Last weekend, Legend Story Studios stealthily announced their first ever ‘Legend Story Labs’ event, on the 7th of June at Card Merchant West City in Auckland. While the idea of LSS testing new projects is fascinating in itself, what’s also very interesting is the project that this event is trialling — ‘Project Blue’, a new Flesh and Blood format that aims to sit somewhere between Commoner and Blitz.
With almost the same deck rules as Blitz, Project Blue is a format that restricts all heroes, cards, and equipment to a maximum rarity of rare. But this format isn’t just Blitz-lite or a more powerful version of Commoner. LSS has instead actively set out to give this format its own identity, with a laundry list of banned cards including iconic staples like Sink Below, Fate Foreseen, and Sigil of Solace.
In this article, we’re going to examine Project Blue and where it fits into the wider Flesh and Blood landscape. We’ll look at the format as a whole, and what cards and heroes you should look out for if you’re interested in taking a swim in the blue yourself.
What is Project Blue?
Project Blue is a new Flesh and Blood format being trialled by Legend Story Labs.
The format follows incredibly similar deck construction rules to the Blitz format, but importantly, only permits Common and Rare cards:
- 1 young hero card
- 55 card-pool (includes weapons, equipment, etc., and cards in the deck)
- Start with exactly 40 cards in the deck
- Up to 2 copies of each unique card
- 35 minutes per round, first to 1
This also includes your hero, which excludes certain heroes like Shiyana, Diamond Gemini, Enigma, New Moon, and Valda Brightaxe from being played.
Banned Card List
There’s also a thorough initial banlist of cards, including a ton of cards that are staples in all formats:
- Aether Flare
- Aether Ironweave
- Amulet of Ice
- Ball Lightning
- Belittle
- Bonds of Ancestry
- Cash In
- Count Your Blessings
- Deadwood Dirge
- Drone of Brutality
- Electromagnetic Somersault
- Fate Foreseen
- Flic Flak
- Goliath Gauntlet
- Heartened Cross Strap
- Mask of Three Tails
- Plunder Run
- Ragamuffin's Hat
- Rake the Embers
- Rootbound Carapace
- Rosetta Thorn
- Seeds of Agony
- Sigil of Solace
- Sink Below
- Snapdragon Scalers
- Stubby Hammerers
- Vest of the First Fist
- Waning Moon
- Zephyr Needle
Right now, the format is only being trialled at a singular official event in New Zealand in June. But, if you want to get stuck into Project Blue, then don’t worry — the community is already buzzing about the concept, so expect to see far more of it in the future.
Why does Project Blue exist?
Project Blue is a format that shares many similarities with two other storied formats in Flesh and Blood — Blitz and Commoner. So, it can be difficult to see a place for this format in the game, as it would seem as though it has far less power than the Blitz format, but also doesn’t provide the low-power gameplay that Commoner provides.
To understand why LSS are doing this, it’s important to know that the wider community has issues with both Blitz and Commoner. Blitz is generally seen as just too fast, often leaving it boring and dissatisfying to play because of how low the life totals are compared to the cards that have been designed primarily for a format with double the life total.
Commoner has a far better reputation, but the card pool is a little too shallow to meet its full potential, with certain strategies and heroes being inadequate or even simply just unplayable in the commoner format, as well as the lack of depth in the format making it difficult to deal with the damage output and power of certain heroes and decks — like Refractor Enigma.
Project Blue is a perfect opportunity to create a casual format that sits between these two, while solving a lot of the immediate problems that both formats have. On top of this, ‘Commoner with rares’ is a format that a lot of people have been asking for, and so it was only a matter of time before LSS would try it out anyway.
Cards to Watch
The addition of rare cards and the banlist completely changes the game for some heroes when compared to Commoner. There are a host of new strategies and heroes that become not only available, but have enough cards to potentially become mainstays in the format.
Generic Cards
There are a host of generic cards that will definitely have a place in this format, and allow decks and strategies to go even further than their Commoner counterparts.
The best example of this is Snatch, a card that sees play in Aurora in Classic Constructed, giving you a card that is not only a headache to block but also replaces itself if a block is declined. Not only does this fit into Aurora, but also other strategies with easy access to Go Again, such as Chane. Importantly, the 0 for 4 defense reactions like Sink Below are also banned, meaning that Snatch gets even more difficult to deal with.
For Ninjas and Assassins, Looking for a Scrap is a great extender that is worth considering all-around for its sheer power and relatively low investment. A 5 for 1 is rare in this format, and a 5 for 1 with Go Again can be format-defining.
If you’re more inclined towards the arcane side of Flesh and Blood, Energy Potion is now a tool in your arsenal, giving Kano players another way to set up their big combo turn over the game. Kano also gets access to Clarity Potion and Potion of Deja Vu, making the combo potential of this deck quite scary compared to his Commoner counterpart.
The ‘affordable’ alternative to Shelter of the Storm, Calming Breeze, will also probably be relevant in the format, with its ability to block out multiple dagger attacks and help alleviate split damage from runeblades.
Assassin
One of the big winners in Project Blue, the power of Assassin is unmissable. The format has not only given them access to more and better stealth attacks like Art of Desire: Mind, but also a host of attack reactions like Shred and Spike with Bloodrot.
On top of this, Bite and Hurl give consistent ways to flick daggers at your opponent, and Orb-Weaver Spinneret and Up Sticks and Run provide ways to replace those daggers, with a nice helping of damage to top it off.
Brute
While Brute has a lot of strong options in Commoner already, Project Blue allows them to take advantage of cards like Pulping and Barraging Beatdown, both cards that can close out whole games if resolved at the right time.
