What should you do when you’re losing? Today I’m writing to all the games where you sit down across your opponent and feel like the underdog. Your opening hand is terrible, your matchup is unfavored, or you’re being outplayed. This is how you nab a victory from the jaws of defeat.

Not every game of Flesh and Blood is supposed to go your way. Sometimes, if the game were to play out its expected course, you don’t come out on top. What you might do is accept your fate and take your loss, hoping for better luck in the next game. What I want you to do, is kick, scream, and pry the win from your opponent’s clutches. Will you succeed? Unlikely, but it can’t hurt to try. The difference between a good and a great player are minute percentage points of win rate, and squeezing every possible win is how you can set yourself apart.

How Do I Know I’m Losing?

First of all, you have to know when the game isn’t looking too good. The most obvious way is by watching the life totals, and noticing that yours is falling faster than your opponent’s. Big shocker, you’re losing bit by bit and you’re struggling to match your opponent turn by turn.

However, it’s usually not that simple. Sometimes your fate was determined for you once you’ve asked what your opponent is playing. If the matchup is already adverse and how your decks tend to play out leaves your normal game plan countered, you’re unlikely to win the game.

Lastly, there’s luck. Your opponent is drawing amazing and halfway to reporting a win. You, on the other hand, are wondering what moral crimes you’ve committed to deserve drawing such terrible hands at such a critical point in the tournament.

In all of these situations, you have to be scrappy and carve your own path to victory.

What Do I Do Now?

Change Your Game Plan

As previously mentioned, if the game continued to play out like it did, it was probably not ending with you winning the game, thus, you can consider changing how you’re approaching the game. Changing your game plan mid-game can change the odds of you winning.

One common example is sandbagging your attacks and preparing larger attacks in response to an opponent playing defensively. You deny them defensive value by presenting small hard-to-block attacks and generate several large turns to overwhelm attempts to block you out. Most aggressive decks have cards that are exponentially powerful with a larger hand, and leveraging the power of these cards is key to going over the top of defenses.

Another example is the contrary, playing out your hand every turn. It has become increasingly common for decks to have access to arsenal disruption. Command and Conquer is ubiquitous, as well as class-specific options such as Send Packing or Dissolve Reality, to punish opponents biding their time for larger attacks. Utilizing your full hand allows you to ignore these disruptive effects. A benefit of an all-out attack is it keeps your opponent under constant damage pressure, thus if they were trying to setup permanents such as Illusionist Auras, or setup a late game play, they have to do so while taking constant berating chip damage.

Lastly, there’s blocking out. Some decks are vulnerable to fatigue, and although it might not be your deck’s primary plan, if sufficiently equipped, an opponent attacking improperly can eventually run out of gas in their deck. Perhaps you can bide your time to your second cycle as well, as setting up an assault at the bottom of your deck against your opponent’s likely blue-ridden hands is sometimes an option. The usage of the best small hands in your deck can keep you in the game. Cards such as Swing Big or Codex of Frailty can keep you in the game while defending your opponent’s assault. This option is effective depending on what kind of decks you and your opponent are running, and factors such as the types of attacks they’re using (smaller, longer chain decks are easier to fatigue) or the quality of your weapon.

Better Lucky AND Good

We play to be lucky. In the end, we are playing a card game. While it may feel ill-spirited to wish your opponent draws poorly, you have to play to your outs and hope your opponent sometimes doesn’t have it. Taking more risks, assuming your opponent is feigning their Pummels, and aren’t going to draw anymore power cards are odds you might need to bet on to win the game. To push for this plan, constant unrelenting attacks and trying your best to end the game as soon as possible is one way to push the game to lower life totals, where they might not be able to leverage their advantages into a win by needing to block.

Alternatively, you can hope they pull a grip full of non-blocks, attack reactions, or no-resource cards, sparing you a window eventually to retaliate. This is done via extending the game, looking to bide your time and minimize your losses until your opponent presents a weaker offense than the norm. That opens an opportunity for you to gain the upper hand. This often depends on how prone your deck is to defense, such as being high on three-blocks, as well as how greedy your opponent’s deck ratio is.

All of these are basic plans you can use to shift how you approach a game that isn’t going your way, but of course, they’re largely contextual. Each deck and matchup have their own complex intricacies, and exploiting your knowledge of these matchups can find you unorthodox paths to victory.

Deckbuilding

One thing that separates the good decks from the great involves those who have sideboard plans that give them better odds in traditionally bad matchups. Incorporating these plans into your deck gives you a potential unexpected edge in matchups that attack your traditional plan and gives you an alternative to finding wins where you should not.

