Greetings once again, everyone! I hope you’re all coping well in this current crisis, wherever you may find yourselves. I for one have found myself with a lot more time on my hands, and a lot more time to play Flesh and Blood (I’ve played one or two games nearly daily for the past few weeks).

This article is being written as there appear to be many new players appearing around in various places; as such, I’ve decided to write a primer on deckbuilding in order to help all of these new players get into the game quickly and effectively.

For those who aren’t already aware of it, I created a Tabletop Simulator mod that allows everyone to play Flesh and Blood online several weeks back (with the blessing of Legend Story Studios). Here’s the link to it:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033351668

Simply subscribe to the mod and you’ll be well on your way to playing this great game online. More details on how to use the mod can be found in the notebook within TTS, and on fabdb.net. Be sure to join the “Flesh and Blood TTS” group on Facebook as well, or the Discord server in order to organise games!

Without further ado, let’s dive into it!

Decide How You’re Going To Win

In Flesh and Blood, there is only one win condition: reducing your opponent to zero life. However, there are several means of achieving this, which can be summarised, in my opinion, into three major archetypes.

1 – Go-wide decks. Typically, these are aggressive decks which try and play multiple attacks with Go Again in order to make their attacks difficult to defend against (your opponent only has so many cards!). Typically, these decks play a lot of red pitch cards for maximum aggression, and tend to play primarily low cost cards to compensate. Cards that deal 4 damage tend to be crucial, as this is the threshold where you still deal damage even if your opponent blocks for 3 (which is often considered the average block). One of the strengths of these lists is that it’s quite hard for your opponent to know just how much damage you’re going to throw at him, so they end up blocking poorly. Common inclusions include Ravenous Rabble, Scar for a Scar, and Snatch. If you like the idea of unleashing a flurry of blows in order to overwhelm your opponent’s defences, look no further than go-wide decks.

2 – Go-tall decks. Rather than playing multiple smaller attacks, these decks try and play one larger attack to crush the opposition. They’ll try and use cards that make it harder for their opponent to defend, or otherwise boost up their attacks significantly. Go-tall decks also tend to rely on their “on-hit” effects to help pressure opponents. One of the strengths of these lists is that you can close out games more easily, as your opponent is usually rendered unable to defend effectively. More so than go-wide decks, these decks tend to rely on their in-class cards and abilities rather than sourcing aggressive generic options. Examples of classic Go-tall finishers include Alpha Rampage, Crippling Crush, and Arknight Ascendancy. If you like the idea of building up to a single, almighty blow the crush your opponent, then go-tall decks will appeal!

3 – Fatigue / Attrition decks. While go-wide and go-tall decks try and find ways to force enough damage through each turn to make it difficult to defend against, Fatigue/Attrition decks try and win through literally exhausting their opponent’s ability to attack and defend against them. If you’re playing a 60 card deck, you are surprisingly likely to run low on cards in deck, even in a game against non Fatigue / Attrition decks. When you’re playing against a style of deck that’s actively trying to exhaust your options, you can bet that they’re likely to succeed if you don’t come prepared. These decks rely heavily on their weapons, as using a weapon means they themselves are exhausting fewer cards. They try and include a high-number of defense reactions in order to keep themselves alive as long as possible, and to ensure they’re using as few cards as possible while defending. Common inclusions in these decks include Drone of Brutality, Sink Below, and Unmovable. If you like the idea of dancing around your opponent’s attacks and watching as they slowly but surely lose the energy required to fight, then fatigue / attrition decks are what you’re looking for!

One of the wonderful things about Flesh and Blood is that none of these deck-types are dominant; all three of them have the potential to win any game (as long as you’ve prepared yourself for combat against each of them).

