The Jarl Factor

I have mentioned in some of my articles that Jarl was my hero of choice when coming to Flesh and Blood. After many months of grinding out playlines and matches, we are at the point where I want to bring you all a fine tuned decklist with Matchup insights and also go over the things I’ve added, tested and why I may have moved on from them. The final decklist is the one I will be brining to SCGCon Orlando for the ProQuest+ Event. Welcome, to the Jarl Factor.

This is my Final Decklist I will be running, we’ll go through this in the way ive parced it out in the image uploads. Lets start with my Equipment Suite:

Base of the Mountain: For a while I was running Mage Master Boots, but in this deck we only had ONE legit target and that was Crumble to Eternity. Yes its cool being able to pop boots, play CTE and swing something. but its just…cute and less effective or reliable. From there I went to running Well Grounded, which has much more flexibility and reliability as it’ll get used every match. I do think its a great budget boot if you can’t get Base of the Mountain or Quickdodge Flexors. But we have settled on Base of the Mountain for 2 reasons, 1. I opened it, its mine and we’re gonna run it. 2, Quickdodge Flexors are up to about One-Million Dollars and I just didn’t want to do that, admittedly it would’ve been one of the last pieces I needed, but Base of the Mountain has been fine!

Being able to have a way to get around Dominate or Overpower does have some usability, but also I think for at this current meta, being able to throw two 3 blocks and my boots at a 3rd Conquerer of the Sea is a perfect full block and a window to try and get some tempo. With that being said, dont be afraid to use Well Grounded as a budget option.

Fyendal’s Spring Tunic: This was one of the first pieces I invested in for Flesh and Blood for its versaility in MANY decks. Yes it was a big purchase, but this card is just too good. Initially, we were running the Armory Deck provided Tectonic Crust, but I gradually crafted my decklist to be more ice focused and rendered this far less use. Theres MANY important points of use in your matches for Jarl that we get to see awesome power from this card.

Pitch 3, Play Command and Conquer with Tunic up threatens the Pummel. It’s quite literally Bread and Butter.

Pitch 3, pop Tunic, Swing Sledge of Anvilheim in the matches we bring that in is a great 1 card swing for 6!

All Red Hand? We can get by when that happens with access to popping the tunic.

and Finally, Pitch 3, pop tunic to gain access to a one card Mangle if we dont have Pitch 6 to utilize our gauntlets and need to swing it.

Gauntlets of the Boreal Domain: These gloves are AWESOME and is one of our best finishers with a 10 power dominated Mangle. Having access to that with one Crumble to Eternity, or Pulse of Isenloft is incredibly strong and helps with our Pitch 6 Swing with a pumped mangle. Personally, this is the main reason to get the Armory Deck for Jarl.

Plume of Evergrowth: The Armory Decklist comes with Ollin’s Ice Cap and its a decent headpiece, but Plume is just so good offensively. The main card we like returning to hand is Felling of the Crown. A 4th Felling of the Crowns is honestly, pretty awesome! At Instant Speed we can also do some very clutch timing plays by getting it back and loading our arsenal at end of turn, or getting it at end of opponents turn and swinging HARD if we can continue tempo given our hand.

Stalagmite, Bastion of Isenloft: Here is one of the main reason to be playing Jarl, The Stalagmite! I bought this at the peak of its value and its come down some since then, justifiably so since Constructed only sees 1 hero using it and its not the Meta, but there will come a time when its back in favor, I feel it in my bones. For now, this shield is just so good and should probably be one of the first pieces of Equipment you upgrade from the Armory Deck. Giving Frostbite tokens on block can totally derail a turn and especially against a Ninja or an Assassin, one thing costing just one more could be devastating and lets us live. This actually gives us 2 total frosbite triggers and esentially extends our life for 2 turns, thats so valuable.

Titan’s Fist: The Armory Deck comes with Summit and while it is an awesome card in both flavor and how it looks, costing 6 to swing for 6 is quite a bit and incentivizes us to block with our shield a little too early to get full value out of it. I think the argument can be made that if we are playing Full Fatigue then summit is GREAT, but Jarl is not the best fatigue guardian right now and we need to be more precise with our blocking and crack backs, we have good aggression and can make due with our strong blocks. We’ll talk about our Sideboard Sledgehammer later, but that is what is replacing Summit. Titan’s Fist 9 times out of 10 has us pitching 3 and swinging 4 because we run a good amount of 3 cost blue cards in this deck. And that rounds out our Equipment Suite. Lets start looking at the Main Deck.

