Hello everyone and welcome back to my continued series of deep-diving all the various classes and heroes for the Commoner format. This week, I’ll be starting my mini-series on Brute now that Heavy Hitters has fully settled and we’ve had a chance to actually play with and see a lot of these cards in action. Unlike my Shadow Runeblade mini-series, however, I’ll be starting by talking big picture this time, as opposed to it being the final article of the series, as I think that Brute in general has more similar themes across its various heroes before then focusing on Rhinar, Kayo, and Levia.

Brute Playstyle

Brute has a very simple playstyle: SMASH. Hard hitting attacks that are extremely all over-rate and balanced around the need to discard a random card, paired with a few intimidate effects, makes fully blocking out these massive attacks a tall order. With Heavy Hitters‘ release, a new bevy of cards makes their way into the card pool, notably the beat chest mechanic that allows for a non-random discard, all while having three block value, is a huge boon to the class. The play pattern of play a single big attack, potentially intimidating one or two cards from the opponent each turn, while having enough three-blocks that can defend adequately during their turn, makes Brute a very aggressive, but not unprotected deck.

Much of this is owed to the original Welcome to Rathe release of the first wave of Brute cards, all of which blocked for three. This may have started as a way to put all the classes on equal footing defensively at lower rarities, and has really helped grease the wheels for the core of the deck in Commoner.

Some small notes are that nothing at common from the early sets actually maintain card parity in the form of drawing and discarding, and rely more on discarding a random card as an additional cost to play, meaning that over-blocking is not advised unless absolutely necessary as you will end up with non-functional two card hands. Instead, I recommend dipping slightly into the supplemental set card pool of Brute attacks, which, while not having any block value is a massive detriment to their function, offer actual upsides to discarding a six, and are all template to draw and discard, making them playable by themselves.

Equipment for Brute

One of the most understated aspects of Brute’s strengths in Commoner is the powerful equipment suite it has access to from the last few set releases. Beaten Trackers is a fantastic piece of gear that rewards you for building your deck in a way that Brutes already want, and battleworn makes blocking with it a no-brainer. Similarly, Rhinar’s new specialization head piece in Monstrous Veil completely puts Bone Vizier to shame, acting as a great way to defend early, and get some extra utility late. While Barkbone Strapping may look appealing at first blush, the still-legal Heartened Cross Strap and Goliath Gauntlet combo shines brightest in this class, providing that extra reach of damage that demands an answer immediately.

Even in the weapon department, Brute is extremely blessed. With various payoffs for discarding a six, and the rule change to the amount of rare equipment that can be taken, Mandible Claws slot in nicely in the vast majority of Brute strategies, especially against more defensively oriented decks that want to preserve their cards for the single large attack.

Blues and Sixes

One of the common themes in Brute as a class is that it cares about attacks with six or more power, whether it’s baked into the hero’s ability as seen in Levia and Rhinar, or as a bonus effect tacked onto some attacks if a six-plus has been discarded. This inevitably creates a deckbuilding paradigm of wanting to play exclusively “hits” to never whiff on these powerful bonuses. However, due to the actual card pool, and LSS’ statement about not printing blue sixes for Brute, this results in the only card fulfilling this criteria being blue Wrecker Romp (and blue Deadwood Rumbler for Levia). The lack of actual options to fill out the blues leads to an interesting dilemma for deck builders: do you load up on yellow sixes and play with a deck that on average generates fewer resources per hand, or do you run the risk of missing on the random discards?

Like I said in my last article, make your blues work for you. How this coalesces for Brute will end up being much different compared to Runeblade, as they are not lacking for raw damage numbers, and don’t require as much reach in the form of mixed damage that Runeblades want. Instead, I think the blue lineups for Brute in Commoner wants to leverage a specific principle: if your blues are going to be misses, might as well play utility effects instead of below-rate attacks. This is a great opportunity to play Pummels, Bellow effects of your choice, and attacks that intimidate naturally, such as Smash Instinct, if desired. Generally speaking, I’m not a big fan of the attacks that gain go again upon discarding a six in the blue range, as the strength of Brute lies in how tall its attacks can get, and trying to go for a slightly longer combat chain can be better achieved in something like a pair of Mandible Claws in the inventory.

Of course, this will vary drastically for Levia, who has an extra pool of cards to draw from, and additional considerations of the random banish from graveyard, but the same theory applies here. Cards such as blue Ghostly Visit put in work on multiple axes, both as a three-block blue but also as a way to return a card from banish back into the graveyard in a pinch.

Conclusion

Brute has a very simple playstyle that advocates for a very pure game plan of attacking and defending on every hand rotation, forcing bad blocks with intimidate, and utilizing a range of good block values to protect their life total. The built-in balancing of needing to discard cards as additional costs to playing big attacks or wanting to discard a six-plus power attack may seem like a call to play nothing but hits, but rather offers a different approach to finding space for utility cards in your deck in the form of a well thought out blue lineup. Brute also gains access to occasional big turns of multiple attacks in their equipment providing one-shot effects of extra action points and the few go again effects  makes for a deck that is tight, clean, and has a built-in surprise factor for the opponent that doesn’t require a lot of concessions in deckbuilding.

Join me next time as I venture into the Savage Lands and tackle how I’d build a deck for one of the original four heroes of Flesh and Blood: Rhinar.

Further Reading:

Heavy Hitters Set Review – Brute

How to Upgrade the Rhinar Precon

Best Cards for Commoner in 2023

Daniel Yam

Daniel is a competitive psychopath who has relegated himself into playing the most casual format of Commoner. Starting Magic at the onset of Shards block, he jumped into Flesh and Blood when the Ira demo decks were being given out to Australian stores and is a proud holder of a 4-digit GEM ID. In his spare time, he enjoys trying to convince his friends to play increasingly worse cards, going to museums, and playing Guild Wars.