Decide Who You’re Going to Win With

The eight heroes available in Welcome to Rathe + Arcane Rising provide a plethora of interesting play and flavour options. Below are brief introductions and descriptions on common playstyles of each of them:

Ah, Rhinar. My first love in Flesh and Blood. Rhinar is one of the only heroes in the game that can go for all three strategies (although I do believe that the attrition-fatigue strategy is slightly less competitive than the other two). In the go-tall strategy, Rhinar makes use of his naturally high-powered attacks and his printed ability to make defending against him awkward and difficult, if not impossible. There are few things scarier than your opponent managing to intimidate 3-4 cards from your hand before coming in for 10+ damage! In the go-wide strategy, Rhinar tends to completely forgo most of his 6+ attack cards in order to take full advantage of Scabskin Leathers, legendary boots potentially provide extra actions each turn. This allows Rhinar to make excellent use of many of the powerful generic options, such as Tome of Fyendal and Snatch. No matter what build you’re bringing, be sure to include Barraging Beatdown, Brute’s premier card and one of the most powerful aggressive cards in the game. What makes Rhinar tricky to play is that his cards have a lot of randomness in them (he is the only Hero that features dice-rolling and random discards). A savvy Rhinar player learns how to best manage his hands in order to mitigate random discards, as well as when is the best time to roll the dice and go for gold. Alternatively, if you’d like to just go wild, roll all the dice all the time and hope for the best!

Bravo, the very aptly named “Showstopper”, is all about going big. Both his weapon and his printed ability encourage you to play cards that cost three or greater, which pretty much means nearly every Guardian card ever. The most common Bravo decks tend to defend frequently with 1-2 cards a turn, then come swinging back with Anothos for a whopping six damage (the most out of any weapon in the game). On the turns where they have the right set-up, however, they can come crushing in with a huge dominating blow, with added nasty effects from the Guardian’s many crush abilities. These effects range from getting rid of your opponent’s arsenal, ripping apart their hand, or even just making their attacks weaker. Bravo tends to primarily fall into the go-tall category, but most Bravo decks can also naturally lend themselves into the attrition / fatigue playstyle too, as the class also boasts several defensive options, like Stonewall Confidence. In fact, one of the first decks that became popular in Welcome to Rathe was Guardian Fatigue, which is the namesake of the archetype!

Katsu decks tend to come in three main flavours – aggressive, go-wide decks that are heavily reliant on combos, or more defensive, fatigue / attrition style decks that try the ol’ “death by a thousand Harmonized Kodachi cuts” approach, or those that fall in the middle. The first deck-type is fairly straightforward; try and assemble two pieces of a combo in your hand, find a way to trigger Katsu’s ability to get the third, and go to town. A full-red Leg Tap Combo can threaten up to 18 damage, which is far above what most other aggro decks can push out consistently. The fatigue / attrition decks plays far more defense reactions and generally just sits backs, takes it slow, and throws out two Kodachi attacks a turn. While it might seem a bit silly to only throw two damage at your opponent when they’re threatening so much more per turn, you’d be surprised at just how effective those attacks can be; in fact, they were so effective that Sasha Markovic (also known as Markovictory) managed to win the first major constructed event for Flesh and Blood using such a deck (wonderfully named “Spaghetti Tornado”). The more middle-of-the-road deck tends to make use of the Surging Strike combo chain as well as the new Command and Conquer and Pummel, threatening huge damage on some turns and highly disruptive attacks on others, while still managing to sit-back and defend on others.

Dorinthea Ironsong decks tend to come in two flavours: go tall-decks focused on connecting multiple times with their weapon, or go-wide decks that mix in some generic attacks with Dawnblade strikes. One of the most important things about Dorinthea Ironsong is her access to a huge plethora of Attack Reactions. Often, this makes her incredibly hard to defend against, particularly in the later stages of the game, which therefore allows her to land the killing blow more effectively than most other classes. Her go-tall decks tend to be focused on making her weapon particularly threatening with power-ups like Ironsong Determination and Steelblade Supremacy, supplementing these with powerful Attack Reactions to force through damage. If Dawnblade ever manages to gain a counter on it, defending against Dorinthea becomes even more of a problem! Go-decks instead focus on common aggressive options like Flock of the Featherwalkers and Scar for a Scar in order to add varied forms of pressure into the mix. Dorinthea can set-up some killer turns that are virtually unmatched by any other class in turns of sudden, raw pressure, and she’s a master of maintaining the offensive turn-in and turn-out.

