Changes?

Legend Story Studios, the makers of Flesh and Blood, is testing a new rules change in Skirmish Season 7. Blitz is now a 52-card deck that includes equipment, weapons, and all of the other cards in deck. The big change is getting a Classic Constructed adjacent sideboarding. Each game you present at least 40 cards after picking what cards you want to bring in. This opens up a lot of room for new strategies and counterplay.

How Does This Effect the Format?

The short explanation is pretty simple. Aggro gets to bring plans for fatigue. Control doesn’t have as many dead cards into certain matchups. Other decks get to try hybrid builds completely changing approaches into what used to be auto losses.

After analyzing all of the heroes and playtesting a good handful of them, I’ve figured out there are a lot of decks that really appreciate this change, a good number of neutral decks, and the one deck that is sad about the increased presence of Oasis Respite.

Winners

Most decks are getting a good bump in consistency. Blitz has always received criticism for a lack of agency over the game. This has been because of a need to pick between playing answers in the maindeck and losing matchups because you don’t have answers.

Uzuri

Uzuri is one of the decks that gets a major buff to her game plan. In Blitz, she’s traditionally struggled with having the correct disruption for each matchup. She can now side out Humble into Dash in favor of a more relevant card like Erase Face. She can also bring in Concealed Blade to get a key dagger (i.g. Nerve Scalpel) out of inventory to flick again.

Rhinar

Though he’s been a front runner in Blitz for a long time, Rhinar is getting some new options with the Season 7 changes. Conventionally, this deck is built as full on aggro strategy relying on winning before your opponent could do much. Now the green man enjoyers can bring a sideboard for when other bonks are needed. The main one being bringing in a defensive package and Romping Club to allow for a methodical control or midrange approach that looks to end the game on a pitch stacked Alpha Rampage and Barraging Beatdown.

Bravo

Guardian has one of the most diverse card pools in the game and it makes the Season 7 Skirmish changes more exciting for the class. The standard Bravo builds are dominate aggro or a hard control. This has been because they were the most effective approaches when you have a locked 40-card pile. Bravo now has access to Guardian’s giant toolbox for his sideboard. Aggressive strategies can bring in defense reactions and/or Oasis Respite into rushdown aggro, other dominate decks, and Kano.

Alternatively, they can pull Pummel out of the pile to add more cards that block three in some matchups. There is also a really fun strategy that gains a lot of reach with the added sideboard. Imposing Visage aura toolbox is a deck I’ve seen Bravo players theorize a lot. Now, you can pick which auras you want available for each matchup. The Guardian auras are often forgotten about but have some really potent effects in things like: Stamp Authority, Show Time, Blessing of Patience, Forged for War, Nerves of Steel, Blessing of Deliverance, Stonewall Confidence, and the like.

Valda Brightaxe (The Favorite)

Valda is my favorite of the Guardians, and in fact, she’s my favorite hero in general. While she doesn’t get as much out of these changes as Bravo, she does get a lot more flexibility for when games can’t be all-gas-no-brakes. I’ll be using Valda’s newfound space to add a turtle Guardian plan to the deck. Being able to take the non-block and the non-pitch cards out of the deck is extremely relevant. Kano seems to always fire off a combo when Gorganian Tome is in hand. This could also see Valda pivoting between a more classic Sift Valda build and the go-wide builds that use some classic zero cost attacks like Coax a Commotion, Snatch, and E-Strike to create massive turns and get the card draw going for Earthlore Bounty. Valda has always been one of the most fun decks to brew, and this ups the possibilities.

Yoji, Royal Protector

Yoji will enjoy the new changes. The deck is going to present over 40 cards into most matchups to make the fatigue game plan more effective. You don’t run out of cards as quick if you just bring more cards. Yoji likes not running out of cards.

