The time for rest and relaxation has now passed, but strong lights are still shining upon us all. September is here with a whole lot of news to cover from the world of Rathe, and some major happenings for our in-store events.
September Events:
This month may seem a little relaxed at first glance when we take a look at the formats for our weekly Armory events, but rest assured that the overall picture is anything but. During the first Armory of the month, we’ll be running our last Monarch draft in preparation for Nationals. Speaking of Nationals, we’re crossing our T’s and dotting our I’s making sure everything is ready for the momentous occasion. This is the biggest competitive event the Cyprus TCG scene has seen in years. Make sure you have your ticket booked and are getting that Monarch draft and Classic Constructed practice in while you can. Legendary cold foil, Champion Trophy and lots of booster boxes are up for grabs, and even if you don’t do as well as you may have hoped, the sweet Cold Foil Prism Awakener of Sol all participants receive will be sure to sweeten the bitter taste of defeat. The Flesh & Blood Cyprus Champion will be crowned on the 9th of September. Will that be you?!?
The rest of the month’s schedule will be more relaxed and laid back, with a couple of fast and furious blitz Armories, and one final CC Armory before we bid adieu to this season of FaB and usher in the season of the Mech! The next set, “Bright Lights” which we delved deep into all the details we have so far in this video, is coming out early October, and that means Pre-Release is happening on the 30th of September. More details about the prerelease itself will be coming out soon so make sure to check our socials for any updates. For now, just note the date on your notepad, crank those cogs for maximum velocity and get ready to go from zero to sixty on your way to Metrix, the city of Bright Lights.
Armory Prizes:
For our armory prizes this month, the lights keep on shining through, with some Light cards from Dusk Till Dawn.
- Winner of each armory receives a Cold Foil “Beaming Blade”
- 2nd-7th place receive one Extended Art Rainbow Foil “Break of Dawn” of the pitch value of their choice
- The player who has shown the greatest community contributions by the end of the month will receive a “Bellona Archangel of War” playmat
'Dusk Till Dawn' Playmat Bounty:
- Data Doll MkII
- Prism, Awakener of Sol / Prism, Advent of Thrones
- Vynnset, Iron Maiden
- Boltyn
- Benji, the Piercing Wind
- Emperor, Dracai of Aesir
- Genis Wothuneed
- Kano, Dracai of Aether
- Kavdaen, Trader of Skins
- Kayo, Berserker Runt
- Riptide, Lurker of the Deep
- Shiyana, Diamond Gemini
- Valda Brightaxe
- Yoji, Royal Protector
- Dorinthea Quicksilver Prodigy
- Arakni
- Azalea
- Katsu
- Additionally, if any player wins an entire Armory event with any of the above heroes in red, they will receive a First Edition Monarch booster!
Blitz Changes:
During August Skirmish Season 7 took place. Lots of LL points were awarded to winning heroes, in a meta that had its own unique spin on the Blitz format. For the first time ever, LSS had changed the rules regarding deck construction and pre-game preparations for the Blitz format specifically taking place for Skirmish events this season. This effectively gave players a small sideboard of cards that didn’t just have to be equipment. This allowed heroes to remain flexible on their approach to each matchup in more than just their equipment or weapon selection. This change proved itself quite popular with the community and gave LSS a good indication of a blanched metagame in the Blitz space so much so that they deemed this change something worthy of implementing into the format as a whole moving forward. Here are the changes you should be aware of:
- Your Blitz deck must now include a hero card and up to 52 other cards. These 52 slots can contain a mix of cards that go in your main deck (deck cards), or cards you can equip/that exist in your inventory (arena cards).
- At the start of the game, players reveal their heroes simultaneously, decide who is going first, then each player presents to their opponent a shuffled main deck of exactly 40 cards, plus any weapons and equipment they want to start the game with. Any non-presented cards reside in player inventories.
Further to the above points, an out-of-schedule ban was announced along with these changes, banishing the original black sheep of FaB back to the shadow realm where it belongs. Drone of Brutality is banned again in the Blitz format.
These changes as well as the bounty we’ve placed on some underrepresented heroes should bring some more excitement to our Armories this month, especially since we’ll be starting and ending the month with some big-hype events.
National Championships Around the World:
The National Championship season has officially kicked off around the world as of last week. In total, 20 countries have crowned their National Champion already. Some of these events have also had simultaneous Calling, Battle Hardened or PTI events further helping several heroes gain a bunch of LL points. 24 more countries, (including Cyprus) are left to host their respective National Championships to finish off the Dusk Till Dawn competitive season. We’ll see where everything stands once the dust settles.
The first weekend of National Championships is in the books and boy, have there been some major shake-ups already. To rip the bandaid off quickly for our fellow runeblade enjoyers, Briar has hit Living Legend, with the win of the innovative fatigue list piloted by Charles Dunn at the US Nationals. Perhaps more importantly, she will be taking Rosetta Thorn with her to the land of Legends, until further notice, forcing the remaining Runeblades to find different avenues of attack.
Lexi has expectantly taken the lion’s share of Living Legend points, not only on the back of 8 wins in National Championship events during the weekend, but also due to the 100-point chunk earned from Yuki Lee Bender’s win at the Calling Las Vegas.
Some unexpected winners arose in Kano, Dash and Dorinthea from some large National Championships, and we have even seen a Rhiner and Boltyn achieve gold in a couple of Nats too.
If you would like a deeper look into this Nationals Season and all the LL points being awarded, take a look at this video series where we explore all the details here.
There’s still a lot to happen this month that we don’t have the full details for. Ban and Suspended announcement is happening on the 19th, the full implications of LL points being awarded to some heroes, pre-release information and let’s not forget the official start date for Bright Lights spoiler season being the 22nd. We’ll do our best to keep everyone up to date with all the latest goings on, so make sure to be checking back for new blog posts.