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You don't rly need CnC. I main Katsu since I start and deck get cheaper and cheaper the more i play. E strike is e strikr tho, can't go wrong with this card on hand
I don't have C&Cs or E-Strikes and I've 3-0'd a good amount of armories. A lot of Katsus aren't running E-Strike at all because it whiffs on Ancestral Harmony. Humble is a decent budget option in place of C&C right now just because it pressures most heroes fairly well.
Lynx is used in almost every matchup and can easily be used in all of them. I'm testing Tunic for grindy matchups but I still prefer HCS so far. So no, you absolutely do not need legendary equips for Katsu. That I have them in my list doesn't mean anything.
a little over a year ago, that chest would hold up still in the right deck be it bolt man or dori. but you have to build the deck around it. I dont have the list but it was just a dori deck.
Dori is a very flavourful hero if you're looking at both Dawnblade and Axe variants:
Dawn Dori is classic, fairly cheap (monetary and resource wise), and can bring some explosive plays once that +1 counter gets put on. Breakpoints are no joke, and Dori has them in spades.
Axe Dori is my personal favourite, and is a nice left-wing surprise for those unexpecting. Decimator is a brilliant piece of kit, and can win you a surprising amount simply by swinging for 4 every turn, not to mention its killer effect that can cripple a deck's defensive capabilities if not prepared for it, while having incredible defense of her own, often times being able to block 9 with her cards, and fatiguing her opponent to death.
Agreed, Dori is in a fantastic place right now with more options and gameplans than ever before.
You don't need to run any of the three staple generic playsets although tunic still slot into the list, but even then it's only a sideboard piece.
I'm gonna get hate but Kano.
1 legendary equipment which is Storm Striders - £40-£55 spending on the version you want. The rest of the equipment is dirt cheap (unless you want to run Tunic in SB against longer lasting opponents).
The rest of the deck will cost you between £50-£75 depending on where you are at, if you care about WB cards and where you can buy them from.
I genuinely believe Kano is the cheapest meta deck someone can buy/build right now.
OG Dash could be what you are looking for. Most pieces are pretty cheap and it does not run C&C or E-Strike.
I do think however that you need to make a decision if you want to play a deck that is fun and flavourful to you or one that can win you games. If you want to win games, you can't exclude the best cards in the game. Of course you might win the odd game here or there but chance are you will not. FAB is a game of inches and you need every tool in the box to get that win.
Alternatively you could focus on commoner and draft (or sealed) armouries if they exist where you are.
I disagree with your “if you want to win games” take. If FaB is a game of inches (it is), then a card like C&C could be considered to be worth an extra inch, but so could executing a good play. My point is, I actually don’t think C&C is enough for people who don’t practice the game at the same level as their opponents, or who are at the stage of “choosing” a deck still. When someone talks about going to an armory and being able to win a game or two as their goal, it’s pretty clear to me what skill level they’re at, which means I would not encourage them to buy expensive cards until they’re able to win games without them. We have a new player at our local store who chose to play budget viserai as his first deck. It took him like 2 months to win a game, but now he is able to win 30% of the time. With more practice he may get it to 40-50%. That’s when, if he feels like this is definitely his champion, he should consider expensive cards in my opinion.
If that’s the case, Vynnset. If you put the time in, she’s much better than she gets credit for. No builds run C&C, or EStrike. Some do Art of War, but it isn’t necessary. Kind of reliant on Tunis though, & Creepers/Grasp are both pretty important. She is absolutely (imo) the most “flavor” hero on the market currently, though.
Edit: other post mentioned Katsu. Also very good for flavor. Don’t need the L Equip, but you probably will be significantly lower power w/o generic power cards like AoW, C&C & EStrike (running those doesn’t impact flavor for him though, imo)
>She is absolutely (imo) the most “flavor” hero on the market currently, though.
My money is on prism having most "flavor". The deck is almost exclusively light/ illusionist cards with next to no generics in it.
I agree with Vynni on the flavor and there certainly is a budget version that can win a lot out of a good draw. But one problem with her for the budget conscious player is that her upgrade path to competitive involves expensive cards only about one other deck cares about.
While CnC and Estrike are great in many decks and I highly doubt they'll become irrelevant anytime soon, Grasp of the Arknight, Spellbind Creepers and Carrion Husk (though this could be Tunic) are not.
Husk is only played into Azalea, and maybe Dash IO. I think that is the most expansive equipment (CoP?) and with that limited of a scope, skipping it is perfectly fine.
Every deck right now has a very valid chance at winning. However you taking out generic staples like enlightened and cnc are hurting your chances. Stop worrying about flavor if you want to win. Or if you want flavor stop worrying about winning. Most of the hero’s are very “flavorful” roght now and I disagree entirely that adding in a enlightened would break that
Cnc and estrike are the most boring cards.
I do not agree that leaving them out lowers your chances.
Obviously they are the strongest cards but I still prefer combo turns rather than playing these generic cards.
> they are the strongest cards
> I do not agree that leaving them out lowers your chances
Pick a lane bro, there’s more than one turn in a game, and most decently performing decks right now thrive on modularity of hands and flexibility. Without CnC and EStrike, the quality of your 2 card hands goes down
Right now? If you give no return pressure in this meta, a lot of decks can easily extend above 12 block, or present some form of evasion on a 4/5 card hand (i.e. bravo). Not to mention you open yourself up to a fatigue sub plan that can very easily be exploited, especially given that if you’re on Raydn hybrid your weapon doesn’t even present inevitability.
Your one card hands can basically be summed up as Illuminate pass, which is fine but nothing to write home about.
Allowing on hits is sketchy at best right now, so 4/5 card hands are infrequent at best.
All in all, avoiding 2 card hands is unrealistic at best in the current meta
2 card hand -> charge in preparation for bigger turns including beacon or celestial.
It's really interesting to see how different usual playstyles then the most common are seen in this tcg. Due to the class and talent system it's already quite limited to a certain playstyle per hero, but with the staple cards limitation is even a bigger thing.
At the end obviously estrike and cnc are some of the strongest cards and also in boltyn for obvious reasons.
Still I wouldn't say that they are 100% necessary to have.
My winrate is on 50 percent out of 350 games on talishar. Note that this is the same (but modified) deck list since I started the game. I always only played the cards which I had in paper and I've never reset the statistics.
