Classic Constructed
The following hero and signature weapon have attained Living Legend status, and are no longer legal for official Classic Constructed tournament play from Friday July 7:
- Oldhim, Grandfather of Eternity
- Winter’s Wail
A roll of honor article celebrating all the players who contributed points towards Oldhim’s ascension to Living Legend will be published in the near future and embedded in the hero page of this legendary hero.
In addition to the Living Legend update, the following changes to Classic Constructed are effective from Friday July 7, 2023:
- Bull’s Eye Bracers is banned
- Pulse of Isenloft is unbanned
- Bloodsheath Skeleta moves from suspended until Viserai, Rune Blood becomes Living Legend to banned
Bull’s Eye Bracers
Outsiders came into the world of Flesh and Blood with some lofty goals. Chief among them was giving new life to perhaps the game’s most maligned class—Ranger. From the very first tournament post-Outsiders release, it was clear that this goal was soundly accomplished. Azalea announced to the Flesh and Blood world that her days as a meme were over, and her Cult was rejoicing in the streets. Here in New Zealand though, we found ourselves pleasantly surprised. Not because we thought Azalea was weak, but because it was always Lexi, Livewire that we expected to be the Ranger occupying Tier 1 of the new metagame.
Enter Pro Tour: Baltimore. Lexi came out of the gates strong at this event, going from an afterthought to the most-played deck seemingly overnight. Players had soundly cracked the code, and the Lexi era of Flesh and Blood was upon us. However, the lone top 8 Oldhim ultimately carried the day at the Pro Tour, a trend that continued across a bevy of events that followed; Oldhim players close tournaments. However, following the Pro Tour, Lexi’s representation soared on the Battle Hardened and Calling circuits, and at events across the Road to Nationals season. At the same time, Lexi wasn’t converting that massive representation to an outsized number of Top 8 finishes or tournament wins. Internal data showed strong win rates, but nothing out of the ordinary for a Tier 1 deck.
A rich meta developed. Uzuri and Dromai lists in particular worked hard to solidify their Lexi matchup, and as we expected, were able to find success in the hands of strong pilots. Oldhim and Lexi battled down the stretch routinely to claim titles, with Oldhim winning a high enough percentage of those battles to find himself ascended to Living Legend status.
That ascension is apt to have even greater impact on the long-term success of Lexi. Oldhim has gatekept the Classic Constructed format for a long time. There are a host of decks that, despite devoting ample deckbuilding consideration to Oldhim, could never really turn their matchup against the big guy to the positive side. Dorinthea, Azalea, Katsu, Uzuri… all of these heroes had to stomach tough Oldhim matchups. With Oldhim out of the way, not only can these decks occupy a greater metagame share, they can also refocus their deckbuilding efforts on challenging Lexi—a task that they were already doing a decent job of in the Oldhim era.
So, given all of this, why have we determined that Lexi is in need of a nerf? Put simply, we feel Lexi’s ceiling is slightly too high. While matchup percentages are not outside of acceptable ranges, the games where Lexi draws well, she feels like easily the most powerful hero in current Flesh and Blood, and her output contends with some all-timers.
Bull’s Eye Bracers is almost always a large contributor to Lexi’s most powerful turns. Whether it’s allowing an Endless Arrow to do some looping, or just assuring that a Bolt’n’ Shot is powered up, a turn with a Bull’s Eye Bracers activation is always a sure sign of trouble for a Lexi opponent. As what we refer to internally as a SIPSIP (Starts In Play, Stays In Play), Bull’s Eye Bracers gets to have a guaranteed impact on every single game Lexi plays. Much like when we made the decision to ban Stubby Hammerers, we simply feel that Bull’s Eye Bracers is adding too much consistent damage to Lexi’s kit.
Of course, Azaleas are quite happy to pick up Bull’s Eye Bracers as well, and we admit that she is catching a bit of splash damage here. However, replacement options for both heroes are entirely reasonable, and in both cases, we don’t think this change represents the type of nerf that hurts either hero’s chances at playability. Add the fact that Azalea just saw one of her worst matchups in Oldhim leave the metagame, and we are still expecting big things from both of these Rangers in the post-Bull’s Eye Bracers world. This is a precision ban designed to slightly lower Lexi’s peak damage output turns and therefore slightly lower her win-rate. There are many much more powerful cards in Lexi decks than Bull’s Eye Bracers, but the intention of this change is not to dethrone Lexi as a tier 1 deck or alter her core game plan. We like to see the Ranger class have its time in the sun, and we like seeing Ranger players enjoying playing with powerful and exciting cards, like Three of a Kind.
Note, that the decision between making this change and simply letting the metagame play out unadjusted was extremely close. Again, we have no desire to see Lexi lose her status as a Tier 1 deck, and the Azalea cult should not find themselves returning to those dark pre-Outsiders days. If the removal of Bull’s Eye Bracers alongside the introduction of the new cards of Dusk till Dawn were to have an unexpected impact on Ranger playability, there is a good chance we would revert this decision in a future Banned and Suspended announcement.
Pulse of Isenloft, Awakening, Bloodsheath Skeleta
With the ascension of Oldhim to Living Legend status, we are happy to return Pulse of Isenloft to the pool of legal cards, as it patiently awaits its next bearer. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Awakening. Awakening represents a mode of uncapped resource generation that we are simply no longer comfortable with in Flesh and Blood. Awakening generating 10 resources AND finding a Pulverize is not something our game system should be asked to bear. While we never say never, we do not expect to welcome Awakening back to the metagame anytime soon.
For much the same reason (and honestly, with great disappointment) we have to make the same decision in regard to Bloodsheath Skeleta. Bloodsheath Skeleta is a beloved card to many - including the dev team at LSS - who have made many exploratory efforts to try to safely return Bloodsheath Skeleta to the legal card pool. It suffers from the same flaw as Awakening though, in that there is no intrinsic limit on the number of resources this piece of equipment can produce. It not only enables degenerate turns, but stifles future design space to create Runeblade action cards that are balanced via their resource cost. It is for this reason that we don't believe we can safely return Skeleta back to the card pool even once Viserai ascends to Living Legend, and therefore are taking this opportunity alongside Awakening to be transparent about the future of this card.
Blitz
- No changes
Next Scheduled Banned and Suspended Announcement
The next scheduled banned and suspended announcement is September 19, 2023.