Is it just me? The word ‘tempo’ in TCG sounds a bit too abstract and sometimes confusing. Today I am taking a deep dive into the ‘tempo’ in Flesh and Blood.
Background
The definition of the word ‘tempo’ is the rate or speed of motion or activity; pace. It has then applied to the game like chess. From there, the word found its place in the TCG like Magic the Gathering.
Personally, the word made more sense by going back to its origin, and think it as ‘speed/pace’ and use analogy in race. Today, we will be looking into the definition, property and importance of the “tempo” in Flesh and Blood TCG using the analogy.
| TCG | Race |
|---|---|
| Player | Runner |
| Tempo | Running speed/pace |
| Gaining Tempo | Accelerate |
| Losing Tempo | Decelerate |
| Taking opponent’s life to 0 | Goal |
| Starting life of the opponent’s hero | Distance to the goal |
Two players play to take their opponent hero’s life down to zero before they take your hero’s life first is analogous two runners race to get the goal first. If two are running at the same pace, it means two has the same tempo.
Tempo Advantage
If the timing of the start and distance to the goal are the same, runners running at the same pace/tempo will arrive to the goal at the same time. This is independent of the actual pace/tempo. The race is a tie. In FAB, there is first and second player, the first player will win in this situation by a single turn.
What determines who wins race is overall average pace relative to the other runner. Therefore, what’s important here is not the actual pace, but relative pace in reference to the opponent. Similarly, the cumulative tempo gain determines the winner in TCG i.e. tempo advantage is what’s important.
Tempo is transient
No runner can nor try running at the same pace for entire race. Similarly, tempo in FAB changes one moment to another. This variance may be from the variance in card draw as well as player’s intentional tempo control.
Gaining tempo is not the same as winning a game
If two are running for the same distance, the runner with higher average pace will win the race, but what if the goal to the distance is different?
In FAB, there are heroes with different starting health. So if the cumulative tempo were the same, the hero with lower starting health will lose the game. Also, in the race, even if you out pace opponent and lead the race at one point, the opponent may out pace you later and could even win the race. Or you may outpace opponent but it may not be enough to close the lead the other runner gained over you earlier.
What these situations exemplify is the fact even if you are gaining tempo at one moment, it does not mean you will win the game nor you are leading the game at the moment.
How to measure tempo?
So how do we measure a temp win FAB? The answer is inning expressed value. Inning is not an official term. I define an inning as two turns together after the second player takes their action phase turn. The difference in tempo is therefore, the difference in inning expressed value between players. So the player who has greater inning expressed value has gained the tempo that inning.
Tempo in FAB = Inning Expressed Value
Let’s take a look at example using a match where wizard is on one end. Games with wizard have a bit harder time figuring out who has gained the tempo due to the hero being able to attack even during opponent’s turn.
Above is the 2022 world championship final match tempo graph. It was a match between Hamilton’s Iyslander (Bullander) vs. Iaali’s aggro Briar’s deck. While both players continue to lose their life, the casters implied the game was under Hamilton’s control throughout the match. The tempo graph actually confirms this.
During the first two innings, Hamilton gains 13 points worth of tempo advantage. On the third inning, the key card for Aggro Briar deck, Channel Mount Heroic, was played. Hamilton loses his tempo during this inning, but he regains immediately after, which would had been more impactful turn for Briar player.
Indeed the key moment of this match was how Hamilton suppressed Channel Mount Heroic turns tempo. He was able to keep his tempo advantage even after the CMH turns. After the turn, neither got significant tempo while their life continues to reduce. At the end, Hamilton won the game by inflicting 7 arcane damages during opponent’s turn using Stormstrider synergy. The tempo graph illustrates Hamilton indeed stayed in lead from the beginning to the end.
Why is tempo important?
Each deck has its own timing of when they should gain a tempo, and its own way of gaining the tempo. One can view FAB’s match as each player trying to gain the tempo at their ideal timing and minimize opponent’s turn while they want to gain their tempo. In another word, understanding the tempo of the deck is equivalent of understanding the deck’s play style.
understanding the tempo of the deck is equivalent of understanding the deck’s play style.
