Printing Support

Welcome to Pitch It to Me podcast, a show about the subjective past, present, and potential future of flesh and blood design. Remember listeners, this is a safe space for whiners and doomers alike, but not too safe. Today's episode will be about when, where, and why we get support for heroes in flesh and blood. On red pitch, Clark asks The Void when he will get support

for his hero. On yellow pitch, Joel will visit the Ghosts of Expansion slot past, and on Blue pitch, Fuzzy talks about his greatest fear for flesh and blood. You can find us across all socials such as TikTok and Instagram at Pidgetwee Podcast. I'm Clark. I'm Joel. And I'm fuzzy. So we've kind of made it a habit during spoiler season to take

Turn 0 and talk about some of the most recent spoilers from the last time we recorded, which always ends up being just slightly out of date because they release something in between when we record and when we release the episode and. For constantly in an anxious frenzy to get caught up. And thank God because they released a card that gave me some feelings and that's Gust Wave of the Second Wind. I was talking about this card to my boyfriend John. And you know, I love flesh and blood.

So when I tell him that like this card was released and I was like really disappointed because I didn't think this card was like interesting or good, He said. I think that's the first time I've ever heard you use the word disappointed when talking about flesh and blood. Wow. This is the most negative and I'm gonna get in this episode that that I took a very low point for fuzzies like Hype Meter. Yeah, it was a it was a rough reveal too.

The the IT was live streamed so you couldn't like cut around it or like drum up excitement. They were they were at the calling Manila. They call over putting Tam, Mr. Ninja himself. They sit him down. It's like, Are you ready to see this card? And he's like, I can't wait to see this card. I can't wait to see my buddy Katsu come back. And then they revealed it and all of the energy. He's like, I'm not even going to play this card. He's like, oh boy, another three for the binder.

Yeah, it's just really underwhelming. You know, it does exactly what Whelming Gust Wave does, except draw you a card, which is the best part of Whelming Gust Wave. I mean, it's cool that it like the zero for four. I don't know, I just think it's not very, it's not really objectively better than anything we're running right now. You know which a lot of expansion slot cards feel like they boost our hero somewhat. Yeah, and I feel like my man

Katsu needed the boost. Yeah, this does help a little bit with more naturally hitting the combo more often for bonds, but it it definitely seems like it's hurting all things considered. When did LSS design this car? Like this car was probably designed and then prepared to be shipped out in Rosetta like it was already at the printers when they were like, we're banning all yellow and blue bonds.

Yeah, I don't really care. I think if I had 9 Bonds of Ancestry I wouldn't run this card, and now that I only have three I'm still not running this card. Wow. God damn. But I'm holding out hope that there's a second Katsu expansion slot card that combos off of this one, then I will. Take everything easy, you get 2. Like teclovosin got like 4 once and yeah so I should be able to get 2.

No, because those four only took, I mean they had like 14 expansion slot cards, three of which were like the rest of the Evos. I wonder what's the bigger cope, Betsy Log or? Fuzzy second katsu spec Fuzzy second katsu spec. But I still have a believer. Let's just I'm just holding out hope. The other card that we saw was unsheathed, which I feel like Joel, you should probably leave the discussion on this one.

Well, I'm usually more negative than fuzzy at all points, so I'm not going to try and break up the monotony here. This card's stupid. I I only can be played in Kasai and it doesn't move the needle that much because it doesn't help with any of your bad matchups. And it it's it's basically another copy of Blade Runner, but it's like upfront. So you can't really like fake it at all. So it's just like the worst parts of warrior with conditional go again, like yay.

Thank you. I guess in other news, I want to talk a little bit about the inspiration of this episode. Recently there were some political strife in the pitch to Me Discord. And by that I mean we had a relatively polite argument between a few people about, you know, what kind of support we should be getting, how long we're waiting for in in reference to other TC DS and stuff like that. So we just thought it'd be a fun episode idea because a lot of people responded to it.

Yeah, there's a lot of conversation that has generally been happening about like, support and when Heroes should get support and like, who's been waiting forever to get a brand new card, right? Like these are things I think have popped up enough that like, we should do a, we should do an episode on it. Absolutely. I'm excited to get into it too. Yeah, so I'm going to steal the wheel here and jump right on into red pitch, which I have

titled When Is it My turn? Because that's how people sound when they talk about they're hero getting support. They sound like whiny little children who are like, but I haven't gotten a card in two years. And it's like, all right, but like, you're fine, right? Like we had a big dinner. You can go without a breakfast. Sure. So when should people be getting

support for their heroes, right? I think that's kind of ultimately the big question that comes up every single time the conversation happens around printing support, which is like, did this hero need it? Did this class need it? Who does need it? Right? And there's a ton of factors that go into that. Way too many for us to get into in a single pitch.

But I do want to note that there are some auxiliary factors that go into the conversation that a lot of the times I feel like we don't talk enough about, the first of which is hero support versus class support because they are different kind of sorta right. So I think a great example of this discussion is Phi. Phi has not received support has has not received a card that has been good in a Phi deck that has been like made for Phi in an exceptionally long time.

Like not really since even is it? Did he get anything in Dynasty or has it just been since Uprising? It's just been uprising I think. That's kind of wild, because that's right, that's pretty close to when I started playing. Yeah. So almost the entire time I've been playing Flesh and blood Phi decks have been like the same. No, they have changed a little bit, like when they printed Tenacity as a generic right that made its way into a lot of Phi decks.

So I don't want to, you know, jump out here and say like, actually, if I did get a card now he runs two tenacities and 1 salt the wound and it's like, all right, buddy, like plenty, plenty of decks could be running those cards too, right? That didn't feel like dedicated Phi support. But that's another thing, right, is like you could print a card that supports a hero without it being obvious support for that

hero. I feel like every single time I see a new 2 for six majestic disruptive piece, I go fuck, that's another Missouri card. Sure right, Because it just goes so well into her game plan. Every single time I see like a generic 3 cost blue that blocks for three, I'm like, oh, that could be a bravo card, right? Like there's a lot less of

those. But The thing is, is that every certain heroes sometimes are just looking for a very specific thing for their card to do, and so they could end up printing support for a hero without meaning to Sure. Sure. Or they could print support for a hero very very specifically. This would be like putting specialization on the card, right? It is specifically just for this one hero. Or they could put the class and talent at the bottom right.

