I think it's absolutely fine if new players aren't able to get Blackbird. I would even say blackbird is one of the worst watch cards to build for a new player. It's significantly more prone to getting orb trolled and punished significantly more for it as well. The crazy damage it outputs is overkill for all but one particular set of content. Also, why the hell are people giving that particular template team as advice for new players when it's not built to handle the other 90% of content that new players will definitely be encountering? Not to mention those teams end up looking super janky because of all the corners that have to be cut. Of course I'm not going to stop at broad remarks after taking a shot at the hottest new card. Lets get into it!

Okay, lets start off by talking about consistency that a new player will probably want. In terms of health, BB has amazing defense if you're counting the sweet LS 70% shield. However, what if you get orb trolled and can't activate your shield? You're essentially naked and depending on what content you're running, it can end right there. Most other watch leads have a 50% shield, which is enough for most content but they also have a huge flat hp multiplier to fall on if they can't activate.

Now you might be like "At least my daytona bros have been working with the same defensive mechanics right?". See, that's where you're also wrong when we take into account orb consistency. Daytona only needs 4 orbs to activate their defense which is way easier than BB's 6. BBs activation doesn't exist on a natural 6x5 board because statistically you're averaging 5 of each standard orb. Sure it gets better with the dark orb skyfall buff on first transform, but definitely not enough to be considered consistent, especially if the new player needs to actually eat hits before their final transformation. This gets way worse when you start seeing hazard falls. Sure, Nautilus also requires 6 mono orbs as well but there's a clear difference between 6 orbs or take a large hit and 6 orbs or die.

While we're on the subject of the standard 6x5 board, you know what else BB can't consistently do on a standard 6x5? VDP. After a skill activation every other watch lead can VDP (lets not talk about daytona subs) off of the average 10 orbs. BB needs 12 mono orbs to VDP and activate their shield/damage boost. Sure you can say that's what garou is for but it's still 2 actives and you can still get cockblocked by hazards or locked orbs. Sure you can take a few turns unlocking and fishing for the ideal board but do you really want to be doing that with a new and shiny card in old content when there are leads from a year ago that can speed right through? Not to mention every turn you're not killing on blackbird is more opportunities to just straight up die.

On the subject of having subs that can fix your problems, have you all considered how unfriendly this lead is for newbies in terms of team building? For those that don't know, each watch lead active scales off of a particular awakening by 10% each. 10c is still by far the hardest one to get. Most subs are either getting by with 1 and BB himself only provides 2. Meanwhile all his other watch bros are providing 3-4 each. His other watch bros can even use equips to further increase that burst so that they can run non contributing cards for pure damage. The only brother that shares this inability is sea wolf but sea wolf probably has the best sub pool out of the family.

Sure, you might be like "Team building so easy though, double garou is so accessible" but like have you ever considered what running double garou actually means in content not called MD2 and to a new player? Since you're running VDP super awakening you're left with 2 SB each. That means the remaining 2 subs and equips need to somehow make up the SB disparity, hazard resistance, the last bit of 10c, and of course handle the utility holes the MD2 setup just doesn't have. Sure you might say equips are amazing for just that and garou 2 turn cooldown is great for holding those. However, as previously stated, you're enticed to hit garou's active more than you'd like to admit. Also, since you're probably running DDC latent on garou, you're most likely taking the full skill delay. In addition, do you have any idea how hard it is to get an equip that covers a specific resistance, has a specific utility skill, and provides some sort of skill boost? Most of these are collab or seasonal exclusives that fresh players don't have access to. You can say "at least garou provides cloud resistance" but cloud is probably the easiest solved with the 10 roll remdra equip that provides bind immunity, cloud, and 3 effective skill boost.

Anyways, I could have gone further in my analysis but I actually don't have anything personal against BB and people who choose to play it. The 5 year old in me loves stealth fighters and I've been enjoying playing it this past week. I'm just sick of new players going through an emo phase that rivals even my own teenage years because they didn't get a card that couldn't even run effectively. I'm even more miffed at veterans trying to force terrible blackbird teams onto newbies/returners when there are way better options just because their monkey brain zeros in on it.