How do you gain a tempo?
So how do you gain a tempo? There are three categories of how to gain a tempo.
Life or tempo
Attacks always pressure on two fronts: life total, and tempo. As defenders, we often choose to give away one to maintain the other. And as attackers, we usually have one we’d prefer to impact.
Rathetimes: Alex Truell – 10 mistakes we’ve all madeより
The most classic way is to trade your life for tempo. When you believe the cards in your hand can inflict more total damage than the damage you will be inflicted by your opponent, you would not use those card for biock. As a result you will lose your life points, but if you can impose more total damage to your opponents on your turn, you have gained the tempo during that inning.
Let’s take a look at real world example. It is from 2022 world championship, semifinal round. It’s an ultimate aggro match between Fai and Briar.
The Briar player had an ideal first turn hand and able to set Channel Mount Heroic.
On turn 2 (second player’s first turn), the Fai player knew Briar player will try taking tempo next turn so there won’t be blocking any on this turn. So this is a guaranteed tempo gaining turn for the Fai player. In order to keep up with the imminent massive attack turn from Briar, Fai player has determined he had to give as much damage as he can during this turn. Despite its being the first turn, he chose draw card mode on E-strike and gave it a go again by popping Snapdragon scaler.
The Briar player had Force of Nature in his hand, so he was certain that he could inflict greater amount of damage to the Fai i.e. gain the tempo on his next turn.
Hence, the Briar player has chosen not to block with any of his card. As a result, the Briar lost 15 life points in a single turn. On this inning, Fai has gained a tempo.
However, the next turn (Briar’s second attack turn), popping all available equipments, Briar imposed a massive 44 total damage to the Fai. Fai was forced to block some of the attack to avoid on-hit draw card triggers.
Fai’s life went down all way to 9 from the full health of 40. Briar player has indeed gained more than double tempo points this turn compared to the amount he had lost during the last turn. From there, the game was one-sided.
If the Briar player had blocked some of the Fai’s attack in order to preserve some of his life points, the result may have been different.
Tempo by Arsenal
Another common way of gaining tempo is by card advantage. By using Arsenal, one can convert typical 4 card hand into 5 card hand. At first with average expressed value of a card being 3, shifting a card from one turn to another may seem to have not much impact. However, when there is a synergy or combo, the impact is significant.
One of the good example here is combo aggro Fai deck’s Art of War combo turn.
Let’s say the player’s hand is like below.
Despite having combo key cards chain starter, Art of War and chain closer Lava Burst, the player could only do 10 points worth of expressed value i.e. imposing damage. This is due to the cost of Art of War.
Now let’s take a look at a case with 5 card hand. Assuming Art of War is in arsenal and forth card in hand is just basic Ronin Renegade red. This time one can trigger Fai’s hero ability, which allows Tigershuko stripe to trigger. In the end, the turn expressed value doubles to 20.
Tempo by Card/Synergy
While the other two methods were to gain tempo by increasing one’s own total attack expressed value, one can also reduce/disrupt opponent’s tempo. As a result, one gains tempo in overall game span. This method utilizes a card or synergy.
Channel Lake Frigid is one such example.
Normally with Fai’s ability and Tigerstripe Shuko, the hand above can impose 16 damages to opponent. However, when there is Chanel Lake Frigid on the field, this will be reduced to 6 damages. A significant loss in tempo for the Fai player.
The sideboard plans often incorporate these opponent tempo disruption tools.
For example, Chokeslam’s Crush effect can disrupt Fai’s Art of War combo turn mentioned above.
The 20 damage turn suddenly becomes 12 damage turn.
One must not mistaken that these method are the ATTEMPTS of you trying to gain a tempo. These method do not guarantee you gain the tempo as your opponent’s tries the same. Sometimes, if you bet wrong on the timing of you gaining a tempo, you may end up giving more tempo to the opponent.
Summary
Definition of Tempo
- Tempo in FAB is an inning expressed value.
- The player with higher inning expressed value has gained a tempo during the inning.
Learning points
- During one’s defense turn, a player is often asked to choose either giving up a tempo or life.
- One needs to understand how to gain a tempo in a given deck.