(Oldhim| Art by Alexander Mokhov)

Hello and welcome to the 4th and final installment of Common & Conquer, the series that aims to help you crush and dominate in the most accessible format in Flesh & Blood. Today I’ll be taking you on a whirlwind tour of the Commoner metagame, with a brief outline of the heroes, their strategies, and their strengths.

Rather than a typical tier list or power ranking where each stratified level denotes a marked difference in a hero’s strength and value, I’ll be sorting these based on the assumption that you, the reader, is about to go to a Calling or Pro Tour with a big Commoner side event (perhaps I’ll even see you at Queenstown!). As such, the tiers will be listed as:

• Can Reliably Win
• Can Reliably Top 8
• Can Top 8 With Reps
• Can Top 8 With Dedication

Not all heroes will be on the list, as there are some that will simply not have the tools and card pool to compete at the highest level. The placement of heroes is subject to change, but this will hopefully give you a pretty solid idea of what to expect in a big open event.

Can Reliably Win

Dash

Using the swathe of Hyper Driver support, Dash is arguably the best aggressive deck in the format due to her ability to generate extra resources throughout her turn from the Driver, and the spread of attacks that either cost less when it’s in play or add steam counters onto it upon boost.

Pair this self-contained package of above-rate attacks and, at minimum, three turns of an additional free resource with the existing range of Mechanologist attacks from Arcane Rising, and you have a deck that puts up hard-hitting attacks along the chain, ending in a large Plasma Barrel Shot or Overblast to close the game.

Ira, Crimson Haze

The original top-tier of 40 card formats, Ira is where it all began for Flesh and Blood. A hero with the most simple ability of giving your second attack each turn +1 strength, Ira excels due to her innate synergy with Harmonized Kodachis and being able to play the aggressive and grind game, playing the best on-rate attacks with marginal on-hit effects and creating breakpoints with her ability.

Ira also benefits heavily from the generic nature of her ability, leading to multiple builds that can do extremely well, whether using Goliath Gauntlet and focusing on big two-cost attacks such as Flying Kick, or going wide with Stubby Hammerers.

Much like Dash, Ira also benefits from almost every card in the deck blocking for three, which is even stronger when in a deck that can modulate the speed of its game plan to whatever the situation may require.

Can Reliably Top 8

Oldhim

The hero that hit LL in just about every format conceivable, Oldhim is still a force to be reckoned with in Commoner. In a build that’s solely focused on defense and blocking, Oldhim can easily fatigue out many of the top decks due to their nature of wanting to generate long combat chains while also having enough firepower to hit back when given the opportunity.

Clearly time is the main factor for the Oldhim player, due to the fatigue-centric game plan which requires some practice to be able to move through the turn cycle quickly. The only reason he’s not in the tier above is that his natural weakness to Harmonized Kodachi and Ira is very exploitable by those who know how to approach the matchup. And in a world where Ira is an easy standout for best deck in the format, I’d be wary of saying Oldhim can reliably win a big event outright.

Iyslander

The hero that started it all for me, personally. The release of Uprising and Iyslander’s card pool saw local Armories of almost half the attendees playing this Elemental Wizard, as arcane damage was very hard for the hyper-aggressive decks to properly block out. Now with newer equipment that can deal with mixed damage more easily and a better knowledge of the range of threats that she possesses, the fear factor of playing against Iyslander has severely lessened, though she is still a formidable hero to face.

Being able to play on both players’ turns is still an incredible advantage that is unique to Wizards, and the Frostbites generated by her ability are potentially backbreaking for many of the top aggressive decks.

Chane

The newest member of Commoner’s upper echelons, Chane received a few new tools in Dusk Till Dawn that boosted an existing powerful core strategy. Similar to Dash’s ability to cheat on resources, Chane’s usage of the banished zone as a second hand and Soul Shackles to create surprising extensions to the combat chain, paired with the legality of Seeds of Agony, made him ripe to break out as a strong contender in the meta-game.

Add to that the strength of Rosetta Thorn, and Aether Ironweave as an in-class upgraded Vest of the First Fist, and it’s easy to see why Chane only needed the smallest of pushes to enter the metagame.

