Bright Lights Set Review

Bright Lights is on the larger end of a Flesh and Blood booster set, with a total of 251 cards. While there are some familiar faces coming back like Maximum Velocity and Fyendal’s Spring Tunic, there’s a ton of new content as well, with new keywords and even new card types. It’s my pleasure to guide the way through the all new Mechanologist cards for blocks, instants, and non-attack actions (“NAA”s). 

Blocks

Block is a keyword introduced in both Bright Lights and the Round the Table box set. This card type is making its debut in the Mechanologist class with four new cards to explore with this keyword, but what can a block card even do? Instead of an action card where you have the choice of playing or blocking, block cards can only be used in the blocking step. They are not defense reactions that can be played, per se, so this means they don’t have a window to be played in the reaction step nor the ability to be played from arsenal. So far, block cards are not associated with any resource cost, but they are still able to be pitched, similar to gems like Heart of Fyendal.

In Bright Lights we’re introduced to Steel Street Enforcement, Cognition Field, and Teklonetic Force Field, whileFirewall debuted in Round the Table. 

Steel Street Enforcement is the only majestic of the bunch, with a unique ability to scale with power as you Evo upgrade with cards like Evo Sentry Base Head. Its base block value of one makes it a terrible card to block with early, but luckily it’s a blue you can always pitch away for later. By mid-game, you can have it blocking 3+ with 2+ Evos in play, but its real ceiling comes from Singularity, where it would count as blocking six!

If you’re looking for a more consistent block, then Firewall is your friend. Its ability helps you dig for Evos to either draw up, or boost from the top of your deck to get them right into banish for Teklovossen‘s ability. Teklonetic Force Field is currently the weakest of the bunch in constructed because overpower is not a common keyword, only appearing four times outside of Mech. However, it has quite a high ceiling for Limited play, as does Cognition Field. Galvanize is a value-driven keyword for making use of items that would break at the start of your turn anyway, so especially look for it when playing Dash, Database.

Overall, blocks are not likely to make the biggest splash on the constructed scene, but Firewall does add the never-before-seen ability for Mech to play a four-block that doesn’t miss on boost like a defense reaction would. Steel Street Enforcement might make its way into Teklovossen decks, but I expect blocks will mostly find their home in Limited.

Instants

Fabricate is the first class-specific instant for Mechanologist. Like all instants, it lacks a block value, meaning you’re only ever going to play or pitch it. Being a red, you’ll likely want to set yourself up to play Fabricate as you see it, which luckily is not a big ask. This card is great! 

At a glance, Fabricate seems like its natural home is in a Teklovossen deck, with all modes playing into an Evo-centric game plan. You get to choose two effects:

• Equip a Proto Base Evo, which unlocks a unique interaction where you can start with high value blade break pieces like Fyendal’s Spring Tunic or Crown of Providence, then replace them with Protos once you’ve got Evos ready to play from your banish.
• Evos gain +1 defense, which seems like a boring defensive option, but has some cool interaction with the recent release notes surrounding Evos. If you play an Evo at instant speed in the resolution step, you can reset the equipment piece you blocked with, effectively making the +1 apply twice to the same armor slot. As a ceiling, you could gain five effective block value with this mode, blocking with four pieces, and transforming a piece at instant speed to block anew.
• Put under an Evo, which is a way to support the cost of some Evos like Evo Mach Breaker or to ramp into more banish material for Singularity once transformed.
• Banish Evo to draw card, which is the bread and butter mode to support Teklovossen‘s hero ability.

Non-Attack Actions

Mechanologists are known for a couple of incredibly potent NAAs like High Octane and Spark of Genius, but the raw damage pump effects like Rotary Ram tend to be ignored. Bright Lights gave us a healthy mix of unique effects, new highs for pumps, and of course the second construct action and Demi Hero all in one. Items technically are also NAAs, but they’ll be covered in a separate article, cause there’s just so many.