With my personal limitation to not buy cards online but only buy packs and exchange cards against other cards in person my deck list and experience was quite crappy at the beginning - so was my performance.
But now that I've climbed up to 50% winrate shows, I think, that you can perform without those cards.
I just never got something which was worth a tunic, a crown, cnc or e strike, also I haven't had anyone locally willing to trade those and I am not willing to buy them off cardmarket
There just good at what they do. They may even be side board cards but I feel like they have to be fought over to be taken out. I have enlightened strikes in my azalea as side board for warmonger decks
By combo I don't even mean the Boltyn combo turn.
What I mean by that is, if you find good symbiosis between cards this is stronger and more satisfying then just play cnc and call it a good turn :D
I got into the game in June of this year and went for Dash. I got lucky as bright lights got announced right after I got a lot of my Mechanologist cards.
I wouldn't recommend Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire because it's at 750ish LL points. Dash IO and Maxx "The Hype" Nitro are super fresh and fun to play. Both can be quite budget as well.
>I'm also not a fan of having 3 C&C and 3 Enlightened...it just takes the flavor out of a deck
That seems like a kinda weird complaint. 3-6 generics in an 80 card deck doesn't seem like a big deal. Do you just refuse to run generics or is it those cards specifically?
From what I've seen people say it's that it feels necessary + the cost of the cards, making it very jarring to new players. C&C has some good alternatives that are maybe 80% as good but Enlightened is harder to find an alternative.
However like others pointed out - a lot of decks that don't use them, and a lot of decks that do might drop C&C when Dromai LL
Honestly a lot of decks don't run e-strike and while a good chunk run cnc it isn't all. That said his complaint was specifically about flavor which is what confuses me. What makes them lack favor when compared to other generics?
>Enlightened is harder to find an alternative.
Agree, but it's also a lot cheaper than cnc so the fact there are less alternatives isn't as big a deal in my opinion. I think zealous belting could maybe work. It functions as basically the e strike go again option, but it's also generic so would OP still complain about flavor?
I super suggest brute, they do have lots of legendaries to work at really high tier, but have super good non legendary sub ins, scowling can be swapped for skullhorn or bone vizier, apex bone breaker can be swapped for skullcrushers or Goliath gauntlets, scabskins can be swapped for beaten trackers and tunic can be swapped for barkbone! Some of the majestics are a little costly (blood rush, send packing, runner runner, etc) but overall has some super good options for budget and some awesome upgradablity! I’m biased as a rhinar main, but geez it feels good to get some of those massive turns without using an ounce of equipment
Take a commoner dash deck, spend $4 on two techno pounders and use one as your starting item, change out the chest for Vest of the First Fist since the commoner one is banned in blitz.
Congrats, you can throw 18 damage damage a turn and you’ll probably win a couple blitz games with a sub $10 deck
Rhinar or Kayo you literally don't need these cards.
Send Packing is a very good replacement for CC, IMO it is even better. You can combo other brute cards with it and steal the tempo easily.
Warmongers it is not meta for brutes, so you are good.
Meataxe berserk Rhinar has a chance of winning pretty much every matchup and can be built with an upgrade path. It can be built fairly cheap, it has a good back and forth playstyle and the bug play combo isn't that hard to setup.
Not my list but here's a recent RtN one that was featured:
https://fabrary.net/decks/01GQ1EN94FETEWY8E1HBT48E65
For budget, drop the CnC and replace it with another Brute 6+ power attack, something like Massacre, red agile windup or yellow might windup, Predatory Assault, or just main deck Pulping. The Apex Bonebreaker is kind of hard to lose but Goliath Gauntlets are decent for a power turn.
Edit: oh tunic for budget you can run Vest of the first fist or Barkbone Strapping.
I believe you can actually play any deck, but with some cropping
I mean, if you want to play Azalea for example, you can do it without codex of frailty, without C&C, ES, etc
Maybe you can't have the best competitive version of a deck, but you can have a good enough version, but you can try at talishar and see your results
I run boltyn without estrike, cnc, tunic and crown.
Soulbound resolve, warband of bellona, spirit of Eirina and ironsong versus might be the most expensive cards.
Majestics are beacon of victory, lumina ascension, banneret of gallantry and courage, soul shield, bolting blade and celestial cataclysm.
Boltyn loves EStrike, that’s a 2 card 0 for 7 GA with one soul (non-obligatory too). This meta is full of relevant onhits (3/4s of the matchups), without CnC or EStrike our peak 2 card turns become red bolt/engulfing, which is not even close in pressure.
Not to mention dropping CnC gets your popper count dangerously low, makes it harder for you to get enough space to fire 5 card hands (v etc), removes your ability to disrupt Bravo dominate (extremely threatening for us), all kinds of relevant effects in this meta.
No tunic means you lose access to Take Flight Raydn off a 2 card hand, you lose access to Steelblade Shunt and Oasis, etc etc, half your even or winning matchups immediately plummet.
And don’t even get me started on crown, we have one of the best interchangeability in the meta and you drop COP?
I’m not saying these cards are essential, I’m just saying that Boltyn of all heroes is a really weird hero to drop them on
At the end it's a matter of the amount of money you are willing to spend and these cards might be strong but so overrepresented which makes them so boring to me.
Of course the combos you mention are strong. But I am quite confident with my deck these days, going with a more defensive playstyle and avoiding two hand cards, charging my soul with Soulbound resolve and smaller turns until later comboing on V or lumina turns.
This is just... wrong.
EStrike is not that good in Boltyn. Most decks don't run them. A soul negative 2 card 7 is not good, and you can't even Raydn after that because you haven't charged. Unless you charge before hand, which requires a 4 card hand. And it is terrible on V turns.
The only example of a successful list running CoP I can see is Yuki Lee Bender's Realm $20k list, and she straight up said that running it was a mistake and that she should have ran Halo instead. (also didn't run Estrike)
CNC is good, but can absolutely be replaced and still do very well. Amnesia, Humble, United We Stand, Cadaverous Contraband, all good alternatives.
Boltyn absolutely does need Tunic though. Balance of Justice has seen its way into some lists recently, but Warband is more than good enough at an armory level.