Levia is the biggest winner here, though, with access to Endless Maw and Writhing Beast Hulk giving her two of her best attack actions in the whole game.
Guardian
Compared to the other classes, Guardian has a lot less to celebrate here. Disable is the strongest card in their rare pool, and they also have access to Test of Might and Test of Vigor — giving them some of the only 4-blocks in the format. Staunch Response also gives an incredible defensive card, in a format that has less defence than its peers.
But, Guardians still do have a lot of love all-around, with cards like Humble and Blanch entering the format and offering a variety of large attacks with disruption. Also, Oldhim does get access to Frost Fang, offering more disruption to slow gameplay down in his favour.
Illusionist
Out of all of these, Illusionist is the class that I’m most excited for. First of all, Dromai is finally playable — one of my biggest issues with Commoner has always been the lack of Dromai, and I’m glad she’s finally getting a chance at the table. She’s got access to a lot of her good dragons, with Invoke Cromai and Invoke Miragai both providing the essential parts of her strategy.
Prism gets some love too, with Herald of Triumph making it much harder for opponents to hit phantasm, and both she and Enigma benefit from auras like Essence of Ancestry: Body, Passing Mirage, and Pierce Reality, and in the case of Prism Ode to Wrath and Parable of Humility. Astral Etchings is also a great card here, providing a pseudo-combat trick for both spectral shield Illusionists.
Mechanologist
Despite receiving a lot of cards, Mechanologist doesn’t actually receive a lot that’s relevant outside of Teklovossen, who has access to a host of mid-tier Evos that probably won’t do much. The best card here is actually Firewall, another 4-block in a format where that number is few and far between.
Otherwise, Dash has a few more boost cards like High-Speed Impact and T-Bone, and that’s about it.
Ninja
Ninja gains access to quite a few cards here, from extenders like Cut Through to new head jabs like Hurl. Aspect of Tiger: Mind and Aspect of Tiger: Body provide some Crouching Tiger synergy, and Growl is a head jab that does the same.
Though she loses Zephyr Needle still, Ira is the biggest winner here with a solid addition of both Ninja and Generic cards that fall perfectly into her game plan. And, even without Flic Flak, she still has access to Wax On as well as a host of three blocks to be able to play defensively.
Cindra now has Art of the Dragon: Fire and Art of the Dragon: Claw, as well as a host of draconic attacks to help her keep her aggression up (and her Kunais around).
Ranger
Ranger is a tricky class that needs a lot of good arrows and good actions to be able to do anything. Fortunately, Ranger wins quite big here, with cards like Bolt’n Shot and Drill Shot giving an extra boost of power, especially when combined with new actions Lace With Frailty and its Bloodrot and Inertia counterparts.
Lexi also gets access to Snap Shot, letting her do interesting things with Death Dealer as well as gaining Lightning Press to help push extra damage through.
Runeblade
If Illusionist gets a whole meal, Runeblade has what is essentially a three-course gourmet dinner with live music and candles. There’s a laundry list of great cards that Runeblade now has access to, with Malefic Incantation and Reduce to Runechant providing lots of power to the runechant-generating decks. Shadow gets access to Deathly Wail, making Chane a serious threat, and Florian gets Arcane Seeds||Life to take his runechant generation up a tier.
Aurora gets Static Shock and Burn Up||Shock, as well as being able to take advantage of Lightning Press to push damage over blocks with ease.
Warrior
A lot of the key Warrior cards are Majestic, but Warrior still gets a few great cards to utilise here, like Diced and Overpower. Boltyn gets a massive power spike, though, with V of the Vanguard making the deck actually playable compared to beforehand.
However, the omission of the generic defense reactions means that Warrior is still a very strong contender, with Fang especially looking like he’s just able to run over certain decks with ease.
Wizard
Wizard gets quite a big power boost here, but it’s not quite ‘best deck in format’ level. Bans on key cards like Aether Flare and Ragamuffin’s Hat mean that Kano is going to be fairly difficult to pilot to success, and Iyslander hasn’t really gained much in Ice cards otherwise.
However, if you do want to go all-in on Wizard, there are still a lot of great new options. Aether Spindle will let you set up the top of your deck, while Pop the Bubble is a great counter for Runeblade and Illusionist that could turn the whole matchup in your favour.
Thoughts and Feelings
Safe to say, I am very hopeful about this format. It does fix a lot of the issues that Commoner has had for me, and while I’m sad to say it, it probably will take over the spot that Commoner holds currently.
The addition of rares gives decks more of their identity, and also makes the format just generally more enjoyable — I personally think that the commons in Flesh and Blood are quite mundane in comparison to the rares (which add the spice), and so Commoner always just felt like it was missing something, a sentiment which I’ve heard echo throughout the community.
I like the idea of there being a unique banlist to carve its own identity, though we’ll have to wait and see if taking away defensive tools like Sink Below will end up working or not. I do think that taking Flic Flak was a step too far, though, but I think that otherwise the list is pretty good and will give a lot of way for other cards to take up the mantle.
I think this will probably end up becoming the main non-CC format if it does take off, but time will tell whether LSS and the community at large take it that way.
Wrap Up
Project Blue is an interesting concept, and something I’m looking forward to trying out over the coming months. If you want to give it a shot and you’re able to get to Auckland, go give it a try and get your hands on a Sink Below promo that I am totally not envying people who can go for. Otherwise, throw together some decks and jam it out with your friends and locals!
Will it fall to the wayside of the other 40-card formats or take over as the new casual format? That remains to be seen, but at the very least, it provides an exciting new way to play the game, and I think that this won’t be the last we see of Project Blue.
Not by a long shot.
