(Lexi, Livewire | Art by Federico Musetti)

Flesh and Blood is a card game that doesn’t offer a traditional rotation system, meaning the card pool and the hero pool are only going to increase over time. From my years of playing Magic: the Gathering‘s Legacy format, I know firsthand that the metagame is going to give way to the second tier of high level play: learning to master a hero and their card pool. 

I’m Rhys, my pronouns are they/them, and this is Evergreen, a series focused on helping you unlock the power deep within the heroes of Flesh and Blood in the Classic Constructed format. Together we’ll look at an individual hero for each part of this series. We’ll go beyond what just appears on the text of the card and discuss how to release a hero’s full potential, a required skill as Flesh and Blood continues to grow.

Into the Abyssal Depths

Today’s focus is on Lexi, Livewire, a Tales of Aria Ranger that has had a tumultuous presence in the Flesh and Blood metagame. Lexi boasts the most powerful Bow the game has to offer in Voltaire, Strike Twice, and its partner in crime, New Horizon, the legendary armor that gives you a second arsenal slot. This offers you access to a six-card hand, something other heroes simply don’t have.

This begs the question: how do we take advantage of that if we only draw at the end of our turn? It means we need to be doing two things: thinking ahead, and setting up for big turns.

Planning your Attack

The first part of planning ahead, as with most heroes, is knowing how you want to start and end the game. Voltaire, Strike Twice offers an instant-speed loading ability, meaning if you choose to go second you can load after your opponent passes priority on their first turn, and draw up to hand size immediately, before starting your turn! Be mindful that you don’t overdo it and leave yourself open to a detrimental attack after, as activating Voltaire, Strike Twice gives priority back to your opponent.

Naturally, since we only draw up to four cards at the end of our turn, and we only get to arsenal once in the end phase of our turn, we’re going to have to accept that some of our turns may be a little “under rate.” This means we’re going to be making smaller attacks, blocking where possible, and carefully calculating how much damage we’re taking, and where, so we don’t fall too far behind. If we take too much damage when setting up, we put ourselves in a situation where the big turn doesn’t get us ahead like we need it to.

So let’s walk through what that might look like. We’ll use a sample hand from Andrew Rothermel’s Pro Tour Top 8 decklist as an example: Sic ‘Em Shot red, Head Shot blue, Bolt’n’ Shot yellow, Drill Shot red

If we just look at this hand and don’t think ahead, we might decide “Ok, I’ll pitch Head Shot to Voltaire, Strike Twice, load Sic 'Em Shot with it’s +1 attack to swing for five, then do the same for Bolt'n' Shot. And if it hits, we can use the reload keyword to get a free shot in with Drill Shot!

Sure, you used every card in your hand, but you only attacked for a maximum of 13 damage, and we didn’t present a threatening on-hit effect since we only had one card in hand. This means your opponent might choose to not block, and then send something back for more damage. Even worse, it may have detrimental on-hit effects. Even if you’re trying to race, that’s a low number, and we can do much better. 

Let’s play it a bit differently. This time we can use Head Shot as pitch to load Bolt'n' Shot to arsenal with +1 attack and swing, threatening the reload keyword. Then use the second activation for +1 attack and attack with Drill Shot for five, putting Sic 'Em Shot into our arsenal at the end step. As you see, we really wouldn’t use the reload ability if it hit, but our opponent doesn’t know what we have in hand, and we can use that threat to force a block from our opponent that we otherwise wouldn’t have. Fewer cards in their hand means less damage they can present back at us. This also means the Drill Shot for five presented a second on-hit, building on that pressure.

Overall, we presented less damage, but we forced tough decisions on our opponent by hiding information, and set up a five-card hand to build on that momentum. Now our new hand is this: Winter’s Bite blue, Art of War yellow, Three of a Kind red, Drill Shot blue

Our attacks are going to go up in value significantly with Art of War. Paired with Three of a Kind, this is a great payoff for our patience! Had we just focused on the damage output on the previous turn and drawn this as a four-card hand, it wouldn’t have been nearly as threatening.

I won’t play an entire game out from here, but you can see it goes pretty buck wild from this point. And that’s because we put ourselves in a position to take advantage of a big turn.

The main strategy is to have a hand with a blue card to use as a resource, a “power” Arrow, which is an Arrow that has a base attack of five for one resource that has a powerful on-hit, giving it go again with Voltaire, Strike Twice, and then a zero-cost arrow to give +1 attack, meaning you often make that attack for five as well. This only uses three cards, can present multiple on-hits, and allows for easy setups for a five- or six-card hand if you do it twice in a row without using the first card you placed in the arsenal!