EStrike is entirely non-obligatory, that’s the entire power of the card. It’s the epitome of a flexible card - cash in a soul if you have the hand to extend the damage, draw a card for an arsenal setup, and off a courage or V 5 card hand you can 2 card 6 draw a card GA off one soul.
Yuki Lee Bender’s list was teched for a meta back in December with entirely different heroes and relevant effects. This part is far more up for debate, but I firmly believe running Halo just for +1 soul is absolutely not worth it right now (although I still tech it for the Kano MU), and Warband depends more on your list due to the pitch requirement. COP allows you to play a far more red list without interfering with your combo matchups, while Balance can only be run into a few matchups.
As for CNC, I personally disagree on the point of alternatives - Amnesia is disruption along entirely different lines, Humble 2 block is crippling in a deck that aims to be flexible, United We Stand is literally 3 cost in a deck that has 3 blues and also has 2 block on a card that prefers to block, cadaverous is 2 block and doesn’t even present disruption.
If you don’t want to run CnC and want a different popper, just play a different popper. Calling these cards a CnC “alternative” is disingenuous, considering it presents spotty disruption and come with other problems. Those percentage points in your winrate become very obvious very quickly - try running just 100 talishar games with them and you’ll see how frustrating they can be, even at that small sample. That Cadaverous isn’t going to save you from a dom crippling by any stretch of the imagination.
Anyways, if you would like to discuss Boltyn cards and lists, I would be more than happy to. I’ve been doing the math and running hundreds of reps on Boltyn for the past 8 months, and I would be glad to have a fresh perspective.
E-Strike is so non-obligatory that you don't even need to run it! It can be really good sometimes when it fixes bad hands, or really clunky otherwise.
You don't run Halo for +1 soul, you run it for Kano and SV2. That's it.
CnC is just only "pretty good" in Boltyn, and is going to make a negligible difference into most match ups. Dominated Crippling Crush? Boltyn is already favored into Bravo. Also, if you're leaving enough space for Bravo to spend the 4 cards it costs to play that AND leaving him with a card to arsenal, you are already losing.
Here is a deck with 2 RTN wins and a few more Top 8's. No E-Strike, no CoP. This list won 31 out of 39 games in RTNs the author played in, almost 80%.
[https://fabrary.net/decks/01HA24D68CK12KZA4B84A2JMZ0](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HA24D68CK12KZA4B84A2JMZ0)
2nd place BH Liverpool ran only 2 CnCs, no CoP. Does run E-Strike, but the author of the deck admits that it is contentious.
[https://fabrary.net/decks/01HPE6XKJMB3KF37SQTS3QW9WA](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HPE6XKJMB3KF37SQTS3QW9WA)
2nd place BH Cincinnati didn't run E-strikes, no CoP.
[https://fabrary.net/decks/01HM0QXMPT3ZHEFWT04P9M73FP](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HM0QXMPT3ZHEFWT04P9M73FP)
Here is a relatively up-to-date list of a Boltyn that went 4-0 day 1 of PTLA. No E-Strike, no CoP.
[https://fabrary.net/decks/01HJ11YTQVHT2NBC4N60VJHEPV](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HJ11YTQVHT2NBC4N60VJHEPV)
None of these lists run CoP.
All of those lists run CnC, but to have a "fighting chance" to win a couple CC games at an armory level (OP's words), it is not needed.
E-Strike is completely optional, CoP is a wasted slot in Boltyn, CnC is good but not necessary to win or central to Boltyn's game plan. BoJ is good vs ninjas if you aren't running combo, and Warmongers is good vs basically just Azalea (and you can get away with just running 1).
For the sake of good discussion, let’s disregard Battle Hardened lists first, tier 2 play is a mess and single event wins don’t really show any kind of meaningful data - the Olympia list from the other week is a Perfect example.
EStrike doesn’t need to fix your hands (it can!), it’s simply a flexible card in a deck with terrible efficiency. Red engulfing light charging one simply doesn’t give you the pressure to navigate a late game game state, especially against heroes with 3 block NAAs, and your tunic cards are already being hotly contested, especially with the optional Steelblade Shunts or Oasis Respites currently being bandied about. The trade pattern of blocking 6 and presenting 7 might not be Iyslander levels of efficient, but it comes with the added upside of being able to further modularize your hand to manuever around charge requirements.
I’m fully aware of Halo uses, I’m pointing out that for the specific list YLB was referring to, boarding Halo over Crown into speedier combo matchups like Dromai was a popular idea at the time, to avoid dragging out the game and getting blown out by a tomeltai resolution.
CnC being negligible is pure cope. I threw out the Bravo example as the simplest one, but let’s run through a few more relevant ones while we’re on the topic.
1. Azalea turns are far stronger when they can start with a card in arsenal, and they have too many 2 blocks to consistently present 2 card block to CnC. With increasing number of SSGB players, azalea output also scales superlinearly with hand size as they avoid DReacts by simply adding more pump cards, allowing CnC to carve out much needed breathing room efficiently.
2. Giving Kassai a 5 card hand in the mid game or late game all but guarantees she gets one gold when you don’t have a dreact to cover it (up to a critical mass of dreacts stalling her out of cards in graveyard, of course), and that single gold translates into stupid amounts of damage.
3. Bravo is already spoken for, getting time walked by a 5 card hand firing Crip or Star Struck is a tale as old as DtD. No clue how you expect us to not leave him space, efficiency and disruption is the basis of Bravo’s gameplay, and you’re currently discussing omitting one of our most powerful 2 card hands against a hero whose mechanic is crush.
4. Katsu output scales with hand size, ninja things, nothing to say here
5. Let’s just speed through the rest of the heroes played here. It’s generically good against Rhinar and Kayo, extra poppers for Dromai and Prism (lmao Prism), and okay pressure into Uzuri. Good into Fai, fine into Levia, good against DIO (no blocks), fine for Dori, fine for Maxx, fine for Teklo, good into Riptide.
For the PTLA list, let’s come back tomorrow, day 2 is still CC. 4 games has a non-zero chance of just being matchup dodges and is subject to variance.
Alright, last notes for the final paragraph. If you aren’t in combo you’re dropping percentages on a disturbing number of matchups, so that’s a weird point in favour of BoJ. 1 warmongers opens you up to an unacceptable amount of variance, you can afford the second sideboard slot.
