Aggro Chane Blitz Breakdown (Skirmish/Gauntlet Winning Deck)
UPDATE SEPT 21 2021: Seeds of Agony is going to be banned in a few days and I do not at this time have a good replacement for it. I would recommend playing a different build for the time being, as that card was integral to this build’s style. The original article still follows for those interested in what a MON era Chane deck looked like.
Hello all! Long time no blog, my apologies for the delay. I still intend to write a post analyzing Spill Blood but haven’t put enough time in with it to make a very informed comment at this phase — I was thinking I’d have a lot of Boltyn testing to discuss but I’ve been focused on other heroes instead. For now though I have a post with respect to playing Chane in blitz!
Overview
decklist courtesy of fabdb.net, Flesh and Blood TCG and card images are © Legend Story Studios.
This is a Chane aggro deck. My goal is to attack aggressively and take down the opponent with powerful “go wide” attacks mixed with arcane damage to make it even harder to defend against everything! Early on, the deck might pitch blue, play a zero cost non-attack action , and swing with both Nebula Blade and a one cost attack — later or on big turns via Art of War and the like, it can put out a huge amount of damage. Watch out, though — as you accumulate Soul Shackles throughout the game, you may approach a fatigue endgame, where this deck is extremely disadvantaged. Defeat the opponent first!
I’ve had some pretty good tournament results with this deck — I’ve played it in two recent Discord Gauntlet tournaments (both 40+ person events) and two online Skirmishes (both 100+ person events) and have an overall record of 28-6 across those events, winning one of the Gauntlets and one of the Skirmishes and taking second place in the other Gauntlet event. It’s definitely a different style of build from the Dorinthea decks I’d been using earlier, but it can be another fun and powerful option! I feel that Chane is a very strong hero and is in fact part of the “top tier” in Blitz — I would currently consider the “top tier” to be Kano, Ira, Dorinthea, and Chane, with some other heroes, like Rhinar or Bravo, as viable but less strong “tier 1.5” decks.
Primary Inventory (6)
Nebula Blade — this is a great weapon for this deck. You’ll very often be playing non-attack actions and thus swinging the Nebula Blade for four damage and a Runechant on hit. Use this in all matchups — though it’s conceivable that a Reaping Blade might do better against Kano, I haven’t tested that in detail and the Nebula Blade seems to do fine.
Arcanite Skullcap — the old standby, Skullcap is the best helmet you can equip in terms of armor. I use this in most matchups, though it’s possible Ebon Fold works better in some — I need to do more testing with that.
Carrion Husk — Husk is a crucial piece of armor that allows you to gain a huge tempo swing when necessary, and by the time the blood debt from blocking with it adds up you’ll hopefully have capitalized on the tempo you gained. Be careful about it potentially “self-destructing” though — in some matchups you’ll have to be extra careful thanks to potential reactions and the like.
Grasp of the Arknight — strong armor, a nice resource sink, and a way to pitch unwanted cards. Very solid card — while it was designed to go along with Viserai, Chane gets great value out of it even without Runechant synergy cards in the build.
Snapdragon Scalers — these give you another attack at a key moment and help you boost your aggression even further.
Sideboard Equipment (6)
Ebon Fold — a key piece of the puzzle versus Kano, Ebon Fold plus three Nullrune items will make it difficult for Kano to stop you, as you can potentially block a crucial attack like a buffed Sonic Boom or Reverberate while only pitching one card. Ebon Fold may also be a strong choice in other matchups to improve consistency and add aggression at a key moment, but I have not tested this in great detail.
Nullrune Robe/Globes/Boots — the rest of the puzzle versus Kano. Don’t equip these in any other matchup, even the Chane mirror — just play armor and race, or MAYBE armor plus Ebon Fold?
Crown of Dichotomy — this is only there in case I run into Viserai. I don’t recommend equipping Arcane Barrier stuff against Chane.
Gambler’s Gloves — this is only there in case I run into Kayo. It provides a huge amount of additional defense against him in expectation when used to make him reroll an attack that scored double damage — a Gambler’s Gloves reroll is approximately equivalent to blocking six damage on average and can be more if the attack had a higher base strength!
Strong Cards to Play from Banish (20)
I have found that running blood debt cards that aren’t good is not a very good tactic. Previously I was running substantially more blood debt cards, but ultimately I found that by running only decently strong ones you can still get to about 50% blood debt density. Here are the blood debt cards that “made the cut” for me and some notes on how I evaluate each:
(2) Bounding Demigon (red) — boring but powerful when milled, can potentially get “stuck” though so be careful. Zero cost is nice.
