re: The conversation at 1:00. While I'm not the best at Flesh and Blood yet, I come from a long history of MTG and poker. And I think there's some important details missing here. Playing around things is a very deep topic, so obviously you can't give it a thorough deep dive in a ten minute video that covers half a dozen other things. But here's my thoughts on the subject. In a nutshell, whether or not you should play around a card is a function of the opportunity cost of playing around the card, the likelihood that they will play that card, and the impact it will have if they play that card. "Make them have it. Make them play it." is in many games a much better plan than playing around things without specific reasons. And "this card is really bad for me" is not a specific reason. That's all super nebulous, so let's dig in. First, "make them have it, make them play it." This is a common saying in MTG in the middle ranks. People learn about playing around cards, and then they play around _everything_ whether or not it makes sense. Opponent has three white open? Well I'm not attacking because I could see Eiganjo. Two blue open? Play around counterspell because you don't want to lose your good spell. I feel like playing around the third copy of a defense reaction fits firmly in this camp. It might be the correct call, maybe even most of the time. But "this card exists in their deck, so play around it" is extremely unlikely to be correct as often as it's incorrect. The reason this is often bad is because you are creating value for your opponent at zero cost to them, based on a card that may not even be in their hand. This is really, really, _really_ bad. Even if they do have the card, you're allowing them to repeatedly generate value without spending the card or the resources the card takes. And then they're going to play the card anyway, and generate even more value. Obviously the math works out differently in FAB than in MTG so just running a card out to force them to spend their defense reaction doesn't work the same. But the important thing to realize here is that if you don't have something else productive to do, you are slowly handing the game to your opponent by not using your cards for value. Games are won an inch at a time, and you give up another few inches every time you play around something. "I choose to gain less value" is a decision that should not be made lightly. Next, how likely is it that you'll see that card? This is actually a pretty easy question to get reasonably accurate answers to in many spots. Let's look at that situation where you're playing around the third copy of a defense reaction, which we'll say is a three-of in their deck, they're on 60 card deck, and they've pitched or played half their deck. They have four cards available to play. How likely are they to have that defense reaction? There's two ways to think about this. The first is "The third copy is one of thirty cards. They are holding four of those cards. So their chances to have the reaction are 4/30, or 13%." The other way is "If they've drawn it, they would have held it or put it in Arsenal, and they've seen half their deck, so it's a 50% chance." Can you put your opponent on having sat on that defense reaction for most of the game? Maybe that arsenal slot has been filled for several turns now. In that case, probably you play around it. But if they've recently cycled their whole hand out? They almost certainly don't have it, and playing around it would be a huge mistake unless you were reading that reaction for another reason. The key here is gaining the additional information by reading your opponent's hand. Finally, the opportunity cost of playing around the card. That low probability response might be worth playing around if your backup plan generates almost as much value as not playing around the card. For example, with Kano you probably don't want to try comboing off against AB3 when they have two cards in hand when you can Aether Spindle for 5 instead. Yes, comboing off ends the game if they've only got reds in hand. But Aether Spindle for 5 guarantees an opt 2 at minimum against any hand, sets up an even stronger combo, and forces a block that makes them less able to resist the combo on the next turn. You've given up value in the form of potentially allowing your opponent to live an extra turn, in exchange you get an increased win rate for an entire category of games (when the opponent has the pitches to thwart your combo). Speaking of that last sentence, this is a really important thing in strategy games with imperfect information, especially card games. You are not playing your hand versus your opponent's hand, or even your deck versus your opponent's deck. You are playing _every hand you could possibly have in this board state_ against every hand your opponent could possibly have. When you make one play, you are actually making plays in a theoretically infinite number of games simultaneously. For FAB bluffing seems to be much less relevant than in other card games, so mostly you're concerned with your opponent's hands and not your hands. What this means is, when you make a decision, you are choosing which games you win and which games you lose from the set of all games that could possibly happen from this point. Let's go back to that defense reaction example. If you jam, and they don't have it, you win the game. If they have it, you lose the game. Now play this exact spot an infinite number of times. In the 13% scenario, jamming in every case wins you 87% of games from this spot, and loses 13%. It's possible that there are cases you can identify where making a different play will get you more than an 87% win rate for those cases. But this is your absolute minimum win rate for any play to make sense. Spot a line that wins 75% of the time? You don't care, you just jam. And you're going to lose sometimes, but that's okay. Because when you lose, you're just banking that EV for the wins you'll get later from taking the high EV line from that spot. Present you experiences occasional bad luck, so future you can windmill slam the game ending card with confidence.
