FAB Tournament Report: Cloak and Blaster December Digital Blitz
Sorry for the long delay on articles here, all — I’ve been doing more streaming and playing recently relative to writing! If you want to check out some of the games that I’ve recorded and commentated, I have ten FAB videos up as of this writing on YouTube, and more to come soon!
This time I’m going to be bringing you another tournament report similar to my previous one — this time, I attended the Cloak and Blaster Digital Blitz tournament. This tournament used a slightly unusual ruleset — while it was played on Tabletop Simulator, the event required you to own the physical cards for the deck that you were playng. This accounts for my somewhat unoptimal decklist:
Ideally I would like an Arcanite Skullcap and a second Command and Conquer, but “you go to war with the army you have” and all that…
(deckbuilder from FABDB, Flesh and Blood and its cards © Legend Story Studios.)
While I’ve fairly consistently been a Warrior player, I have switched back and forth between Dorinthea and Kassai. Currently, I’m really enjoying Kassai’s aggressive playstyle and ability to “not care” about the outcome of some of my attacks — if the opponent blocks my Saber swing, I likely have another on the way for them anyhow!
This deck uses a very “wide” attack pattern, using Kassai’s dual Cintari Sabers and lots of unconditional go again in order to allow multiple attacks in a turn and wear down an opponent. The lone Cash In provides some payoff for Kassai’s Copper tokens, while much of the rest of the deck is either attacks or things that enable attacks. I still have some Warrior tricks though, with several attack reactions in order to threaten an opponent and perhaps score a kill once life totals get low. Having played this deck or something close to it in several recent events with the LA group, I felt like I had a pretty good understanding of what to do with it.
That said, the real card requirement meant I’d be at a disadvantage relative to some, as I don’t own an Arcanite Skullcap or a second Command and Conquer. On the other had, opponents might be similarly constrained…
Round One:
I found myself facing an Ira player with “top tier” equipment for the matchup — not the easiest start to the day! Ira is a powerful force in Blitz and this game was very close. Luckily, my wide attacks were able to “grind out” the game. Once I got low, I was able to respect Razor Reflex and avoid dying by blocking both Kodachi hits for a turn. On the next turn, I had Sigil of Solace to stop the Razor from killing me, then later I was able to use a Steelblade Shunt to counter my opponent’s second Razor. After that defending wasn’t quite as stressful and I was able to take Ira down with an Ironsong Response sneaking in over a block for the last bit of damage.
Amusingly, I think hitting Coax and giving Quicken tokens may have helped my opponent more than me this game, but I was still able to prevail though it was quite close. I was definitely feeling the lack of Skullcap this time around!
Victory! (1-0)
Round Two:
This time I was against a Dorinthea player with “starter” equipment, so I knew I had a bit of an edge there with my extra armor and useful abilities. I was able to prevent my opponent from getting a Dawnblade counter while also chipping away at him with my Sabers and generic attacks — this time, I avoided the mistake of giving away a Quicken token that would be worth more to him than it was to me! Early on I hit with a Snatch and drew Cash In, which I put in Arsenal and waited until the time was right. After several exchanges, I finally had the four copper and was at six life to my opponent’s seven, but with more equipment defense left.
I played the Cash In from Arsenal for a six-card hand, then played Scar for four with go again -> Rabble for four with go again -> yellow Driving Blade into a Saber for four with go again -> Flock of the Feather Walkers for five and a Quicken counter. My opponent only had ten defense in hand (two three blocks and two two blocks) and had used his equipment already, so that 17-damage barrage got seven damage through, exactly the amount that I needed to close out the game!
Victory! (2-0)
Round Three:
My opponent for this round was TinyGrimes, a player and YouTuber who I’d encountered several times before! Tiny plays Dorinthea so this was going to be another Warrior vs. Warrior matchup, but he had better equipment than my previous opponent, rocking Courage + Skullcap + Bracers + Bolters.
A key moment came when Tiny did a red Warrior’s Valor + Dawnblade swing for six after using Courage of Bladehold, and I overblocked to nine, which was enough to prevent his attack from getting in. On my next turn, I only had one card left but played Ravenous Rabble and then used Tunic for a Saber swing. He blocked for two with a Flock of the Feather Walkers, but with the Saber’s +1 for being blocked by an attack I was able to get in for one damage, break my Bolters, and swing the second saber. Since Tiny was now on three life he had to block the second saber as well in order to prevent dying to a potential Shunt. This gave me the last piece of Copper I needed to enable Cash In, but that didn’t end up being necessary — on the next turn, I was able to block with just one card, then close things out with Driving Blade -> Saber -> Hit and Run -> Saber -> Ironsong Response to get in over the block and end the game.
