Flesh and Blood published its latest Banned & Restricted announcement ahead of schedule, introducing some sweeping changes to both Classic Constructed and Blitz, including the banning of one of the game’s most prominent cards.
The bans included in this announcement were originally intended to go into effect with the scheduled October Banned & Restricted update, but James White, the creator of Flesh and Blood, wanted to get the news out ahead of Rosetta’s World Premiere. Not only are there eight cards getting banned from Classic Constructed and Blitz, but the game’s design principles are being adjusted to help usher in a new era of Flesh and Blood gameplay.
Over the five years of Flesh and Blood’s lifecycle, certain cards and effects have warped the desired play patterns of the game. While two of the of the bannings are more targeted at the current meta of Classic Constructed, six of the bannings are to help move the game away from a trend of creating card advantage through cheap card draw and refocus the game on incremental advantages that can be gained in four-card cycles.
These offensive overlaps, which White describes as ways for players to combine cards to net hero damage so that games can end naturally via a player being reduced to zero life, have gone too far. When offensive overlaps are too easy to access and chain together for little to no cost, they allow decks and strategies to lead to low or no-agency games that cause concerns for the long-term health of the game.
It’s always been our intention to offer players ways to create offensive overlaps so the majority of games end with a hero being reduced to 0 life rather than 0 cards in deck. As of late, offensive overlaps have become too extreme and too frequent, to the point where the principle of achieving victory through the accumulation of many good decisions has been eroded. The most egregious culprits are cards that immediately net additional cards without costing an action point or are playable by heroes that are easily able to generate or bypass action points.”
James White
White went on to write that there is no greater loss of agency than the game ending from forces that a player had no reasonable way to interact with. With that sentiment in mind, multiple bans are going into effect on September 9 to bring the game back in line with its core design principles.
These bans include:
- Art of War
- Bonds of Ancestry
- Cash In
- Orihon of Mystic Tenets
- Tome of Aetherwind
- Tome of Divinity
- Tome of Fyendal
- Tome of Firebrand
Art of War has been a staple since its printing in Arcane Rising. Not only does it allow players to get access to extra cards, but being a generic card allows all heroes to utilize it, often making it omnipresent in the meta. Because it can interact with every card printed in Flesh and Blood, Art of War has restricted design space. Instead of warping all future designs around this powerful instant, it is being banned.
The blue and yellow versions of Bonds of Ancestry were already banned in the last Banned & Restricted update to help bring Zen, Tamer of Purpose in line, but the card still remains problematic. Bonds of Ancestry presents offensive overlaps that are beyond the agency thresholds intended for the game and is being banned.
The other six cards are being banned as a preemptive measure as they aren’t overly problematic at the moment, but could easily break in the future. Notably, all six have the text of drawing two or three cards for minimal effort and cost.
While these cards are all being removed from Classic Constructed and Blitz, they will live on in the Living Legend format. Living Legend will continue to be a forever home for all cards printed in Flesh and Blood, giving players a reason to keep cards in their collection after they leave Classic Constructed. It’s clear that as Legend Story Studios (LSS) pushes to delineate the formats, Living Legend will offer players a place to play the most powerful cards in the game alongside heroes that already made their mark on Classic Constructed. Notably, Bonds of Ancestry is being restricted in Living Legend similar to other game-warping cards like Awakening, Crippling Crush, and Warmonger’s Diplomacy.
The next Banned & Restricted announcement is scheduled for November 11.
Read the official Banned & Restricted announcement from LSS.