These two dudes have great chemistry and flawless delivery. They are as good as your local new anchor. Used to be a TCG youtuber so im strange and think about these things when watching others haha keep up the great work guys.
Great Tips. One of my favourite parts of playing a TCG is learning deck lists and being able to channel my inner clairvoyant and guess what they are about to play.
I like you guys a lot. Throughout the whole video I felt like you guys were giving me a big warm hug. Great tips too! Really great information that is not talked about too much.
coming back to this after playing some ToA and even at the calling we been seeing a lot of people breaking number 6 in the worst ways. Playing lexi with shock charmers so i have to worry about defense reactions if i want to activate it. But as an example ill throw down a blizzard bolt fused with a blue card, and i have to decide if i want to risk pitching for charmers or arsenal the ice card for next turn, and after declare attacks my opponent skips all the way to, 'I'll take 4 and get a frostbite" while picking up their pen. and i immediately know that not only do they really want all their cards for next turn i am free to pitch my blue, and anything else in my hand for a few more 1 damage pings and extra frostbite. We all get in the habit of short cutting in testing, but if youre opponent is a hero that plays any kind of instant or reaction you got to slow down and go through the phases in order
So I walked into my local B&M after almost 2 years without FNM and I am handed a FAB deck. Looks like I have a new game to obsess over. Thanks for the content, this channel is going to grow.
@@HometownTcg I'm planning on getting there a little early tonight to try out a couple of prebuilt blitz decks to see if my prediction is right about play style. One question for you would be a recommendation for hero to start. I like wide aggro with elements of control with plenty of tricks and pumps. In MTG I lien more Dimir and Izzet for standard constructed/ pioneer and my dusty commander deck is Dimir. I was thinking Chane and Prism to try out for tonight but don't have a clear picture on how the reactions and armor, etc. are going to play out yet. Thanks again for the content interaction.
Chane - Unstoppable aggro deck. Has good armor, but his cards don't block well. He puts out more damage than anyone but kills himself via decking out and blood debt. Loses to control decks. Was Tier 0 but they banned a card that allowed him to destroy control decks, so he has a counter now. Prism - Top tier. Tons of good match ups. More of a controlly set up deck that can pivot. Permanents are rare in this game and she has access to the most out of any hero. Her pure aggro version is not as good as it has hard counters. Katsu - another aggro deck that might fit your style. The widest Go wide. Access to the best defense reaction in the game as well. No hero decks for him. Lexi - Go wide with 3 distinct builds. 2 of those builds have top 8'd the last major events. Has controlling options via her access to ice cards. All 4 of these decks are competitively viable and frequently have top 8 finishes. Side note: The legendary equipment will make all of them better, but both Chane and the death dealer variant of Lexi are not as reliant upon the Legendaries. Thematically, it sounds like lightning or ice Lexi is more your playstyle if we had to guess.
excellent tips, I usually don't care about the decklists that the top players put out on FB, but I will definitely take a look at them now, and not only that, I will build them and play with them b/c you guys are right
re: The conversation at 1:00. While I'm not the best at Flesh and Blood yet, I come from a long history of MTG and poker. And I think there's some important details missing here. Playing around things is a very deep topic, so obviously you can't give it a thorough deep dive in a ten minute video that covers half a dozen other things. But here's my thoughts on the subject.
In a nutshell, whether or not you should play around a card is a function of the opportunity cost of playing around the card, the likelihood that they will play that card, and the impact it will have if they play that card. "Make them have it. Make them play it." is in many games a much better plan than playing around things without specific reasons. And "this card is really bad for me" is not a specific reason.
That's all super nebulous, so let's dig in.
First, "make them have it, make them play it." This is a common saying in MTG in the middle ranks. People learn about playing around cards, and then they play around _everything_ whether or not it makes sense. Opponent has three white open? Well I'm not attacking because I could see Eiganjo. Two blue open? Play around counterspell because you don't want to lose your good spell. I feel like playing around the third copy of a defense reaction fits firmly in this camp. It might be the correct call, maybe even most of the time. But "this card exists in their deck, so play around it" is extremely unlikely to be correct as often as it's incorrect.
