Getting directly to the point, today’s article brings three major changes to the Blitz format which will be in effect as of Wednesday, August 16th, 2023. We’ll talk about each one in depth, but here is the basic rundown:
- Players will submit a decklist that includes 1 young hero and up to 52 cards. These 52 slots can contain a mix of cards that go in your main deck (deck cards), or cards you can equip/that exist in your inventory (arena cards).
- At the start of the game, players reveal their heroes simultaneously, decide who is going first, then each player presents to their opponent a shuffled main deck of exactly 40 cards, plus any weapons and equipment they want to start the game with. Any non-presented cards reside in player inventories.
- Drone of Brutality is banned.
Expanded inventories are here to stay
The crux of the Skirmish Season 7 Blitz experiment was that the 52 cards in your decklist could now be any combination of deck cards and arena cards, so long as you could present a 40-card minimum deck when it was time to sit down and play. From the moment of announcement, community response to expanded inventories has been overwhelmingly positive. Almost every poll we ran on the topic, both formal and informal, showed a huge preference for Skirmish Season 7 Blitz rules over the old way of doing things. We’re inclined to agree.
One of the biggest points of friction around immediate implementation of these new rules was a concern that certain archetypes would benefit disproportionally, while some archetypes (ok, mostly Kano) would find themselves unable to compete when facing a greater prevalence of targeted hate. Reviewing the results of Skirmish Season 7, we are happy to report these concerns were unfounded.
As of the time of writing, a staggering thirteen different heroes have picked up double-digit Living Legend points during the current season, no easy task with Skirmish events only doling out 1 point per win these days. Leading the charge were four heroes that all arguably occupy different points on the gameplay spectrum, with Kano carrying the torch for combo, Chane handling aggression, Ira firmly in control, and Kassai blurring the lines between all three of these core playstyles. Close behind were Dash and Bravo, again representing two very different modes of playing Flesh and Blood.
A wide open metagame in which almost any hero can succeed was exactly what we hoped to see under the rule changes, and players absolutely delivered. We can’t wait to see how things continue to evolve with rule changes permanently implemented, and players all-in on deckbuilding for the new terms of engagement.
The classic 40-card limit
Marking a deviation from the rules of Skirmish Season 7, we will be returning to a fixed deck size of 40 cards for games of Blitz. While uncapped deck sizes did not lead to an outsized amount of success for fatigue strategies, the current terms of engagement for the format mostly dictate that pure control strategies must devote a large portion of their inventory slots to Arcane Barrier equipment. If that were to change in future metagames, there is some potential for defensive strategies to benefit from larger deck sizes.
We initially avoided putting a cap on deck size for two reasons. First, we wanted to give players room to use variable deck sizing as part of their strategic arsenal. While this arguably worked, the impact was fairly small, and contributed little towards overall format enjoyment. The second reason was simplification of pre-game procedure, and reducing opportunities for an inexperienced player to make an honest mistake that would run them afoul of the rules. In retrospect, we were probably a bit overcautious here. Game administration proved to be reasonably simple, and the community picked up the new rules with no troubles at all.
In my own Skirmish games, I tapped into a bit of etiquette I remembered from my days traveling the world and playing against some old-school Japanese pros in other TCG's - after choosing the cards going in my presented deck, I would then fan out face-down the cards I was choosing to leave in my inventory. This allowed my opponent to know exactly how many cards I was presenting and alleviate any uncertainty. I intend to carry this approach forward in future Blitz games, and fan out the 6 or 7 cards (depending on number of presented equipment) that won’t be making it into my deck so my opponent knows I’ve presented exactly 40. It’s a great fit with the honest and well-mannered play that Flesh and Blood strives for in all events.
Drone of Brutality is no longer necessary
To understand why Drone of Brutality is returning to the banned list, we need to understand why it was allowed back in the format in the first place. We said the following back in May when we announced Drone’s unbanning:
"We're sure many players will be celebrating the departure of Iyslander and Oldhim from Blitz, with both of these heroes attaining Living Legend status with this announcement. However, Iyslander and Oldhim were the premier decks for slowing down the Blitz format, and we believe that in their absence there is a good chance the format speeds up considerably.
Returning Drone to the format is a nod to what hopefully becomes a new iteration of mid-range and control decks, by incentivizing long game strategies that leverage the Drone inevitability package.
We will be keeping a close eye on the impact of Drone of Brutality, and preface this unbanning with a cautionary message that Drone has the potential to return to the ban list again in the future. Until then, we look forward to seeing an old favorite being played again.... and again.... and again.... and...."
Drone very much achieved what it set out to do, and granted strength to heroes like Ira, Yoji, and Riptide that seemed destined to struggle in a fast paced, mostly Ice-less metagame. It even did so in a reasonably balanced way. While heroes playing Drone found success, they did not comprise an oversized portion of the metagame. However, the gameplay experience created by Drone still carried its share of problems. The repetitive end games, the prisoner’s dilemma type scenario it presents for control decks that may not want to play Drone... Drone just isn’t a card that highlights the best of Flesh and Blood. Even if Drone is an effective tool for slowing down a format, that doesn’t mean it is the best or only way to achieve such a goal.
Expanded inventories, on the other hand, create a level of agency and control in deckbuilding that embodies exactly the type of freedom and flexibility we want our players to have. While deckbuilding slots in Blitz remain extremely limited, there is just enough space for some prime defensive options to find their way into decks and bring the format to a more acceptable pace. Alternatively, decks that want to play fast have the ability to bring their own counters to the table and look to punish heroes trying to turtle up. Skirmish results point to the fact that all points along the aggro/control spectrum can operate under these new rules, as a tremendous percentage of the available hero pool were able to procure Living Legend points over the course of the season.
The balance between the metagame poles of aggression and control feels much less volatile when it is relying on thoughtful deckbuilding decisions, rather than the blunt instrument that is Drone of Brutality. For this reason, we are happy to put Drone back on the shelf once more and look forward to seeing control decks find and embrace more diverse end-game strategies.
While we have decided to return Drone to the ban list prior to the next scheduled banned and suspended announcement, this in no way should be interpreted as an emergency banning. It is simply consolidating two separate but interconnected pieces of Blitz format housekeeping into a single announcement, with the upside that we believe it makes the Blitz format more enjoyable sooner, and sets the stage for upcoming Battle Hardened events in Las Vegas, Florence, and Portland to be run using the best iteration the Blitz format has to offer.
Thank You
We here at Legend Story Studios also wish to take a moment to thank our players for allowing us to experiment with the rules of Blitz during Skirmish Season 7. Your participation and feedback were critical in ushering us forward towards an exciting new era of Blitz. We hope that you love the new Blitz format that you helped to create, and we look forward to collaborating with you many more times to create great games of Flesh and Blood.
The next scheduled banned and suspended announcement is September 19th, 2023.