(2) Ghostly Visit (red) — even more boring. Inefficient but reliable.
(1) Howl from Beyond (red) — strong when you have energy to spare, painful when you don’t. I dropped to 1x thanks to Kano being a thing.
(2) Rift Bind (red) — this card is often similar to Ghostly Visit, but can scale further (or be worse if you don’t have any non-attack actions).
(2) Unhallowed Rites (red) — I dislike this card’s art (more on that later) but the card itself is strong, helping you get Seeds or Howl from Beyond back in order to avoid fatigue. Watch out though, this can get stuck in banish if you don’t have non-attack actions to play.
(2) Seeds of Agony (red) — all values of Seeds of Agony are super core. Yellow is probably the best, but red works with C&C which is nice.
(2) Seeds of Agony (yellow) — probably the best Seeds because it works with your various one cost attack actions.
(2) Seeds of Agony (blue) — less reliably “on” than the other Seeds but best pitch and it works with EStrike, Bounding, and Shadow.
(2) Shadow of Ursur (blue) — strong effect strong pitch strong block. Autoinclude.
(2) Unhallowed Rites (blue) — the most questionable of any of the blood debt cards here. I view this as “at least it gets me a card back”.
(1) Invert Existence (blue) — bad when it’s bad, incredible when it’s good (especially in the Chane mirror). I could see cutting this.
Note also what I’m not playing — no copies of Seeping Shadows, no copies of two cost blood debt attacks, no attacks in “bad colors” (except the blue Unhalloweds which I need to hit my ratios). As I mentioned earlier, I don’t think those cards are good enough to make the cut. Most blood debt cards are already below curve — losing even more attack efficiency by playing nonreds is in my view too dangerous! (Kudos to Dante for pointing this out earlier.) 50% blood debt density seems sufficient to get card advantage from your Soul Shackles without compromising card quality too much. Keep in mind also that if there were blood debt cards as good as the “powerhouses” I list next I might well want to run those too, but as it stands I feel like really there are about 16-18 very strong banishable slots plus a few “fillers”/weaker options as it is!
Powerhouse Cards (12)
These are cards that are so strong for the deck that I want to run them even though I can’t play them from the banish zone. There are a few other cards that might be worth including in this slot and I might play around with it — the most notable options IMO are Snatch, Razor Reflex, and Sink Below (all in red), but I like these selections at present.
(2) Command and Conquer (red) — needs no introduction. Breaks phantasms, threatens arsenal, great synergy with this deck.
(2) Enlightened Strike (red) — not as strong as C&C but very flexible, all three modes are useful, and sets up the bottom of the deck.
(2) Meat and Greet (red) — strong on its own and gets extra powerful if arcane damage gets through on an earlier attack.
(1) Plunder Run (red) — really dangerous if set up in arsenal and can be used from hand for draw, Nebula, etc. 1x but could be 2x.
(2) Shadow Puppetry (red) — amazing with C&C or for setting up big turns in general.
(1) Soul Reaping (red) — not fond of either the art or the “super powerful but only one copy” design pattern in general — I’ve had enough one per deck variance playing L5R and Conquest! Nevertheless, I think it’d be quite odd not to include this card…
(2) Art of War (yellow) — super core card, as banishing an attack to draw two cards gets extra powerful when combined with attacks that you can play from the banish zone! Usually used for +1 or go again depending on how many attacks you think you’ll be using, but sometimes used on defense as well since the banish and card draw are still relevant there.
Things I Play Because They’re Blue (8)
These cards aren’t as strong as the “powerhouses” but can be effective under the right circumstances and they get me up to fifteen blues, a solid number for a somewhat expensive deck (and for the Kano matchup!). If you have too much blue, keep in mind you can often convert surplus resources to arcane damage by using Grasp of the Arknight.
In some ways these not having Blood Debt is useful in that it means that I don’t have to spend an action point to play them if they get banished, though it’s possible replacing one of these with something like a blue copy of Rift Bind or Bounding Demigon would be a good option. Another interesting non-banish option would be Dread Triptych, but I tend to think that card is too expensive. Playing less blues is also an option, but you really want a lot of blues for facing Kano.
(2) Mauvrion Skies (blue) — this can give more go again if needed, though it often isn’t much needed. Note that it only works with Runeblade cards, so the generics don’t work here nor do Ghostly Visit or Soul Reaping (which are only Shadow, not Runeblade).