The Illusionist Class

The Illusionist class as a whole is very effective because of their ability to answer things, and sometimes at instant speed. When a sideboard is added, all three of the young Illusionist heroes are going to enjoy being able to adjust their answers. Passing Mirage no longer needs to be in the pile into decks where it isn’t super relevant. All of them are also going to have the newfound ability to choose whether they want to have a lot of board state or lean more into attack actions based on matchup.

Dash

Dash has always been a contender in the Blitz format. In Classic Constructed, Dash is one of the most versatile heroes. In Season 7, Dash gets to try some of this flexibility in Blitz. A sideboard has enough room to pick an alternative strategy for when a hero is likely to try and wait out Dash. For most of the Teklo Pounder builds, there’s enough room to fit a pistol control plan in the sideboard. This forces the opponent to find the win while potentially having picked cards expecting you to play aggro. For Hyper Driver lists there is the option to try Construct Nitro Mechanoid by having extra Drivers and the other Mech equipment in the sideboard. Into some matchups, like Rhinar, you can bring in one chamber to give you a better output when you have to block. Dash’s potential has been given a big boost in Blitz.

Benji, the Piercing Wind

Benji has a few things to consider with the new changes. The simplest is that he can bring in defensive tools to help with matchups that are trying to run him down. Another approach, is to have extra reactions in the side board to focus on Spring Tidings. Then there is the buff Benji is picking up passively. People are going to be removing stray equipment from their sideboards to have room for answers to more prevalent decks.

Ranger

The Ranger class is built around constantly presenting as many negative on hits as you can. This can be a bit difficult when you have a fixed set of arrows. Some are back breaking to certain decks and completely ignored by others. Azalea can shut down a good portion of the field with Red in the Ledger, but it’s mostly just five damage into the Guardian matches. With sideboards, Rangers can now approach a screw with a screwdriver instead of a hammer. Ranger also unlocks the capability to add a few arrows to the deck plus a copy of Remembrance to try to beat fatigue decks.

Runeblade

While they’re all going to go about it in different ways, all three of the Runeblades are going to bring the same thing in their sideboards. They all need answers to fatigue archetypes. For Chane, it’s likely Eclipse to have a consistent threat late game. Briar has a few options ranging from Rites of Replenishment to Give and Take. Briar is just trying to present reasonable damage and not run out of threats. Vynnset is a new deck and it’s to be seen how she combats fatigue. Currently it feels like she either makes Nasreth, the Soul Harrower or some one-turn kill shenanigans like Viserai used to do.

The Oasis Zone (Neutrality)

This is where the heroes that bring in responses to the traditionally tricky decks lie. A very neutral area where decks are mostly looking to gain percentage points into the most explosive decks in the format. Most of the heroes here are: Arakni, Arakni, Solitary Confinement, Levia, Kayo, Berserker Runt, Katsu, Fai, Riptide, Dorinthea, Kassai, Cintari Sellsword, and Boltyn. These decks likely enjoy the changes but, they don’t unlock a ton in the department of new strategies and tech.

A Hero Sobbing in the Distance

A hero walks out of the LSS office sighing to himself, “They do this every year!” Then, as soon as he’s out of sight, Kano throws on a devious smile knowing that, even with Oasis Respite in all the decks, he’s still one of the best decks in the format.

Kano

While Kano might be the hero taking the worst beating from these changes, I don’t believe he’ll drop from the top of the meta game. Kano gets the same ability to adapt as the other heroes. I’m expecting to see a level of innovation from this deck that we haven’t seen since LSS suspended Storm Striders. Look out for decks running some lesser used cards for Kano. As a non-Wizard player looking in, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more Blessing of Aether and Waning Moon out of Kano in the future  It’ll take much more to remove the fiery wrath of Kano from this format.

All In All

After examining the potential effects of this, I’m hoping that LSS gets favorable feedback from this experiment. If it sticks, the format will gain a lot of depth and lose a lot of space for the criticism it has seen in the past. Overall, LSS has done a great job picking out a change that will let the format grow while not losing the things that make it unique from CC. This might even give control as an archetype enough adaptability to remove Drone from the format again.