Coming from a street fighter background, Katsu has always appealed to me. I’m just happy to be here. It was always neat watching character specialists do well in competitive street fighter. Especially with random/low tier characters.
Who was your main in SF? Which SF? I mained Rose in SF4 and Laura in SF5 So much of my love towards FAB is that fighting game itch it scratches for me. You put the hours into a character you love and eventually with the right mentality and perfect practice you should see some success in whatever way that may be whether it be on the world stage or your regional.
@ I played my whole life but never really got into the nitty gritty stuff until 2012 when the AE update came to sf4. I played Cody. Ed in sf5. Nice! I can always appreciate a good Rose player. Laura was cool too. I’m lucky to have an LGS in my area that has an arcade on its second floor. Im hoping to start going to armories soon and then get some games of SF upstairs. Shoutout to magitek games. Definitely check them out if you’re ever in the Bay Area CA
As a specialist myself, mainly playing Dori since I started over a year ago. I would say that while there are some frustrating moments particularly with the release of enigma, I still feel like I can specialize in the hero. I think a lot of this comes from the trust in LSS that was spoken a little bit about in the video. I played MTG for over 11 years before almost dropping it cold turkey to switch to FAB. That was due to the erosion of trust with the company and community over recent years. When I first joined fab I was cautiously optimistic about the company and I feel like time and time again I was shown why I should trust LSS with making good decisions and showing that even in the bad times they have my back. After a few months of playing the game they showed off the expansion slot to make sure each class gets some help each set. The book banning showed that they cared about the power level of their game and matching the their vision of the game instead of adhering to what players already know. For me these things built alot of trust in their thinking and while I admit the frustration of enigma has eroded at that trust a little, I still believe in LSS to have my back as a specialist to give me the tools to combat this problem in the future with cards like Jagged Edge. Overall great video, I love to hear about the different perspectives of other players.
LSS definitely has stated that FAB rewards specialization. I don't think they've ever said that specialization is the best approach. But I don't think they have ever presented a blatantly false pretense.
Great talk Overall I think Dice Commando's point still stands - specialists can still have great success at the armory level with Clark adding the caveat that this can extend to Proquests and making Day 2 of tournaments (at least with Bravo). But I can't help but think about how bad it feels to specialize in a hero and then see heroes who haven't even been around for a full year having so much representation in the Top 8s - I think this is where its easy to feel defeated as a specialist
Great work on this video and the last one, DC. Amazing content! For me personally, the one thing that irks me more than anything with regards to removing agency from the game is the existence of disproportionally strong generic cards in the game. To this day, every single time I'm interested in building a new hero, the most successful decks people come up with for that hero end up playing Tunic, 3X Command and Conquer, 3X Sink Below, 3X Enlightened Strike and often also Crown and 3X Warmonger's Diplomacy. Now, I get that not all decks are equal, and it's possible for one deck to - on average - be better built than another. This will always happen in any TCG, and I can accept that. My problem is that some of these cards are SO strong or SO necessary that they are SUCH auto-includes that playing without them just becomes an obviously dumb choice to make. I'm not saying I'm the best player, but there are some heroes who will autolose virtually every game to Azalea if they don't play Warmonger's Diplomacy & CnC. As someone who joined around Outsiders and spent half a year trying to make Riptide work, I genuinely hate CnC with a passion and think the game would be more enjoyable without it. And before even discussing the ridiculous out-of-game costs of most of these cards (which is an issue in itself), I am slowly but steadily losing faith in the agency I have to build interesting decks. I don't need my decks to win Callings or even BH's, but it would be nice if I could compete at an armory level and not get blown out by someone throwing me a Pummel off Tunic, or guaranteeing a CnC hit because I'm holding 3 traps, or someone turning a badly disrupted turn into a no-brain above-rate turn for free by sheer virtue of having Enlightened Strike. Being a specialist is one thing, sure, but it's kind of hard to even experiment if every deck in the meta just has a few automatic legs up on you, unless you are willing to shell out and devote a good 10-20 cards of your deck to pay the "bomb generic tax". My silent hope is that Hunted will be the first of an increasing amount of reprints to CnC so that in a year or 2, it can be banned without people being too upset about losing out on their $300 investments. But realistically I'm probably going to have to just buy in and shut up or leave. Which sucks, because I love the game in every other regard.
Fantastic conversation. Great perspectives on both sides. I love my Boltyn deck, but I can also understand that it may not take me too deep in a larger tournament with a meta that is "toxic" for his kind of play. Along with that, changing formats in armories weekly is fantastic. There are some people super interested in the game but can't afford a cc deck, isn't interested in the competitive scene, etc. We did that at one of our stores and the player base has grown drastically. Keep up the great content, homie.