(2) Meat and Greet (blue) — decent attack, annoying for a small one in that it can give you a Runechant. Most of the time it’s a “pitch for three, block for three” option though, and that’s fine.
(2) Vexing Malice (blue) — while it’s not always worth an action point, the two arcane damage is awkward for many classes to block. Can be useful to enable a guaranteed Meet and Greet vs. nullrune one or an inactive Skullcap, and makes a strong first turn option as well.
(2) Whisper of the Oracle (blue) — it’s blue and blocks for three and can be played as an easy non-attack action if that’s needed. Opting can also help set up the bottom of the deck for a big turn late when you have lots of shackles.
Anyway, that’s the deck. Fifteen blues and fourteen non-attack actions help with consistently having what you need for the game plan, while twenty total cards playable from banish mean that those Soul Shackles should be giving substantial card advantage. One final gameplay note is that I hear some people talking about blocking heavily until they build up several Soul Shackles and then going on the offensive. I don’t like that. I like attacking! This build can often threaten eight or more damage from the first turn and I think you want to threaten those attacks (especially the ones with on-hits to get your opponent either blocking or taking extra damage). I like fighting for tempo almost all game — one notable caveat being that if going first I may just make a Runechant and Soul Shackle, arsenal, and pass.
Playing on a Budget
This deck has some expensive cards, most notably Carrion Husk, Grasp of the Arknight, and Arcanite Skullcap. Of these expensive cards, Grasp is probably the least replaceable! A “budget” build could run Ebon Fold in all matchups rather than just Kano and equip the Aether Ironweave rather than the Husk for even more aggro power — in fact, sometimes those items might well prove better! However, there really isn’t an equivalent swap to make for the arm slot. The best you could do would probably be Stubby Hammerers (as pointed out by “Dr. Alistair Grout” in the comments) — I had originally thought Goliath Gauntlet for the budget arms but I think that’s only really good if you’re running Command and Conquer, which is itself not exactly a budget-friendly card!
With respect to other expensive cards, the big ones are the generic powerhouse Majestics from Welcome to Rathe and Arcane Rising — Enlightened Strike, Command and Conquer, and Art of War. Enlightened Strike could be replaced by Snatch, while Command and Conquer and Art of War do not have good replacements. Of these, Art of War is probably the biggest boost for the deck and should be prioritized “on a budget”, though C&C is pretty crucial if there’s a lot of Prism in your environment.
Put On a Shirt, Chane
Last but not least, I should note that I quite dislike Chane’s character design, background and general theme — I think a lot of the Shadow cards have gross art thanks either to gore or to general taste/decency concerns. I enjoy the gameplay side of things, but some of the cards are a bit much — I won’t get into it here again but generally speaking I wish FAB would tone down some of the questionable stuff. It’s possible to distinguish yourself from kids’ games without going “over the top” and I think FAB sometimes overdoes it with respect to its art and backstory.
I actually made art alters for several cards as a result of this — with respect to cards that see play in this build, I painted a shirt/armored top of some kind onto Chane in Soul Reaping and gave the character in Unhallowed Rites a less revealing outfit as well. In fact, my Gauntlet win was with a slightly different version of the deck, in part because I had yet to physically paint the art alters for blue Unhallowed (just for red ones) so I ran blue Rift Binds in that slot instead!
I’m also working on a TTS mod that will allow some alters similar to these for Tabletop Simulator use and hopefully will address some of the gorier cards as well — unfortunately the level of artistry required to make a gory card not gory is somewhat above the level required to make Chane put on a shirt, but I’m hoping to use that to make the game a bit more “stream-friendly” for the future.
Despite these complaints I do think that Legend Story Studios did a cool job with Chane’s gameplay theme — you’ve doomed yourself by making pacts with demons and keep making the situation worse and worse but maybe you can overwhelm the immediate opposition before your downfall — as represented by the soul shackles making you stronger in the short term but ultimately forcing the deck to fatigue out and lose if the game goes long. So while I dislike Chane’s character concept etc. I do think they did a good job of designing gameplay that feels fitting for the overall theme.
(Protip: do not make pacts with demons in real life. If you have, then go to confession rather than making more pacts with demons! :P)
Anyway, that’s going to do it for this article guys — thanks for reading and stay tuned for more content! I know it’s been a while, hopefully my next update won’t take this long to write. I’m thinking Boltyn may be the next subject of discussion here, though no guarantees…