You want a new Prism card? Put like Illusionist at the bottom because only Prism is going to play that card. So it's like you're printing direct support for them. This is kind of what Phi has been missing, right? Phi has gotten new Ninja cards. There is a Crouching Tiger ninja list out there. And in fact, very interestingly, I played against a local here, Moises, who was running strides of reprisal as a way of making a tiger for his turn for when he

went extra wide. And he made sure that the tiger plus the phoenix flame from Phi gave him the two one powered things to turn on the Shuko, which he put on the tiger so that it would hit for an extra 1. So he could go 8 chain links wide and come in with that salt the wound for one extra damage. It was an interesting way he he applied the concept of what Zen is doing with that list in a fight list, and it worked out very well. Right, Because Strides of Reprisal is no Strides of

Reprisal is a Mystic Ninja card. Yeah, I think he was using Pouncing Pause. OK. Which is the legs piece from the round the table. Yeah, thank you Joel. So again, it's every single time a card that says ninja at the bottom is printed, he could be using it. But like, let's look at this gust wave of the Second wind. Why is that a Katsu spec, right? Why? Why was that seen as a Katsu card? Why do we not see that as a Fi card or as a Zen card? Why is it a Katsu card specifically? Which one?

The gust wave of the second wind, what we talked about in Zero Pitch. Well, right now, if we're just looking at play styles, I think that's the biggest bias that we have, right? Katsu right now is playing Surging Strike and Zen is not, and Phi is not. Now, there's no reason why they couldn't, but Katsu seems to be really good at playing Surging Strike.

He has extra reasons to play Surging Strike because he has two specializations really, just Lord of Wind and Visit the Floating Dojo that directly interact with Surging Strike, so a card that combos off of Surging Strike feels like it belongs to him specifically. Exactly, so it's so interesting how hero support can be a very nebulous concept, whereas class

support can be very general. And I'm sure LSS plenty of times has printed cards going, hey, maybe we'll see like a crouching Tiger Phi list and like that could be really strong, right? They even said that when they were testing Part the Miss Veil, the deck that got to the finals of their little in house tournament was Phi, presumably because Phi got some tools from Part the Miss Veil. But that hasn't really translated into other ninja lists, right?

So. So just to clarify what we're talking about here, you're comparing the difference between when a hero technically gets support in the sense that their class has more cards, versus when a hero specifically gets support, especially in the forms of like specializations. Yes, and I think that it is interpreted very differently by the community specifically, right.

The so often like they will print a new illusionist hero and that won't influence like prism players, right Enigmas general printings and parthem is failed did not influence prism lists, not really. And so I think you see a lot of prism players. They would probably say, hey, we haven't received a card in a really long time. It's like what do you mean? There were all these like generic illusionist cards that you could be playing, and it's like, yeah, but we're not going to.

We want prism cards. What am I going to do with spectral manifestations like? Exactly, even though that actually seems like it might be weirdly good if they no because they can't give a go again. Yeah, what are the counters going to do? Like you can't attack with it. Maybe if you did an oralist, maybe. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe this also makes me think of or acne versus Azuri. I remember when Already Dead was printed, which is a card that objectively makes Arachne decks

better. After all, they can like run another Poppy popper a little bit more easily. Like in their engine they have another contract card that they get to play around with that banishes something new. It's at a new break point and it could fit very well with their daggers. Like, there's a lot of cool things that this card does that are acne players haven't necessarily had direct access to before.

I remember a lot of local or acne players saying that they're kind of bummed about this card because Arzuri could use it better, therefore it wasn't really AN OR acne. Card right? So like. That case is a little bit special because I think Arachne especially feels a little bit like they're under the shadow of a Zuri, so they wanted something to get out from that shadow

specifically. But depending on what you're looking for for the hero like, that might be something you like, or you might be disappointed about it, even if it makes the hero like objectively better. Yeah. And this conversation leads very naturally into my next point, which is the difference between single card support versus booster support, right? So now I want to go to what Joel was talking about with the politics that was happening in the Discord.

So in the Discord we have our producer Talon, who you guys know is the big Riptide guy. And he was saying, man, I think that the next set after Rosetta really is like is assuredly going to have Ranger in it. And all three of us, I think, or at least me and Joel definitely were like what are you smoking? Thank you. Like Ranger has been doing really well at the top of the meta, but also they've been getting consistent support throughout the year, right?

They've had an expansion slot card every single set since they introduced it. So they've had one in bright lights, one in heavy hitters, one in part the miss Vale and one in Rosetta. They've and they got the Azalea Armory deck, which gave them like a brand new suite of equipment and a brand new majestic to play around.

They've received plenty of support, but they haven't gotten any new Commons and in fact Ranger is the class that has gone the longest right now without receiving a booster product considering Rosetta coming out. Really. Yes, that's interesting. Yes, they are sitting at around 650 days of waiting since outsiders came out. They have received no Commons or rares in that time. And Wizard would be the next runner up if not for the fact that they're getting support now with Rosetta. Yes.

So you dropped a stat and it might be distracting me a little bit. It's a very interesting stat. It is a very interesting statistic. So talent very much had a point in that it it has been a while since they got a booster product, since they were able to like, draft a Ranger, since they got like new arrows and new pumps, which are interesting and maybe want them to, like, dramatically change their lists. It's been a while since they've gotten a new hero. But at the exact same time, it's

like, yeah, but you're fine. You have been getting support in these single card ways. What do you guys think about the difference between these two sorts of printings and the benefits of both of them? What I think like first and foremost, the booster support is obviously the most impactful because the crux of the argument that I was having against talent, and I want to reference this by saying we like talent. We're not like besmirching his name by talking about this.

I'm just like kind of painting the picture a little bit. I mean, we are friends who show our love through polite argumentation. There's a reason he's our executive producer. Yeah, true. And he also loves to argue, so you should feel free to. Whatever Talon does love a good argument. But I think still, booster support is the strongest. That's why I like supplemental sets so much, because it allows you to get those Commons and rares that are so crucial to

like heroes in their carpools. And that's why I think like if you have a really good booster support, you don't need one for a while because you can just live off the single cards of support. So what you're saying is like booster support is the foundation for a class's identity, and single cards like expansion slot cards can bolster that identity or tweak it, but you need that booster support to

lay that foundation. And sometimes the foundation can be so good that it lasts a really long time. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, exactly. Well, I love that point and I think I agree with it 100%. I also want to ask you guys how well have these expansion slot cards done at helping classes feel like they've gotten support? That is a very wide question. It is, but I guess the point I'm trying to make here is like ultimately, why does LSS print cards for a hero or for a class

even? Like when they are looking at their 234 year plan and they're setting out which sets do they want to see certain heroes in at certain times or certain classes in at certain times? Why do you think they make those decisions? I mean, like obviously one of them is going to be because we have a design we like. Sure, sure, sure. Like they're excited to print something just because it's a cool hero or concept. Yeah. And probably also semi obviously to to make money, yeah. To make money.

