Legend Story Studios (LSS) made sweeping changes to four Flesh and Blood formats in the scheduled Banned & Restricted announcement while also updating the Living Legend point system.
Classic Constructed
Count Your Blessings, which was previewed as an innocuous generic from Rosetta, turned out to be one of the game’s most controversial cards. While its impact has been relatively balanced since its release, no card has been the root of complaints more than it. The burst of life gain can drag out games and make players feel hopeless. On top of its negative reputation, particularly among local groups, Count Your Blessings has also been taxing to design around. All future cards had to be put through their paces against designated fatigue control decks that asked too much of the development team. For these reasons, LSS is banning Count Your Blessings in both Classic Constructed and Blitz.
“It is time for us to move on from Count Your Blessings in both Classic Constructed and Blitz. We have taken many lessons from the experience and would not categorize the cards influence on the game over its legal lifespan as strictly negative, but the strategy and its mode of gameplay has run its course for now.”
Bryan Gottlieb
Bans of Germinate and Scepter of Pain are moves to bring Florian back in line with the rest of the field in Classic Constructed as the Elemental Runeblade hero has been too strong following the ascension of heroes like Zen and Enigma to Living Legend status. Scepter of Pain scales too harshly with the amp mechanic and Germinate allows for Florian endgames to be too easy and deterministic. To compound the reasoning for the ban of Germinate, Gottlieb also wrote that a card coming in High Seas will replace Germinate and most likely would have made it even stronger.
With Zen leaving the format, the return of Bonds of Ancestry (red) should give Katsu some more fight without being problematic.
Blitz
LSS notes that Aurora and the Wizards in Blitz need to be slowed down a bit and that explains the need to ban Storm Striders, Channel Lightning Valley, and Flicker Wisp. Storm Striders is a beloved card that had lot of pros and cons going for it, but years of data and results have led to the design team finally taking it out of the Blitz format. Count Your Blessings is leaving Blitz for all the same reasons listed in the Classic Constructed section.
Living Legend
With Living Legend announced as a format for the upcoming Flesh and Blood World Championship some adjustments were needed — mainly some much needed nerfs to Chane and Bravo, Star of the Show. These heroes have been out of line with the format for a while and had already seen waves of bans and restrictions. Carrion Husk and Crown of Seeds have been integral to Chane and Bravo, Star of the Show, respectively, but are simply too strong. Pieces of equipment that start in play and stay in play are concerns for any format and these two stand out the most.
While Cull is getting hit with the ban hammer, the remainder of the Runeblade cards are being restricted. Chane has the ability to go through its deck, typically, allowing players to still see their singleton copies and use them strategically.
Hypothermia is coming off the restricted list to give more life to Iyslander.
Commoner
Reality Refractor is a SIPSIP weapon that, when online, puts Enigma at too high a power level for the format. Gottlieb notes that it most likely should have been banned in the last B&R announcement, but is glad to get rid of it this time around.
Living Legend Points Update
Two changes are coming for Living Legend points: fractional points will be tracked via the GEM backend and points will be applied on a sliding scale based on how long a hero has been legal.
Here is the new system for applying Living Legend points:
- During their first year of legality, a hero’s earned Living Legend points will be halved.
- During their second year of legality, a hero’s earned Living Legend points will have no multiplier.
- In all other years of legality, a hero’s earned Living Legend points will be multiplied by 1.5.
These changes coincide with the ability to better track fractional Living Legend points so numbers won’t have to be rounded up like they had in previous seasons.
Read the original announcement from LSS.