The next step of developing this skill is learning to incorporate pitch-stacking, which helps you set up sequences in the later turns of long games that can push extreme amounts of damage. This gives you an edge against an opponent drawing underpowered cards they pitched as resources earlier in the game. These are valuable skills against heroes that like to fatigue you, like Uzuri, Switchblade, Rhinar, Reckless Rampage, or Dromai, Ash Artist.

Pitfalls to Avoid

Another important part of making sure you’re ready when the big turn comes is avoiding “locking up” your arsenal as much as possible, either by having a face-down card that can’t be used, or by having Arrows filling it up that don’t have go again. While we haven’t touched on Lexi, Livewire‘s hero ability yet, it’s a key part of keeping things moving in this deck.

With so few Ice and Lightning cards, it may seem like her ability is unimportant. But it can still be used to “unlock” your second arsenal slot, as New Horizon doesn’t give you an extra arsenal slot unless you have a face-up card already in there. Arrows and non-attack cards with go again naturally printed on them are a great way to keep things flowing, so arsenal with that in mind!

You can also use Lightning Surge with Lexi’s hero ability to give something else in arsenal go again! The ever-contentious Codex of Frailty brings strong endings to your turns as well, letting you use all of your cards while still getting to load something into your arsenal with the help of the Ponder token. The Frailty token it produces can also prevent the damage output from your opponent’s return volley from taking cards from you, letting you keep the pressure on.

Every piece of Lexi, Livewire‘s armor and hero abilities plays a huge role. Bull’s Eye Bracers and Snapdragon Scalers are at their highest power when pushing lethal damage, or making a big turn even bigger. You’ll also want to think about being set up to take full advantage of your Fyendal’s Spring Tunic resource when it comes online. Snapdragon Scalers has a great secondary use of freeing a locked up arsenal, but you want to avoid that if at all possible. Without Snapdragon Scalers, your late attacks are less threatening, and could even cost you a victory, especially if you must block with New Horizon and have to play with a single arsenal slot.

Wrapping Things Up

Lexi, Livewire offers a true season-to-taste experience, partially informed by her massive card pool. As of the release of Outsiders, Elemental Ranger has the largest card pool in the game! This means you can lean to Ice to freeze up hyper-aggressive metagames, or like Matthew Foulkes’ Pro Tour top 8 list at Pro Tour: Baltimore, focus on being the aggressor. Put out as much damage as possible, and let the big turn come naturally. If you go look at Andrew’s list once more, you’ll see it’s built to have combo turns that can deal as much as 25 or 30 damage without too much effort.

Lexi’s main weakness is also her strength; she can sometimes stumble in diverse metagames, or if your local group leans heavily on Bravo, Showstopper or Dromai, Ash Artist, as those are naturally unfavorable matchups. Bravo, Showstopper has powerful on-hit effects that have relevant text against our squishy Ranger, and Dromai, Ash Artist‘s dragon army can quickly overwhelm your inability to “go wide” and deal with them all before running out of Arrows. Don’t beat yourself up if you have a diverse Armory scene and find yourself struggling to prepare for everything out there! Ice strategies don’t have as much raw power by comparison to Outsiders cards.

For example, Digl Dixon’s Auckland Finals decklist brings a lot of easy freezy, but doesn’t offer the same level of damage output as a list like Matt Foulkes’s, so you have to have a good reason to make an Ice-focused build nowadays. If you like solving puzzles, Lexi, Livewire is prepared with tools to attack any metagame!

Thank you so much for checking out my first foray into writing for this absolutely incredible game. It’s already brought so much joy into my life, and I love to have a chance to share that with others. I truly think this may be the most rewarding card game I’ve ever played, and I know I still have so much to learn.

I’d love to hear your thoughts as well, so don’t hesitate to let me know what you think in the comments. And tell me if there’s anything you’d like to see from me in the future! Next time we’ll be talking about Katsu, the Wanderer, and how you can bring Dishonor blue to your enemies at your next event.

Further reading:

The Alchemist’s Coffer – Wide Shiyana

#FABDad – When Life Gives You Lemons, Play FAB Anyway!

The Genius of Flesh and Blood’s Pitch System

Rhys

Rhys (she/they) is a long-time Magic: the Gathering fan, having started in Seventh Edition. She played Legacy until around 2018, and now mostly plays EDH. She Transitioned to competitive play with Flesh and Blood at the release of Tales of Aria, where she was quickly enamored with the skill expression, seeking constant self-improvement. When not obsessing over cards, Rhys can be found consuming speedrunning content, or fawning over literature like The Witcher, or Sherlock Holmes.