Clark, humble as always. Great conversation! Is there another conversation to be made for the shape shifters? A shape shifter is the opposite of a class specialist.
Great video, I know Clark he comes to our LGS now and again. Definitely an excellent Bravo player. Good to see a familiar face. Really good topics and perspectives in this video, I agree with alot of it, and LSS needs to be more vocal about errors and the corrective measures, if ppl don't see it unfortunately it doesn't happen.
Really good discussion, Clark is real helpful for Bravo tips along with Cayle Mcreath in the Bravo discord for the nuances and breadth of play time they've given that hero!
I like that the Armories were brought up. The issue with using matchups to "fix" problem heroes works at a tournament. But if you have a Dori deck at the 6 person Armory and then I show up with Enigma every week? Good luck with that. I am very VERY glad LSS is shifting focus to a more hero vs hero view, rather than the whole meta. 90/10 matchups are miserable and giving more tools to heroes will really help with this
1000% Sloop. I lost 3x long-time players after Calling: PDX (they held on for that event), as they are just not feeling like there is a place for them in today's FaB. They aren't walking away - just taking a break - but we all know how that often turns out. It's a risk. This new approach hopefully help for folks on the ground-level to feel like they have more control.
At the end you mentioned about why Jagged edge is a majestic. It's kinda arbitrary that a card is majestic (and comes in one colour) or it's not (and comes in rainbow) and it's a rule that they could easily change if they wanted to. They could easily just put it at R rarity, only release the red and keep possible yellow and blue ones in their back pocket if they ever decide it's needed. They've done similar things with Tiger eye reflex, only releasing it in yellow and blue for now, so they could do the same with this.
I believe they will retain the concept of M's being a 'single card'; I'd argue that what they originally did with Bonds (banning B/Y but keeping red) was an acknowledgement of the need for certain cards to exist in only specific lanes. Tiger Eye reflex as a red would be so gross - Reduce to Runechant level value, perhaps more!
With jagged edge specifically here I think its good that its not a blue as that's not the kind of effect you really want to just have randomly in your deck, you need deck building friction especially for hate cards. One of the reasons why I really dislike Warmongers is that its pretty free for a lot of decks to run as a 3 block blue.
I am relatively new to the game but i am very aware of those concerns and i really loved your conversation, thank you! You gain one subscriber! (Sorry for my writing, i’m French^^)
Thanks for mentioning format rotation for armories and the TO/Shop Owner knowing what is best for that scene. My local store runs Blitz every other week, with the off weeks alternating between CC and LL. This is precisely because the owner knows what the mix needs to be to keep all of the locals feeling like their needs are being met. I would also like to mention that sometimes players needs to be responsible for helping curate their local environment as well. My shop had our Skirmish event (Blitz format) Saturday, but then our weekly armory on Sunday happened to be Blitz as well. A bunch of people were bringing their "relaxing" decks because they played their best stuff at the Skirmish. My relaxing deck is an Ice control Lexi (I main Terra in blitz and played him at the Skirmish) and just didn't this time because I know how many red-line decks there are in my local "relaxing" blitz meta. Sometimes you just need to do something that is in the short-term benefit of others to cultivate a greater long-term benefit for your scene. As for specialists, I do think a good point was made that if a player wants to specialize they need to understand what that means. Knowing that there are going to be ups and downs for that particular style of engagement from the very beginning is important. Don't lie to people about it just to get them in the door and hope they'll stick around. My son mains Florian, it is basically all he wants to play whether in CC or Blitz, but I remind him from time to time about the dangers of specializing like that and to have in the back of his mind what he'll do if Florian goes LL.
It's all about what level you want to play at. If you want to only play at tier 1-2 pick the most fun to play hero and enjoy. For top level events, if you want to win you need to present the strongest cards for you, maybe that's your specialist deck, just look at fái wining worlds, but most of the time its the meta decks that win
Interesting; from my experience it's the opposite. The larger impact is felt by folks that only are interested in the lower tier events, getting smashed at the local level by folks focused on higher-tier.
Basically LSS is taking a page out of Konami’s book. Giving support to popular decks. The main difference is LSS doesn’t wait years to do this while making sure the support is worth the wait.
