Images courtesy of Legend Story Studios
We’re underway on Flesh and Blood‘s eleventh Skirmish season, and players everywhere are rumbling in the game’s highest powered formats: Living Legend and Blitz. While heroes of all kinds are exploding each other with wild abandon, I’m here to help you keep up to date with what’s going on underneath all the carnage.
Skirmish Early Impressions
If you’ve played Flesh and Blood for long enough, you’ll remember the era where Runeblade was the top of the food chain in pretty much any capacity you could engage with constructed play. Whether or not that’s something you love, it seems that after a long dormancy, we’re there again! Chane, Bound by Shadow leads the pack on Living Legend Skirmish wins, and Aurora leads Blitz Skirmish wins. Neither are winning by massive margins compared to other heroes, but it’s definitely time to respect the class once more.
Every one of Flesh and Blood‘s formats is more wide-open than ever before, and it truly is anyone’s game. If you love something, master it and use your experience as your edge in a game where you truly can find yourself across from any hero. Even heroes like Terra with very little direct support are defensible options in Blitz.
High Seas Hype and Upcoming Events
Okay, I buried the lede a bit here. They finally did it! It’s Necromancer time! And Pirate time! It’s like every Flesh and Blood fan’s birthday all at once. There’s going to be something for almost everyone with a new class, new talent, and the first full size Ranger support in almost three years!
We’re seeing the return of Macros for limited play, gold packs with high-rarity treats for collectors, and a series of one-of-one promo prints in the gold packs! This set releasing basically the same weekend of Flesh and Blood‘s US Nationals is a perfect storm of excitement. If you’re going to be there, the room will be positively electric, and you can come and say hi to me! If you can’t be there in person, don’t worry; there’s going to be plenty of excitement to go round. Just use the Event Locator on the mothership, and play the High Seas Trailer four times a day.
For now, there are plenty of things to be doing between now and then. Soon after this article releases, Battle Hardened: Milwaukee will bring an exciting new format in Team Classic Constructed. Teams have to lock in three different heroes and win at least two of the three simultaneous matches to pick up a full match win.
Armory Deck: Aurora
Armory Deck: Aurora is now legal for Classic Constructed play, and wowie what an impact its had. As of the time of this article’s writing, Aurora, Shooting Star is making up a whopping 11 of the top 32 decks going into day two. This doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s that much better than everything else going on, though.
Aurora is an Elemental Runeblade, two longstanding card groups in Flesh and Blood that haven’t had updates to their card pool for multiple years prior. Furthermore, the overall cost of the deck is quite low, meaning the path to upgrading her from her Armory Deck state to a full power Calling-level deck is a fair bit less expensive than other classes.
It’s created a perfect storm of circumstances that drive her popularity into a new format, and that’s good; it’s worth celebrating that you can point a new player to a shelf at your LGS and say “That.” when they ask what deck among the cheaper options is good. Now, let’s just hope that her density doesn’t zap her to Living Legend, so you can point at that shelf for a good long while.
You can also send them a link to our article reviewing the deck, as well as an upgrade guide for it!
Printed Language Changes
Based on a report from Legend Story Studios, Japanese language print cards have been successful in terms of player reception (I’ll take some personal credit for that, but my family is starving). Other languages, however, have been less successful. As a result, they are reducing their produced languages, removing German, Italian, and Spanish from their print runs. They also assure that player uptake in those regions is plenty strong, though! They just prefer English cards.
That will catch you up for things happening this month! We’re coming out of winter, and with spring comes new growth. Take advantage of that better travel weather, and get to your LGS; I bet you’ll find some fresh faces there. Then let them know about this newsletter so they can stay up to date as they become more enfranchised. I’ll see you back here next month!
Want more Flesh and Blood? Check out our other articles, such as this Guide to Sideboarding, an Arakni, Marionette deck tech, or Young Cindra on a Budget in Blitz.
