Hello everyone, and welcome back to a slightly different article from me this week. I’m taking a slight break from running through each hero in the game. Now that I’ve completed Mystic 101 and there’s a slight break before Rosetta‘s release and Calling: Sydney, I thought I’d take the time to write about some of the surrounding aspects of Commoner that I’m deeply passionate about. So today I’ll be going over three points of discussion, or “hot takes,” about the format that should be addressed, with some specific targeted conversations about some of the format’s top tier heroes.

Revert the Rare Equipment Rules Change

This one might be slightly controversial, but hear me out with this example. Due to FAB being a head-to-head hero-based card game, there have been many comparisons to fighting games, some apt, others less so. Street Fighter Three: Third Strike is a cult classic of the fighting game community, and as a game that is lauded as a marvel of its time, it has its fair share of people who claim to love the game without ever playing it. One of the biggest draws to the game is its universal defensive option; the parry.

In the now famous Evo Moment 37 clip which showcases some of the highest level of play and potential of such a mechanic, the parry is a game-wide system that allows any character to fully block any attack at the risk of having to tap forward within 10 frames of the incoming attack. This has inevitably led to people describing Third Strike as this utopia of game balance due to the fact that any character on the tier list has a chance of winning with precise timing and game knowledge. The reality of the situation is that the top tiers within the game, already powerful due to a variety of reasons in their movelist or frame data, also have this universal defensive option at their disposal, which just leads to making them even more privileged and unbeatable.

I feel like this is a perfect comparison to unrestricting the number of rare equipment from two for every hero. While it’s nice for new players to approach deckbuilding, and it can theoretically allow more room for a wider range of equipment options for each hero, it really just serves to further empower specific classes due to the equipment spread. While it’s certainly good to imagine a world where Arcane Lantern is a great little piece of tech for classes with access to one-handed weapons in the event that Wizards get slightly out of hand, what’s really happening is that a hero like Oldhim gets to take Civic Steps, Steelbraid Buckler, Arcane Lantern, and Sledge of Anvilheim, which is frankly completely absurd when most of the other heroes are looking to some equipment with a minor effect that destroys itself in the process and blade break 1 tacked on for limited. I’m saying this as someone who’s put countless hours into Oldhim, LSS’ experimental product releases in the past few years have left some heroes extremely flush with good rare equipment options and others with basically nothing except for maybe some extremely niche cards in a supplemental set.

Have a Slightly More Aggressive Banlist

It’s no secret that the Commoner banlist is not the most regularly updated, with the last iteration being the December 2023 Scheduled Banned and Restricted Announcement hitting Stubby Hammerers and Amulet of Ice out of the format. Now this is pretty easy to understand why, there’s just not enough data or events to form a well-rounded and complete picture of the Commoner landscape. Most of the information comes from a small sample size and community feedback from select members, which is to say, it largely comes from vibes. Which is totally fine! I just wish that LSS would take a more vibes-based approach to the Commoner banlist by having clear tentpoles for the platonic ideal of the format.

Take a card like Hyper Driver red. It’s not crazy to say that the Plasma Barrel Shot Dash lists are almost entirely powered by the resource efficiency of this item, and that the Hyper Driver specific support only adds to the redundancy of it all, providing multiple ways to reduce costs if it’s in play or to add back steam counters if banished via boosting. The latest banlist removed both yellow and blue Bonds of Ancestry in an unprecedented move from LSS, targeting specific colors rather than outright banning a card in its entirety. I believe that combining that type of philosophy, drastic though it may be as described in Bryan Gottlieb’s reasoning for the ban, and a vibes-based approach to the format’s curation would lead to a better format.

It’s not that Hyper Driver red is necessarily dominating the format at all times, or that Dash is unbeatable. It’s just that the damage output to resource cost provided by its legality is a power outlier in what Commoner’s expected range of damage output should be. Additionally, banning only the red copy of the card won’t gut the deck and render it unplayable, the other items that Dash has access to in Commoner are largely a joke, but effectively having one fewer resource gained from Hyper Driver could make the deck more palatable when oftentimes a lot of the games can come down to how quickly the Hyper Driver is destroyed.

No Need for Living Legend or Rotation in Commoner

This one is a pretty common hot take I’ve heard about Commoner, and that’s implementing a Living Legend system into the format. Out of all the takes I’ve heard about the format, this is the one that I am the most vehemently opposed to. FAB has developed out its suite of formats, with CC and Blitz being its primary constructed formats at its heart and center. Both these formats are already inherently balanced and kept fresh by the Living Legend system and scheduled ban updates, so that any potential reign of terrors are firmly kept in check. Now that LSS has started branching out into other forms of constructed play, including Living Legend as its eternal format for everyone’s favorite broken and degenerate cards making waves as a third competitive constructed format, formats like Ultimate Pit Fight and Commoner are considered casual in nature and potentially would do well to stay casual. This means that prizes at Armories for these formats are handed out at random rather than for standings or performance, as per the Casual Play and Armory Kit Guidance. Theoretically this is a deterrent to showing up to your casual Armory with the best deck in the format all for the sake of taking home the Cold Foil and promoting more inventive and fun decks and ideas instead.

The problem really lies in the transition of Commoner as a casual Armory format to a competitive side event for a Gold Foil at Pro Tours and Callings. The parameters of the event change drastically, and it’s reasonable and fair to expect everyone to be playing decks that give them the best chances of winning considering the potential prizes available. This in turn leads to some potentially same-y Top 8s and winners, notably heroes like Ira, which is well known for her consistent damage output and fundamental bread-and-butter playstyle that gives it at the very least an even chance against almost any matchup. I don’t see this is a problem with the format but more an issue with the organized play side of things and that the solution to less of a feel-bad is to incorporate both the vibes-based approach to bans and casual play incentive to retain some aspect of experimentation at these bigger events.

I’m no OP genius, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but perhaps prizes for highest performing hero from the most recent draftable set could be a good way to incentivize creative deckbuilding, and playing out the rest of the event instead of dropping after a third loss could be a good start to incorporating some of that casual play experience into these higher stakes side events. I’m also of the opinion that the more aggressive banlist to Commoner could also alleviate these feelings of needing a Living Legend system. Maybe for Ira, a card like red Bittering Thorns is just too high a damage range for a single card, and focusing more on stuff like Twin Twisters to at least encourage blocking to prevent an on-hit as part of Ira’s kit (part of this is definitely motivated by my dislike of the Round the Table product due to how insane the power level of a few cards are for Commoner being tied to a $70 AUD product, I won’t lie). Ultimately, this particular point of discussion can be largely “fixed” by addressing some other small aspects of the format’s current state, but I remain convicted in my stance on not needing a Living Legend system for Commoner.

Parting Thoughts

To conclude, Commoner is awesome fun, and despite this article addressing some of the issues I have with the format currently, it’s still the main way I intend to engage with the game. I love this format and what it offers, but also recognize that there are some parts of it I don’t agree with or find particularly fun from a gameplay perspective. I wrote this to articulate my thoughts on some of these larger issues I can see developing within the format and the small community around it, but I continue to trust in LSS’ stewardship of the format.

Further Reading:

How to Build a Commoner Deck For Flesh and Blood

The Best Equipment for the Commoner Format

Playing Flesh and Blood on a Budget

Daniel Yam

Daniel is a competitive psychopath who has relegated himself into playing the most casual format of Commoner. Starting Magic at the onset of Shards block, he jumped into Flesh and Blood when the Ira demo decks were being given out to Australian stores and is a proud holder of a 4-digit GEM ID. In his spare time, he enjoys trying to convince his friends to play increasingly worse cards, going to museums, and playing Guild Wars.