Taking the Tempo in Flesh and Blood

April 30, 2024 by Jose Lau

Flesh and Blood is a game I love for the intimate back and forth that happens every game. Matches often come down to the wire, and the tension you share with your opponent is indescribable. In this game of tug of war, I want to share one of the critical mindsets I have that has found me success in Flesh and Blood, and it is being the one asking the questions, and taking tempo.

Asking the Question

Everyone understands the concept of the Beatdown. Originating back in 1999 in the early days of Magic: The Gathering, it states that in every game, one player is the aggressor, and one player is the control, and who’s in which position fluctuates in the game. My beliefs evolve from those principles, to constantly asking yourself, what does your opponent want you to do right now? After all, it makes sense. If your opponent doesn’t get to execute their game plan, they can’t win. The difficult part is pushing forward your plan alongside theirs.

The main concept when I’m taking lines is to maintain control of the game I want to be happy, regardless of my opponent’s response to my play. I visualize this via offering a handshake. Every time I present an attack, I am offering a handshake to my opponent. If they were to reject this metaphorical handshake by taking the damage, I view it as a punishment, as I blow them out in the game by generating value. This results in slow, marginally won turn cycles, as they continue to accept the handshake, slowly swaying the game to your favor. The more difficult it is for their deck to shake your hand, the better your line.

This can range from playing a normal-looking game of trading attacks, to setting up a powerful second cycle. It can involve battling your opponent on the axis of deck size, winning the eventual long game by forcing them into maximizing the few cards they have left. By presenting disruption turn after turn, you keep your opponent’s most explosive turns in check. These marginal advantages transcend the mere mathematical advantages you get by finding the most efficient line and aiding you in controlling the flow of the game.

The decks that are best for this style of play are flexible midrange decks. They’re able to change their game plan hand to hand, and present and answer difficult situations from your opponent. The prime example of such a deck is Uzuri, Switchblade. On the offensive, she has several methods of pushing aggression, with efficient attacks such as Ravenous Rabble, and Spider’s Bite swings that make it incredibly difficult for opponents to block your turns out. Defensively, her deck largely blocks for three, being able to go on the defense if necessary. Lastly, her on hits from cards like Shake Down and Command and Conquer hamper the opponent’s game plan, while progressing her own.

Keeping Tempo

Keeping tempo involves being the player in the position to present difficult lines for your opponent. By taking aggressive risky lines, you put yourself in the position to force your opponent to sacrifice some form of resources to take back tempo. At worst, you get your punishment while your opponent retaliates, and at best you keep your opponent on the backfoot. Having the ability to press the advantage is critical for keeping Tempo. Cards such as Crippling Crush, Aether Icevein and Red in the Ledger force answers, and the tempo to be in your favor.

I’ve traditionally disliked pure fatigue decks without an aggressive plan, as they only attack from the angle of resources remaining in your opponent’s deck. Being unable to threaten life as a resource leads to your opponent being able to ignore attacks without disruption, as they have excess resources to sacrifice to keep the tempo, leaving you at your opponent’s mercy. This is the same reason why excessive life disadvantages are incredibly hard to come back from, as life can be lost as a sacrifice to maintain tempo.

Reversing Tempo

Most of the time, however, your opponents will try to wrestle control of the game from you. To prevent this, you have to break the handshakes your opponent is offering you. This is via subversion, or attacking your opponent from an angle from low resources or by which they don’t expect. Some of the methods of doing so have already been shared, but viewing it from the receiving angle of being beaten down, you want to present counterattacks that force your opponent to give you value or reduce the resources and flexibility they have while attacking you. Given time, your opponent’s hold on the game will shift and you will regain tempo. Examples of cards good at reversing the tempo are powerful one-card hands, such as Codex of Frailty, Snatch or Arctic Incarceration.

Common Applications

While certain decks play better flexibly, this mindset is applicable across Flesh and Blood – learning and knowing which attacks to block, and which are more critical to an opponent’s game plan, whereas they only appear more threatening than they are. However, the applications of this principle are broad and endless.

The first example is during attack sequencing and is taught even during the beginner Ira decks. You want to make blocks from your opponent difficult to respond to, by assigning on hit effects at inconvenient to block attack points. While it’s impossible to encompass all the methods where this is employed, being aware of each deck’s defensive profiles is a major level-up as a player. One example is traditionally bad breakpoints of escalating values of three is more effective against one-handed Warrior decks, giving them minimal opportunities to utilize Valiant Dynamo. Another is reading your opponent having a defense reaction and baiting it out early with an earlier attack, before subverting that attack with the real haymaker later down the chain. The most common example is Mounting Anger catching defense reactions, for a Snatch to end the chain.