Cadaverous Tilling: This card is a great card to get our Decomposing started as we get full value out of it with just the banish and not needing 4 cards in Banish already. Pitch 3 Swing 8 is incredibly good, plus the Mark Poole art is always awesome.

Command and Conquer: One of the best attack actions in the game. We get arsenal destruction and a way around defense reactions. This is one of the best Pummel targets also.

Felling of the Crown: This is the Strongest Earth attack right now, we do want to use this ideally when we have 4 earth in Banish zone to get max value. Swing 8 Take a card from hand is awesome and if we can make it so this and the card we are pitching are the last 2 cards in hand we achieve legendary maximum value. Pitch 3, Swing 8, Take a card from hand demands a block. So we effectively take at least 2 cards from their hand. This is our main Plume Target.

Mangle: This card is a powerhouse and one of our 2 ways of threatening equipment destruction. Mangle is an amazing finisher when combined with Gauntlets, pitch 6, use 2 on gauntlet and 4 on mangle is a clean pitching and in some cases we get both triggers from gauntlet and swing a 10 dominate into their face.

Oaken Old: I know earlier I said Stalagmite is the main reason to play Jarl right now, guess what, I lied. ok, I only sort of lied because while that is true, Oaken Old is the Offensive reason to play Jarl. This card is absolutely devestating and should always be fused. I’ve recently added two more Ice cards into the decklist to help facilitate this more, but getting this with a CTE or a Pulse is backbreaking for the opponent. Oaken Old is the most affordable and most impactful upgrade the Jarl Armory Deck.

Pummel: oh Pummel what an awesome card. Pummel hits almost every card in our deck and I say almost because our Sideboard has E-Strikes in them. I have settled on having 2 of these in deck and not the degenerate 3 of. While I am sad I do not run 3 of, 2 is more realistic as we need to find ways to incorporate more ice and earth cards in the deck. Having 2 of these is fine and it will always keep an opponent honest if they see 2 and have to respect the 3rd eventually, even if we dont have it.

Rootbound Carapace: This is a perfect Defense Reaction for us and aside from Cadaverous Tilling, this is our other Priority early Decompose Trigger because we dont need to have cards already banished to take full advantage of it.

Sink Below: This is the best defense reaction in the game in my opinion and ive spoken about this card in a couple articles. This is a card that everyone should buy and add to their collection because its used in every deck. Being only like $2 its amazing for covering blocks , battling attack reacts and hand filtering when needed. it achieves a lot for us.

Plow Under: I have recently adjusted my list to run this as a 2 of instead of 3 for a couple reasons. 1. Without Decompose trigger active swinging for 2 is butt. and the main reason to run this is for its arsenal disruption while swinging from arsenal for max legendary value. I have been in many a situation where this card is seen early and i just really dislike it. Dont get me wrong, block 3 load up graveyard for other decompose is cool. but if im going to take on an attack action that absolutely needs decompose triggers like this I want 3 of to be Felling. This card was recenlty a cut target of mine to add in another ice card we will bring up shortly. It’s accomplishing what my Command and Conquer does too so, I think its the right call and who knows maybe it needs to go down to 1.

Autumn’s Touch: Here it is the Blue Block 3 Earth card you’ve all been waiting for! im not like…mad when I have to swing with it because its stronger than my Titan’s Fist, but i’d just rather not. NEXT!

Channel Lake Frigid: This card is really cool! honestly its Frigid. ok….forget I even tried that, but i’ve been writing this article for a while. You still awake? Cool, lets keep going. Palying this to get a Frostbite trigger on equipment to double up for their turn is awesome. This thing only costing 2 so we can swing a hammer with another pitch after is sweet or even a pop tunic swing command and conquer. Having Go Again is a delicacy in Guardian so enjoy this one. This card can lock up ninjas and assassins like nobodies business.

Channel Mount Isen: This is the card im bringing in now to up my Ice card count. I was going to do Winter’s Grasp, but in reality that wouldve just been for a blue block 3. While this achives that, this can provide a way to close out a game without interaction and possibly not even on your turn! I stepped away from this card for quite some time, but I will be running it at SCGCon Orlando and I think i’m finally at a point to understand its true value. This is being run as just a 2 of at the moment.

Cranial Crush: This is a card im never mad at seeing in my hand , it does swing big and blocks well. the 6 Cost is kinda steep and has its preferred matchups to use in. I mostly block with this, but I have been known to crush some craniums also. This helps us with our Blue count in this deck. Also this was recently the other target for our Channel Mount Isen to get our Ice count up a bit more since i do tend to block with this card often.

