Images courtesy of Legend Story Studios
Sharpen your daggers and fade into the darkness in The Hunted, the latest Flesh and Blood expansion. Featuring cards from the Ninja, Warrior, and Assassin classes, the newest introductory product comes in the form of The Hunted Blitz Deck Collection.
The product features four decks, two booster packs, and a rubber playmat featuring the art of Pursue to the Edge of Oblivion. Newbies can enjoy the product as a standalone board game, or upgrade the deck into powerhouses. With four decks, beginners can even split the decks amongst friends!
The Hunted Blitz Deck Collection
Priced at 69.90USD MSRP, each deck in the collection contains a foil copy of the new featured heroes, plus non-foil extended art versions of the deck’s centerpiece card.
As a recap, the expansion features several new keywords, the most important being Marked. This is a state on heroes which goes away when they are hit by another hero. The Marked status itself doesn’t do anything, but interacts with cards in The Hunted. In the same vein, the recurring Stealth keyword doesn’t do anything on its own, but interacts with other cards.
Meanwhile, the term Flicking has finally entered the official lexicon of the game. Named after Flick Knives, Flicking is an effect with the following syntax: “Target dagger you control deals 1 damage to target hero. If damage is dealt this way, the dagger has hit. Destroy the dagger.”
Today, we’ll focus on the two Assassin hero decks, featuring the contract killer Arakni, and the mastermind Arakni, Web of Deceit, the puppeteer behind an underground network of masked killers.
Arakni
Long considered to be one of the weaker Assassins, this young version of Arakni is a cold-blooded killer who focuses on completing their contracts to create Silver tokens. Thus, the deck is dead set on banishing the opponent’s cards and denying their key pieces.
First, we have to talk about The Hand that Pulls the Strings, the product-exclusive Arakni Mentor. A card that works exclusively from the arsenal, The Hand that Pulls the Strings lets us give our first contract attack go again and a conditional boost. Down the line, it can also defend for four points of damage, when we’re threatened by a huge attack. However, we need Silver to sacrifice each turn to keep our Mentor on the board.
We obtain said Silver by accomplishing contracts. Contracts are accomplished by banishing specific cards outlined on the contract attack.
For instance, Annihilate the Armed, Fleece the Frail, Plunder the Poor and Sack the Shifty are all decent answers to aggressive decks as these can stop aggressively-tuned attacks.
Meanwhile, Slay the Scholars and Nix the Nimble are answers to the more tricky part of the opponent’s deck, reaction and non-attack action cards.
These offensive attacks make up the bulk of Arakni‘s deck, and they synergize neatly, as we can filter through Arakni’s own ability to make sure we’re increasing the odds of hitting the card we need to banish.
We achieve further filtering through Cut to the Chase, Arakni‘s special extended art card, as it provides a buff while filtering.
Incision, the classic Razor Reflex, and Up Sticks and Run are also great options to push for damage, while the last card also synergizes well with Danger Digits, a budget replacement for Flick Knives.
Shred is just a format all-star, as it can reduce the block value of defending cards without juicing up our own damage.
Mask of Perdition is a fantastic addition to the Blitz deck at majestic rarity, giving us a little bit more utility and another way to use our Silver tokens.
Spider’s Bite is an annoying dagger with which most Arakni players will usually lead their turns. By letting the single point of damage through (and it pierces through equipment, too!), each of our attacks become more threatening. Remember, the Spider’s Bite debuff applies per attack action card, not to the total block value. Starting Point can be a substitute for Snapdragon Scalers, and Leap Frog Slime Skin is just a flexible defensive chest piece.
Overall, not much has changed for Arakni – the game is still about contracts and whittling down the opponents’ options. But this box is the only way to grab a copy of The Hand that Pulls the Strings, so that might be enough of a draw for our devoted Arakni mains.