I do have one thing that wasn't brought on against the specialist. It's a thing that happened to me and I have been struggling to keep an interest in the game since to be honest. Specialize in a hero or class because you like the play pattern, LSS release a broken ninja (again), that ninja gets some bans, those bans aren't enough and make LSS reconsider some of their design principles and bans some cards that are core to the play patterns you enjoyed, your hero has to play in an incredibly uninteresting and uninteractive way, then they say "we think he is fine, he has won a PQ before the new heroes could be figured out properly so we won't do anything to help him". Then when you try to change hero for something else in that class, the two new heroes of that class, they do not offer any of those interesting play pattern that the previous heroes offered but instead they have the same patterns as other classes. How do you stay interested to go to even your armory when the deck you enjoyed got ripped apart at the moment it should have been it's best and they tell you that's as good as thing are going to be for a long time?
Can you give specific hero and class examples. I am interested in what you are talking about. It sounds like either Kano, Katsu, or Prism but that could be my lack of knowledge.
Being able to win in spite of your hero/class being underpowered due to your experience on the class. Doesnt mean its not a problem. You are taking a handicap and trying to fight that handicap with matchup knowledge. Where players who are good at adapting can remove that handicap and gain alot of that matchup knowledge in practice leading up to an event. Especially since their practice only needs to cover a small portion of the hero pool since they can target the current meta (field).
I did not “take” or choose a handicap. I’m not good at retaining new knowledge while quick switching. My brain works best when I can learn by experience (over theory) and learn by repetition and reinforce over time. If a short person worked really hard and after a year of training, finally jumped high enough to dunk a basketball, would you tell them… being able to dunk despite your height “doesn’t mean it’s not a problem”… just look at the tall people… they can dunk after just a month of training because the distance between their hand and the rim is shorter! Not everyone is Michael Jordan / Michael Feng
Some folks learn by 'going wide' so to speak, and trying different styles to learn them and how to fight them. Other folks learn by 'doing deep' which is completely immersing on the iterations of a single subject.
Newer player here, but why was prism a bad matchup for bravo? Logic tells me because of bravo’s dominate, and poppers, it would be a good matchup. Clearly I’m wrong, so now I’m curious. Thanks!
Prism plays a lot of auras that have Spectra. Because guardians typically throw single, big attacks (or weapon swings) in order to clear a single aura it consumes a full turn - and leaves the opponent with a full hand. If you don't attack the auras and instead go at the hero, you do damage - but very quickly face down 'death by 1000 cuts' as they come in for 1, 1, 1, etc.
Being a specialist really is viable, coming from one who fancies themselves an arakni specialist. It does feel bad though being a specialist and only playing a hero and you just can't have success with them because the game has shifted so much. So you just bide your time and get more games in, tweak your deck where you can.
I have massive respect for you (and others) who have the confidence and endurance to 'weather the storm'. It's a special type of person that can do that! My argument is that the larger portion of the player base - especially when it comes to attracting and maintaining new players - doesn't have that same endurance/time/whatever you want to call it.
@DiceCommando that is definitely a feel rough part of it and not everyone is capable of that, especially those that prefer to meta chase. I do think going forward LSS having the ideals of trying to shore up matches to a closer 50/50 is good. A good way of offsetting that storm is definitely a good community who is willing to support new players, especially if they want to play a more viable hero. Speaking of myself it was definitely hard, I almost quit till they made arakni viable, but then they released nuu and luckily that was just a hey ill take my arakni deck, swap out a few cards and play nuu.
@@DiceCommandoi do agree with you guys another offset is definitely to run different formats and not hyper focus on just one. For us we run blitz Thursday, CC Saturday, and Sunday is open to free play if people want to come in and play upf, commoner, LL, whatever. We also rotate our armory week to week. So generally armory is 2 blitz and 2 CC. This weekend our armory was a sealed armory CC deck event held for one of the players that was moving out of state so he had no cards with him.
How many new players stick around as opposed to just old players leaving the game? I think the real problem is the game is gate kept by the cards and the few prints. LSS caters to the secondary market too much, New players aren’t touching this due to cost of entry. I struggle to even find a TCG store that even carries the product, when you do find one it’s all sealed stuff and very little of it, you will never find singles unless online. There is only one place to shop for singles online and it’s tcg player. That speaks volumes. I can find yugioh and any other tcg products at any store at any time, but FaB..What does that tell you? The game has so many problems and none of it is being addressed. Everyone seems really sure about a company that’s only 5 years old and doesn’t seem to have much growth over the past few years…I come from a stock background and reading the market is what I do and this is unhealthy.
I think there is a portion of this that is the 'who is making the noise'. 2024 saw the largest influx of 'New GEM accounts" yet; however, I grant that doesn't mean they are "sticking around". Game growth is there; we as a community need to determine how we keep folks. And right now that's a challenge.