Which is why we see an illusionist every six months. Except we don't. Actually. So how well do these expansion slot cards do at helping classes and heroes feel maybe held over, right? Like like I feel like every single time a class gets support, the timer resets, right?

Like the egg timer goes off and and everyone's all excited and happy and then they crank it back up and then it just starts ticking and ticking and ticking and eventually players get upset enough that it goes off again and they start demanding cards. I feel like it's a little bit more flexible than that because like Oh my class got one expansion slot card, the timer gets like reduced that's. Kind of what I mean, right, how, how good have these expansion slot cards?

So for my 3rd and final point, I want to touch on that thing I brought up at the very beginning, which was how long should you wait? Because I feel like every single time that new cards are printed, there's like an egg timer and, and the players go and they crank it up and they crank it up and then it just starts ticking and ticking. And the lower it gets, the closer it starts getting to 0.

They're like, oh, wow, hey LSS, this egg timer is about to go off and it's like, oh, they're releasing the next set. Are we? We're getting close to 0. Is it going to be our turn? It's not. They turn it down a little bit more, they push it closer to 0, they start and they start complaining more and more and more when the egg timer goes off. I feel like that's a failure for LSS and LSS doesn't want that to

happen, right? I think they choose to print classes at a regular rate because they need to keep people playing their game. So they need to print keep printing new cards for players. You know, I'm going to be, I'm going to give you a slight counter argument, not because I disagree with your point, but because I do think that when your class is printed a lot, there's less hype for it.

And one thing this game does really well is every time they do something, it's really fucking hype because there's so many different things they can do. Like they're printing a wizard rune blade set and like we haven't seen wizard or rune blade in a while or Earth or lightning. And so it's really hype because those things feel a little bit overdue. They're able to ride that hype wave because every time they print something, it ends up being a little bit overdue.

There's like this little sweep spot, right, where like the community starts demanding it right around the time that LSS has planned to deliver it. Yeah. And that's where they want it to be. But I think the egg timer can certainly end up going off essentially with LSS not having anything planned for them. I think, for example, this is happening with, like Phi players bringing up the earlier point of how Phi has gone forever without

having a new card. So I want to ask how long do you guys think this egg timer is and how long do you think it should be? That's a good question. Like I feel like. Should you expect to get cards for your class every single year? No, there's too many classes for that. I feel like a year and a half to two years probably what it should be at a. Year would be pretty good. And does an expansion slot card fulfill? That definitely not OK. So the single card is not

enough. It would like help you extend, right? Yeah. Like if I haven't gotten anything and it's been a year, that's like, OK. But if I've gotten like a card in like 3 different expansion slots then I can wait like 2 years, maybe even a little bit longer if I'm waiting for a full expansion booster set. It's weird because sometimes a hero can get an X pack slot and it sucks and it feels as or as bad as Phi not getting a singular car that says Draconic Ninja for like 2-3 years or whatever.

They feel the same, almost worse. Yeah, almost worse. But it's, like, hard to quantify that, like, the difference between those two feelings because on one hand you have the attention you've been begging for and it failed. And then the other is like, you don't have any attention at all. And there's seemingly nothing going on to quench your thirst on that one. Yeah. The strength of the cards

certainly do matter. So now that we've talked about the single cards, what about like the supplemental sets? Like, was Dynasty enough for like mechanologists to feel like they got new cards for room blades to feel like they got new cards? I hate this question. I know because you're trying to make me put like yes or no answers like something concrete when this is like a really subjective and personal question.

I don't want to answer for the behalf of anyone else, but I feel like you're asking me to. Well, see, that's the thing. It's because I think this is such a compelling question specifically because everyone sets it differently. But there is clearly a community sentiment and LSS has to tap into that sentiment. That's true and like. Even though I don't want to answer for everyone, LSS has to. In a way. Exactly. And so I like putting myself in the shoes of a designer at LSS.

And like Joel, what do you think? Are are supplemental sets enough to to be considered like new support? Can that reset the timer for the one to two years? I think so, if it's done the right way. See, I don't think it can completely fulfill the one to two years idea, but I think it does buy you a much larger amount of time than the single cards. I think the single cards can buy you like maybe a set worth of difference. I think a supplemental set can can do a lot more.

Ultimately, I think like a brand new hero in a class in a draftable set is like the ideal support for a class because it gives you a whole new suite of Commons. You never know if one or more of those Commons are going to work their way into another hero, and it can revitalize the class. So if you're playing, let's say, Warrior, right, Kasai was actually able to get living Legend points in the meta where

she was released. So even though even though Bolton and Dory didn't exactly get a ton of cards from that set, that like really did a lot for them, right? Like I how many heavy hitter cards were really run in like the hatchet Dory lists? Oh, a lot. Really. Yeah. Like taking on the chin blade. Fucking what is it called? Flurry. Yeah, surely there's more. Sure. I just can't remember them. Yeah, the, the, the equipment, but yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's, that's sort of like, I think a good hallmark. But because I also gave like Warrior players the chance to go, that's the meta hero because they just printed it, It refreshed the meta, it gave Warriors a new place in the meta and it let them focus on that. And I think all of that is that's like peak support for a class. 100%. Not necessarily peak support for a hero, but it's certainly peak support for a class And that's it.