Another common example is tossing your entire hand to block out. Although your deck might not be good at blocking, at times if your hand is poor, by blocking out and not retaliating at all, you devalue your opponent’s hand if they’re unable to utilize every card, punishing decks that lack consistent methods to aggress, and in dire times is the best way to position yourself in the rare opportunity your opponent bricks their draw. This is common in certain defensive decks such as Guardians, Kassai of the Golden Sand, or the Brutes, which may struggle to utilize their entire hand, leveraging the value that way. It’s important to remember almost every card in Flesh and Blood is multimodal, and blocking for two is still blocking.

Example 1 – Spider’s Bite and Command and Conquer

To utilize this strategy, it’s important to understand what your opponent is trying to do against you. For example, depending on the matchup and situation, Guardian might attempt to take the tempo and keep the advantage by trading damage to present an assault, throwing massive blows whilst slowing you down. However, they may also be attempting to turtle you out.

With Fyendal’s Spring Tunic, the Assassins have access to a powerful line, pitching a blue and swinging their weapon to prevent blocks, activating the Tunic and throwing a Command and Conquer. This line is especially powerful, as common counterplay to the reduced block of daggers are defense reactions, which can’t defend Command and Conquer.

This line is counter-intuitive to Uzuri’s more obvious line, casting Isolate and using Uzuri’s hero ability to guarantee a dominated Command and Conquer. This line, however, falls short if your opponent has a defense reaction in arsenal, being able to react before Uzuri’s ability resolves, blowing out the value you would have gotten. The other line doesn’t allow for this, causing the opponent to either block with armor or three cards in hand to protect their defense reaction, on top of you already netting one damage from the weapon swing, winning this trade. This line is better, if you suspect your opponent is playing aggressively, and left open to Isolate.

Knowing when to do alternate lines to make an opponent’s life difficult comes from understanding your opponent’s deck and their play patterns. How long their arsenal has yet to shift, the structure of how they’re blocking, and how they counterattack can give critical information. The aforementioned dagger swing line is better in the Bravo, Showstopper matchup for example, if the Bravo’s arsenal has not shifted despite you allowing them to hold large hands. This is important, as you’re taking the line your opponent doesn’t want to see. You’re asking a hard question that has advantageous answers for you no matter how your opponent responds.

Example 2 – Barraging Beatdown

That example is easy when it comes to Uzuri, Switchblade due to the flexible nature of her deck. How about a deck which makes this theory less straightforward? This brings us to one of my favorite heroes and cards, Rhinar, Reckless Rampage and Barraging Beatdown.

This card is intensely flexible in Rhinar, with three main applications. First, and the most fun, is in conjunction with other intimidate effects to prevent an opponent’s entire hand from blocking and its bonus damage from activating. This can be done either via waiting for an opportunity by setting this card patiently in the arsenal, or pitch-stacking it with other intimidate effects. Secondly, is to block; Rhinar is a deck that has highly explosive turns and seeks to stall for those turns. Lastly is in a two-card hand alongside a weapon swing.

Knowing when to Barraging Beatdown into a weapon swing is critical. Intimidate is a deceptively powerful mechanic as it can potentially cause delicate blocking hands to fall apart. This causes opponents either to lose precious life against Rhinar, or block through intimidate’s effects and causing their counterattack to be more manageable for the Rhinar player, buying him precious time to reach his combos.

How to use Barraging Beatdown comes from knowing your matchup and situation. Uzuri, Switchblade, for example, is a delicate blocker, often preferring specific cards in her hand to be blocking and attacking, while disrupting setup plays so a full intimidate combo is unlikely. Usually, a two-card Barraging is the most effective way to utilize that card against her. Against Katsu, the Wanderer, delicate blocking and stalling for powerful Bloodrush Bellow turns is important, so while it might be tempting to use Barraging Beatdown to launch a counterattack, it is usually better to hold out and block with it, saving life for future turns. Lastly, there’s Victor. The best method to defeat Victor Goldmane, High and Mighty is via singular, explosive turns overwhelming their defense. Rhinar does this better with intimidate, as such pitch stacking an intimidate combo is the best way to utilize the card against Victor. These examples all dictate that you use your cards in the most effective way versus an opponent’s game plan and misuse of the card doesn’t generate the tempo it should.

Conclusion

I hope this article has given you a new perspective on viewing the complex game of Flesh and Blood. The main takeaway I would like to share through this article is be wary of what your opponent wants the game to look like, and do your best to make it otherwise. By utilizing this method, it has given me insight on better lines in situations I’m unfamiliar with and new creative lines in decks, and I hope it has been a help for you.

Thanks for reading, and the next time we chat, a new Assassin will be abound.

Jose Lau

As a known brute aficionado, Jose’s placed in several top 8’s throughout various Road to Nationals, ProQuest events, bringing Rhinar to a win at PTI Singapore. Jose also alters trading cards, and can be caught on instagram at @tornadususedsketch! Jose looks forward to participating in Worlds Osaka, 2024!