@ I’ve looked into and saying fake growth is there vs the numbers is the problem. numbers don’t lie and the game is growing backwards. Not here to lie but a lot of you content creators are basing everything off of large events common folk don’t attend. At a local level the game is dead. I’ve spoken to LSS about their plans for reprints and they have let me know in so many words that they are afraid to re-print any further and lower the prices of a secondary card market due to losing their old player base. They put themselves into this corner and now we are seeing them try to climb out with armory decks. Digimon TCG is more widely sold than FaB….the community is not helpful but just defensive about this game. Unfortunately, somebody may have a good idea for a game, but they may not be exactly good at running a business and I think that’s the case with LSS.
@@ThisiSaDeadgameI understand tcg having secondary card markets but honestly treating any tcg as an actual investment should've never been the priority people glazed the thought of collectibles so much that tcg ends up digging that secondary market hole and dying after a certain point
@ this game has no future due to catering to the secondary market. It will never be like the big tcgs. I messaged LSS and they told me not to buy sealed product and to go to the secondary market. Not a very smart business move. Unfortunately, seems like a company that was just started by a fool and it’s ran by a bunch of fools that are more than likely related to them or friends of the family because after speaking with that person I can guarantee you that this person has never had a background in sales. Never in my life have I ever seen a company refer someone to the secondary market over theirs… it’s a bad business practice and if anybody thinks that this companies gonna be around for another five years big fools. They’re too afraid to even make the move on reference because they don’t want to kill the current player base that they have. And companies like this have a tendency to put on a façade and act like they are growing when they’re not, they’re actually growing backwards in reverse.
@@ThisiSaDeadgame I take a lot of reservation with this reply. The original video on which today's conversation is based, had a thesis statement of "a lot of players are feeling left behind" for the very reason that a lot of our community only cares about the top players, and everyone else be damned. So to imply that I'm some mouthpiece for "everything is awesome" is just plain false. Furthermore, I don't understand your 'fake data' comment - nor your comments about again, me being a mouthpiece. I literally typed above "2024 saw the largest influx of 'New GEM accounts" yet; however, I grant that doesn't mean they are "sticking around". You sound very angry, and there's a lot of reasons for folks to legitimately feel that way in the game right now. I respect that. But attacking/degrading me, who has been busting his ass to fight for the average player, seems pretty misplaced. Happy Holidays.
There are many heroes (or classes, to be more accurate) that cannot win against other matchups. If you think about it, the entire "I beat you, you beat me, I beat them" balance of a meta depends on having design-favored unfavorable matchups.
@@DiceCommando This is the most frustrating for me. Our armories are 6-10 people every week. So we constantly see the same decks. Often top heroes (Enigma, Nuu, Zen, Zen, Viscerai, Earth Wiz) so when half the meta is always a bad matchup, its doesnt feel great going 0-3 every week, even with some experience. We just have better playerrs with Meta decks. Its the job of the lesser players to get stomped each week. Personally, im losing interest in the game because of this.
@@dustinbogges3965 It is the job of the store owner to make sure everybody is served and the playgroup doesn't devolve into a toxic mess. Lean on your store owner for help.
@@dustinbogges3965 there are a lot of decks that can 50/50 or 40/60 Zen, Verdance, and Viserai. What is your main? As a Victor main, I feel your pain by the way into Enigma and Nuu. I switch it up with Boltyn, Ira, and others though.
That starting statement is what i've been trying to explain as to why i'm not going to my lgs as much, my main class is warriors they're really mid rn, and because of that i don't like trying so hard to just get rolled by an overly well tuned set of rosetta and mst, overall i felt like i can no longer play and win the way or rather hold the destiny fo what i can do and that just sucked honestly
I went to two of largest card shops in my state both have multiple locations and they both said the same thing about this game and it’s players. Dead game with very small player base. Not worth carrying the product of a company that has a small player base and don’t support local shops. Let’s see a video on that and actual retained player numbers. Expensive cards to be buying to play with absolutely nobody unless you drive 5 hours and get a hotel room. Lol. Clown game with 5 clowns playing it. The. You all gather and become 300+ clowns that flew and drove really far and spent a crap ton to do so. Smart!
Coming from a street fighter background, Katsu has always appealed to me. I’m just happy to be here.
It was always neat watching character specialists do well in competitive street fighter. Especially with random/low tier characters.
Who was your main in SF? Which SF? I mained Rose in SF4 and Laura in SF5
So much of my love towards FAB is that fighting game itch it scratches for me. You put the hours into a character you love and eventually with the right mentality and perfect practice you should see some success in whatever way that may be whether it be on the world stage or your regional.
@ I played my whole life but never really got into the nitty gritty stuff until 2012 when the AE update came to sf4. I played Cody. Ed in sf5. Nice! I can always appreciate a good Rose player. Laura was cool too.
