{"id":5545,"date":"2024-10-07T06:30:44","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T10:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fabrec.gg\/articles\/?p=5545"},"modified":"2024-10-03T09:59:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-03T13:59:14","slug":"the-value-of-playing-what-you-enjoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fabrec.gg\/articles\/the-value-of-playing-what-you-enjoy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Playing What You Enjoy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This past Skirmish season I made the decision to meta game. I looked at the meta spread and realized all my favorite heroes were lacking in one way or another. I thought I would have a better time bringing something on-meta like <span class=\"edhrecp__link\"><a class=\"edhrecp__link-a\" content=\"Zen\"href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\">Zen<\/a><span class=\"edhrecp__link-image\"><\/span><\/span>, <span class=\"edhrecp__link\"><a class=\"edhrecp__link-a\" content=\"Blaze, Firemind\"href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\">Blaze<\/a><span class=\"edhrecp__link-image\"><\/span><\/span>, or <span class=\"edhrecp__link\"><a class=\"edhrecp__link-a\" content=\"Briar\"href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\">Briar<\/a><span class=\"edhrecp__link-image\"><\/span><\/span>. I ended up settling on Zen as he is the most explosive of the three and can just win games out of nowhere with a 30 (or more) damage turn. This put me on a deck I didn&#8217;t care about and realistically don&#8217;t even like.<\/p>\n<div class=\"edhrecp__cards\"><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Zen\"><\/div><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Briar\"><\/div><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Blaze, Firemind\"><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Fast forward about a week and I take Zen to a Skirmish. My first round, I find the things and blow them up. It was boring. The second round I couldn&#8217;t assemble a big turn and died to arcane damage. That was also a bad time. Then the third round I double Transcend and both of them were met with an <span class=\"edhrecp__link\"><a class=\"edhrecp__link-a\" content=\"Aetherize\"href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\">Aetherize<\/a><span class=\"edhrecp__link-image\"><\/span><\/span>. At that point, I wasn&#8217;t having fun and wasn&#8217;t in contention for top cut. I ended up dropping and going home. There&#8217;s a certain point where you have to just realize that continuing an event is a bad idea.<\/p>\n<h2>Enjoying the Game<\/h2>\n<p>That being said, I&#8217;ve decided to spend my time playing and testing heroes I actively enjoy. I think there is a lot of merit to be had in playing the things you want to. At the end of the day it&#8217;s a game and we choose to play it for fun.<\/p>\n<div class=\"edhrecp__cards\"><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Strategic Planning red\"><\/div><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s more rewarding to take a hero you like to a win than it is to take a meta giant. This is specifically true when you&#8217;ve been teching for the meta. There is a lot of creativity to be had while building and tuning your favorite heroes. I think people actually give up on their favorites too quickly and miss a lot of the potential.<\/p>\n<h2>Play What You Know<\/h2>\n<p>Time and time again I&#8217;ve seen that people play the decks they have the most reps on better than they would something popular. When you end up at competitive events there&#8217;s usually more stress, and that&#8217;s not the kind of environment to be playing something that you&#8217;re still learning the intricacies of a list. When you&#8217;re under pressure it can be nice to be able to autopilot on something that you know well. This can also be applied when hitting an Armory after a long day. Playing what you know also comes in handy when you&#8217;re playing, or playing against, a turtle control strategy.<\/p>\n<div class=\"edhrecp__cards\"><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Blessing of Ingenuity blue\"><\/div><\/div>\n<p>Knowing your lines makes sure that you don&#8217;t use more time than you should in a match and push it to time. This is generally just good manners in card gaming. There are a lot of players that think that if you didn&#8217;t manage to kill them within time that the draw is justified even if the game state was indicative of an inevitable outcome. This can be avoided by trying not to find that game state because you played something you know your lines for.<\/p>\n<h2>Getting in Reps<\/h2>\n<div class=\"edhrecp__cards\"><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Double Strike\"><\/div><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s hard to play a deck that you don&#8217;t enjoy. I&#8217;ve found this can make the process of running reps on meta decks terrible. I make a lot of bad plays when I&#8217;m bored. It becomes a matter of going through the motions rather than actively trying to learn things about the deck. I can&#8217;t keep myself invested in reps on meta giants. On the flip side I can play tons of reps on a deck I love. I&#8217;ve taken a pet deck and played hours of reps just because I was enjoying it. I&#8217;ve made things work into things they shouldn&#8217;t just via experience with the matchups.<\/p>\n<h2>Alright Jo, What Are You Playing?<\/h2>\n<div class=\"edhrecp__cards\"><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Valda Brightaxe\"><\/div><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Benji, the Piercing Wind\"><\/div><div class=\"edhrecp__card-container\" name=\"Enigma, New Moon\"><\/div><\/div>\n<p>I&#8217;ve talked about the merit of playing some of your favorite decks and I&#8217;m going to take a moment to talk about some of my favorites, starting with <span class=\"edhrecp__link\"><a class=\"edhrecp__link-a\" content=\"Valda Brightaxe\"href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\">Valda Brightaxe<\/a><span class=\"edhrecp__link-image\"><\/span><\/span>. Valda is a hero I&#8217;m known for playing around my area. I haven&#8217;t gotten a chance to play her as much lately because I&#8217;d been focusing on decks that are more effective, but I think it&#8217;s time to return to drawing cards and making <span class=\"edhrecp__link\"><a class=\"edhrecp__link-a\" content=\"Seismic Surge\"href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\">Seismic Surge<\/a><span class=\"edhrecp__link-image\"><\/span><\/span>s. I also want to revisit playing some builds of <span class=\"edhrecp__link\"><a class=\"edhrecp__link-a\" content=\"Benji, the Piercing Wind\"href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\">Benji, the Piercing Wind<\/a><span class=\"edhrecp__link-image\"><\/span><\/span>. I&#8217;ve played him as control, midrange, and aggro. I just really enjoy building and paying Benji piles. The last thing I really want to explore more is <span class=\"edhrecp__link\"><a class=\"edhrecp__link-a\" content=\"Enigma, New Moon\"href=\"#\" target=\"_blank\">Enigma, New Moon<\/a><span class=\"edhrecp__link-image\"><\/span><\/span>. I have an Iris list that&#8217;s a good core, but I want to see how viable that deck can be with some more reps.<\/p>\n<h2>Go Have Fun!<\/h2>\n<p>When playing <em>Flesh and Blood<\/em> it&#8217;s important to make your own fun. If the meta isn&#8217;t working for you, play what is. If you love something off meta, force it and win with experience. Playing something you hate just leads to having a bad time and ultimately burning out on a hobby.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You don&#8217;t need to play the meta titans to have fun playing Flesh and Blood. Sometimes you&#8217;re better off playing what you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":2580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[105,35,36,512,309,188],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Value of Playing What You Enjoy - FABREC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You don&#039;t need to play the meta titans to have fun playing Flesh and Blood. 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