Arakni, Web of Deceit
The puppeteer behind all the other assassins in the underground network of killers, the Web of Deceit is classified as a Chaos hero, which enables us to transform into a random Agent of Chaos – six new powerful demi-hero identities, all with game-changing abilities which alter our game plan each turn. As such, we want to weave our transformations back and forth, while maximizing the amount of Marked triggers we can get.
Marked is the main mechanic that Web of Deceit wants to exploit. Thus, the deck runs several ways to mark the opposing hero.
Reaper's Call, the Web of Deceit’s signature extended art card, plus Tip-Off, allows us to mark the opposing hero at instant speed, creating huge potential for bluffing plays. Scar Tissue and Two Sides to the Blade are both attack reactions which also let us mark the target on hit.
Lair of the Spider and Den of the Spider are also both defensive ways to unexpectedly mark the opponent on their turn, opening them for an alpha strike once they pass.
Mark of the Huntsman, the Web of Deceit‘s signature weapon, can also be destroyed on hit to mark the opposing hero.
Stealth is one way for us to take advantage of the opponents’ Marked status. As long as we’re attacking the opposing Marked hero, our stealth cards get a tiny power boost and a go again on hit effect.
Back Stab and Bite are both common stealth options in the format, while Mark of the Funnel Web and Mark of the Black Widow are both more control-oriented ways to pare down the opponent’s hand or arsenal – the latter’s blue version even threatens a defense react block from arsenal, otherwise they take the single damage and lose their stashed card. We have Command and Conquer at home, you say?
We can bolster our stealth attacks through effects such as Razor's Edge, Stains of the Redback, and Up Sticks and Run.
Graphene Chelicera is another weapon included in the box. Though it’s not the intended starting weapon for the Web of Deceit, we can equip it later on through Orb-Weaver Spinneret and can become deadlier with Take a Stab.
Once again, Danger Digits and Starting Point are servicable pieces of equipment and should suffice for newer players.
But let’s get to the juicy part: the Agents of Chaos.
When an opponent is marked at the end phase, the Web of Deceit player rolls a six-sided die and transforms into a random Agent of Chaos. In essence, this is part of the Chaos faction identity – unpredictable effects for all players involved in the game. However, each of these demi-heroes all have powerful abilities.
Arakni, Black Widow, Arakni, Funnel Web, and Arakni, Redback all have similar abilities: discard a card to buff an Assassin attack by three power. Their stealth effects are more conditional, with two of them banishing cards, while the last one gives go again.
On the other hand, Arakni, Orb-Weaver and Arakni, Tarantula are more focused on our weapons. The former makes Graphene Chelicera free to activate at base cost and can pump it by the same three power (as it comes with stealth). Arakni, Tarantula simply increases a dagger attack by three power, but also comes stapled with a life loss effect for each dagger hit. The difference from the other three Agents of Chaos already discussed is that we can utilize dagger-buffing effects such as Take a Stab to attack multiple times with the daggers.
As the Agent of Chaos rolls are random, we can see five of them basically give at least a three power pump the following turn — the redundancy is key here.
Finally, Arakni, Trap-Door is the defensive Agent of Chaos, as we can thin our deck off of one card, but we may play it if it’s a trap. While our options are limited in this box, there are a plethora of traps available in the entire card pool, which makes deckbuilding for the Web of Deceit all the more exciting.
To summarize, Arakni, Web of Deceit is a unique hero which can provide a lot of highs and lows for those who like to live on the edge. The redundant – yet still distinct – effects of the Agents of Chaos bring some sort of agency in an otherwise unpredictable deck.
The Card Gamer Verdict
The Hunted Blitz Deck Collection is ideal for new players to jump into the game without sourcing singles from a community and market they’re not familiar yet. For more experienced players, the main draws here at the Arakni Mentor card and the gorgeous playmat, so there are definitely reasons to pick up the box for both sides of the player base.
Not convinced? Then check out our review of the other two decks in the collection, Fang and Cindra, right here. Or check out our thoughts on the best Warrior, Assassin, and Ninja cards from The Hunted.
