Legend Story Studios (LSS) banned Stubby Hammerers in Classic Constructed today in an unexpected Banned & Suspended announcement for Flesh and Blood.
The common piece of equipment from Monarch was already preemptively banned in Blitz due to is clear power level with Fai, but LSS wanted to see how it behaved in Classic Constructed. The results from the Road to Nationals season came in and LSS determined it was too strong with Fai, Rising Rebellion in Classic Constructed as well.
Fai, equipped with Stubby Hammerers, was the third most winning deck over the season, tallying 177 Top 8s with 21 wins. The new Draconic Ninja from Uprising collected the most Top 8s, but its win rate in Top 8s trailed Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light and Viserai, Rune Blood. LSS said its “happy” that Fai got have a full season with Stubby Hammerers, but the Calling Utrecht weekend showed how strong an optimized Fai deck could be. With the data compiled, LSS is making the move to ban Stubby Hammerers in Classic Constructed.
“While we know there are tools available to beat Fai with Stubby Hammerers at the highest level of competitive play, for all the heroes that don’t have access to those tools, Stubby Hammerers causes games against optimized Fai decks to end much faster than we believe is conducive to a positive game experience. This isn’t something we want to see at prolific levels for instore play such as Armory, where we would like players to majoritively have engaging games with whatever their favorite hero is.”
Legend Story Studios
The next scheduled Banned & Suspended announcement is set for August 30. This will also serve as a Living Legend check and Prism, Sculptor of Arclight looks to be the next hero to reach the legendary status with 998 Living Legend points.
Read the original announcement from LSS.