I’m lucky to have an LGS in my area that has an arcade on its second floor. Im hoping to start going to armories soon and then get some games of SF upstairs. Shoutout to magitek games. Definitely check them out if you’re ever in the Bay Area CA
@@rayciannello2268 Heck yes! Thanks for the recommendation! ill be up in the bay area this coming January!
@@TheSoykeith Awesome man!! Lmk if you ever make it over and we could get some games of FaB/SF in! ✌️
As a specialist myself, mainly playing Dori since I started over a year ago. I would say that while there are some frustrating moments particularly with the release of enigma, I still feel like I can specialize in the hero. I think a lot of this comes from the trust in LSS that was spoken a little bit about in the video. I played MTG for over 11 years before almost dropping it cold turkey to switch to FAB. That was due to the erosion of trust with the company and community over recent years. When I first joined fab I was cautiously optimistic about the company and I feel like time and time again I was shown why I should trust LSS with making good decisions and showing that even in the bad times they have my back. After a few months of playing the game they showed off the expansion slot to make sure each class gets some help each set. The book banning showed that they cared about the power level of their game and matching the their vision of the game instead of adhering to what players already know. For me these things built alot of trust in their thinking and while I admit the frustration of enigma has eroded at that trust a little, I still believe in LSS to have my back as a specialist to give me the tools to combat this problem in the future with cards like Jagged Edge.
Overall great video, I love to hear about the different perspectives of other players.
LSS definitely has stated that FAB rewards specialization. I don't think they've ever said that specialization is the best approach. But I don't think they have ever presented a blatantly false pretense.
Great talk
Overall I think Dice Commando's point still stands - specialists can still have great success at the armory level with Clark adding the caveat that this can extend to Proquests and making Day 2 of tournaments (at least with Bravo).
But I can't help but think about how bad it feels to specialize in a hero and then see heroes who haven't even been around for a full year having so much representation in the Top 8s - I think this is where its easy to feel defeated as a specialist
Great work on this video and the last one, DC. Amazing content!
For me personally, the one thing that irks me more than anything with regards to removing agency from the game is the existence of disproportionally strong generic cards in the game. To this day, every single time I'm interested in building a new hero, the most successful decks people come up with for that hero end up playing Tunic, 3X Command and Conquer, 3X Sink Below, 3X Enlightened Strike and often also Crown and 3X Warmonger's Diplomacy.
Now, I get that not all decks are equal, and it's possible for one deck to - on average - be better built than another. This will always happen in any TCG, and I can accept that. My problem is that some of these cards are SO strong or SO necessary that they are SUCH auto-includes that playing without them just becomes an obviously dumb choice to make.
I'm not saying I'm the best player, but there are some heroes who will autolose virtually every game to Azalea if they don't play Warmonger's Diplomacy & CnC. As someone who joined around Outsiders and spent half a year trying to make Riptide work, I genuinely hate CnC with a passion and think the game would be more enjoyable without it. And before even discussing the ridiculous out-of-game costs of most of these cards (which is an issue in itself), I am slowly but steadily losing faith in the agency I have to build interesting decks. I don't need my decks to win Callings or even BH's, but it would be nice if I could compete at an armory level and not get blown out by someone throwing me a Pummel off Tunic, or guaranteeing a CnC hit because I'm holding 3 traps, or someone turning a badly disrupted turn into a no-brain above-rate turn for free by sheer virtue of having Enlightened Strike.
Being a specialist is one thing, sure, but it's kind of hard to even experiment if every deck in the meta just has a few automatic legs up on you, unless you are willing to shell out and devote a good 10-20 cards of your deck to pay the "bomb generic tax".
My silent hope is that Hunted will be the first of an increasing amount of reprints to CnC so that in a year or 2, it can be banned without people being too upset about losing out on their $300 investments. But realistically I'm probably going to have to just buy in and shut up or leave. Which sucks, because I love the game in every other regard.
Fantastic conversation. Great perspectives on both sides. I love my Boltyn deck, but I can also understand that it may not take me too deep in a larger tournament with a meta that is "toxic" for his kind of play. Along with that, changing formats in armories weekly is fantastic. There are some people super interested in the game but can't afford a cc deck, isn't interested in the competitive scene, etc. We did that at one of our stores and the player base has grown drastically.
Keep up the great content, homie.
Clark, humble as always. Great conversation!
Is there another conversation to be made for the shape shifters? A shape shifter is the opposite of a class specialist.
Great video, I know Clark he comes to our LGS now and again. Definitely an excellent Bravo player. Good to see a familiar face. Really good topics and perspectives in this video, I agree with alot of it, and LSS needs to be more vocal about errors and the corrective measures, if ppl don't see it unfortunately it doesn't happen.
