Battle Hardened Hartford shows us just what the Americas can do during this absolutely jam packed weekend of high level Flesh and Blood. Happening right alongside Battle Hardened Tokyo, Battle Hardened Milan, and the last week of Pro Quest Singapore, we players are being treated to a wealth of decks and plays to get our minds ready for Nationals.
Nuu, Alluring Desire, Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire, and Azalea, Ace in the Hole's are all teetering on the edge of the Living Legend Leader Board, so many wonder if they'll be viable for Nationals, and these events have truly influenced that.
Battle Hardened Hartford Top 8 Decks
The Top 8 in Battle Hardened Hartford featured: Fang, Dracai of Blades, 2 Florian, Rotwood Harbinger, Kano, Dracai of Aether, 2 Prism, Awakener of Sol, 2 Vynnset, Iron Maiden
It's a Runeblade world in these late stages of the Hunted Meta. With High Seas fully revealed, multiple bans in effect, and Nationals season set to begin, we can still learn a great deal from these top decks from Battle Hardened Hartford going into the new season.
5th Place Decks
Fang
Fang has quickly cemented his spot as arguably the strongest Warrior Hero. After Kassai of the Golden Sand made a strong win during Minneapolis, her conversion rate has somewhat dipped, and now the Draconic Warrior is back on top.
This version by Jesse Bowman has a lot of very interesting inclusions. A slightly higher number of attack actions than the usual Oath of Loyalty and For the Dracai. This deck is running only two Oath, but also one Hunt to the Ends of Rathe. With Arakni, Marionette on the rise, it can get it's on attack Mark in that matchup, as well as being a mid chain Go Again attack. It's this thinking that has this version also playing Blaze Headlong, and might add to the one off inclusion of Command and Conquer.
It's because of the uptick of "Mario" that this deck is playing Kabuto of Imperial Authority to slow the Assassin's dagger based gameplan, and is crucial in the Warrior Mirror.
Florian
Joshua Tavares' take on Florian is how I would personally play the hero, and is the direction the hero will likely have to take with Scepter of Pain out of the format.
By leveraging Channel Mount Heroic, and leveraging cards with Go Again like Enlightened Strike, Swarming Gloomveil, and Runerager's Swarm all can present a great deal of physical damage, when paired with the arcane from Runechants paired with Channel the Millennium Tree.
Despite being less defensively oriented, the deck still plays 12 Defence Reactions, and supplements its Decompose plan with Cadaverous Tilling. That lost defence is made up for with the inclusion of Summerwood Shelter.
Aggression in the Blues is found with the unusual inclusions of ele084-stir-the-wildwood-3-tales-of-aria-booster and ros060-strength-of-four-seasons-3-rosetta-booster just pushes this aggressive, tempo Florian build.
If a deck can include Trot Along then it's pretty good to me.
Prism
Both Prism decks made it to top 8, but no further. It's always an important exercise to compare and contrast two decks off the same hero, at different points in the event, and see where the differences lie.
Elizabeth Sprinkle's version has interesting differences inclusions and ratios. The split of dtd036-angelic-wrath-2-dusk-till-dawn-booster which seems correct since Prism is such a Yellows Matters deck.
There are enough Auras in the deck, with Parable of Humility to make the Vestige of Sol, Auras matter plan against popper heavy decks.
dtd018-herald-of-ravages-2-dusk-till-dawn-booster is a card that has been seeing more and more play since Pro Tour London, and as an extra Yellow, it serves the role and has a particularly effective On Hit.
It's very interesting to contrast this one with the aggressively slanted version piloted by Reuben An. Playing the Red copies of [card]Angelic Wrath[/card] for the mighty +4 bonus. After that, the core cards and the core strategy looks effectively pretty similar.
There are very few ways to iterate on a deck as well established as Prism, but changing the specific numbers of tech cards like Wrath, or how many copies (if any) of [card]Celestial Reprimand[/card] to include is always a consideration when building Prism.
[deck]prism-bh-hartford-5th-id5o5/" data-atts='[]'>
3rd Place Decks
Kano
As we discussed in our article about Battle Hardened Tokyo, the overall metagame has slowed down a great deal, which benefits Kano very highly. This version has completely cut the Yellow copies of Overflow the Aetherwell. The deck does not need to favour aggressive, explosive damage, and is instead able to consider resolving bigger, stompier spells like Eternal Inferno and Swell Tidings.
In addition to this slightly more finesse style game plan for Kano, the inclusion of Snapback and the Commoner and Project Blue banned Wizard Weapon Waning Moon.
Kano is another one of those heroes alongside Azalea and Dash just on the verge of leaving the format. We will see if the Wizard's future is certain.
Vynnset
Here at the top of the meta game, we see all of the Runeblades still left in the wider metagame. While Vynnset is no replacement for Chane, Bound by Shadow, she does offer the aggressive split damage that Runeblade is known best for.
This version of Vynnset, piloted by June Lekstutis, looks to include all the classics of the Shadow Runeblade's solved deck build. The usual culprits of Widespread Destruction, Widespread Annihilation, and Widespread Ruin are all there, with the necessary non-attack actions like Shadow Puppetry and Tear Through the Portal.
It's nice to see some more fringe cards get some love in June's list. While Cull is a needed restriction on Chane in Living Legend, it's perfectly fine here, but the templating behind it, to play it like an Instant is seen on Requiem for the Damned to create a turn extending Eloquence.
Finalist
Vynnset
This particular take on Vynnset, sure has the stuff you'd come to expect, but the inclusion of a few other key cards are what makes this version so unique.
Sonata Galaxia is included to search your red and yellow copies of Malefic Incantation. What's more interesting is the inclusion of Timesnap Potion. Vynnset has never struggled with Action Points, with cards like Shadow Puppetry, Mauvrion Skies giving Go Again, and being able to play a non-attack with Go Again like it's an instant with the help of Spellbound Creepers. It's interesting to see included, and has its upsides as a Blue.
The other oddball inclusion, but one I particularly like, is Mordred Tide. A card registered in every Viserai, Rune Blood list I've ever seen. In a deck this hungry for generating Runechants, there's definitely the consideration to play it, if it is a little clunky.
Battle Hardened Hartford has shown off the power level of Runeblade, and that even in decks this established, there is still innovation to be found in your card choices.
Winner
Florian
Battle Hardened Hartford marks the last big event that saw the style of Runechant Stack Florian.
This particular version was dedicated to truly stacking as many Runechants as efficiently as possible. Runeblood Barrier is set up to make 4 for a single card. The inclusion of Deadwood Dirge also efficiently turns 1 Runechant into 3.
This stacking gameplan, fuelled of course by the pairing of Millennium Tree and Scepter of Pain, is all paired with a card some stack Florian lists were playing: Looming Doom. This easily punishes any deck that only brings AB1 into Florian, by turning all your Runechants into pings of 2 arcane at the end of every turn, alongside however many Runechants you're able to refill with. It also being able to send that Arcane to any target would be good against all the allies coming into the metagame alongside Gravy Bones, Shipwrecked Looter
Wrap Up
Battle Hardened Hartford has been a showing of the greatest in the Americas what the tail end of the Hunted Season. The strong decks are well defined, and we can only imagine where they'll end up when High Seas hits the shelves on June 6.
Be sure to check in on the results for all the high level events, and the latest news in the world of FaBTCG right here on DotGG.