The reason this is often bad is because you are creating value for your opponent at zero cost to them, based on a card that may not even be in their hand. This is really, really, _really_ bad. Even if they do have the card, you're allowing them to repeatedly generate value without spending the card or the resources the card takes. And then they're going to play the card anyway, and generate even more value. Obviously the math works out differently in FAB than in MTG so just running a card out to force them to spend their defense reaction doesn't work the same. But the important thing to realize here is that if you don't have something else productive to do, you are slowly handing the game to your opponent by not using your cards for value. Games are won an inch at a time, and you give up another few inches every time you play around something. "I choose to gain less value" is a decision that should not be made lightly.
Next, how likely is it that you'll see that card? This is actually a pretty easy question to get reasonably accurate answers to in many spots. Let's look at that situation where you're playing around the third copy of a defense reaction, which we'll say is a three-of in their deck, they're on 60 card deck, and they've pitched or played half their deck. They have four cards available to play. How likely are they to have that defense reaction? There's two ways to think about this. The first is "The third copy is one of thirty cards. They are holding four of those cards. So their chances to have the reaction are 4/30, or 13%." The other way is "If they've drawn it, they would have held it or put it in Arsenal, and they've seen half their deck, so it's a 50% chance."
Can you put your opponent on having sat on that defense reaction for most of the game? Maybe that arsenal slot has been filled for several turns now. In that case, probably you play around it. But if they've recently cycled their whole hand out? They almost certainly don't have it, and playing around it would be a huge mistake unless you were reading that reaction for another reason. The key here is gaining the additional information by reading your opponent's hand.
Finally, the opportunity cost of playing around the card. That low probability response might be worth playing around if your backup plan generates almost as much value as not playing around the card. For example, with Kano you probably don't want to try comboing off against AB3 when they have two cards in hand when you can Aether Spindle for 5 instead. Yes, comboing off ends the game if they've only got reds in hand. But Aether Spindle for 5 guarantees an opt 2 at minimum against any hand, sets up an even stronger combo, and forces a block that makes them less able to resist the combo on the next turn. You've given up value in the form of potentially allowing your opponent to live an extra turn, in exchange you get an increased win rate for an entire category of games (when the opponent has the pitches to thwart your combo).
Speaking of that last sentence, this is a really important thing in strategy games with imperfect information, especially card games. You are not playing your hand versus your opponent's hand, or even your deck versus your opponent's deck. You are playing _every hand you could possibly have in this board state_ against every hand your opponent could possibly have. When you make one play, you are actually making plays in a theoretically infinite number of games simultaneously. For FAB bluffing seems to be much less relevant than in other card games, so mostly you're concerned with your opponent's hands and not your hands.
What this means is, when you make a decision, you are choosing which games you win and which games you lose from the set of all games that could possibly happen from this point. Let's go back to that defense reaction example. If you jam, and they don't have it, you win the game. If they have it, you lose the game. Now play this exact spot an infinite number of times. In the 13% scenario, jamming in every case wins you 87% of games from this spot, and loses 13%. It's possible that there are cases you can identify where making a different play will get you more than an 87% win rate for those cases. But this is your absolute minimum win rate for any play to make sense. Spot a line that wins 75% of the time? You don't care, you just jam. And you're going to lose sometimes, but that's okay. Because when you lose, you're just banking that EV for the wins you'll get later from taking the high EV line from that spot. Present you experiences occasional bad luck, so future you can windmill slam the game ending card with confidence.
These two dudes have great chemistry and flawless delivery. They are as good as your local new anchor. Used to be a TCG youtuber so im strange and think about these things when watching others haha keep up the great work guys.
❤❤❤
Great Tips. One of my favourite parts of playing a TCG is learning deck lists and being able to channel my inner clairvoyant and guess what they are about to play.
*Will sees all, and tells little.... 🤣😂🤣😂
I like you guys a lot. Throughout the whole video I felt like you guys were giving me a big warm hug.
Great tips too! Really great information that is not talked about too much.