Glad you enjoyed it! I appreciate Clark's approach to discussion.
Great interview!
Good to see, when people actually get talking, their opinions are generally pretty well aligned after all!!
Turns out that level-headed and respectful conversation has value in this world!
Really good discussion, Clark is real helpful for Bravo tips along with Cayle Mcreath in the Bravo discord for the nuances and breadth of play time they've given that hero!
What is the Bravo discord?
I like that the Armories were brought up. The issue with using matchups to "fix" problem heroes works at a tournament. But if you have a Dori deck at the 6 person Armory and then I show up with Enigma every week? Good luck with that.
I am very VERY glad LSS is shifting focus to a more hero vs hero view, rather than the whole meta. 90/10 matchups are miserable and giving more tools to heroes will really help with this
1000% Sloop.
I lost 3x long-time players after Calling: PDX (they held on for that event), as they are just not feeling like there is a place for them in today's FaB. They aren't walking away - just taking a break - but we all know how that often turns out. It's a risk.
This new approach hopefully help for folks on the ground-level to feel like they have more control.
Thanks to you guys for having this talk. I feel like these things are really positive for the community, and it's much appreciated! 😁
Glad you liked it!
At the end you mentioned about why Jagged edge is a majestic. It's kinda arbitrary that a card is majestic (and comes in one colour) or it's not (and comes in rainbow) and it's a rule that they could easily change if they wanted to. They could easily just put it at R rarity, only release the red and keep possible yellow and blue ones in their back pocket if they ever decide it's needed.
They've done similar things with Tiger eye reflex, only releasing it in yellow and blue for now, so they could do the same with this.
I believe they will retain the concept of M's being a 'single card'; I'd argue that what they originally did with Bonds (banning B/Y but keeping red) was an acknowledgement of the need for certain cards to exist in only specific lanes.
Tiger Eye reflex as a red would be so gross - Reduce to Runechant level value, perhaps more!
With jagged edge specifically here I think its good that its not a blue as that's not the kind of effect you really want to just have randomly in your deck, you need deck building friction especially for hate cards.
One of the reasons why I really dislike Warmongers is that its pretty free for a lot of decks to run as a 3 block blue.
I am relatively new to the game but i am very aware of those concerns and i really loved your conversation, thank you! You gain one subscriber! (Sorry for my writing, i’m French^^)
Welcome aboard!
Yay Clark! West Michigan represent!
Thanks for mentioning format rotation for armories and the TO/Shop Owner knowing what is best for that scene. My local store runs Blitz every other week, with the off weeks alternating between CC and LL. This is precisely because the owner knows what the mix needs to be to keep all of the locals feeling like their needs are being met. I would also like to mention that sometimes players needs to be responsible for helping curate their local environment as well. My shop had our Skirmish event (Blitz format) Saturday, but then our weekly armory on Sunday happened to be Blitz as well. A bunch of people were bringing their "relaxing" decks because they played their best stuff at the Skirmish. My relaxing deck is an Ice control Lexi (I main Terra in blitz and played him at the Skirmish) and just didn't this time because I know how many red-line decks there are in my local "relaxing" blitz meta. Sometimes you just need to do something that is in the short-term benefit of others to cultivate a greater long-term benefit for your scene.
As for specialists, I do think a good point was made that if a player wants to specialize they need to understand what that means. Knowing that there are going to be ups and downs for that particular style of engagement from the very beginning is important. Don't lie to people about it just to get them in the door and hope they'll stick around. My son mains Florian, it is basically all he wants to play whether in CC or Blitz, but I remind him from time to time about the dangers of specializing like that and to have in the back of his mind what he'll do if Florian goes LL.
Great points!
Clark is a fantastic Bravo player. Good conversation
This was a great watch, thanks!
Fantastic conversation.
Glad you enjoyed it!
It's all about what level you want to play at.
If you want to only play at tier 1-2 pick the most fun to play hero and enjoy.
For top level events, if you want to win you need to present the strongest cards for you, maybe that's your specialist deck, just look at fái wining worlds, but most of the time its the meta decks that win
Interesting; from my experience it's the opposite. The larger impact is felt by folks that only are interested in the lower tier events, getting smashed at the local level by folks focused on higher-tier.
Good video. Comments are spicy on this one.
Ha, just us idiots out here playin' the game :-)
Basically LSS is taking a page out of Konami’s book. Giving support to popular decks. The main difference is LSS doesn’t wait years to do this while making sure the support is worth the wait.
Looking forward to seeing you when you travel to GR 😉
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I do have one thing that wasn't brought on against the specialist. It's a thing that happened to me and I have been struggling to keep an interest in the game since to be honest.