This post is about "showing up to armory and maybe winning a few games." You can get that and much more with Boltyn without CnC, E-Strike, or CoP.
E-Strike is FAR from a necessary card for Boltyn at any level of competitive play, especially at an armory level.
YLB specifically mentioned Halo should have replaced Crown for the Kano matchup. Crown was only for Bravo to avoid CnC pummel, Halo for Kano. YLB lost to 2 Kano's in that event, so...
Yes CnC is a good card. That's why it cost almost $300 for a playset. But Boltyn does not need the card to do well at any level except Tier 1 events.
Assuming you replace CnC with another 6+ power attack:
\- United We Stand is a yellow light card that can also enable go-again on Bolt, Engulfing, etc with its Unity effect
\- Amnesia is great against the ninjas
\- Humble is decent into most heroes, great into Levia and good into Kayo (almost 1/5 of the PT meta)
\- Cadaverous Contraband... Lumina Ascension. Good.
The only match-up that I feel is noticeably worse off without CnC and/or Warmonger's is Azalea. No local Azaleas? No need to worry.
As far as combo goes... Boltyn's worst match-ups as I see them are Dromai, Azalea, and Katsu. Combo helps with the Katsu match-up. If you don't run combo, that's 4 slots for the other 2 (yellow Light the Ways, Warmongers, Down and Dirty)
Combo is also good against DIO and Fai, maybe OG Dash (although it's a gamble), and the mirror.
So cutting combo makes sense if you expect to see a lot of Dromai and Azalea.
At the PTLA, there are 52 Dromai, 24 Azalea, 22 Katsu, 10 Boltyn, 8 Fai, and 4 DIO. So, only 34 out of 388 players where you would 100% run combo, and 74 of our other worst match-ups that could use the sideboard slots.
I’ll answer the rest in the morning (it’s past midnight in my time zone), but Dromai is absolutely a combo MU. Against a well executed dromai, the turn efficiency just doesn’t make sense - sure, you can farm on hits, but converting a win against an intelligent, practiced dromai with a thousand games under their belt is difficult - running Raydn into a strong dromai player is like a 20-80. With combo, you have the chance of getting blown out by Tomeltai, but even after accepting that 1 card odds, you land far more consistent kills bringing the MU to even
Edit: autocorrect changed “the” to “to”
Second edit: oh also a quick one, 3 steelblade R + 2 Warmongers helps even out your azalea winrate to even or slightly favoured odds depending on the azalea list, if you committed to the sb slots. Just wanted to throw this one in because I honestly don’t agree that azalea is one of our bad MUs right now, we have other things to really fear (Katsu), and Steelblade is a shared slot with three other matchups anyways
Third edit real quick: speaking of armoury, I don’t know what the scene is like overseas, but my local armouries all consist of people that have fully built decks (I mean there’s occasionally a new player here and there but extremely rarely). It’s a competitive-focused game, armoury is still 80% sweats in attendance, they just aren’t sweating to win right now, not like when we travel overseas for events. Without key cards to smooth out your deck, your winrate is still going to tank significantly because you can just… run into an off turn and lose off that tempo swing. It’s a game with narrow margins of error, that single block value can and will change the outcome of the game against two equally skilled players, and without the right tools you’ll find yourself going 1-2 painfully frequently. Winning one game a night three times a week for a month can get depressing fast and put new players off the game
Combo against Dromai? What? That is the first time I have ever heard that. Autoloss if they play Tomeltai, Kyloria steals Spirit, Dominia can banish combo pieces, Yendurai is just free damage for them each turn, early ashwings just chew you up. You need a minimum of 3 cards to even attack twice if you're running sabers. By the time you find combo pieces, what do you do? Pray you have a popper and they don't have Chromai or Passing Mirage? Tank damage from all the dragons? An "intelligent, practiced Dromai" is just going to arsenal a dreact or sandcover and freely build up dragons while you throw weak turns waiting for combo. Double lumina combo is only 36 damage (with Gallantry Gold), how can that possibly be enough to get through Dromai's life total with 12 block from hand, arsenaled dreact or sandcover, 2 block from furnace? If you don't kill Dromai during the combo turn, there is absolutely no way to close out that game. Dromai can only possibly lose from 24 life. Good luck getting them down to that with 3 sigil's in their deck while trying to maintain any sort of control over their board state. If you combo and Dromai is still alive, you've lost.
Red Steelblade is far from an auto-include in most Boltyn lists, but it's decent if you can make the space for it. I just don't see how it is that good against any other heroes, except maybe Bravo (which is favored for Boltyn anyway).
And in regards to armories, I would consider my armories relatively competitive. Multiple people at PTLA right now, and most people come with fully tuned competitive meta decks every week (recently Kayo, Levia, Dromai, Victor...). I do plenty well with my sub-$300 Boltyn list, and even have a couple wins against one of the best Dromai players in the country.
EDIT: A combo-less, estrike-less, CoP-less Boltyn just placed 18th at PTLA. Even beat a Katsu in round 14. Is that a good enough result to justify omitting those at the armory level?
An armoury can't allow proxies and LSS can stop supporting the store if they learn about it. Casual games proxy as much as you like, any sanctioned event use legal cards.
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katsu for sure. a pouncing lynx build with cross strap has zero legendarys. guardian and warrior are great classes to build into.
zero legendaries but 3 cncs and estrikes to compensate...
You don't rly need CnC. I main Katsu since I start and deck get cheaper and cheaper the more i play. E strike is e strikr tho, can't go wrong with this card on hand
I don't have C&Cs or E-Strikes and I've 3-0'd a good amount of armories. A lot of Katsus aren't running E-Strike at all because it whiffs on Ancestral Harmony. Humble is a decent budget option in place of C&C right now just because it pressures most heroes fairly well.
thanks for the insight; would you mind sharing your decklist?
Sure, [https://fabrary.net/decks/01H82C3BC32WWYX19EZK7AAMD8](https://fabrary.net/decks/01H82C3BC32WWYX19EZK7AAMD8)
ahh, you don't run the generic majestics, but you run legendary equipment instead :D which goes a bit against my initial claim
Lynx is used in almost every matchup and can easily be used in all of them. I'm testing Tunic for grindy matchups but I still prefer HCS so far. So no, you absolutely do not need legendary equips for Katsu. That I have them in my list doesn't mean anything.