Can Top 8 With Reps

Fai

One of the early power outliers of Commoner after it was properly codified as a format, Fai has certainly fallen from his original place simply due to further deck exploration identifying better aggressive decks in the format. Indeed, the free extension of the Phoenix Flame is very useful, and being able to utilize Stubby Hammerers, a piece of equipment banned in anticipation of Uprising‘s release, is a powerful synergy.

But the reality is that Fai is extremely one-note. He relies on the first go again attack as a starter to enable everything else, either needing a Draconic or red attack to gain go again, as well as having a lot of cards blocking for two or less, which just put him levels below the Dashes, Iras, and Chanes of the world.

However, cards such as Blaze Headlong are appealing enough draws to play the hero that some experience with sequencing can go a long way.

Prism

A strange hero, as the Phantasm ability can be entirely backbreaking or just flavor text, depending on the matchup. The lack of abundance in Brutes within the wider metagame is a good enough sign for Prism’s potential. When compared to the other heroes, the rate on the red Herald attacks are second to none.

And having a robust equipment set to fall back on makes Prism a great meta call, which was seen in the Top 8 of the Commoner event at Calling: Birmingham.

Dromai

Another hero existing in the same space as Prism, Dromai shares the same flexibility that makes Ira so strong, being able to lean into the Ashwing aspect of her card pool or simply playing above-rate Draconic and Illusionist attacks in a world with few Phantasm poppers floating around. Dromai also has a built-in answer to Iyslander with the Arcane Barrier 1 on the Ashwings and cards such as Sand Coverbeing a great universal defensive option.

I personally believe Dromai is like Chane, in that she’s ripe for a push into the metagame with a few upgrades and benefiting from being able to pull from Draconic and Illusionist card pools.

Azalea

I’m no member of the Cult of Azalea by any means, but I can recognize the existing strength and potential of her. She does what the top heroes want to do: generate pressure by creating breakpoints on attacks with relevant on-hits.

With the new power of Crow’s Nest unlocking her full potential, Azalea can now dominate gigantic arrows out of the arsenal that give your opponent a whole range of unfavorable debuffs. But she struggles against the defensive Guardians that can actually negate these big attacks.

Can Top 8 With Dedication

Kano

Kano specialists are a different breed; they’ve got the matrix running through their brains as they constantly calculate the damage ranges they’re capable of generating at any given moment. Kano is just ready to be exploited, creating game states where you can never extend too hard, lest you risk getting blown up for 15 arcane damage in a turn.

While there’s no easy three-card kill like there was with Aether Wildfire, just chaining Snapbacks and Aether Flares puts up absurd damage numbers that are also hard to defend against. Throw in Ragamuffin’s Hat to do some priority-holding shenanigans and Kano can easily do some real damage in a tournament.

Levia

This is by far the strangest inclusion on this list, but I firmly believe in Levia’s power in Commoner. I spoke about the brew that my friend and I built to tackle the meta, and still stand by the deckbuilding decisions we made. In a world where the best aggro decks are those that leverage resources and go again as ways to generate pressure, Levia can do very similar things.

With hugely above-rate attacks that require the additional cost of banishing three cards from the graveyard and a small dash of cards that can be played from banish, Levia can put up a surprisingly high amount of damage early, catching many players off guard and punishing them for blocking poorly.

Concluding Thoughts

That was a lot of heroes to go through! While there are some ‘notable’ omissions from the list, such as the exclusion of any Warriors, Bravo, or other controlling decks, I just don’t think you’d be seeing as much of them at the top tables of a big event. Commoner is currently an aggro deck’s format, with a lot of onus on the attacker and creating pressure, which means that any alternative flavor of aggro that can’t cheat or abuse resource generation will struggle.

Ira being a strange aggro-midrange hybrid is a true exception to the current landscape by being able to actually play defense without losing out on the following turn due to the power of Kodachis. But for the rest of the heroes, it’s simply a matter of doing the same thing, but not being able to leverage their uniqueness to a larger advantage.

This marks the end of the Common & Conquer series. I hope as a reader you’ve gotten some idea of what you need to do to build a Commoner deck and the various aspects that go into it, from identifying your hero’s identity, to card pool considerations and equipment availability.

Following this, I plan to do deeper dives into specific decks and heroes. So look forward to that when it arrives!