That's all I have for you guys in this pitch because like Fuzzy was saying, there is no right answer. I'm not going to end it with like a hard 421 days. Like there's no there's no specificness to it, but I think being able to say single class cards are good, they can help provide I think better hero support than general class support, and they can help delay how long it takes to get a

printing for their new hero out. But ultimately I think you need supplemental sets and draftable sets to really help players and the player base feel like they are getting the cards that they are deserved. Agreed. Cool, is it time for yellow pitch? I think it's time for yellow pitch. So for yellow pitch. Today I wanted to talk about the

I have my notes intersection between performance and support. Wow, fucking nerd. Sounds like you're about to like, break open a PowerPoint. Talk about synergy. I know. Well, I'm sorry I couldn't make it clever enough for you, Joel. Please don't tell me about the intersection between performance and support. I don't sound like that so. I wanted to talk about the reasons why LSS might choose to dish out some support or hold back on it, or just talk about some examples of where they did

put out some support for heroes. And 1st, I will just start off by saying it doesn't seem like. And 1st, I'll talk about ways that LSS doesn't seem like it's using the LL leader board as the framework for printing support. So first we'll talk about Dromi.

She was doing really well. By the time she got Tom of Imperial Flame, I believe she was playing in a Meadow with Lexi being at the top, Guardians being at the top, and basically every mirror or guardian match of going to time because it was just so slow. And it was a lot of like macros and pitch stacking and stuff like that.

And then even though she was getting living legend points, they decided to give her tum of Imperial Flame, which what I have heard from Dromy players, basically flattened the skill cap needed for this hero. You didn't need to really pitch sack anymore. You didn't you didn't need to manage your ash as well and it added no blocks. So there's a little bit more consistency there, and it added a really, really toxic mirror match scenario as well.

And it begs the question, why did LSS think Dromi needed this if she was already performing well? Like, was this maybe printed before Dromi was doing well? Was it supposed to be for all Draconic heroes but only she could use it with her current kit? Like it? It's something that propuxes me as much as it did Dromi players. Yeah, it was odd because Dromi was doing fine in the meta and then here was a card that very clearly increased her power, right?

So it was like, why did she get support when she was strong? But like we've said with Phi, it had been a long time since they've actually printed cards with Draconic on them, so they were kind of due for a new card and it was very neat. A Tome Imperial Flame is like essentially a requirement now in the Emperor, so it's not like there weren't clear use cases

for the tome. But very obviously I don't think they looked at the Living Legend leaderboard, saw Dromi at the top, and then went, well now we can't print anything that Dromi could use, right? They were fine printing cards that Dromi could use and could use well even though she was strong. Yeah, to kind of build on to that point, they kept printing specifically Dromi support even after Dromi Living Legend, those specific Dragon specific Ash cards, right? Yeah, the Dust from series.

I think it's more likely that we've touched on this a little bit briefly in Red Pitch, but LSS might just like designing cards and Tome of Imperial Flame was a fun card to design and they felt like it had a really cool spot in the game. Maybe they couldn't predict like exactly how it would play up match up wise or what it would do to the hero.

But I think it is a cool unique card and it's an interesting design and maybe that's why LSS wanted to print it, you know, And I'm sure they thought about balance, you know, but seeing how it like can help the Emperor and Dromi is a cool intersection in design. Maybe they didn't think it could help Dromi. Yeah, maybe they never saw Dromi sacrificing their head. Slot that.

Oh that is true, although I think when they saw like how much Dromi players were struggling in the early game to build gold or to build ash to build ash, they would be equipping Crown of Dominion anyways to crack that gold for an extra ash. Or they, you know, have like seekers myths or I can't remember the leg piece. I think it's a time skippers. Sometimes they do that just to get ash on turn. Time skippers is wild. Oh yeah, they were they were cooking.

So it it was like actually decent support for drone. Why? Because there were turns where, OK, I can just play this card, I can filter my hand a little bit and still pitch stack and get some more ash generation going and it basically turns your Reds into Blues, which is something that she also struggled with. She couldn't really pay for

multiple cards per turn. But in a similar way, they don't all also always look at the bottom of the leaderboard and then go we have to print support for those heroes. Notably looking at the part the Miss Veil expansion slot card where Betsy and Olympia were struggling as these like secondary unfinished heroes from the heavy hitters meta, but they gave support to Victor instead of Betsy in the expansion slot. Yeah, that was strange. Our Golden Boy. Yeah, it's a it's white privilege.

Because he was already pretty good. But yeah, they, I mean, that was very odd, right? You don't look at how Betsy is clearly struggling in the meta and like give her a card. And, and we've had some colorful discussion about the unfinished heroes in the the hero poll right now. Yeah. So I those are some pretty blatant examples about how heroes that were already good getting even better.

And it's a little frustrating, but sometimes like, it's not for us to know and it's for us to like kind of adapt as players. I, for one, personally find the draw My Ashes to be strange. But when I learned that they were basically just giving ash based on the like area that the set is in, like Arya's probably going to get, I think it's Uvia or whoever's entails, like each of the Dragons hail from a certain land anyways. I think it's time to move on to support that really adds a,

like, a genuine big boost. And it's going to heroes that like, really need it. And I think the most recent examples would be the Riptide and the Bolton Armory deck. Yeah. So this is when they look at those struggling heroes and they are like you get support and then they give them cards like a like some weird fucked up Santa Claus. Now, when you look at the, the Armory decks, you look at the Azalea card list and you know, a lot of it's going to be useful for Azalea.

But I think that most people that were excited or, and I, but I think the people that were most excited about this upcoming set of support were the Riptide players, cuz all of it's the aim counter stuff that we've been missing from basically. I think it was a dynasty that the encounter stuff started popping up. Or maybe yeah.

It was Dynasty was when we first saw aim counters with sand scour, great bow, immobilizing shot and barbed castaway or no, No, sorry, no barbed undertow, the one for five that with the counter on hit, stop them from pitching a colour. I think that's outsiders. Immobilizing shot was definitely dynasty though. Yeah, you got that one. Barbed Undertow was 100% outsiders, but that's OK.

And on the other hand I think Bolton has really been struggling with the amount of like he's probably the hero with the most amount of support and still has yet to move the needle in any shape or form. Like Dynasty I think was or excuse me, Dusseldon I think was probably the largest amount of support since Monarch and basically none of it helped him.

But with his Armory deck, he gets some new equipment that helps him charge and eases him into this like mid range gameplay as well as a really amazing new defense reaction that can help with all of his matchups. So there's definitely some really good examples of when LSS has delivered on their promises of making heroes better. I think Riptide has been at the center of our discussion about releasing unfinished heroes with unfinished archetypes, and

they're. Like really buffing him to a level where he's actually a contender in the meta. Yeah, what I was saying in my red pitch of how Riptide has gotten a brand new card seemingly every single expansion slot that's it's been available. That's all been Riptide cards. Like none of those cards have really said Azalea to people. They've all been oriented around traps and the trap gameplay which is very much Riptides play style.