Crumble to Eternity: This is a great Specialization card as its the one thing that allows us to target equipment and blow it up with Mangle or Frozen to Death. It does take an investment of a turn and slows us down, but sometimes thats necessary. For instance we CANNOT Beat Gravy bones unless we use this card on compass. Because we have CTE in our deck we always have a Viable option to go first in all of our matchups. Allowing us to target crucial equipment on Turn 0. This card also fuses Oaken Old and Satisfies both trigger reqs for our Gauntlets in one card.

Everbloom // Life: This has been a fun card in the deck. it allows us to gain 1, cool. it allows us to have some self recursion in fatigue matchups and keep gaining more, ok sweet. But above all else….you ready for it? This thing gets back Enlightened Strikes for us when needed and thats awesome in our sideboarded games.

Frozen to Death: This card is amazing in our deck as it presents Equipment destruction that cannot be interacted with…aside from your opponent blowing up their own equipment on maybe an instant trigger, but REGARDLESS we got there and got them to use it when not best more than likely. When we do get the most important piece of equipment blown up. This is a Blue block 3 or an Ice card for fusion. This card is a necessary 3 of in this current meta with gravy bones being so prevelant and the urgency to get rid of compass.

Fruits of the Forest: This card pulls a lot of weight here. between life gain, pitching for 3, also triggering Titan’s Fist for 4 power. ontop of that this can be a CLUTCH instant speed discard to satisfy a decompose trigger.

Glacial Footsteps: As far as our High cost Block 3 Blue cards in the deck I enjoy having this one used offensively with a fusion. 8 Dominate is great. That rhymes so it has to be true.

Imposing Visage: Again, in the current meta this card is a necessary 3 of as it gets our Crumble to Eternity and increases our chances of a Turn 0 CTE on compass. in other matchups its still increasing our turn 0 CTE Target on other important equipment. This also satisifes out 3 Cost Pitch for Titan’s Fist.

Pulse of Isenloft: This Defense React has saved me many a times. For both a strong double fusion on gauntlet or Oaken Old and blocking 6 and increasing blocks on cards defending.

Tear Asunder: This was featured in our Guardian article prior to this as a very important card and wont break the bank. This card is important as both just hand disruption and as an effective closer, pumping both our hammer and attack actions.

Winter’s Bite: This card is great cheap hand disruption with GOOO AGAAAINNNN. This card satisfies our fusions too. Theres no need to run the yellow of red version of this because its always going to take one card regardless. This rounds out our Main Deck, now lets take a quick look at our Sideboard cards.

SIDEBOARD

Your sideboard will change depending on what the current meta is calling for sometimes and for right now we are needing to focus on Gravy Bones, Cindra and Slippys as some of the most represented decks we can expect to run into. As for Verdance, the best sideboard option is to hope we dont play against her at all and even then we have a 50/50 on that… anyways…

Enlightened Strike: We run 3 of these. This card we bring in for Gravy Bones, and I do tend to bring it in for Verdance too. In the Gravy Bones matchup we dont need Pummel so this comes in for that and for one other card to take out it’s okay if we take out a Cadaverous Tilling, or even maybe a single channel mount isen. But the main focus here is we need access to Go Again to try and get a 2 ally kill on a turn to try and keep up. We also bring this in when we shed Defense reacts against wizards too.

Ice Quake: We run this as a 2 of. This gets brought in against any Ninjas or Assassins. I could see use bringing it in against Warriors. For right now we bring this in for Slippy and Cindra 100%, any pitch value disruption is key to our survival.

Spinal Crush: This is a 2 of. Keeping in line with the previous matchups, we want to bring these in for the Slippys and Cindras. Any High Count Red decks, they always have a lot of go again. This card is swinging big and either demanding cards from hand, or negating their next turn with losing go again.

Arcane Compliance: This is a one of for us. We bring this in against wizards, in specific Kano. But it can see use against an Oscilio or a Verdance that doesnt do their OTK properly maybe. This comes in for many of our Defense reacts.

Arcane Lantern, Nullrune Boots, Nullrune Hood: This is our Arcane Suite we bring in against Wizards and Runeblades. Against Runeblades I like bringing in jsut the Boots, I feel like thats the least amount of impact item leaving us instead of a potential 4th Felling of the Crown, or our Stalagmite there. For wizards We bring in the full suite.

Sledge of Anvilheim: And for our last sideboard piece, its the big hammer! This is our 2 hander we bring in against Guardians. We want to block big and swing back big! Its okay to block our for multiple turns, pitch 1 blue and pop a tunic to swing 6. As long as were swinging our weapon bigger than them, I think we’re in a good spot for the long match.