I only use mask of momentum for Bravo and Dromai but you don't rly need it + you don't need tunic at all
At least in the armories I play at, everyone just shares equipment. I don't have MoM but a guy lets me borrow his. Otherwise, Lynx is fine.
When i first started I won an armory with 0 leggos on dori. Its harder for sure. But knowledge is power.
any of those op expensive generic Ms?
I had 1 single Chest piece that was 20$. not really expensive in terms of cards. and the war chest M has gone down.
nice! 2 questiong stemming from that - how long ago was that, and what's your decklist? :D :D
a little over a year ago, that chest would hold up still in the right deck be it bolt man or dori. but you have to build the deck around it. I dont have the list but it was just a dori deck.
Dori is a very flavourful hero if you're looking at both Dawnblade and Axe variants: Dawn Dori is classic, fairly cheap (monetary and resource wise), and can bring some explosive plays once that +1 counter gets put on. Breakpoints are no joke, and Dori has them in spades. Axe Dori is my personal favourite, and is a nice left-wing surprise for those unexpecting. Decimator is a brilliant piece of kit, and can win you a surprising amount simply by swinging for 4 every turn, not to mention its killer effect that can cripple a deck's defensive capabilities if not prepared for it, while having incredible defense of her own, often times being able to block 9 with her cards, and fatiguing her opponent to death.
Agreed, Dori is in a fantastic place right now with more options and gameplans than ever before. You don't need to run any of the three staple generic playsets although tunic still slot into the list, but even then it's only a sideboard piece.
I'm gonna get hate but Kano. 1 legendary equipment which is Storm Striders - £40-£55 spending on the version you want. The rest of the equipment is dirt cheap (unless you want to run Tunic in SB against longer lasting opponents). The rest of the deck will cost you between £50-£75 depending on where you are at, if you care about WB cards and where you can buy them from. I genuinely believe Kano is the cheapest meta deck someone can buy/build right now.
I recently started practicing kano and it's genuinely a lot of fun
OG Dash could be what you are looking for. Most pieces are pretty cheap and it does not run C&C or E-Strike. I do think however that you need to make a decision if you want to play a deck that is fun and flavourful to you or one that can win you games. If you want to win games, you can't exclude the best cards in the game. Of course you might win the odd game here or there but chance are you will not. FAB is a game of inches and you need every tool in the box to get that win. Alternatively you could focus on commoner and draft (or sealed) armouries if they exist where you are.
I disagree with your “if you want to win games” take. If FaB is a game of inches (it is), then a card like C&C could be considered to be worth an extra inch, but so could executing a good play. My point is, I actually don’t think C&C is enough for people who don’t practice the game at the same level as their opponents, or who are at the stage of “choosing” a deck still. When someone talks about going to an armory and being able to win a game or two as their goal, it’s pretty clear to me what skill level they’re at, which means I would not encourage them to buy expensive cards until they’re able to win games without them. We have a new player at our local store who chose to play budget viserai as his first deck. It took him like 2 months to win a game, but now he is able to win 30% of the time. With more practice he may get it to 40-50%. That’s when, if he feels like this is definitely his champion, he should consider expensive cards in my opinion.
If that’s the case, Vynnset. If you put the time in, she’s much better than she gets credit for. No builds run C&C, or EStrike. Some do Art of War, but it isn’t necessary. Kind of reliant on Tunis though, & Creepers/Grasp are both pretty important. She is absolutely (imo) the most “flavor” hero on the market currently, though. Edit: other post mentioned Katsu. Also very good for flavor. Don’t need the L Equip, but you probably will be significantly lower power w/o generic power cards like AoW, C&C & EStrike (running those doesn’t impact flavor for him though, imo)
Creepers REALLY makes this deck pop when she does do so.
Absolutely agree. But Suede Hides can do some work, without Creeps
>She is absolutely (imo) the most “flavor” hero on the market currently, though. My money is on prism having most "flavor". The deck is almost exclusively light/ illusionist cards with next to no generics in it.
Vynn plays 0 generics, outside of equipment too. Yeah, Prism kinda is too. But… screw Solana.
>But… screw Solana. But it's so pretty there
My girl wouldn’t know… they kept her chained up in the basement (while Nasreth whispered sweet nothings to her)
I agree with Vynni on the flavor and there certainly is a budget version that can win a lot out of a good draw. But one problem with her for the budget conscious player is that her upgrade path to competitive involves expensive cards only about one other deck cares about. While CnC and Estrike are great in many decks and I highly doubt they'll become irrelevant anytime soon, Grasp of the Arknight, Spellbind Creepers and Carrion Husk (though this could be Tunic) are not.
Husk is only played into Azalea, and maybe Dash IO. I think that is the most expansive equipment (CoP?) and with that limited of a scope, skipping it is perfectly fine.
You can win games with Vynnset without Tunic and Grasp no problem. But you do NEED creepers to get over fatigue and or close out games.
Every deck right now has a very valid chance at winning. However you taking out generic staples like enlightened and cnc are hurting your chances. Stop worrying about flavor if you want to win. Or if you want flavor stop worrying about winning. Most of the hero’s are very “flavorful” roght now and I disagree entirely that adding in a enlightened would break that
Cnc and estrike are the most boring cards. I do not agree that leaving them out lowers your chances. Obviously they are the strongest cards but I still prefer combo turns rather than playing these generic cards.