Yeah, you're right, Joel. It's cool when they're able to use like Armory decks in order to focus on heroes that can use a little bit of help. But even then, even then, we've seen that they'll also do the opposite. Like in the case of the KO deck, KO ended up being really strong, so they're also willing to print support to heroes that are near the top. Yeah. And I think that was a really good move on their part,

specifically for sellability. And I also like the innovate, like how LSS is always innovating their strategy seemingly every year. This is just a really good blend of the expansion slot cards and the supplemental set, and it's really accessible to new players. So I think it's like a very good multi faceted product. And I'm hoping that they use this as like one of the levers they pull on, you know, different heroes, because there's still a lot of heroes in the Living Legend leaderboard,

and I need some help. Yeah. But ultimately, both of these methods of support that we've talked about, they're like the single card sorts of support, right? Whereas I think when we've talked about like Betsy, for example, we've been saying that like the wager cards just need to be better. Like all the wage cards being two blocks are really hampering the ability for I think. Did that come up over audio?

OK, the wager cards just need to like be reprinted, but with like three blocks at the bottom of them, right? We've been saying like how they have these near these heroes need more than just like 1 Majestic to suddenly get good. Like that's not going to move the needle on these heroes.

They need a full set. They need a lot more something like a supplemental set oriented around the wager strategy to really see them step up and become stronger heroes that can actually start competing at tournaments. Or this new mastery pack that they're advertising where it's all Guardian 100% baby. Yeah. And like one of those archetypes might be like a Betsy Wager archetype, but I would also just as likely see a return to crush in there, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm really excited

about the Mastery pack as well. It's going to be a really good litmus tests for this product for LSS in general and what we can expect to see. Because I think they spoiled another one in announcing the Guardian Mastery pack, right? Or am I misremembering? No, we only know about the Guardian one and for the whole year they dedicated like a row of their releases to the mastery pack, but only the guardian one

showed up on that timeline. Gotcha, well we'll see in time if it actually helps Guardian and if they decided to do more of it. But now I want to talk about the times where support has just missed the mark, where it's just like either it's an unfinished idea or just a poorly executed 1. Fuzzy, you already talked about it a little bit, but this is your window to talk about it a bit more if you want. Gust wave of the second wind.

Yeah, screw this card. Maybe if I'm talking about it here, we can actually cut it from turn zero. Maybe because turn zero I think went a little bit long. Yeah, yeah, this gust wave of the second wind. I'm disappointed this card. Ceiling is very low, but its floor is also pretty high and it's just not something we kind

of need for ninja right now. I think like it's very close to fluster fist, but it's actually like a little bit more niche than fluster fist because right now like a 0 for four block 3 is very playable in Katsu, especially with a combo keyword. But fluster fist can be played in blue. So it like works a little bit nicely with bons of ancestry. This card also kind of works really well with bons of ancestry, but it can't be grabbed with mask of the

pouncing links. So like I can see where like this card can help and by printing more cards, it might make it easier for newer players to get engaged with the game. Like maybe like someone gets really excited because they pulled this in their pre release and they're like, I think I should play Katsu because this idea is really intriguing and you're like go for it kid. Eventually you'll probably cut that card, but it's OK if it gets you excited about the hero.

I just don't think I'll be playing it and I was like a fervent Katsu mane for a while. Yeah. And how does that, how did that make you feel? Because I think Katsu as a Katsu player, Katsu has been in a really interesting spot recently because Katsu got a bunch of new ninja cards, in part the Miss Veil, and then now Katsu is also getting this card. So you could argue that Katsu has been getting a lot of support, but have you felt that as a player? Not exactly.

It happens to be that I definitely personally switched to Zen like pretty soon after the set was released. So I've just been exploring Zen and I think it's much more fun to play Crouching Tiger stuff in Zen, which is what all the part of the missile stuff is. I don't think that this card gives me a lot of inspiration to go back to Katsu necessarily. So I don't feel like this is very inspiring as a Katsu player, which is why I would look for an expansion slot card.

It's been a while since we've had cards that like really refreshed Katsu. You could say that one generic Majestic from Partha Mistfield did that better than this card does, the prismatic Ley line. But it definitely feels like Katsu's at a little bit worse place in the meta. He was never really at the top of the meta. He was just like a really nice like B tier for a while. So it feels like Katsu could really use a refresh.

But I also know I'm not one of the only heroes that needs it so. But like, are you as a as someone who like has at least identified as a katsu player saying you want more cards for Katsu? A little bit, especially when they banned like some of my power cards like the Bonds of Ancestry ban. It kind of like, well, we weren't. It was like the bullseye bracers thing with Lexi, right? Like the top of the meta just lost a piece. It's hurting the other members of that class.

It feels like we need something to come back, you know? Yeah, and you know, Joel, if you don't mind, I kind of want to jump in here and say how I felt on Dynasty getting support as a Runeblade player, cuz back then I was kind of only a Runeblade player, yeah. I love to hear you take on this. Yeah, so when we got the new cards, then one, they had actually been a hot minute since they had printed Room Blade

cards. We just had Everfest not too long ago, where Everfest gave us a lot of very strong Majestic. So like, but I had come in after that and I've been playing for a while and I was excited to see the new Room Blade cards. And then I saw this new strategy around like pitching non attack and attack action cards. And all of the cards that I saw just looked so bad and counter to what Visserie and Briar were actually trying to do, which was this aggro rush down style.

I'm not looking to pitch 2 cards on my turn. I'm looking to pitch one card on my turn and play three to four cards on my turn. Especially pitching 2 for the same card. Exactly. Pitching 2 for the same card actually makes it so much harder because it's not like you can pitch 2 Blues and then increase the the resource curve of your deck. You so you're like having to pitch away the red card that you

want to play to keep tempo. And ultimately the effects that we were getting wasn't actually all that strong. We were, we were pitching an extra card, typically leaving us with extra resources to get maybe two extra value. And the big majestic centerpiece of this was Cryptic Crossing, which cost 3, which was awkward to pitch 2 cards for, right? If it cost 4, it would have been very clean. We would have been like, oh I have to pitch 2 cards into this.