Specialize in a hero or class because you like the play pattern, LSS release a broken ninja (again), that ninja gets some bans, those bans aren't enough and make LSS reconsider some of their design principles and bans some cards that are core to the play patterns you enjoyed, your hero has to play in an incredibly uninteresting and uninteractive way, then they say "we think he is fine, he has won a PQ before the new heroes could be figured out properly so we won't do anything to help him". Then when you try to change hero for something else in that class, the two new heroes of that class, they do not offer any of those interesting play pattern that the previous heroes offered but instead they have the same patterns as other classes.
How do you stay interested to go to even your armory when the deck you enjoyed got ripped apart at the moment it should have been it's best and they tell you that's as good as thing are going to be for a long time?
Can you give specific hero and class examples. I am interested in what you are talking about. It sounds like either Kano, Katsu, or Prism but that could be my lack of knowledge.
Being able to win in spite of your hero/class being underpowered due to your experience on the class. Doesnt mean its not a problem. You are taking a handicap and trying to fight that handicap with matchup knowledge. Where players who are good at adapting can remove that handicap and gain alot of that matchup knowledge in practice leading up to an event. Especially since their practice only needs to cover a small portion of the hero pool since they can target the current meta (field).
I did not “take” or choose a handicap. I’m not good at retaining new knowledge while quick switching. My brain works best when I can learn by experience (over theory) and learn by repetition and reinforce over time.
If a short person worked really hard and after a year of training, finally jumped high enough to dunk a basketball, would you tell them… being able to dunk despite your height “doesn’t mean it’s not a problem”… just look at the tall people… they can dunk after just a month of training because the distance between their hand and the rim is shorter!
Not everyone is Michael Jordan / Michael Feng
Some folks learn by 'going wide' so to speak, and trying different styles to learn them and how to fight them. Other folks learn by 'doing deep' which is completely immersing on the iterations of a single subject.
It sounds like you all agree
Newer player here, but why was prism a bad matchup for bravo? Logic tells me because of bravo’s dominate, and poppers, it would be a good matchup. Clearly I’m wrong, so now I’m curious. Thanks!
I am assuming board state and lack of go again in Bravo
Prism plays a lot of auras that have Spectra. Because guardians typically throw single, big attacks (or weapon swings) in order to clear a single aura it consumes a full turn - and leaves the opponent with a full hand.
If you don't attack the auras and instead go at the hero, you do damage - but very quickly face down 'death by 1000 cuts' as they come in for 1, 1, 1, etc.
Being a specialist really is viable, coming from one who fancies themselves an arakni specialist. It does feel bad though being a specialist and only playing a hero and you just can't have success with them because the game has shifted so much. So you just bide your time and get more games in, tweak your deck where you can.
I have massive respect for you (and others) who have the confidence and endurance to 'weather the storm'. It's a special type of person that can do that!
My argument is that the larger portion of the player base - especially when it comes to attracting and maintaining new players - doesn't have that same endurance/time/whatever you want to call it.
@DiceCommando that is definitely a feel rough part of it and not everyone is capable of that, especially those that prefer to meta chase. I do think going forward LSS having the ideals of trying to shore up matches to a closer 50/50 is good. A good way of offsetting that storm is definitely a good community who is willing to support new players, especially if they want to play a more viable hero. Speaking of myself it was definitely hard, I almost quit till they made arakni viable, but then they released nuu and luckily that was just a hey ill take my arakni deck, swap out a few cards and play nuu.
@@DiceCommandoi do agree with you guys another offset is definitely to run different formats and not hyper focus on just one. For us we run blitz Thursday, CC Saturday, and Sunday is open to free play if people want to come in and play upf, commoner, LL, whatever. We also rotate our armory week to week. So generally armory is 2 blitz and 2 CC. This weekend our armory was a sealed armory CC deck event held for one of the players that was moving out of state so he had no cards with him.
How many new players stick around as opposed to just old players leaving the game? I think the real problem is the game is gate kept by the cards and the few prints. LSS caters to the secondary market too much, New players aren’t touching this due to cost of entry. I struggle to even find a TCG store that even carries the product, when you do find one it’s all sealed stuff and very little of it, you will never find singles unless online. There is only one place to shop for singles online and it’s tcg player. That speaks volumes. I can find yugioh and any other tcg products at any store at any time, but FaB..What does that tell you? The game has so many problems and none of it is being addressed. Everyone seems really sure about a company that’s only 5 years old and doesn’t seem to have much growth over the past few years…I come from a stock background and reading the market is what I do and this is unhealthy.
