National Championship Preparation

Nationals is this weekend and the day is fast approaching. The week of the National Championship itself has been a roller coaster ride for the UK's Flesh and Blood community, of which I will not get into in this post.

Instead, I'll detail some preparations that I have done for the event itself!

Practising Draft

Draft will be one of the formats for Nationals, and it will be Uprising.

I'm fortunate enough to be in a big playgroup, which can feasibly gather 8 people for a full pod draft.

We gathered a couple times to practise in-person and online. We tried to do it in total silence, with a judge and timer, to simulate the real environment as much as possible.

In my case, practise really was what I needed. I felt like after having draft Uprising quite a few times, I've already learnt how to read signals properly to draft into the right hero. But, I can still learn alot about what a good draft deck looks like.

Some new things I have learnt from our post-draft discussions were better pitch compositions for two of the heroes and some of their key cards:

• Fai will want around 15 or more red cards, with as many 0 cost as possible. Some of the best cards will have unconditional go again to set up for big finishers like Lava Burst. Fai will also want some blues to enable the turn, but not more than 8.

• A good Iyslander draft will be around 15 to 17 blues. The rest needs to be reds for me to present enough damage. Otherwise, I'd have to play control and play fast. Iyslander continues to be the trickiest to draft unless there's only 2 Iyslanders, and the box have enough blues. I also need to recognise which blues are high quality and which are not. For example, I have been taught that a blue Healing Balm is not a good blue card, even if it enables Iyslander's ability, because it lacks value compared to say, a red Oasis Respite, which can be played as instant anyway, potentially gain health and still prevents 4 damage. Some cards that are good for constructed Iyslander, such as Frost Hex and Insidious Chill, are also not great in draft as they're too expensive.

Dromai pitch composition remains straight forward, moar reds. I did learn some more key cards from practise though, such as Billowing Mirage and Sweeping Blow for go-wide strategies, or Embermaw Cenipai for a more guardian-style strategy.

The consensus still seems to be: "If nothing else, draft Fai". This is fair enough, and I do expect Fai to be the more popular choice, as it is a safer choice. Personally, I'm comfortable with drafting Fai and Iyslander. I have also practised drafting Dromai to cover up for my lack of experience with drafting her. And, with the help of the London crew, I do now feel like if the situation presents itself, I am able to draft a Dromai with a strategy in mind. In all fairness, I'm more worried about my ability to play limited, not too much practise there. 😂

Refining & Practising for Classic Constructed

After taking Lexi to Road to Nationals, I have learnt to listen to my heart and take my OG hero to Nationals instead. Let's talk Oldhim.

With Prism moving on to Living Legend, the meta has really opened up. The meta has also been shifting as well; with Briar taking centre stage at Lille's Pro Tour, then Oldhims coming in to suppress the Runeblade. Will we be seeing an anti-Oldhim meta this weekend with Dash and Bravo taking the reigns?

My current Oldhim list lean towards aggro Oldhim. I personally feel like aggro Oldhim is more prepared for the field right now.

The list has got a lot of similar tech to my Skirmish S4 Blitz list. Many attacks cost 4 or less for me to threaten a potential Pummel off a 4-card hand, the ratio of Guardian Attacks fine-tuned in order to make the Seismic Surges from Earthlore Bounty worthwhile etc. I also had to think about which cards to include to buffer out a 60 card deck and handle the CC meta.

Chokeslam has become quite a relavant Guardian attack against heroes like Fai and Briar, stopping Art of War turns and Channel Mount Heroic.

A spicy piece of tech that I also have is playing Lunging Press.

There use to be a blue Pummel in this spot, which was good in its own way because it helps some attacks, such as red Frost Fang to get over the card-block-threshold. However, Since most of my attacks just need to hit, and not Crush, The Lunging is an unexpected play, especially if my opponent doesn't think I have resource for any Guardian-esque reactions. One prime example is comboing with Spinal Crush.

As playing this card means at most you have 1 resource left over so that you can't play a Pummel, and most heroes only block 6 to prevent Crush, the Lunging enables the Crush effect as a 0 cost card, and enough to turn off opponent's turn. Pummeling a Spinal Crush is fairly unecessary anyway.

Now that we've covered deck tech, let's talk about matchups.

The foremost matchups that aggro Oldhim is trying to deal with are Iyslander and Dash. Both these heroes have better end-game, so playing the aggressor gives me a better chance. Had I went with other Oldhim builds, I would have found these matchups much more difficult. In my testing with aggro Oldhim, both continue to be very difficult matchups, but not unwinnable. I just need to be mindful of when Dash loads the pistol in order to Ice react and prevent that from happening. For Iyslander, I need to just do the maths of how to output as much damage as possible, with Pummel being my key card.

I'm not sacrificing my other matchups where traditional mid-range and control Oldhim plays well into. In my testing, I was still reasonably able to disrupt and control the early game of go-wide decks, such as Runeblades and Ninjas, with well-timed Ice reacts.

I'm still prepared to fatigue matchups such as Lexi. Just need to know when to punish an Ice Lexi that sets up Insidious Chill or a devastating YKL-style turn.

Dromai, an illusionist, does pose some problems for Oldhim (oh no, not again). This matchup is winnable by controlling the board state and fatigueing the Dromai out of Dragons. Kind of risky depending on how many poppers are in the deck. But, my testing seems to show I have enough. This match would still take very long and I'm prepared to take a draw.

Bravo is probably my scariest matchup. Oldhim cannot disrupt Bravo. Oldhim is also unlikely to out-aggro Bravo. I'll just have to really find a way to disrupt them with on-hit effects so that they cannot play out their turn as efficiently.

The mirror is also an interesting matchup. We have seen Oldhim absolutely pulling up the LL points in the French Nationals, with mirrors dominating the top 8. This has convinced me to put Fyendal's Spring Tunic back into the deck. I definitely want Sledge of Anvilheim as well for the mirror. Most Oldhims will switch to a more aggro strategy in the mirror, which I think my deck is more capable of, so hopefully I should be alright.

Hype Hype Hype

I think the event is going to be great. The mood might have dampened due to what transpired, and I know a lot of people have lost out financially which really sucks. But, if you are still coming down to Nationals this weekend, I really hope you have a wonderful weekend playing, trading and talking Flesh and Blood. If you're coming with a crew, representing your home town, I wish you all the best! I know I will have a blast with the London crew as well and that's what its all about. I also have been part of a special 'project' of which I'll unveil on the weekend. 😉