Wait right this be really good now because you can play like red line Viscerae because back then it was like ice was in the meta. So if you pitched like if you built your. That was the whole reason why people ran these cards was because frostbite would increase the cost of them to actually make them more viable to play. That's. Really interesting. But at the exact same time, I hated it into every other matchup. And so I ended up never really

running the card, any of them. So I felt like I didn't actually get anything. Room Blades didn't get anything. And if you've looked at how Vincette has been being built since and how Viscera has been being built since, we don't see any of the cards that we got in Dynasty. So even though we got printed support in Dynasty, they're not making their way into decks. And so it felt like we never got those cards in the first place. That was well said.

I think you guys like really covered why it felt so bad to get support and it was just like really like even hard to call it a side grade. And so I, I won't go into some of my examples because I usually talk about Levy and Bolton quite a bit. So you probably know how I feel about those guys. Yeah. If you want to hear Joel talk, talk more about how Levy and Bolton support missed the mark, might I introduce you to a show called Pitch It to Me podcast? Listen to most of our episodes.

Yeah, it's like the first 52 episodes. We'll tell you how I'm feeling about right now. But with that being said, I think I want to go to the blue pitch and hear what Fuzzy has to say. What do you got? Awesome.

So this is going to be the black sheep of the podcast because I'm talking about something a little bit different than what Joel and Clark were talking about with their pitches. I want to talk about power creep in the game and how with no rotation system, the card pool will eventually get larger and

larger. And there's a particular type of card that I think has a really big impact on the game, and that's majestics and how overtime, more and more majestics, more and more Majestics will have a larger impact on the game than other cards. That's my thesis. Are you guys ready? So wait Fuzzy, hold on, can you sum this up in like 2 words? Like what are you talking about? I'm talking about majestic soup, that over time when you have more options available to you.

Some of them are majestic, some of them are common, some of them are rare. If I only need 60 cards and there's 100 majestics in the game for me to choose from, why wouldn't I pick 60 majestics and just fill my deck with as many majestics as possible? Because those cards tend to be better. Makes sense? Very much so. And I want to talk about how this could have some positive and some negative aspects on the

game overall. So let me ask you is this would you agree with the premise that decks only get stronger over time in this game? No, no, no. What is causing decks to get weaker then? The printing of other heroes who specifically edge out those decks. So I think the the gust wave card is a good example of this. It made Katsu stronger. That didn't do, but that didn't do enough.

I think I want to be more specific about my definition of stronger, because you're totally right that other decks in the meta can cause my hero to be less viable. But as far as like what a deck is capable of doing, what Bravo right now is capable of doing, I would say the deck hasn't actually gotten any weaker. So there's a difference between viability and strength. Does that sound like a important

distinction? Yes. And as more cards are printed, especially majestic cards, but really anything in general, what my deck is capable of doing can only increase. Would you agree with that distinction? Yeah. Yeah, OK, sweet. Because that's a very important point I'm. Trying to go. We need to accept that if we don't accept that the all of Fuzzy's notes. Fuzzy has like a page of notes on this. It all goes to shit. So as decks in general get stronger, that would be what we

refer to as power creep. And the game doesn't have very many defenses against power creep. As cards get stronger, as decks get stronger, it'll have a radical impact on the feel of the game. That doesn't necessarily mean that new sets are stronger. I think that's what we typically think of as power creep. But overall, my card pool is expanding, so the number of cards that I run that are high power cards are going to expand. Now there are ways to design around that, like designing

around synergy, etcetera. So this is really a theoretical concept that LSS has the power to stop. But eventually I just have this feeling that like as more majestics are printed, decks are going to be all majestics. And on one hand this can be great because majestics are cool. How much dopamine are you getting from playing a really cool like Art of War versus playing like Cash In? Maybe they're both drawing you cards, but Art of War is like doing more, you know, Spinal

Crush versus Crush the weak. Playing that cool Majestic has the opportunity to give you a cooler experience in the game because majestics tend to be unique and interesting and powerful. You know, I also think that majestics define power turns in this game, especially now where a lot of the times you're waiting to see your cool cards. This is a little bit of my bias as an aggro player because aggro is kind of all about waiting to see your power cards and then

popping off. But I would say that it extends to other classes. Like when I'm playing against Victor, Victor has his like visit the gold main estate, his trounces, and when he hits those, those are his power turns where he's able to flip power and tempo and take the game state. And when your deck is all powerful cards, you're going to have fewer off turns, which has a dramatic impact on the pacing of the game.

In the early days, you could block out a turn and then hope that they draw Bubkis. This is especially true with different classes. If I block out a rune blade, maybe they can draw all non attacks and I'm saved, saved with Rangers. But with more flexible cards, more powerful cards, it becomes a lot harder to do that. Do you think you would rather play in a game where there are fewer off turns in general? Oh.

That's what I was really asking. Like when I was like writing it, that was the question I was asking. Would I want more or less off turn? God damn it's such a good question I think. I think I would want less because I like having the extra mini games when you play hero. That's what gets me into a hero. Like Levia has a lot of mini games about. How can I do this exact same thing again next turn or maybe a turn after that and still be juggling all the shit like blood

debt and and things like that? I love that Levia answer if I could play Levia without off turns. Well, that, that's how I started, man. I wasn't playing around with fucking Demi heroes and shit like that. Yeah. You know, I, I think I'm also going to agree with Joel, but I'm going to agree for a different reason, which is that it feels horrible to block with your strong cards.

I've been having some games recently where I'm playing against new and new just throws disruption every single turn and some hands. You know, I don't mind that because like it's an offhand, right? And then other hands, it's like, Oh my God, this is my strong hand. It just had to line up. And if I had that feeling every single turn of like, God, am I really going to block with the red majestic that wins me the game. Wait a minute, my whole deck is red majestics that win me the game.

I don't want to block with any of these. I don't think that's exactly a game that is fun to play because yeah, I think it actually just doesn't promote any blocking any of the back and forth and flesh. And blood. And that leads into my next point. When you imagine all of your cards up, up. If you imagine a power crap scenario where the average card has a higher value now that it does, that affects blocking the

most. If right now we imagine a card has three points of value, but majestics, let's be honest, probably have more. Like how much value are you getting into the blood rush bellow? Probably more than three. That's why you don't want to block with it, right? It gives you more points when you play it. And when I look at my Zen hands, all of my cards are hopefully at least 4 damage. So I don't want to block with any of those cards.