In the postgame chat, Tiny revealed that if I hadn’t overblocked that Dawnblade turn, he would have been able to get in with an attack reaction and second swing, which might have tipped the scales on this one — overblocking is costly, but sometimes you have to be careful when playing against Warrior!
Victory! (3-0)
Round Four:
For the final round of Swiss, I was paired against BigMedSi, a UK-based player that I’ve come up against before. BigMedSi was also running a high end Ira deck, though he had some differences relative to my round one opponent. Once again, I really felt the lack of Skullcap. This time, I was at more of a disadvantage as the game went on.
In the late game, BigMedSi launched a Torrent of Tempo which I overblocked by one to avoid potentially being blown out by an Ancestral Empowerment — unfortunately, he had a Razor Reflex instead and that was enough to get through my defenses and close out the game. Darn!
Defeat! (3-1)
My 3-1 record was enough to make the cut to top four, so on to Semifinals:
For the semifinals, I found myself paired up against DragonLotus, an experienced Ninja player that I had played against in a Cloak and Blaster event before, as well as in a West Coast weekly playtest tournament. He too was playing Ira — in fact, I was the only non-Ira to make the top cut! DragonLotus’s Ira deck had some notable differences from the others I’d encountered, with a bit more “raw damage” — in particular, one turn I felt like I was making good progress on tempo only to be put on the back foot a bit by having to defend against Flying Kick, which I don’t believe my other opponents had been playing.
In the end, while I was able to stay alive for a while I was using too many cards on defense, and I conceded when I was down to just three or four cards left and it was apparent that I would fatigue out before managing to stop DragonLotus.
Defeat! (Eliminated, 4th place overall)
Finals:
The final match was ultimately played between two of my past opponents — DragonLotus ended up against BigMedSi in an Ira mirror. I streamed and commentated this match at the time, and it was an exciting one — DragonLotus gained the advantage in midgame and had a sizable tempo lead, but BigMedSi was running Drone of Brutality while DragonLotus was not, and the Drones began to make their presence felt as both players began fatiguing out. Ultimately, DragonLotus had barely enough “gas left in the tank” and managed to take out BigMedSi despite the Drones of Brutality, but this was a very close game!
In the end, my performance was enough to get me 4th place, winning a few boosters and promo cards. Ultimately this was a very fun event and I quite enjoyed it — thanks to Cloak and Blaster for putting on the event, as well as to the other players for participating!
Takeaways:
The Blitz meta seems to have gotten significantly less diverse since the last event I played — earlier there were a wide range of decks, while this time I only played against two heroes across my five games and everyone who made the top cut other than myself was playing the same character!
While Arcanite Skullcap might be the worst Legendary (see my earlier article on Defense 101 for more on this), I definitely felt the lack of it in my Ira games. Ira often ends up playing a longer, more “grindy” game, and having a Skullcap’s two defense to negate that second Kodachi attack on a key turn can IMO be crucial.
Similarly, not having the second Command and Conquer felt rough — it’s definitely a card I want to see against decks that run a bunch of defense reactions. Even if the opponent stops a C&C, the fact that they can’t use defense reactions against it means they may end up having to block with their aggressive cards and end up with a derpy hand that doesn’t have much gas for offense.
I’m going to need to adapt my deck to have a better Ira matchup. I think I’m overall something like 50-50 against Ira across recent games, but since she’s so prevalent I’d ideally like to be running something where that’s a favored matchup. In the past, Kano was perhaps considered the best in Blitz and was at least to some extent a tough matchup, but also far fewer people played Kano than seem to now be playing Ira, so being prepared to counter Ira seems more important than countering Kano was.
Thanks again to Cloak and Blaster for putting on a great event! I’d love to see more stores running “virtual Armory kit events”, as I think there’s substantial interest from the community and these are great ways to get games in despite the pandemic. I would be especially interested to see events of this type that allow you to use whatever cards you like, as I think one big appeal play of Tabletop Simulator is the ability to “try before you buy” and test out decks you might not normally use!
