A banning is something that has become all too necessary to maintain the health of a card game's wider metagame, and the feel of the game at the casual store level, and the wider competitive scene. During their most recent Dev Talk, Brian Gottleib promised that this B&R was brought forward, and would bring shake ups. He was not wrong. The May 20th Banned and Restricted Announcement has changed everything.
In this post, we're going to respond to their cadence to which cards were banned and why, which decks were hit hardest, and what this means going into High Seas season.
May 20th Banned and Restricted Update
Classic Constructed
The following changes were made, and are effective as of May 20th:
- Count Your Blessings is banned.
- Germinate is banned.
- Scepter of Pain is banned.
- Bonds of Ancestry Red is unbanned.
It has come to the delight of everyone, but to the lamentation of Fatigue players like Gregorz Kowalski, that CYB is gone from Classic Constructed. In the official banned announcement, Brian Gottleib called CYB "perhaps the most controversial card in Flesh and Blood history". It's hard to argue.
The defensive overlap where nearly any grindy deck can simply push a healing button and undo the entire game plan of an aggressive deck like Cindra is deeply frustrating for any player. It has been a card that has created a deep level of toxicity for casual players at the Armory level, as well as at the higher level tables.
As we've seen in the final few weeks of Pro Quest Singapore, Florian, Rotwood Harbinger has ended up securing the overall majority of wins during this season. As such, Legend Story Studios have answered his metagame dominance by removing some his stronger pieces.
Germinate offers the largest hit of Runechants in the stack game plan. While it's the least egregious card in Florian's current kit, it will apparently pair very well with a High Seas expansion slot card, so it going in this May 20th Banned announcement is welcome.
The card which I, and a lot of other people, were expecting to leave was Scepter of Pain. As they said when they banned Kraken's Aethervein from Living Legend. The consideration for Amp was not given, and the ability to create that many Runechants became untenable.
Legend Story Studios have this tendency, and it's become evident in a lot of the cards that they've had to ban. Cards from long ago are fine in isolation, then they create a new keyword or in game mechanic, that skews the old card to a point of power concern. Creating Crouching Tigers in hand, off cards like Stride of Reprisal lead to the banning of Art of War. The Retrieve keyword on cards like Pick Up the Point lead to them banning Zephyr Needle effectively everywhere. Now Amp has removed two flavourful and powerful weapons. Though for good reason.
With the increased cadence with regards to bans, I believe they will need to look closely at their older cards, from those first few sets, before designing anything newer.
It's become custom for LSS to unban a card while banning many others. They put Crown of Seeds back into Blitz while taking away Zephyr Needle and Waning Moon during the last BnR.
Bringing back Bonds of Ancestry, though only in the Reds is a power boost that brings Katsu, the Wanderer from obscurity to serious potential meta relevance. Him gaining Retrace the Past was already a step towards greatness as it works as a name changed proxy to allow the Dishonor line of play. Giving him Bonds back allows that line to be enabled, but also brings the possibility of working with Winds of Eternity alongside Hundred Winds or even more.
Only time will tell what the changes to Ninja will be with this reintroduction of a powerhouse card.
Blitz
- Channel Lightning Valley is banned.
- Count Your Blessings is banned.
- Flicker Wisp
- Storm Striders
The Blitz format has always been turbulent. We aren't set to expect any major Blitz results or events until Skirmish Season 12 in August. Nevertheless, this was a chance to edit the format well ahead of that.
Count Your Blessings was played very heavily in fatigue decks like Terra and Yoji, Royal Protector so for all the reasons it left the CC format, it left Blitz.
Aurora, Shooting Star might have left Classic Constructed, but Aurora is still legal in Blitz. To prevent her speed running that format, she has lost the other half of the Arc Lightning combo, and the main form of aggressive card draw. This will greatly improve her overall lifespan in the format.
Even with Aurora doing very well during Skirmish Season 11, that format was held over very well by Verdance. Wizard has always been powerful in a format with 20 or less life, so the key piece that allows Wizard to get those sudden, snipe kills had to be removed to ensure the levelling out of power among the other classes.
Living Legend
- Carrion Husk is banned.
- Crown of Seeds is banned.
- Cull is restricted.
- Deadwood Dirge is restricted.
- Succumb to Temptation is restricted.
- Hypothermia is unrestricted.
Upon first glance at these changes to FaB's eternal format, it looks like a minor slap on the wrist for Bravo, Star of the Show, a lot of justifiable hate for Chane, Bound by Shadow.
They recognise that Crown of Seeds is a way to stay defensive while filtering your hand to find all the cards you need to enable his ability. It would be too oppressive the more elemental cards were added to the game.
Chane has been benefiting from the overall power of the Rosetta set. Dirge and Succumb are powerful effects that they never imagined would be used to such effect in Chane. Meanwhile Cull is an incredibly strong card in Vynnset, Iron Maiden but it creates a level of disruption that decks playing against Chane cannot easily handle.
With all these cards leaving the Living Legend format, we get to see the increase of certain cards which had been on the meta's fringes returning. Cards for Iyslander, Stormbind could do wonders to improve her meta share in the Living Legend format.
Commoner
- Reality Refractor is banned.
For any player that's been keeping up with the Commons only format for Flesh and Blood, they will know that their format has been scourged by Enigma using Reality Refractor as its primary weapon.
The deck became deeply dominant, and meta warping, off the back of the weapon. Taking it away will be a point of real celebration for that enfranchised group of dedicated players.
Living Legend Point Change
This change was sneakily put into the May 20th Banned and Restricted Update, and it might be the most impactful part of this update in the long term.
There are two big take aways on the changes they're applying to how they handle Living Legend points. They will handle the rounding up and down of Living Legend points in the back end of Gem. This was largely done already, and won't have a big bearing on the game going forward.
The second point is that there will now be multipliers given to heroes as they approach Living Legend. We talked about how negative it was that Aurora, Zen, and Enigma hit Living Legend so quickly.
They've set it that for any hero, during their first year of existence, they would only receive half of the number of Living Legend points. If it's their second year, they get exactly as many points as advertised. For the laggards, heroes will receive a 1.5 times multiplier for their Living Legend points. This works to bring the older heroes to the finish line quicker, and the heroes languishing at the bottom will have a shot at levelling up.
This is a good change to encourage the health of the meta game. Gone will be the days like 2024 where only 1 hero left the CC format. It also to the benefit for those new heroes not speedrunning out of the format. There is the trade off. If a deck is released, and is oppressive, it will take longer for that deck to leave, which may be a bother for those playing against the new hotness.
These changes, overall, are positive for the health of the Living Legend, but there needs to be a measured look at hero design going forward.
Wrap Up
These changes will leave a lasting impact on the future of all those Flesh and Blood formats. Read all about the latest news in the world of FaBTCG right here on DotGG.