So when that becomes the norm, then blocking in general gets worse unless they start printing like 3 1/2 for these block values or they start printing action cards that just block for four. Can you imagine that? It sounds crazy, right? Like action cards that block for four. Well, I would say that Room Blades, we've already seen this with a lot of Our Majestics being three blocks and our Commons and Rares being two

blocks. Oh, where the Majestics have a higher block value than the other cards? Yeah, sure. But I feel like that pattern of design has been going away with time. Except for room blades. They still have a shit ton of two blocks in every deck, and now no blocks. Yeah. Now, I also believe that this majestic soup scenario that we're talking about is already

becoming a reality. And the one the hero that I think exemplifies this the most is New, especially like assassins in general, like new has a bunch of majestics that were just printed in this set. All the old cool majestics like Codex of frailty there, she's literally using majestics to recur Her majestics and then throw the majestics at you and you're getting hit by power card after power card.

And I'm realizing that like my game plan cannot be wait for an off turn against new because I think those off turns are very rare because of the density of really powerful cards in news deck. Yeah, now that is odd because new is one of the main mechanics of all the Mystic heroes are built around Commons in the Chi, but a lot of the times they feel strong enough that the Chi is kind of feels like a majestic.

Anyway, it's like the Chi always lets you use your headpiece, which lets you banish the car, man, that's legendary. So it's like, well, if I take a common and a legendary and I find the middle ground that's like just below a majestic so. If those were literally majestics, it would agree more with the point I'm trying to make, because I'm also trying to talk about how expensive the game is getting is where I'm leading next. And I would also say New only

runs four or five cheat cards. She runs, I think significantly fewer than some of the other Mystic heroes. She's really leaning more on those like heavy power card majestics that are able to cheat rates. Another offender of this. I feel like this or I has felt horrible to build because they've been giving Viscerae support actually fairly consistently.

And even when I'm talking about like these sets where I'm not very happy with the support that he's gotten and like a lot of his cards aren't making it in. They do give us like a blue non block majestic or sorry, a blue majestic that can block 3A non tech action card and you're like, well, I'll take the blue block three that like is on strategy.

You can't see it audience. I did air quotes and at the exact same time my red slot becomes this thing where I need to make room for my role player Commons and rares. So I actually have the less red slots for My Majestics, but I want to run all of My Majestics because they're what I actually need to compete with the other heroes right now.

We have a couple examples already of heroes that are running very high densities of majestics, and this leads to the game in general being more expensive. Majestics tend to be pricier than Commons and rares. It kind of used to be that you could just buy Command and Conquerors and find all spring Tunic and kind of be set because so much of the game was Commons and rares.

But the more sets that are printed, the less reasonable this becomes, the more of those like price Your majestics you're going to need to make your deck work. We looked at the deck that just won the Pro Tour and it was very heavily like mostly majestic cards and I think the other like. I I do want to know here, in these past 2 examples you've mentioned Assassin twice.

And I think Assassin is specifically a new class that is struggling because they have a smaller card pool because they've only been printed in two draftable sets so far, which is the lowest out of any other class. But also so like one, they just don't have enough Commons and rares. I would love that argument if you could follow it up by saying you believe they will play more Commons and rares in the future if they got more draftable sets.

The other issue is that I feel like their design is entirely built around being really really good with these common majestics. Like they don't have their substitute for fine dolls, they don't have their substitute for CNC. They're really good with every single 2 for six disruptive generic card. Like they just want to run those expensive cards right? They struggle with go again, so they want E strike it. It goes on and on. Yeah.

And this power creep that we're talking about, I want to point out that it doesn't affect the game unilaterally. That is to say, if I'm an Armory level player, I probably will build decks that are easily approachable, but there's also likely to be people at those armories that are running these high level competitive decks that are being power cracked the

most. That the the distance between the top decks and the bottom decks I think is getting farther and farther apart as the game is power creeping. And it exacerbates this problem that Flesh and Blood already is starting to have, where the competitive players are unapproachable to the newer players. It's harder and harder for newer players to win games.

That is true. Like the the leap that you guys took to join Flesh and Blood is gonna seem a lot easier than what players that in a few years will have to be jumping through. Like, think about how many heroes we have and triple it and think about a Flesh and Blood player joining the game in like 10 years. Yeah, with this level of

gameplay, it's crazy. I'm so glad you brought that up, Clark, because the way this game changes over time, when we're imagining this player 2 years from now, maybe even five years from now, there might be 0 heroes that exist in the game now that are still legal in the game five years from now. You're going to say that Levaya is going to Living Legend out in five years? I'm. Saying it's a possibility, I don't. Believe you OK over my. 95% of the heroes will.

Take out Leviathan Bolton, baby. We we're still fighting, yeah. And this new cast of heroes that will exist in two, five years, 10 years, we'll still have the same card pool that we're working with now, but like double or triple the size. And what do you think those decks might look like?

I think whether or not they are Majestic Soup or whether they are like synergy based Commons and Rares Chowder, I think like we need to remember that this game changes over time and we need to be ready to adapt to the way that this game is not going to be the same in the future and we have to be ready to love a new game. I talk about this all the time because it's crazy to me how there's always something to complain about because we fall in love with this game and it

changes. They literally print a new game every four months and these changes, hopefully LSS will find ways to make these graceful changes as we mature into whatever game we're going into. So I got a little spiritual there. No, I love it. Fuzzy. That was awesome. All right, that's all I wanted to say. I definitely wrote the most notes, but I think I managed to make my pitch the shortest one. That was so succinct, I loved that. Me and Joel really stumbled.

You guys ready to go to our Arsenal zone? Let's do it. Yeah. What the fuck is an Arsenal zone? Well, you see Fuzzy at the end of your turn when you move to when both players pass priority to move into the end phase, the active player gets to take one of their cards and put it into something called the Arsenal Zone, which is a place on the arena where cards are put face down and you can then play cards

out of that zone. It's also where we like to talk about a card we've been thinking about In Flesh and Blood recently, whether we love it, hate it, love to hate it, or just don't really have any thoughts about it and want to spend 2 minutes talking about that. Joel, why don't you lead us off? Sure.

