60 for 60: Kassai

The Warrior class is foundational to Flesh and Blood, appearing as one of the original four classes in Welcome to Rathe. Their gameplan revolves around attacking with their weapons, tricking opponents with attack reactions, and building additional resources which allow them to unleash powerful effects. Warriors are at their most powerful when, counterintuitively, their opponent blocks them. They often win the game either through fatigue or a well-timed attack reaction.

Warrior is a strong introductory class because it teaches you the importance of a flexible gameplan and the power of attack reactions. Whether you choose to be aggressive, defensive, or a bit of both is entirely dependent on the matchup and what cards are in your hand. Warriors would rather attack with their own weapons rather than attack actions and most of their cards augment their weapons in one way or another. Each weapon-type plays slight differently and you have a variety of flavors to choose from: agile daggers, heroic two-handed swords, heavy-handed axes, and - Kassai’s favorite - dual-wielding sabers which she uses to unleash a flurry of sword swings on her enemies.

Kassai’s hero ability allows her to banish two red and two yellow cards from her graveyard to generate a Gold token the next time a weapon hits. This on-demand on-hit puts you in the driver's seat, enticing opponents to block you out - which is exactly where Warriors want their opponents. If they don’t block, Kassai can use the Gold token to draw a card, which makes all of her sword attacks free. This lets Kassai turn those late-game blues into a new card, an extra resource, and free weapon attacks. She will have to juggle a lot, with reds, yellows, and blues important to the deck's functioning, so let’s dive into the deck list.

Thanks to Warrior’s extended period out of the limelight, we can take good advantage of their resilient armor suite - the keystone of which is Courage of Bladehold. Coming in at a whopping $5, Courage gives us lots of armor block and a power turn where we don’t have to pay for our weapon swings. Our other three armor pieces have battleworn, giving us the ability to block and activate as needed. Hood of the Red Sand can give our weapon attack an on-hit: draw a card. If used on the first weapon swing, this will pay for itself by discounting our next weapon attack thanks to Kassai’s ability. Refraction Bolters can be an on-demand go again source and Gallantry Gold can provide an anthem for our weapon attacks. Use them when they can create the most grief for your opponent.

Whenever you draw a new hand with Kassai, you’re looking to see if you can attack with each of Kassai’s Cintari Sabers. This often means you need a resource card that lets you swing twice - either a yellow or a blue - and a source of go again. This decklist runs 22 sources of go again, along with our Refraction Bolters which should give us one per turn. The classic turn is playing Slice and Dice and then pitching a blue to swing a Saber, pay for Blade Runner to give it go again and pump our next attack, and then come in with a massive Saber on the second attack! You can even push the attack even higher with In the Swing, a powerful 0 for +3 attack reaction that is only playable after your second weapon attack.

The deck also runs go again sources that don’t cost resources, which means we can attack twice by pitching a yellow or, if we have a blue, spend the extra resource on one of our equipment pieces or one of our reactions. Sharpened Senses provides go again if our sword gets an additional +2 buff. Shift the Tides of Battle also requires a buff and gives us an Agility on hit, which can provide go again for our next turn as well. Hit and Run is a decent last resort, which can also give us that extra +1 that can make blocking our on-hits extra difficult. The list has a one-of Take It On the Chin as a defensive option that gives us an Agility when it prevents damage.

The last go again source in the list is Spoils of War, which also gives us two Coppers each time we hit with a weapon. Our Spoils of War turns are extremely important, as we need to make sure our attacks hit so we can get to the large amount of copper we need for our specialization. Our other way of making Coppers is Outland Skirmish, which we run at red and yellow. While Outland Skirmish only gives us a single Copper on-hit, it is the next best option. These are our only ways of generating Copper, so do your best to make sure you’re hitting your opponent.

Along with the aforementioned reactions, this deck runs a few more attack reactions with reprise to punish your opponent for blocking. They all get extra benefits if the opponent blocks from hand, so it’s a good idea to pair these with an activation from your hero ability. Stroke of Foresight provides some free damage if the opponent doesn’t block. If they do block, Stroke will let us filter our hand by drawing a card, which then makes our next sword attack free! Then we have blue Overpower, which provides an over-rate buff if the opponent blocks our attack. Our last attack reaction is a single copy of Rout, which can finish a game by returning an opponent’s blocking card back to their hand.

Separate from attack reactions, we also run a playset of Fate Foreseen as a defense reaction that lets us scope out if drawing from a Gold, Copper, Hood of the Red Sand, or Stroke of Foresight is worth it. This extra knowledge can come in handy and makes it an important utility tool when we’re trading blows with our opponent.

Once we’ve spent a few turns building up a bank account, it’s time to cash out for our power turns. Our payoff for Coppers is Blood on Her Hands. This Kassai specialization lets us sacrifice up to six Copper tokens to give our weapons go again, a +1, or the ability to swing an additional time. Typically, the sweet spot is four Coppers giving one Cintari Saber all three options and the other Saber whichever option you need for your hand. To best use Blood on Her Hands, make sure you can pop Courage of Bladehold or draw off of a Gold in order to make your sword attacks free.

Our payoff for Gold is Raise an Army. This Kassai specialization lets us turn Gold tokens into allies, giving us a powerful board presence. They swing for 3 with go again but can only attack if you’ve attacked with a weapon this turn, so we still need to give our Cintari Sabers go again. Raise an Army is a great way of winning against slow, grindy decks like Guardian or Assassin. It’s a good idea to keep one Gold behind so you can discount your weapon attacks and spend your resources on your allies instead. Both specializations are yellow and require time to set up properly, so don’t be afraid to block with the first few you see.