Building your Guardian Inventory

Not sure where to start with your collection for Guardian? This is going to be a look at what is available to Guardians from the affordable and cheaper important staples to the high end pieces to invest in for future use. We’ll speak to why we should choose some cards, we’ll talk price points as we scale up in value, we’ll talk about the market of Flesh and Blood as a whole a little bit and the best way to approach entering the game in these articles.

At this point in your Flesh and Blood journey I am to assume you’ve tried some other classes and have landed on Guardian as your decision. Now you want to dig into the class and start your collection for it, so we’ll start at the ground level of important things for the class. Personally I think this is the best way to approach this game, with investing into a class, to get full use of your investment to play the game.

When playing Guardian we need to have a Strong Blue Base in order to cast all of our cool expensive cards. We try to accomplish a strong blue base by having cards that are also going to provide value in our second cycle and on after we pitch them, but also provide a strong attack or effect if needed on a weird turn. Starting off let’s look at Debilitate.

Debilitate is an awesome card for quite a few reasons. Costs 4, leaving us with 2 pitch floating on 2 blues and is a perfect target for a Pummel. Also achieveable later on in our Guardian journey if we Pop a Fyendal’s Tunic and pitch a Blue too we can cast this. We also get a pretty good Crush trigger and can help justify Debilitate as our Pummel target. Block 3 is also important too. Second card to add to our collection is Chokeslam and we’ll want both Blue and Red versions of this card.

Chokeslam is a good card in both Red and Blue, personally I prefer using the red more as Sideboard card, but I think an argument could be made to use this in your main deck, especially early on. Again with a cost of 4, this falls in line with the same line of logic as Debilitate above as a greal pummel target. We love 3 blocks and on hit effects. The next card we will bring up is of similar stats, but will pair well especially with a card we will speak to later on in this article, and that is Buckling Blow.

These cards were speaking about right now are all of similar stat lines and with On-Hit effects, some good in all scenarios, some good with specific use cases, but all are great in the guardian collection and we’re still talking about cards that are under 10 cents typically. Buckling Blow is a card that is going to create serious consequences later on in the game if we can get our Crush trigger. This is due to the fact that we should be running Mangle in our decks and especially alongside Buckling Blow in my opinion. Mangle is another card that is very important for Guardian and only slightly higher on the price ladder, but nothing substantial and well get to that card soon enough. For now Buckling Blow is a card I prefer in Red, but again a decent Blue option if needed. The next card is Cartilage Crush.

Cartilage crush is an amazing card, 3 cost and swings for 7 with a very strong crush effect. From a budget standpoint, this card can be a top end damage dealer, but ideally this would be a great sideboard card against decks that go wide. I only prefer this card in Red and none of the other colors because a Blue that swings for 5 is not going to be ideal and ill speak to why that is soon. Ehh, let’s speak to that line of logic now, its quick. We want things that Attack for 6 or more in the event we need to fight Illusionists because theyre attacks have Phantasm and can be “Popped” with attacks that are 6 or more power and we have a lot of them! Heres another card that follows similar lines of logic as Cartilage Crush and thats Crush the Weak.

Crush the Weak is awesome and I currently use it as a sideboard option, but this is definitely a crush trigger that can hit quite a lot of targets and could be used as a great top end option in your main deck. I think this one is going to be the highest cost cheap card at maybe 25 cents on the low end of our list since Slippy and Cindra are very prominent right now, but this one is great to have in your collection. The next card is going to be Macho Grande

Macho Grande is a great Top End Damage dealer thats going to deal a ton of damage AND have Dominate on it which is great for closing out games. I think this card gets more online if you have means of creating Seismic Surge tokens, even making just one makes this card a 2 Blue pitch which is pretty good! Speaking of Creating Seismic Surge tokens, this next card has the ability to do just that, this card has somewhat fallen out of favor, but for budget lists and maybe potential play again in the future, Thunder Quake is a fun card.

Thunder Quake on its own without the Heave trigger can be cast with 2 blues, which is decent, but with the heave trigger this opens up a lot more possibilities for us for blocking out effectively or pumping if we can. Swinging for 8 or 10 respectively is definitely something that demands attention. Now it’s time to talk about a card that is very near and dear to me as a Jarl main, but this is a card I brought up earlier that pairs really well with Buckling Blow and that is Mangle.

Mangle is an 8 power for 4 cost with a devastating Crush effect to destroy equipment. This pairs with Buckling Blow because that will put a counter on something and this will either force the block, or if we land the crush trigger to blow it up entirely. The more you play, the more you will figure out which targets are priority and it can swing a game in yoru favor a bit if achieved. This card is very low cost and can be very good to add to your collection. While we’re still at our very affordable portion of this article, let’s talk weapons. Personally theres 2 for me at this moment, Titan’s Fist and Sledge of Anvilheim.

Titan’s Fist is a great Weapon for us because a lot of the time we are able to pitch 1 blue and swing for 4 which is a breakpoint. This helps up with our fatigue gameplan by getting to second and third cycles efficiently while generating some pressure. many times we can block out a whole turn leaving one blue up and swing face…or Ally at this point. Then theres the Sledge! This bad boy comes in when you need to smack down some stuff, either Guardians or Warriors, also bring it in for wizards and I think theres a justification to bring it in for Runeblades, but dont trust me on that, Runeblades are annoying. Sledge is awesome because its accessible with one blue pitch and a Fyendals Tunic Trigger (When you do decide to invest there) and swings for 6. I think its very important to have these two weapons in your collection and every decklist. It’s important to swap out weapons and Shield when not needed in certain matchups. This next card is going to jump us up in price a little bit to typically around $6 to $8 dollars. I run this as a 2 of in my sideboard and its Spinal Crush.

A 5 Cost 9 Power is pretty good, but with a Crush effect that removes Go Again…. we immediately see why this is a GREAT Sideboard card into decks that want to go wide. You can completely gain tempo with this card by either 1, actually triggering crush, or 2 forcing a massive block from the opponent, getting at leasst 2 cards usually. So Far of the cards we’ve talked about, I really enjoy having access to this because its a Sideboard tech that can fit into any guardian, always and forever. Let’s keep this trend with cost and take another step upwards to the $10 dollar mark. This next card is amazing, 3 Cost Blue that Blocks 3, providing a massive pump to our attacks and thats Tear Asunder.

I’ve gained tempo with this card, and I’ve won games with this card. The card itself is an amazing shell as I just stated as a Blue Block 3, but the trigger to add +1 to power, give an attack dominate AND if it hits discard 2 cards. wow, its just too good and should always be a 3 of in your deck it feels like. Again, this one costs more than all of the cards we’ve talked about before, but this is a Main deck 3 of. Dont forget, this pumps your hammers too, those are Guardian Attacks. While we’re talking about good blue cards, we’re going to go over an attack I admittadly missed earlier, Cranial Crush.

Cranial Crush is good, 6 Cost 8 Power crush to negate draw cards and Block 3. I do run this main deck to help with my Blue count more than anything, I think it does have a place in your collection, and in your decks. The way I use Jarl, its for my Blue count, the way it might fit into your other guardians, it could be a legit powerful attack to depend upon. An argument could be made its a Sideboard card only, but for $3 usually, I enjoy having access to 3 of this Blue in my main deck.

All in all, I think these cards are very important to create a base level for your Guardian collection. Theres definitely some specific cards that other Guardians need to have and one day I will write an article detailing those and why, but I could only speak to Jarl at this point in great detail. Once the Guardian Mastery Pack releases and we have access to some cool mill tech, I will be exploring other Guardians and cannot wait to write for that too.

- Thank You for your time in reading this article (Douken)