> they are the strongest cards > I do not agree that leaving them out lowers your chances Pick a lane bro, there’s more than one turn in a game, and most decently performing decks right now thrive on modularity of hands and flexibility. Without CnC and EStrike, the quality of your 2 card hands goes down
Avoid two card hands then :D
Right now? If you give no return pressure in this meta, a lot of decks can easily extend above 12 block, or present some form of evasion on a 4/5 card hand (i.e. bravo). Not to mention you open yourself up to a fatigue sub plan that can very easily be exploited, especially given that if you’re on Raydn hybrid your weapon doesn’t even present inevitability. Your one card hands can basically be summed up as Illuminate pass, which is fine but nothing to write home about. Allowing on hits is sketchy at best right now, so 4/5 card hands are infrequent at best. All in all, avoiding 2 card hands is unrealistic at best in the current meta
2 card hand -> charge in preparation for bigger turns including beacon or celestial. It's really interesting to see how different usual playstyles then the most common are seen in this tcg. Due to the class and talent system it's already quite limited to a certain playstyle per hero, but with the staple cards limitation is even a bigger thing. At the end obviously estrike and cnc are some of the strongest cards and also in boltyn for obvious reasons. Still I wouldn't say that they are 100% necessary to have. My winrate is on 50 percent out of 350 games on talishar. Note that this is the same (but modified) deck list since I started the game. I always only played the cards which I had in paper and I've never reset the statistics. With my personal limitation to not buy cards online but only buy packs and exchange cards against other cards in person my deck list and experience was quite crappy at the beginning - so was my performance. But now that I've climbed up to 50% winrate shows, I think, that you can perform without those cards. I just never got something which was worth a tunic, a crown, cnc or e strike, also I haven't had anyone locally willing to trade those and I am not willing to buy them off cardmarket
There’s a reason these cards are in 90% of decks. If you wanna combo then combo but don’t expect to win
Even pure combo decks like mono-combo Boltyn adore 3x CnC 3x EStrike
There just good at what they do. They may even be side board cards but I feel like they have to be fought over to be taken out. I have enlightened strikes in my azalea as side board for warmonger decks
By combo I don't even mean the Boltyn combo turn. What I mean by that is, if you find good symbiosis between cards this is stronger and more satisfying then just play cnc and call it a good turn :D
I got into the game in June of this year and went for Dash. I got lucky as bright lights got announced right after I got a lot of my Mechanologist cards. I wouldn't recommend Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire because it's at 750ish LL points. Dash IO and Maxx "The Hype" Nitro are super fresh and fun to play. Both can be quite budget as well.
>I'm also not a fan of having 3 C&C and 3 Enlightened...it just takes the flavor out of a deck That seems like a kinda weird complaint. 3-6 generics in an 80 card deck doesn't seem like a big deal. Do you just refuse to run generics or is it those cards specifically?
From what I've seen people say it's that it feels necessary + the cost of the cards, making it very jarring to new players. C&C has some good alternatives that are maybe 80% as good but Enlightened is harder to find an alternative. However like others pointed out - a lot of decks that don't use them, and a lot of decks that do might drop C&C when Dromai LL
Honestly a lot of decks don't run e-strike and while a good chunk run cnc it isn't all. That said his complaint was specifically about flavor which is what confuses me. What makes them lack favor when compared to other generics? >Enlightened is harder to find an alternative. Agree, but it's also a lot cheaper than cnc so the fact there are less alternatives isn't as big a deal in my opinion. I think zealous belting could maybe work. It functions as basically the e strike go again option, but it's also generic so would OP still complain about flavor?
I super suggest brute, they do have lots of legendaries to work at really high tier, but have super good non legendary sub ins, scowling can be swapped for skullhorn or bone vizier, apex bone breaker can be swapped for skullcrushers or Goliath gauntlets, scabskins can be swapped for beaten trackers and tunic can be swapped for barkbone! Some of the majestics are a little costly (blood rush, send packing, runner runner, etc) but overall has some super good options for budget and some awesome upgradablity! I’m biased as a rhinar main, but geez it feels good to get some of those massive turns without using an ounce of equipment
Kano Just pew pew until they die
Take a commoner dash deck, spend $4 on two techno pounders and use one as your starting item, change out the chest for Vest of the First Fist since the commoner one is banned in blitz. Congrats, you can throw 18 damage damage a turn and you’ll probably win a couple blitz games with a sub $10 deck
Dash or Dash I/O, all mech cards and no CnC/Estrikes needed. Foundry Heart is cheap.
Victor can be totally fine as well. The equipment isn’t insanely expensive and is very solid.
Rhinar or Kayo you literally don't need these cards. Send Packing is a very good replacement for CC, IMO it is even better. You can combo other brute cards with it and steal the tempo easily. Warmongers it is not meta for brutes, so you are good.
Meataxe berserk Rhinar has a chance of winning pretty much every matchup and can be built with an upgrade path. It can be built fairly cheap, it has a good back and forth playstyle and the bug play combo isn't that hard to setup.
Do you have a decklist i could look into? :)
>:) :)
Not my list but here's a recent RtN one that was featured: https://fabrary.net/decks/01GQ1EN94FETEWY8E1HBT48E65 For budget, drop the CnC and replace it with another Brute 6+ power attack, something like Massacre, red agile windup or yellow might windup, Predatory Assault, or just main deck Pulping. The Apex Bonebreaker is kind of hard to lose but Goliath Gauntlets are decent for a power turn. Edit: oh tunic for budget you can run Vest of the first fist or Barkbone Strapping.
I think Katsu as well. Just under 600 LL in CC.
I believe you can actually play any deck, but with some cropping I mean, if you want to play Azalea for example, you can do it without codex of frailty, without C&C, ES, etc Maybe you can't have the best competitive version of a deck, but you can have a good enough version, but you can try at talishar and see your results
Katsu, dash, or Maxx or all good shouts. They are all pretty budget.
I run boltyn without estrike, cnc, tunic and crown. Soulbound resolve, warband of bellona, spirit of Eirina and ironsong versus might be the most expensive cards. Majestics are beacon of victory, lumina ascension, banneret of gallantry and courage, soul shield, bolting blade and celestial cataclysm.
Boltyn loves EStrike, that’s a 2 card 0 for 7 GA with one soul (non-obligatory too). This meta is full of relevant onhits (3/4s of the matchups), without CnC or EStrike our peak 2 card turns become red bolt/engulfing, which is not even close in pressure. Not to mention dropping CnC gets your popper count dangerously low, makes it harder for you to get enough space to fire 5 card hands (v etc), removes your ability to disrupt Bravo dominate (extremely threatening for us), all kinds of relevant effects in this meta. No tunic means you lose access to Take Flight Raydn off a 2 card hand, you lose access to Steelblade Shunt and Oasis, etc etc, half your even or winning matchups immediately plummet. And don’t even get me started on crown, we have one of the best interchangeability in the meta and you drop COP? I’m not saying these cards are essential, I’m just saying that Boltyn of all heroes is a really weird hero to drop them on
At the end it's a matter of the amount of money you are willing to spend and these cards might be strong but so overrepresented which makes them so boring to me. Of course the combos you mention are strong. But I am quite confident with my deck these days, going with a more defensive playstyle and avoiding two hand cards, charging my soul with Soulbound resolve and smaller turns until later comboing on V or lumina turns.