Much appreciated! Thanks for being such an aweome member and pillar of the FaB community!
@@HometownTcg Yeah man thank you guys too for being great pillars as well. With all of our powers combined together, we all make a colosseum.
coming back to this after playing some ToA and even at the calling we been seeing a lot of people breaking number 6 in the worst ways.
Playing lexi with shock charmers so i have to worry about defense reactions if i want to activate it. But as an example ill throw down a blizzard bolt fused with a blue card, and i have to decide if i want to risk pitching for charmers or arsenal the ice card for next turn, and after declare attacks my opponent skips all the way to, 'I'll take 4 and get a frostbite" while picking up their pen. and i immediately know that not only do they really want all their cards for next turn i am free to pitch my blue, and anything else in my hand for a few more 1 damage pings and extra frostbite.
We all get in the habit of short cutting in testing, but if youre opponent is a hero that plays any kind of instant or reaction you got to slow down and go through the phases in order
your videos are super helpful and so much fun to watch. love you guys, and keep doing what your doing.
Appreciate it Ethan! We are just stoked by the community and the game - always feels like something new and exciting is right around the corner!
So I walked into my local B&M after almost 2 years without FNM and I am handed a FAB deck. Looks like I have a new game to obsess over. Thanks for the content, this channel is going to grow.
Haha! That's awesome. Let us know if you have any questions on getting started. It sounds like there is a nice group out by you already!
@@HometownTcg I'm planning on getting there a little early tonight to try out a couple of prebuilt blitz decks to see if my prediction is right about play style.
One question for you would be a recommendation for hero to start. I like wide aggro with elements of control with plenty of tricks and pumps. In MTG I lien more Dimir and Izzet for standard constructed/ pioneer and my dusty commander deck is Dimir.
I was thinking Chane and Prism to try out for tonight but don't have a clear picture on how the reactions and armor, etc. are going to play out yet.
Thanks again for the content interaction.
Chane - Unstoppable aggro deck. Has good armor, but his cards don't block well. He puts out more damage than anyone but kills himself via decking out and blood debt. Loses to control decks. Was Tier 0 but they banned a card that allowed him to destroy control decks, so he has a counter now.
Prism - Top tier. Tons of good match ups. More of a controlly set up deck that can pivot. Permanents are rare in this game and she has access to the most out of any hero. Her pure aggro version is not as good as it has hard counters.
Katsu - another aggro deck that might fit your style. The widest Go wide. Access to the best defense reaction in the game as well. No hero decks for him.
Lexi - Go wide with 3 distinct builds. 2 of those builds have top 8'd the last major events. Has controlling options via her access to ice cards.
All 4 of these decks are competitively viable and frequently have top 8 finishes. Side note: The legendary equipment will make all of them better, but both Chane and the death dealer variant of Lexi are not as reliant upon the Legendaries. Thematically, it sounds like lightning or ice Lexi is more your playstyle if we had to guess.
@@HometownTcg Awesome, thanks!
The intro keeps getting better every vid!
Put our bodies on the line for the content!
excellent tips, I usually don't care about the decklists that the top players put out on FB, but I will definitely take a look at them now, and not only that, I will build them and play with them b/c you guys are right
Awesome! Thanks for the feedback and glad you enjoyed!
Love these! People reveal their hands with their emotions, I do it myself!
So true! Something we are definitely still working on!
love the intro.
Thanks we are still healing from the bruising XD
Yes! My JUICES Are Flowing Freely Now:)
😅🤣😂
Great job guys !
Thanks! Appreciate you checking us out!
Love the content. Thanks guys
Of course! Thanks for hanging out with us!
What was the name reference regarding the bravo deck list? Mel ? Kel?
Cayle!
liked the intro
Thanks! Bruised our forearms for this one! 🤣😅🤣
sounds like running 2 copies of staple cards would be a nice way to mess with people
neat content
Thanks! Thank you for checking us out!
Yall are a buncha goofs. I love it
You know how we roll, here!
Who the hell is cayle macrreth?
Really good bravo builder/player from New Zealand! (And from what we have heard, a pretty nice dude to boot!)
I hope everyone expects a cayle mcrreath list from my bravo :) going to be far from it
You're gonna catch some people by surprise!!