So then let’s start with Singularity, the Teklovossen specialization that will define the deck, or is at least a flavor win. Construct is a card type we’ve seen only once before in Construct Nitro Mechanoid, basically referencing that you need to transform certain materials for the action to resolve. For Singularity, you need to target four Evos, your hero, and your weapon (bye bye Talishar, The Lost Prince builds) to flip into Singularity. (Check out Pheano’s article for more of a deep dive there.) It’s a bit awkward that it’s a red pitch that needs quite a bit of setup, so it won’t be easy to pitch it in second cycle, and it’s a big ask to arsenal it early. In a perfect world you’ll develop four Evo upgrades then draw this towards the end of your first cycle, so be sure to get your block value out of your armor early if you expect to play into Singularity as soon as you see it.

The bulk of the new non-attack actions come from a suite of four-attack pumps. Gigawatt is the simplest, just a one-for-four, block two pump rate we’ve seen in Ranger cards like Fletch a Red Tail. Re-Charge! then comes in at the same rate with the added effect of recharging a Hyper Driver at the cost of only applying the pump to your next boosted attack. Lastly, Quickfire is the most conditional, costing a base two but with the potential to cost zero if you have Hyper Drivers in play.

What’s unique to how these pumps play in the Mechanologist class is that spending a go again card for +4 normally costs an additional card from deck due to boost. When playing a NAA, you can get the damage without needing to boost away your deck.

I sense that these might find value in Maxx Nitro versus fatigue matchups where boosting away your deck is a lose condition. Free damage while preserving cards in deck sounds like a deal, it just taxes the number of boost per turn synergies that will be needed in any race.

Last but not least, we have a quartet of majestics with incredibly unique effects. The most obvious power card here is Scrap Trader, which lets you turn one card into four resources. While Mechs across the board could satisfy the dual scrap condition, Scrap Trader doesn’t have go again, making it a bit clunky. It will likely find its home in Teklovossen, since he gets around no go again with his hero ability letting him play an Evo as an instant, and critically, the Evo Soul Shield pieces need four resources anyway.

Next is perhaps my favorite card in the set, System Reset. This card goes quite outside the ‘cards should be worth three value’ matrix that most of Flesh and Blood is measured around. System Reset has an incredible ceiling, with one blue pitch potentially paying for three item resets alone. Essentially this is resetting any steam counters and opportunities to crank that were on the items. A potential scenario here is around my preview card Grinding Gears. With a board state of Grinding Gears and two Dissolving Shields, you can reset the board pitching a blue, cranking three times, gaining three steam counters on Symbiosis Shot, and milling your opponent three times or shooting them three times, not to mention the block gained with the Dissolving Shield counters. I’m sure crazy combo decks will be built around System Reset, or at the very least, it’s great in Data Doll MKII!

Speaking of systems, here is System Failure. Plenty of cards in this set support ‘Mech on Mech hate’ due to the limited format, but at the majestic rarity, this card is more aimed at constructed. If you really want to tech for the mirror, System Failure provides annoying disruption and two direct damage, something even arcane barrier won’t save you from. The power of steam-focused mechs in the upcoming meta will determine if this card needs room in your sideboard, but it’s quite narrow and not complimentary to any Mechanologist’s game plan. 

Lastly, we have the first triple x cost card in FAB. Meganetic Lockwave is a bit of a head scratcher, as we see lengthy hoops added to a card just for the payoff of potential equipment disruption. When you compare it to Invoke Tomeltai or Buckle and Buckling Blow, it’s hard to conceptualize why this card is so difficult to use when stronger equipment disruption is easier to pull off. Meganetic Lockwave isn’t guaranteed to give you the equipment you want, nor does it destroy it immediately. You’re only forcing your opponent to block with it, which means your four-card hand of three blues and Meganetic Lockwave needs to also support an attack to try to punish a blade break or temper equipment piece. 

With that, we conclude the review of all the Mech blocks, instants, and NAAs in Bright Lights. Be sure to stay tuned for the set reviews from other writers here on FABREC. Until then, go enjoy some Bright Lights!

Other Bright Lights set reviews:

Heroes & Weapons by Pheano Black

Equipment by Peter Buddensiek

Items by Tyler Horspool

Attack Actions Pt 1 by Valera

Attack Actions Pt 2 by Kenny Suzuki

Non-Mechanologist Cards by Jonah Lara

Ethan Van Sant

Ethan ‘Man Sant’ Van Sant is known for his commitment to Levia and his coverage of FaB events as Savage Feats. He has a light background with Yugioh and Pokemon, but Flesh and Blood is the first TCG that has fully consumed him… As willed by Blasmophet.