So we already talked about unsheathed. That was one card that I really wanted to talk about. But one thing that I think exemplifies this episode really well is T-bone. Because. Because, as you know, listeners, Bright Lights was the second set where Mecha Knowledge has appeared in like more than three cards since its release. 3 is a little bit of an understatement, but sure. It was the second draftable set

for mechanologists. Same amount of draftable sets for Mechanologists and Assassin. Yeah, so I that means it's like a a low amount of cards is what I'm saying. They've had the smallest card pool before yes. And the reason why I like T-bone is because even though it was one card, it was like an auto include like it, it felt so natural to dash in general. And it's a really good meta

call. Like one thing about the Lexi meta and the current meta is there's a lot of like blade break and aggressive like slanted armor. And Dash continues to be a like very unique meta call where she can kind of just shred your important armor pieces and you straight UPS can't play the game sometimes. Like if Zen loses Traverse Shuko and Stride early on, he only has, you know, the actual resource. Or if Lexi loses New Horizons, that's literally game over.

And so I was just thinking about T-bone. I thought it was cool that one card made Dash such a huge inclusion in every meta because of that, even though she, you know, took forever to get support. Yeah, I love like how T-bone gives Mechanologist that specific point in the meta to punish those heroes that like to run blade Break equipment, you know?

It's a fascinating, flavorful, disruptive piece which has given Mechanologist a interesting way to impact the meta and stay relevant in instances where people would normally not consider them. And I think one thing I also really like about this card is it's a little bit under rate power wise and it's being blocked by an equipment. So you're spending a card to probably not deal any damage. And this disruption can like change your game plan.

Like, all right, opponent, you've built a game plan around this equipment. What are you going to do now that they're gone? And I like forces you to improvise a little bit as a player. OK, now what are my win conditions in my outs? And I like that it shifts the game so drastically, while not so drastically that that completely screws that hit that hero over. Yeah. Excellent pick, Joel. Thank you.

Fuzzy, what about you? So I think I got called out last episode for not shouting out Bramble sparks. So I'm shouting out Bramble sparks. Oh, you cut it. I cut it from the episode. Clark was giving me shit last week because I apparently said I was going to shout out Bramble Spark last week and I did it. So I'm here this week. Sprayable Spark. It's one of my favorite Briar cards. You show your opponent here, look at my Earth card, and you get to give your next attack any attack action.

It can be Small, big +3 and dearly 1 arcane damage when it attacks. A0 for four pump. Sheesh. You just have to recommend. Could never. And it always deals 1 arcane even if you don't fuse, which is less cool than giving plus 3. But also it's kind of really cool because that arcane is a really good way to finish games and it's nice to have as a reliable method. I'm probably going to run this card in my shitty Chanamat heroic Florian build, so we'll see how that goes. Probably not.

Well, Florian does not look like he likes to go fast. Hey, 0 for four is just fucking good man. Like you don't gotta it. It just needs to be a 0 for four. So that's the card I'm shouting out and I have a copy that I'm signing and giving to each of you. Thank you so much. Let's go. Clark, what do you got?

So the card that I got today I decided to do a repeat of last week and click the Randomize Me Captain button on the card database and I had to actually press it a couple times before I found a card I actually wanted to talk about. Cheater. But I did find a card Grasp of the Arc Knight. So this is a legendary equipment all the way back from Arcane Rising.

Wow, it's A2 block battle warrant that once per turn I can pay 2 resources to create a rune chant token, but it costs one more for each rune chant that's already on the field. So if I have one rune chant, it'll cost a whole blue card to make another rune chant now. And it has go again which is cool. So I like grass for the Ark Knight because one it has some really fascinating little play lines that you can end up doing like in late game situations.

This could be a one card 4 damage creating our own little like room blade Titan's fist with Reaping blade where we pitch to this and make a rune chant and then spin the floating resource to attack with reaping blade. That's so funny. And that's one arcane, 3 physical. It's like better than a Titan's Fist because it's split damage, but at the exact and it's just kind of like this generically good arms piece that has never

really been bad. But I think it's going to be really interesting to see how this fits into Florian's play style and how this and how maybe even fits into Aurora's play style. Because so far this has been an auto include for rune blades. And it's going to be fascinating to see if they create equipment that is intending to contest with Grasp of the Ark Knight or there's a play pattern that can incorporate this very awkward ability.

Because the moment that you have a room chant this card, it's really underrate the ability. But if you don't have one and you really need one, it's actually a very efficient way to create a room chant, which with the cost reduction on a lot of room blade cards, could actually end up giving you 2 value for two resources. I love this card and I love that discovery moment when you first start playing with it. Like as a newer player, I'm like 2 resources for one rune chant

that doesn't sound very good. And then you start playing with it and you're like, Oh no, this is really nice because sometimes you just need to spend your resources on something and being able to get a rune chant is like never bad. It's so like reliable. And then it blocks for three, which used to be really fucking good.

It still is really fucking good. Yeah, like I would say that it's going like one of the reasons why I'm really interested to see if Aurora runs it is because, like having three extra block in Aurora could be a massive fucking deal for that hero. We're seeing Zen as an aggro deck, just being able to block for two with his equipment feels huge compared to other ninjas. Yeah, and like Brian Go has said that if he could go back and change anything about Traverse, he'd go for making it A2 block

to A1 block, right? Like that extra point of value can make a world of difference to heroes. Awesome fun card, yeah. Well, cool, we'll go for. It Yep. Well, cool. I think that sums everything up really well. I think it's time to end the episode. What? What about you guys? No, let's keep podcasting for that. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, let's do a whole other run of Arsenal's own cards. I felt like these were weak. I think we need to do a whole nother 3 cards, Fuzzy.

Go inside, go get your binder. Go pull out two more cards. OK, you guys don't get signed ones when we do double Arsenal zone that's. One new rule, I am already not getting a signed grasp of the Ark Knight. You can at least get me another fucking comment. All right, I'll find a comment for you, Joel. Do I have to talk about it too? All right, everyone, thanks for listening to our podcast. We'll see you next week.

Fidget to me. Podcast is hosted by Joel Rosinos, Clark Moore and Fuzzy Delt. Our executive producer is Talon Stradley, music is produced by Dylan Hulse, logo is designed by Han V and our sound mixing is done by Christopher Moore. Last but not least, thank you the listener for taking the time to listen to our podcast. Be sure to give us a follow on your favorite social media platform at Fidget to Me Podcast.