Today LSS announced an errata for Briar and the newly banned cards: Ball Lightning, Plunder Run in Classic Constructed and Duskblade in the Blitz Format.
For some this was a no brainer and sooner or later this had to be done, but for others this came as a surprise since LSS mentioned in their last Blog Post regarding Bans and Restrictions that we, the players, haven't discovered the needed strategies to defeat Briar; but now they have taken that statement back and said in their new Blog Post "Internal development was aware of Briar's play patterns but not to the extent that has been magnified by the gameplay observed in communities".
Briars Errata
Briars Embodiment of Earth tokens where the most annoying part of her ability. It eventually came down to: Don't block, make her stronger in the defending turn OR block, make your attacking turn weaker. Now they have changed the ability, so Briar is only able to create a single Embodiment of Earth token per round.
The Banned Cards
- Ball Lightning
- Plunder Run (only in CC)
- Duskblade (now also in Blitz)
We will soon update the website to correctly display those changes in our Decklists.
You can read about the changes on the fabtcg Blog Post here. We will only quickly go over the cards.
Plunder Run
Plunder Run got hit because of the "block everything and lose a turn" or "block nothing and lose the game" scenarios it produces, which isn't fun when it happens multiple times in a game.
Ball Lightning
It's a 0 cost with free go again and a buff for your next attacks. This is a lot of value for a card, even if it looks innocuous at first. Combine this with multiple Ball Lightnings in a row and maybe a Sting of Sorcery plus creating multiple Embodiment of Earth tokens per hit. This was just insane.
Duskblade
LSS banned it in CC even before Tales of Aria was released. Now that they have evaluated the impact of the card (in the Blitz Format) they have come to the conclusion that it's unfun to play against Duskblade and decided to ban it in Blitz as well.
"The next scheduled banned and restricted announcement is April 5, 2022."
