect fit this go around. It is unlikely things line up in a similar fashion in the future, but we remain committed to exploring all of the potential balancing tools in our toolbox. If it does so happen that a color ban, or any other unorthodox approach, is ever the best thing for the health of our game, we are always open to such a move, however unlikely such a possibility seems right now.
When we decide to ban cards, we do not do so lightly, and we typically do not do so with the goal of removing a targeted hero from a metagame entirely. We will be happy to see Zen continue to play the Descendant/Bonds combo line with far fewer double and triple Bonds turns, and a greater reliance on Tiger-based payoffs while still crushing top tables around the globe. We expect that Katsu can still find ways to bring Dishonor upon all of his opponents--perhaps with some coming help from the Rosetta expansion slot. And above all, we believe that this change makes games of Flesh and Blood more fun for everyone attending Classic Constructed tournaments in the coming weeks as we get ready for what’s sure to be a memorable Pro Tour Amsterdam.
Living Legend
The following changes to Living Legend are effective from Monday, July 8, 2024:
- Channel Lake Frigid is unrestricted.
Given its formative state, it is admittedly challenging to reach sound conclusions about the Living Legend format. Restriction calls right now are being made based on instinct, the small sample sizes our internal development team is able to explore, and a smattering of tournament results. The un-restriction of Channel Lake Frigid is based on three assumptions we are currently working under.
- Restrictions targeting Bravo, Star of the Show have done the trick, and the hero is now a viable option, but not a dominant one.
- The restriction of both Hypothermia and Channel Lake Frigid have swung the pendulum slightly too far in the direction of aggression and linearity, and the addition of Zen and Savage Sash/Berserk Kayo to the viable hero pool would further amplify this shift.
- Iyslander is a hero we actively want to be part of the Living Legend metagame, and splash damage to her card pool was a significant downside of Channel Lake Frigid’s restriction.
It is possible that some or all of these assumptions are flawed, and we revisit this un-restriction at a future date. The Living Legend format is still very much in flux at this moment in time, and it is only beginning to assert itself as a significant part of our Organised Play lineup. There is a lot to be excited about in the near future for fans of Living Legend, and we are looking forward to using the larger data sets from Skirmish Season 9 to continue to tune up the format for its future role in all manners of Flesh and Blood competition.
Blitz
The following changes to Blitz are effective from Monday, July 8, 2024:
- As previously announced, Crown of Seeds is banned.
- Aether Wildfire is banned.
- Aether Flare is banned.
For context on Crown of Seeds banning, please see the previous Scheduled Banned and Restricted Announcement.
Wizards of Blitz, you are on the cusp of exciting times. With the release of Rosetta, the Wizard class is due to see an unprecedented influx of cards and power. However, there is some clean up to be done first. Aether Wildfire and Aether Flare simply do not scale well within Blitz. The damage amplification they provide is twice as effective into reduced life totals, and the pairing of these two cards, or even worse, these cards played in multiples, creates nightmarish output for a sub-20 health hero to deal with. At this time, it seems the vast majority of non-games left in the format are produced by these two cards.
In a vacuum, damage amplification is fine. After all, the Amp mechanic is a pillar of Rosetta. Aether Wildfire and Aether Flare just make the quest a bit too easy.
With the release of Blaze, Firemind, we wanted to give players a brief window to experience the maximum power fantasy of that hero in a reasonably low stakes environment. Skirmish Season 9 is around the corner though, and with Rosetta following soon after, it is time to move on from the era of the Aether twins.
And to those Wizards among you who are concerned that this means an endless wait until you can do massive bursts of arcane damage again, I’d guess you’re in for a pretty big… shock come Rosetta...
Next Scheduled Banned and Restricted Announcement
The next Banned and Restricted Announcement will be on Tuesday, October 1, 2024.