(Boltyn | Art by Nikolay Moskvin)

The Commoner Club is a series of articles focusing on the Commoner format, providing decklists, key cards, and how-to-play tips for each hero. The Club aims to provide a budget-friendly and easy-to-digest avenue to Flesh and Blood for those who wish to try out the game.

Boltyn Charges into Battle

Flesh and Blood‘s newest set, Dusk Till Dawn, has revitalized the card pool for Shadow and Light specialization heroes, including our very own paladin, Boltyn. This time he brandishes his newest toy, Beaming Blade, which packs a huge punch with a decent breakpoint and synergizes well with both of the Light Warrior’s abilities.

Why Play the Beaming Blade version?

To be frank, this article comes with a disclaimer: after testing out several variations of the deck, the double Cintari Saber version still feels better, especially with the support of powerful cards such as Blade Runner and Hit and Run — and even then it might still be a humble side grade to the current Kassai, Cintari Sellsword double Cintari Saber lists. In an aggressive local meta where no one blocks, it might be worth running this version, though.

However, today’s article is about pushing the boundaries of Boltyn’s newest toys, so let’s get charging!

Yellow Attacks

Boltyn is a unique hero in that he actually prefers yellow cards over reds and blues, due to Beaming Blade and Light the Way. Thus it’s preferable we choose yellow attacks which also charge the soul, such as Bolt of Courage, Engulfing Light, and Express Lightning. We still run the red versions of these cards due to their superior statline, but generally we want to pad out our deck with more yellows than blues.

A note before proceeding: charging Boltyn’s soul is optional, so you may decline. After all, even though most of our attacks cost zero, we’re still giving up two cards in hand for a single hit.

Follow-Ups

Ideally, Boltyn would like to attack with his weapon almost every turn, and the avenue to facilitate the strategy is to have go again cards. Light the Way, Take Flight, and even Snapdragon Scalers are all perfect pieces for the occasion.

Combat Tricks

What’s a Warrior without any tricks up their sleeve? Courageous Steelhand, Charge of the Light Brigade, and Resounding Courage all pump up our attacks, which pressures the opponent into the Warrior classic: over-blocking. Even just showing a singular pump spell at the beginning of the game drastically changes the psychology of the match, especially when your card in arsenal could be either a buff or another attack.

Payoff

Charging the soul comes as a steep cost, so there needs to be payoff. This comes in the form of Beaming Blade, which is a considerable chunk of the opponent’s life total.

It might be rare for this turn to happen, but a line you could take may go along the lines of an Express Lightning in arsenal, charge soul, pop Snapdragon Scalers for go again, pitch a yellow for Take Flight, pump it with Resounding Courage (this could also be for the earlier attack, which lets you use Boltyn’s second ability to grant it go again from a card in your soul the earlier turn), triggering Vest of the First Fist when it hits, then going for a Beaming Blade attack.

This presents 16 damage, with a potential for more to leak through should your opponent partially block with attack action cards.

While this exact combination of cards may not appear as frequently as we’d like, we have functional copies of several combat tricks and attacks that charge the soul — they all do the same thing, which facilitates a more flexible approach to this combo string.

Finally, we can also incorporate these lines of play into smaller chunks. Take Flight into a Beaming Blade hit still presents almost half of the opponent’s life total. Even just one blade hit could make the situation unsalvageable for the opponent.

Say Yellow

Focusing on yellows gives us an opportunity to look at other generically good cards of the color. Cut Down to Size and Feisty Locals are decent single attacks, while Springboard Somersault and Rally the Rearguard are flexible defensive options that bolster our yellow density.

Gearing Up the Brigade

Vest of the First Fist is a no-brainer auto-include. The chest piece sits at a perfect two resources for our follow-up blade attack, Cut Down to Size, or for a one-two punch of Take Flight into Cross the Line. Snapdragon Scalers is a key piece of a power turn, as most of our cards are legal targets.

The arms piece is a little bit more debatable – I can see merits for Cracker Jax, Goliath Gauntlet, Fisticuffs, and Stubby Hammerers. Gauntlet is big when you trigger it, but only has two valid targets. Meanwhile, Stubby can probably only reach a ceiling of three, if lucky. The other two are just one-power bumps which could make it tough for the opponent to optimally block, but are annoying to use.

The Radiant equipment suite is an interesting inclusion, as it could save us four life over the course of the game. Think of it as side grade to the Ironrot pieces. We are looking at Radiant View and Radiant Touch here, as the head and arm pieces are rather lackluster.

Boltyn is a rare deck to see in Commoner, so it does have some merits to be fielded at your local Armory. The deck can be built almost purely out of Dusk Till Dawn cards, which could be a great hopping-on point for those who wish to dip their toes into the format.

Welcome to the Club!

The Deck

The Commoner Club: Beaming Blade Boltyn

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Hero (1) 1 Boltyn Weapons (1) 1 Beaming Blade Equipment (10) 1 Snapdragon Scalers 1 Stubby Hammerers 1 Vest of the First Fist 1 Radiant Raiment 1 Radiant Touch 1 Radiant View 1 Nullrune Boots 1 Nullrune Gloves 1 Nullrune Hood 1 Nullrune Robe Main (40) 2 Bolt of Courage red 2 Charge of the Light Brigade red 2 Courageous Steelhand red 2 Cross the Line red 2 Engulfing Light red 2 Express Lightning red 2 Light the Way red 2 Resounding Courage red 2 Take Flight red 2 Bolt of Courage yellow 2 Charge of the Light Brigade yellow 2 Courageous Steelhand yellow 2 Cut Down to Size yellow 2 Engulfing Light yellow 2 Express Lightning yellow 2 Feisty Locals yellow 2 Light the Way yellow 2 Rally the Rearguard yellow 2 Springboard Somersault yellow 2 Take Flight yellow

Kenny Suzuki

Kenny is a non-binary Flesh and Blood player of Philippine and Japanese descent. A two-time A Game of Thrones: The Living Card Game National Champion, they started playing Magic: The Gathering during the Zendikar Block and eventually switched to harder stuff, like Legacy and Modern. When not asleep, they are probably compulsively building new decks, working on their design brand, thrifting for pretty clothes, bringing their kpop photocards everywhere, touching grass or malding over Teamfight Tactics.