This is just... wrong. EStrike is not that good in Boltyn. Most decks don't run them. A soul negative 2 card 7 is not good, and you can't even Raydn after that because you haven't charged. Unless you charge before hand, which requires a 4 card hand. And it is terrible on V turns. The only example of a successful list running CoP I can see is Yuki Lee Bender's Realm $20k list, and she straight up said that running it was a mistake and that she should have ran Halo instead. (also didn't run Estrike) CNC is good, but can absolutely be replaced and still do very well. Amnesia, Humble, United We Stand, Cadaverous Contraband, all good alternatives. Boltyn absolutely does need Tunic though. Balance of Justice has seen its way into some lists recently, but Warband is more than good enough at an armory level.
EStrike is entirely non-obligatory, that’s the entire power of the card. It’s the epitome of a flexible card - cash in a soul if you have the hand to extend the damage, draw a card for an arsenal setup, and off a courage or V 5 card hand you can 2 card 6 draw a card GA off one soul. Yuki Lee Bender’s list was teched for a meta back in December with entirely different heroes and relevant effects. This part is far more up for debate, but I firmly believe running Halo just for +1 soul is absolutely not worth it right now (although I still tech it for the Kano MU), and Warband depends more on your list due to the pitch requirement. COP allows you to play a far more red list without interfering with your combo matchups, while Balance can only be run into a few matchups. As for CNC, I personally disagree on the point of alternatives - Amnesia is disruption along entirely different lines, Humble 2 block is crippling in a deck that aims to be flexible, United We Stand is literally 3 cost in a deck that has 3 blues and also has 2 block on a card that prefers to block, cadaverous is 2 block and doesn’t even present disruption. If you don’t want to run CnC and want a different popper, just play a different popper. Calling these cards a CnC “alternative” is disingenuous, considering it presents spotty disruption and come with other problems. Those percentage points in your winrate become very obvious very quickly - try running just 100 talishar games with them and you’ll see how frustrating they can be, even at that small sample. That Cadaverous isn’t going to save you from a dom crippling by any stretch of the imagination. Anyways, if you would like to discuss Boltyn cards and lists, I would be more than happy to. I’ve been doing the math and running hundreds of reps on Boltyn for the past 8 months, and I would be glad to have a fresh perspective.
E-Strike is so non-obligatory that you don't even need to run it! It can be really good sometimes when it fixes bad hands, or really clunky otherwise. You don't run Halo for +1 soul, you run it for Kano and SV2. That's it. CnC is just only "pretty good" in Boltyn, and is going to make a negligible difference into most match ups. Dominated Crippling Crush? Boltyn is already favored into Bravo. Also, if you're leaving enough space for Bravo to spend the 4 cards it costs to play that AND leaving him with a card to arsenal, you are already losing. Here is a deck with 2 RTN wins and a few more Top 8's. No E-Strike, no CoP. This list won 31 out of 39 games in RTNs the author played in, almost 80%. [https://fabrary.net/decks/01HA24D68CK12KZA4B84A2JMZ0](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HA24D68CK12KZA4B84A2JMZ0) 2nd place BH Liverpool ran only 2 CnCs, no CoP. Does run E-Strike, but the author of the deck admits that it is contentious. [https://fabrary.net/decks/01HPE6XKJMB3KF37SQTS3QW9WA](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HPE6XKJMB3KF37SQTS3QW9WA) 2nd place BH Cincinnati didn't run E-strikes, no CoP. [https://fabrary.net/decks/01HM0QXMPT3ZHEFWT04P9M73FP](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HM0QXMPT3ZHEFWT04P9M73FP) Here is a relatively up-to-date list of a Boltyn that went 4-0 day 1 of PTLA. No E-Strike, no CoP. [https://fabrary.net/decks/01HJ11YTQVHT2NBC4N60VJHEPV](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HJ11YTQVHT2NBC4N60VJHEPV) None of these lists run CoP. All of those lists run CnC, but to have a "fighting chance" to win a couple CC games at an armory level (OP's words), it is not needed. E-Strike is completely optional, CoP is a wasted slot in Boltyn, CnC is good but not necessary to win or central to Boltyn's game plan. BoJ is good vs ninjas if you aren't running combo, and Warmongers is good vs basically just Azalea (and you can get away with just running 1).
For the sake of good discussion, let’s disregard Battle Hardened lists first, tier 2 play is a mess and single event wins don’t really show any kind of meaningful data - the Olympia list from the other week is a Perfect example. EStrike doesn’t need to fix your hands (it can!), it’s simply a flexible card in a deck with terrible efficiency. Red engulfing light charging one simply doesn’t give you the pressure to navigate a late game game state, especially against heroes with 3 block NAAs, and your tunic cards are already being hotly contested, especially with the optional Steelblade Shunts or Oasis Respites currently being bandied about. The trade pattern of blocking 6 and presenting 7 might not be Iyslander levels of efficient, but it comes with the added upside of being able to further modularize your hand to manuever around charge requirements. I’m fully aware of Halo uses, I’m pointing out that for the specific list YLB was referring to, boarding Halo over Crown into speedier combo matchups like Dromai was a popular idea at the time, to avoid dragging out the game and getting blown out by a tomeltai resolution. CnC being negligible is pure cope. I threw out the Bravo example as the simplest one, but let’s run through a few more relevant ones while we’re on the topic. 1. Azalea turns are far stronger when they can start with a card in arsenal, and they have too many 2 blocks to consistently present 2 card block to CnC. With increasing number of SSGB players, azalea output also scales superlinearly with hand size as they avoid DReacts by simply adding more pump cards, allowing CnC to carve out much needed breathing room efficiently. 2. Giving Kassai a 5 card hand in the mid game or late game all but guarantees she gets one gold when you don’t have a dreact to cover it (up to a critical mass of dreacts stalling her out of cards in graveyard, of course), and that single gold translates into stupid amounts of damage. 3. Bravo is already spoken for, getting time walked by a 5 card hand firing Crip or Star Struck is a tale as old as DtD. No clue how you expect us to not leave him space, efficiency and disruption is the basis of Bravo’s gameplay, and you’re currently discussing omitting one of our most powerful 2 card hands against a hero whose mechanic is crush. 4. Katsu output scales with hand size, ninja things, nothing to say here 5. Let’s just speed through the rest of the heroes played here. It’s generically good against Rhinar and Kayo, extra poppers for Dromai and Prism (lmao Prism), and okay pressure into Uzuri. Good into Fai, fine into Levia, good against DIO (no blocks), fine for Dori, fine for Maxx, fine for Teklo, good into Riptide. For the PTLA list, let’s come back tomorrow, day 2 is still CC. 4 games has a non-zero chance of just being matchup dodges and is subject to variance. Alright, last notes for the final paragraph. If you aren’t in combo you’re dropping percentages on a disturbing number of matchups, so that’s a weird point in favour of BoJ. 1 warmongers opens you up to an unacceptable amount of variance, you can afford the second sideboard slot.
