Young Legends

Last month, I theorized that LSS was in the process of curating a meta in the wake of the final Elemental heroes attaining Living Legend. But Skirmish season has given the Blitz roster a shakeup of its own, and there's something about it that's just hitting differently.

For the first time ever, a hero without an adult version has hit Living Legend in Blitz - in fact, two of them did. Kassai, Cintari Sellsword has been a favorite of the format for a while now, and all that attention propelled her to the to the top of the leaderboard with 224 points attained just this season. Close behind was Ira, Crimson Haze, whose renown as a competitive hero has always been eclipsed by her role as an introductory tutor.

As we're all intimately familiar with now, there are complicated feelings that go along with the title of Living Legend. While validation of a hero's accomplishments are something to take pride in, the functional retirement of that hero from the mainstream formats means the decks we built and honed and won games with are now largely irrelevant. And while adult heroes can look forward to the occasional Living Legend format event, there's no such format for young heroes.

If you want to play Chane or Oldhim or Iyslander again, the adult Living Legend format exists for that. Hell, one day when Benji and Arakni, Solitary Confinement LL, you can play sealed Outsiders to put them on the table again. But Ira and Kassai are unique for the moment, in that they lack adult forms to utilize in Living Legend format and don't exist within a draftable set.

For the moment, cards like Blood on Her Hands and Whirling Mist Blossom have no use. In the case of the former, that may very well continue to be the case; while the hero is slated to return in the upcoming Heavy Hitters set, she doesn't have the same hero power, and is unlikely to make much use of the specialization that's defined her endgame.

And the latter? With no signs of Ira on the horizon, it's simply benched for the time being - though it's flexible enough that I'd expect any future incarnation of the hero to field it.

Ultimately, it's okay if cards circulate out of use for a while. There are plenty of cards in my collection whose lot in life it is to fill boxes. But there's an acute pain to it when the outlook is as bleak as it is for Kassai, Cintari Sellsword and her specialization. As a fan of the character, I'm glad to see her attain a more prominent role in 2024 - but as a fan of the deck, I'm already nostalgic for the gameplay I'm losing.

If I'm gonna be honest here, I don't even know that there should be a 'young' Living Legend. Is there an audience for such a thing? With 'adult' Living Legend already acting as a rare exhibition format, where would you even fit a 'young' Living Legend event in the social calendar? Does the gameplay of Blitz even feel like a legendary fight? Can you make a showcase of it?

What I've casually sidestepped so far is that Kassai and Ira are not actually the first young heroes to leave the Blitz format. Indeed, we've seen a few who never had a chance to compete there at all. (Alas, poor Yorick.)

Currently, Kassai and Ira have two formats they're eligible for. As part of the early crop of low-rarity heroes (before LSS began distributing heroes at Majestic rarity), both Kassai and Ira are legal in the Commoner format - albeit, without many of their most exciting cards. And there's also Ultimate Pit Fight, as Round the Table's inclusion of Ira would have you remember. (I have thoughts on that.) In either case, it feels ironic to say, "This character had to leave competitive play - but have fun with them in the casual formats!"

The ability to play retired young heroes in these formats, however, are predicated on these formats actually being played. Armories will need to start incorporating Commoner and UPF into their rotations if we're going to attempt to use these formats as consolation for the young legends.

Which brings me to the unfortunate dynamic of a retired Ira and the Welcome decks. For years, Flesh and Blood welcomed players to the game with a simple hero they could build up and play in one of the premiere formats of Armory events. Ira provided stability as they learned the ins and outs of FAB gameplay and, eventually, began to explore the other heroes and classes of the game. Even Round the Table reaffirmed this role, justifying its inclusion of Ira as the 4th hero as a form of continuity for the new player experience.

Now, Ira is a dedicated learner's tool, one that new players have to let go of before they can compete (community builders, stock up those young Katsus and Benjis). It may finally be time for a new demo deck.

So young legends need a place to play. But a young Living Legend format feels redundant, Commoner is too restricted to feel the full glory of the deck you once loved, and Ultimate Pit Fight is too chaotic to take seriously. Where should the Cintari Sellsword and the Crimson Haze go to rekindle their sparks?

Perhaps the answer lies in PVE?

Finding our young heroes reuniting as allies against a greater threat feels like a natural evolution. So far, LSS has showed a predilection for their 'friendly' designs to show up on young heroes - think Brevant, Melody, the Merchants, and even the Adjudicators. That points toward an intent to use young heroes in any future format where players are aligned.

The performance of young legends would serve as a great benchmark for the difficulty of any shared opponent. "If Kassai, Ira, Chane, and Oldhim feel challenged to defeat Ursur, then we've got the power level calibrated correctly." The designation of those heroes as Living Legends would also cue players toward heroes they may want to consider for their united rosters.

If LSS wants these specific versions of Kassai and Ira to be relevant in any way going forward, I believe a move like this is exactly what it's going to take: a unique gameplay experience that carves out its own audience, rather than impersonating the appeal of another.