I think there is a portion of this that is the 'who is making the noise'. 2024 saw the largest influx of 'New GEM accounts" yet; however, I grant that doesn't mean they are "sticking around".
Game growth is there; we as a community need to determine how we keep folks. And right now that's a challenge.
@ I’ve looked into and saying fake growth is there vs the numbers is the problem. numbers don’t lie and the game is growing backwards. Not here to lie but a lot of you content creators are basing everything off of large events common folk don’t attend. At a local level the game is dead. I’ve spoken to LSS about their plans for reprints and they have let me know in so many words that they are afraid to re-print any further and lower the prices of a secondary card market due to losing their old player base. They put themselves into this corner and now we are seeing them try to climb out with armory decks. Digimon TCG is more widely sold than FaB….the community is not helpful but just defensive about this game. Unfortunately, somebody may have a good idea for a game, but they may not be exactly good at running a business and I think that’s the case with LSS.
@@ThisiSaDeadgameI understand tcg having secondary card markets but honestly treating any tcg as an actual investment should've never been the priority people glazed the thought of collectibles so much that tcg ends up digging that secondary market hole and dying after a certain point
@ this game has no future due to catering to the secondary market. It will never be like the big tcgs. I messaged LSS and they told me not to buy sealed product and to go to the secondary market. Not a very smart business move. Unfortunately, seems like a company that was just started by a fool and it’s ran by a bunch of fools that are more than likely related to them or friends of the family because after speaking with that person I can guarantee you that this person has never had a background in sales. Never in my life have I ever seen a company refer someone to the secondary market over theirs… it’s a bad business practice and if anybody thinks that this companies gonna be around for another five years big fools. They’re too afraid to even make the move on reference because they don’t want to kill the current player base that they have. And companies like this have a tendency to put on a façade and act like they are growing when they’re not, they’re actually growing backwards in reverse.
@@ThisiSaDeadgame I take a lot of reservation with this reply.
The original video on which today's conversation is based, had a thesis statement of "a lot of players are feeling left behind" for the very reason that a lot of our community only cares about the top players, and everyone else be damned.
So to imply that I'm some mouthpiece for "everything is awesome" is just plain false.
Furthermore, I don't understand your 'fake data' comment - nor your comments about again, me being a mouthpiece. I literally typed above "2024 saw the largest influx of 'New GEM accounts" yet; however, I grant that doesn't mean they are "sticking around".
You sound very angry, and there's a lot of reasons for folks to legitimately feel that way in the game right now. I respect that. But attacking/degrading me, who has been busting his ass to fight for the average player, seems pretty misplaced.
Happy Holidays.
Are there any heroes who are definately not viable against too many matchups.
There are many heroes (or classes, to be more accurate) that cannot win against other matchups.
If you think about it, the entire "I beat you, you beat me, I beat them" balance of a meta depends on having design-favored unfavorable matchups.
@@DiceCommando This is the most frustrating for me. Our armories are 6-10 people every week. So we constantly see the same decks. Often top heroes (Enigma, Nuu, Zen, Zen, Viscerai, Earth Wiz) so when half the meta is always a bad matchup, its doesnt feel great going 0-3 every week, even with some experience. We just have better playerrs with Meta decks. Its the job of the lesser players to get stomped each week. Personally, im losing interest in the game because of this.
@@dustinbogges3965 Yep, and you're not alone at all in feeling that way.
@@dustinbogges3965 It is the job of the store owner to make sure everybody is served and the playgroup doesn't devolve into a toxic mess. Lean on your store owner for help.
@@dustinbogges3965 there are a lot of decks that can 50/50 or 40/60 Zen, Verdance, and Viserai. What is your main? As a Victor main, I feel your pain by the way into Enigma and Nuu. I switch it up with Boltyn, Ira, and others though.
That starting statement is what i've been trying to explain as to why i'm not going to my lgs as much, my main class is warriors they're really mid rn, and because of that i don't like trying so hard to just get rolled by an overly well tuned set of rosetta and mst, overall i felt like i can no longer play and win the way or rather hold the destiny fo what i can do and that just sucked honestly
I went to two of largest card shops in my state both have multiple locations and they both said the same thing about this game and it’s players. Dead game with very small player base. Not worth carrying the product of a company that has a small player base and don’t support local shops. Let’s see a video on that and actual retained player numbers. Expensive cards to be buying to play with absolutely nobody unless you drive 5 hours and get a hotel room. Lol. Clown game with 5 clowns playing it. The. You all gather and become 300+ clowns that flew and drove really far and spent a crap ton to do so. Smart!
Indeed, thanks for showing us clowns all the true path! Scheming Skeleton is reborn!