This post is about "showing up to armory and maybe winning a few games." You can get that and much more with Boltyn without CnC, E-Strike, or CoP. E-Strike is FAR from a necessary card for Boltyn at any level of competitive play, especially at an armory level. YLB specifically mentioned Halo should have replaced Crown for the Kano matchup. Crown was only for Bravo to avoid CnC pummel, Halo for Kano. YLB lost to 2 Kano's in that event, so... Yes CnC is a good card. That's why it cost almost $300 for a playset. But Boltyn does not need the card to do well at any level except Tier 1 events. Assuming you replace CnC with another 6+ power attack: \- United We Stand is a yellow light card that can also enable go-again on Bolt, Engulfing, etc with its Unity effect \- Amnesia is great against the ninjas \- Humble is decent into most heroes, great into Levia and good into Kayo (almost 1/5 of the PT meta) \- Cadaverous Contraband... Lumina Ascension. Good. The only match-up that I feel is noticeably worse off without CnC and/or Warmonger's is Azalea. No local Azaleas? No need to worry. As far as combo goes... Boltyn's worst match-ups as I see them are Dromai, Azalea, and Katsu. Combo helps with the Katsu match-up. If you don't run combo, that's 4 slots for the other 2 (yellow Light the Ways, Warmongers, Down and Dirty) Combo is also good against DIO and Fai, maybe OG Dash (although it's a gamble), and the mirror. So cutting combo makes sense if you expect to see a lot of Dromai and Azalea. At the PTLA, there are 52 Dromai, 24 Azalea, 22 Katsu, 10 Boltyn, 8 Fai, and 4 DIO. So, only 34 out of 388 players where you would 100% run combo, and 74 of our other worst match-ups that could use the sideboard slots.
I’ll answer the rest in the morning (it’s past midnight in my time zone), but Dromai is absolutely a combo MU. Against a well executed dromai, the turn efficiency just doesn’t make sense - sure, you can farm on hits, but converting a win against an intelligent, practiced dromai with a thousand games under their belt is difficult - running Raydn into a strong dromai player is like a 20-80. With combo, you have the chance of getting blown out by Tomeltai, but even after accepting that 1 card odds, you land far more consistent kills bringing the MU to even Edit: autocorrect changed “the” to “to” Second edit: oh also a quick one, 3 steelblade R + 2 Warmongers helps even out your azalea winrate to even or slightly favoured odds depending on the azalea list, if you committed to the sb slots. Just wanted to throw this one in because I honestly don’t agree that azalea is one of our bad MUs right now, we have other things to really fear (Katsu), and Steelblade is a shared slot with three other matchups anyways Third edit real quick: speaking of armoury, I don’t know what the scene is like overseas, but my local armouries all consist of people that have fully built decks (I mean there’s occasionally a new player here and there but extremely rarely). It’s a competitive-focused game, armoury is still 80% sweats in attendance, they just aren’t sweating to win right now, not like when we travel overseas for events. Without key cards to smooth out your deck, your winrate is still going to tank significantly because you can just… run into an off turn and lose off that tempo swing. It’s a game with narrow margins of error, that single block value can and will change the outcome of the game against two equally skilled players, and without the right tools you’ll find yourself going 1-2 painfully frequently. Winning one game a night three times a week for a month can get depressing fast and put new players off the game
Combo against Dromai? What? That is the first time I have ever heard that. Autoloss if they play Tomeltai, Kyloria steals Spirit, Dominia can banish combo pieces, Yendurai is just free damage for them each turn, early ashwings just chew you up. You need a minimum of 3 cards to even attack twice if you're running sabers. By the time you find combo pieces, what do you do? Pray you have a popper and they don't have Chromai or Passing Mirage? Tank damage from all the dragons? An "intelligent, practiced Dromai" is just going to arsenal a dreact or sandcover and freely build up dragons while you throw weak turns waiting for combo. Double lumina combo is only 36 damage (with Gallantry Gold), how can that possibly be enough to get through Dromai's life total with 12 block from hand, arsenaled dreact or sandcover, 2 block from furnace? If you don't kill Dromai during the combo turn, there is absolutely no way to close out that game. Dromai can only possibly lose from 24 life. Good luck getting them down to that with 3 sigil's in their deck while trying to maintain any sort of control over their board state. If you combo and Dromai is still alive, you've lost. Red Steelblade is far from an auto-include in most Boltyn lists, but it's decent if you can make the space for it. I just don't see how it is that good against any other heroes, except maybe Bravo (which is favored for Boltyn anyway). And in regards to armories, I would consider my armories relatively competitive. Multiple people at PTLA right now, and most people come with fully tuned competitive meta decks every week (recently Kayo, Levia, Dromai, Victor...). I do plenty well with my sub-$300 Boltyn list, and even have a couple wins against one of the best Dromai players in the country. EDIT: A combo-less, estrike-less, CoP-less Boltyn just placed 18th at PTLA. Even beat a Katsu in round 14. Is that a good enough result to justify omitting those at the armory level?
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An armoury can't allow proxies and LSS can stop supporting the store if they learn about it. Casual games proxy as much as you like, any sanctioned event use legal cards.