Hello and welcome back to another edition of Outsiders, where we explore the underdog heroes of Flesh and Blood. I’ve spent the preview season for Dusk Till Dawn frantically switching between different off-kilter decks, trying to find something truly special and unique. But sometimes you have to take a step back from your Talisman of Tithes + Phantasmaclasm + Iris of Reality Dromai, Ash Artist control deck and ask yourself: Is this really where I want to be?

And the answer is: Yes, absolutely. But I need a little bit more room to try and figure out how to play Illusionist again after a two year break, so we’re doing that next month. For now, we’re going back to Riptide, baby!

Yes, that’s right! We’re returning to the hero that I made my FABREC debut on, boldly (and, in hindsight, probably wrongly) proclaiming that a midrange build is where the hero should be. And while I conceptually stand by my point in the sense that, with a couple more tools, that build of Riptide, Lurker of the Deep probably has legs, the same could be said for Levia, Shadowborn Abomination and Azalea, Ace in the Hole before Dusk Till Dawn and Outsiders respectively. So while we wait for our own set of busted “this should have been printed with the first set the hero appeared in” cards, we Riptide mains have to adapt.

Losing in CC? Try playing Blitz!

If my Classic Constructed games have taught me anything, it’s that a midrange build is only truly viable if you have a gameplan into decks that don’t mind blocking out your unbuffed arrows. And thankfully, Legend Story Studios (LSS) has given Riptide a gameplan in that scenario by unbanning Drone of Brutality in Blitz. I’m not sure WHY they did that, but I’m happy to take advantage of it for as long as it remains unbanned.

With Drone of Brutality, your worst match-ups magically become some of your best. Super-fast aggro decks? Run them out of cards and Drone them to death. Super-defensive Guardians? Run them out of cards and Drone them to death. I’m sensing a pattern here, and it’s block with two Drones, then pitch Plague Hive to return a Drone.

Anything in-between, like the less frantic aggro decks and the more grindy midrange heroes, can be traded with, while disrupting them with on-hit effects and traps. And this is where another fun change LSS recently made is going to benefit Riptide in the upcoming format of Skirmish Season 7: Blitz now has a (small) sideboard, perfectly suited for those situational traps and the odd Oasis Respite to hose your local Kano player!

The Deck

Midtide

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Hero (1) 1 Riptide Weapons (2) 1 Death Dealer 1 Dreadbore Equipment (7) 1 Quiver of Rustling Leaves 1 Crown of Providence 1 Hornet’s Sting 1 Trench of Sunken Treasure 1 Snapdragon Scalers 1 Nullrune Boots 1 Bull’s Eye Bracers Main (43) 1 Drone of Brutality red 2 Endless Arrow red 2 Enlightened Strike red 2 Falcon Wing red 2 Frailty Trap red 1 Inertia Trap red 2 Infecting Shot red 2 Life for a Life red 2 Melting Point red 2 Premeditate red 2 Remorseless red 2 Searing Shot red 2 Sic Em Shot red 2 Sigil of Solace red 2 Sink Below red 2 Dead Eye yellow 2 Pitfall Trap yellow 1 Plague Hive yellow 2 Tarpit Trap yellow 1 Buzzsaw Trap blue 1 Collapsing Trap blue 2 Drone of Brutality blue 1 Rockslide Trap blue 1 Tripwire Trap red 2 Oasis Respite red

Flexibility for Days

The main idea of the deck is the same as the CC deck proposed upon the hero’s release: flexibility. But I’ve added a couple of cards since that might be worth testing in CC as well. As before, we ensure that most of our cards block for three, even two thirds of the buffs in Dead Eye and Melting Point. The fact that both of those buffs cost one resource to play rather than being free is offset by both Death Dealer and Riptide‘s hero ability, giving us options to mitigate that extra cost by either drawing cards or reloading for free with Riptide.

Beyond Falcon Wing, Sic 'Em Shot, and Life for a Life are new additions to the deck that provide us additional ways to go wide, while helping us maintain a defensive posture as needed. The arrows all block for three on defense while Life for a Life always threatens one extra point of value in a racing scenario – and it’s turned on by default due to Riptide’s lower starting life total.

So, with the benefit of now seeing what Drone of Brutality can bring to Riptide, what are we hoping to see from LSS when they bring him up to snuff with the other heroes? Well, like any good probably-overly-dedicated-main of a presently underwhelming hero, I have created my very own CC wishlist!

And while I’ve obviously already mailed it to James White, Bryan Gottlieb, and many Flesh and Blood content creators, until those threats and/or bribes take their effects, let’s look at what this more functional deck can teach us about what the hero lacks in CC.

A Wishlist for Future Riptide Cards

Fatigue Protection

How much Drone of Brutality helps Riptide can’t be overstated. LSS must intend for Riptide to be a more defensive Ranger. And while it isn’t hard to be more defensive than a Lexi, Livewire that plays seven card hands at you, for this playstyle to work, you need a fallback for when your arrows are running low and your opponent is intent on blocking with their entire hand every turn. A legendary Riptide specialization that, like Drone of Brutality, ends up back in your deck (an anchor that you reel back in after throwing it? Hire me already, LSS!) could be all the difference you need for a more defensive, trap-oriented Riptide to find a place in CC.

More Traps

The Blitz changes for Skirmish Season 7 help to include a wider variety of traps and allow you to adapt to your local meta a bit more. It’s only natural that a wider card pool would help Riptide deal with a wider range of opposing game plans. The fact that, of the existing pool of traps, one third has the miserable trigger condition of your opponent having activated an attack reaction is just a smidge too narrow for the current CC meta. A wider variety of traps that attack more play patterns would be much appreciated.

More Arrows With Go Again

The inclusion of Sic 'Em Shot was a big eye-opener for me: A card that can make it harder to block you out by extending the combat chain when your in offense mode and that still blocks perfectly well while in defense mode is a godsend for Riptide. It wouldn’t have to be many, either. Only one or two more arrows with different ways of enabling go again would go a long way in helping Riptide remain flexible.

Just One More Buff that Blocks for Three

Now bear with me here, I know this sounds like I’m reading too much into things. But my guess is that Melting Point and Dead Eye form somewhat of a cycle – and that we’re due a blue non-attack action that blocks for three, buffs your next arrow, and provides it with an on-hit effect if it has an aim counter. And who knows? If I somehow turn out to not just be imagining things and we do get that hypothetical card, maybe my misguided insistence on running Barbed Castaway in my first iterations of Riptide, Lurker of the Deep deck can finally be redeemed!

Conclusion

While there are many, many more items on my wishlist, for now they shall remain between me and the LSS devs that I have mailed them to. I hope that you’ll give this fatigue-proof version of Riptide a try at your next Armory or even your local Skirmish! It’s a ton of fun and much more technical than a redline version of the deck.

And it’s gone a long way in getting my hopes (back) up for a future where a seasoned Riptide can adapt to any possibility the metagame might throw at them. Outsiders and Dusk Till Dawn have been packed to the gills with tools for heroes like Ser Boltyn, Breaker of Dawn and Levia, Shadowborn Abomination, heroes that have gone unpicked for far too long. So I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time until the Lurkers tide comes in!

Jonah Lara

Raised on a steady diet of fantasy storys and video games, Jonah discovered trading card games at the impressionable age of 12 and has since spent over half his life and about the same percentage of each monthly salary on card games. If he's not brewing new decks or catching up on the latest FaB news, he's probably dead - or painting a new Warhammer mini.