Dash is probably the most popular Hero to come out of Arcane Rising, owing to both her stellar artwork and her particularly unique card pool. Unlike other heroes, Dash has many cards which remain in play from turn-to-turn, allowing her to turbo assemble a powerful rig and then go to town. Dash comes in two major flavours; Fatigue / Attrition and Go-wide aggro. The Go-wide aggro primarily makes use of the wide range of powerful attacks with Boost available, mixing in a few of the more powerful generic actions (like Enlightened Strike), and topping it all off with some aggressive items which let her pump out an insane number of attacks per turn, sometimes more than even Ninja can! The Fatigue / Attrition version relies more on the combined use of Teklo Plasma Pistol and Induction Chamber to allow for multiple shots per turn, while using a wide range of defensive cards like Dissipation Shield in order to live long enough to outgun the enemy. Nick Butcher won the first large-scale constructed event after Arcane Rising’s release using a Fatigue / Attrition build that also had the option to force through single big attacks when required.

Azalea, my second love, can play both the Go-tall and Go-wide games in a single deck. Thanks to her plethora of cheap arrows, Azalea is able to play a lot of the more aggressive red generic cards without much concern, using her powerful arrow attacks in order to threaten both damage and potentially other hampering effects at the same time. Simultaneously, with the correct set-up, Azalea can make use of cards like Take Aim and Nimblism in order to set-up a huge arrow with Dominate, prevent the opponent from defending effectively and letting you secure the kill. As a result, I’ve personally found Azalea to be a very flexible and consistent aggressive hero. Azalea tends to be a little card-hungry, and she’s not as effective at defending as other heroes. In addition, she is one of the only heroes in the game (the other being Kano) that doesn’t have a weapon which she can deal damage with, meaning she has to be cautious about literally running out of things to attack with. The thing I most enjoy about Azalea is how thematic shooting arrows feels; the need to load up your arrow before shooting it just oozes flavour, and working out how to best play-out any of her turns optimally is always a fascinating puzzle.

The cursed Runeblade Viserai is the first hero in the game to focus on both Arcane damage and physical damage, making him more difficult to defend against effectively. His playstyle is a unique form of Go-tall in that, generally speaking, Viserai can spend turns setting up for one major attack, which can deal an insane amount of damage that is unmatched by any other class (except Wizard, coming soon). Viserai decks lend themselves to be a bit more defensive, switching between slow turns where you’ll build up Runechant tokens with Read the Runes and Mordred tide, and big damage turns where you’ll come crashing in with Arknight Ascension or Amplify the Arknight and a horde of Runechant tokens. Because Viserai’s attacks usually begin with a high cost that is lowered by Runechant tokens, he can really benefit from some of the more powerful generic buffs, like Pummel and Sloggism, allowing for some devastating and extremely difficult to defend attacks. Patience is the key to a good Runeblade player, and knowing how to sequence your non-attack actions to generate the most tokens is often critical.

Finally, we come to Kano. Kano is…weird. That’s really the only way to describe him. He’s the only hero in the game that starts at 30 life instead of 40, and the only hero in the game that’s able to play the game at instant speed thanks to his ability. He’s also the only hero in the game where the Go-wide, Go-tall, and Fatigue / Attrition labels don’t really work neatly.

So far, that I know of, nobody has been able to crack how to use Kano very efficiently. Many people have tried to go for huge combo decks that make use of cards like Reverberate, Sonic Boom, and Blazing Aether in order to take the opponent from 40 to 0 in a single turn after defending the whole game, but I’ve yet to see one in action that’s truly astounded me. Jason Chung, a member of Legend Story Studios, recently showcased a Wizard deck featuring a lot of Moon Wish and Sun Kiss in an effort to reduce his deck-size as quickly as possible, but I am still unconvinced. Perhaps you, new deckbuilders, will crack the mystery that is Kano, Dracai of Aether.