One of the most common examples are how Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire decks are built. Based on the item they tutor in the beginning, they threaten multiple plans: Teklo Pounder starts them with a six life advantage off the bat; having a midrange game plan with a single Induction Chamber grants an efficient weapon; or having Plasma Purifiers and more copies of Induction Chamber grants Dash inevitability in an end game against a defensive opponent. 

Common Errors

Risk Management

One thing to note is that most of these mid-game game plan shifts involve taking a less optimal, risky option that your deck wasn’t designed for. Risk management is important to recognize when you’re actually behind and have to take risks, rather than let the game play out normally and win the game by making safer plays. Flesh and Blood‘s life total is not an advantage meter. Several factors such as remaining threats in deck, armor value remaining, and who is currently dictating the tempo of the match means far more than life differentials.

Patience

Stick to the plan! Remember that you’re playing against the odds, and if things aren’t looking good they aren’t supposed to. Waiting for your moment to take the advantage back and biding your time for your opportunity to reverse the game is key to playing from behind. Numerous games have been won from 20 life down. If your plan is solid and your draw lines up just right, there is still light at the end of the tunnel.

Tunnel Vision

Do note that playing from behind is a difficult skill, and recognizing when your opponent begins to fall behind and you can take back the reigns of the game is key. One example is committing to blocking out. However, if your opponent is taking an off turn to set up by sending a mediocre offense, you can re-evaluate the game state and return to chasing your opponent’s life total and retaliate.

Your Opponent Knows

This also involves your opponent’s shifting plan. If your opponent notices you’re playing defensively, they might be playing a more measured game, setting up stronger turns to overwhelm you. To prevent this, you have to maintain your own pressure to ensure your opponent doesn’t get space to freely enact their game plan. Flesh and Blood is a two-player game, and no experienced opponent will make victory easy for you.

Case Studies

Dash I/O vs Enigma

One example was a game I had as Dash I/O against Enigma, Ledger of Ancestry. Enigma has several ways to play this matchup, and it is on the Dash I/O player to play on their feet based on her reactions. If she plays aggressively, tossing haymakers like Phantasmaclasm and Command and Conquer, Dash I/O has to play efficiently, trading well on small hands. On the other hand, if she plays defensively, denying you Boom Grenade on hits, Dash I/O has to set up bigger turns with uncranked Boom Grenades, Teklo Pounders, and large five-card hands. Enigma forces you to play to her whim due to her efficiency and inevitability, and your answer has to constantly be in flux based on her plays.

The game started off with Enigma swinging, as I began to keep my arsenal empty and trade three-card hands, fishing for free item value off the top. As she began to lose trades, she played more defensively, leveraging my aggressive use of Teklo Foundry Heart in an attempt to fatigue me. Adapting quickly, I played for large Teklo Core hands, biding my time to push two big turns through, the first one goading armor, and the following connecting to overwhelm her defense. The game was close, but I had unfortunately lost running out of deck with Enigma at one life.

At several points during the game there was much agency for both players to react. Had the Enigma blocked slightly less, or had I squeezed out any additional point of value, the game would have turned out very differently, and the reactions of both players from playing into a losing game plan against their opponents is a great example of finding your path to victory.

Nuu vs Azalea

The second example involves a game I played during Nationals as Nuu, Alluring Desire, into Azalea, Ace in the Hole. I was worried for this matchup headed into Nationals, having lost many games against my friends in testing, finding that I only won if they drawn poorly. Hence, I decided to take an aggressive slant in this matchup. I maxed out my aggressive options against Azalea, running maximum copies of Looking for a Scrap and running the bare minimum of three Sink Below reds for defense, not running other options such as Fate Foreseen or Inertia Trap.

It paid off, as going second I pushed a Looking for a Scrap into Command and Conquer turn, pressing the Azalea to single digit life in five turns after constant pressure. That game I had barely blocked, weathering arrows that debilitated, however pressing forward aggressively to force my opponent to block once their life total had reached single digits, blunting their attack that way. Shortening the game and playing for aggressive draws gave my opponent less time to assemble a powerful dominated attack that would force me onto the defense. Had I sideboarded differently, the game would have been longer, giving my opponent more turns to draw into Azalea’s absurdly powerful spikes such as Codex of Frailty or dominated Red in the Ledgers.

Conclusion

That about covers it! The next time you find yourself down on your luck or in a poor matchup, don’t let yourself go down without a fight. Thanks for reading, and hope to see you all soon!

Further Reading:

How to Win a Flesh and Blood Mirror Match

Battling Burnout in Flesh and Blood

How to Improve Your Flesh and Blood Decision Making