Decide What Colour You Need Your Cards to Be

Pitch cost is one of the trickier aspects in the game to get a handle on. As any card can be used for resources, you’re never particular worried about whether you can pay for cards or not. No matter what is in your hand, you know that you’ll always be able to pay for at least a single three resource effect on your turn, even with four reds in hand. However, the more cards you need in order to play out your turn, the fewer cards you’ll have spare to defend with, meaning you’re going to be taking more damage. On the flip side, if you play all blues, you’ll find that your attacks just aren’t anywhere near as scary as they could be, and your opponent may not feel the need to defend at all!

Here are some general guidelines I’d use to help determine what colour of a card to include in my deck:

-Does this attack feel threatening enough? If you need an attack to hit for an effect, I’d recommend aiming for four power at least. The reason is simple; most in-class cards defend for three, so they’ll need to use a second card to defend against it, which is a huge deal. There is a big difference between the strength of Red Snatch and Yellow Snatch, for instance, all because of that 1 attack.

-How many resources do I need each turn? This varies HEAVILY from hero to hero, as well as across archetypes. The less energy you need per turn, the more red and yellow cards you can play; the more energy you need, the more blues you’ll need to consider running. In general, here’s a quick guide to how much energy you’d need each turn:

1-2 Energy Per Turn: Ranger, Warrior, Runeblade, Mechanologist, some versions of Wizard

3-4 Energy Per Turn: Brute, Ninja

5+ Energy Per Turn: Guardian, some versions of Wizard

-Are there any other considerations regarding my cards in deck that I need to think about? Guardian, for instance, needs to make sure they’re dealing at least 4 damage with their attack actions, if possible, which makes red versions of your key attacks more desirable. Brute needs to ensure they have a large number of 6 attack cards in their deck for many of their key abilities to work.

-A key thing I find in many of my decks is the usefulness of 4 defence cards, in particular Fate Foreseen and Sink Below. Even in a fairly aggressive deck, it’s often useful to include some of these cards in order to really throw off the combat-math for the turn.

-Will I ever play this blue card? I like to ensure that every card in my deck has some use, even if it’s primarily for resources. If you can’t see yourself ever playing a particular blue card, find one that you will, or find one that defends for 3 at least. Raging Onslaught and Wounding Blow often make the cut for that exact reason!

Decide Whether You’ve Included Cards That Allow You to Win Each Matchup

This is the ideal, but it’s not always possible; that being said, you should ensure that somewhere in the 80 cards you’ve chosen to play, you have some cards that will help you against various archetypes and classes. Be sure to pack 1-2 pieces of Nullrune Equipment to fight off Runeblade and Wizard. Try and pack Drone of Brutality and/or Rememberance to help with the Fatigue / Attrition matchups. Bring along some defense reactions to help survive big, dominating attacks or get around those pesky attack reactions. You may not be able to bring everything along, but make sure you’ve at least thought about your game plan and how you’ll try and handle your opponent’s.

Additionally, decide how many cards you’ll play in your deck. Unlike other card games, you’ll find that having more than 60 cards in your deck is not always a bad thing in Flesh and Blood. Unless your deck is looking for very specific cards in order to assemble a lethal engine, sometimes it’s best to pack extra just to help shield yourself against Fatigue / Attrition decks. For example, in my Go Go Power Ranger deck, I play 73 cards in the main deck, with only 2 cards that I actually add to my deck against Kano. That being said, I’m not looking for any cards in particular (I just want powerful aggressive options), and Ranger is particularly susceptible to Fatigue / Attrition, which contributes to the reason I play 73.

Play the Cards that You Feel Comfortable With

Perhaps more than any other game, Flesh and Blood is also about playing cards that you’re comfortable with, in a style that you feel happy with. Cayle McCreath, for instance, has played Guardian since day one, and his skill with the deck really shows (he was the only Guardian player in the recent large event, and made it all the way to the top 4). Play what makes you happy, play it a lot, learn the ins and outs of it, and you’ll be surprised just how far that will take you.

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That brings this colossal article to an end. I hope this has been an interesting read for players new and old, and feel free to add any comments or questions to this article; I’d be more than happy to share my knowledge.

Welcome to Flesh and Blood, possibly the best card game you will ever play.