Know Your Priorities: Finding Personal Fulfillment with FAB

Watching the Pro Tour from home, it's easy to get caught up in the romance of the narrative. The best Flesh and Blood players in the world, vying for the title of Champion, and for a role in establishing their hero as a Living Legend! Oh, to be a part of that, to experience the energy of top-tier competition and earn recognition of your skills and hard work!

But the Pro Tour is made up of hundreds of competitors, most of whom we never hear about. And those hundreds got there on the backs of thousands, using local and regional events as steps toward achieving those dreams.

Which is to say, we won't - and can't - all be top-tier champions.

So why are we here?

This is a reality check, and a reminder that, with the stakes set low, we have freedom to engage with the game on our own terms.

How did you get into Flesh and Blood? Not just the who and the where, but the why? Many of us migrated from other trading card games; what drove us to look this way? Was the call of competitive play the driving force? If not - and for most of us, I'd dare to venture that it wasn't - it's likely you'll find greater joy by refocusing on that spark.

Say you came to FAB for the gameplay. Are you still building and playing decks around those gameplay elements that hooked you? Or perhaps it was a hero and the style they brought to the game. How often are you playing your favorite hero now? Perhaps the art of a poster caught your eye; do you still take time to appreciate the game's art? Do you run cards that appeal to you visually?

When I first picked up the game, Azalea had my heart. I love the archetype of the archer, and mechanically she stood apart from the other heroes of WTR/ARC. Admittedly, the time, resources, and energy I put into building and playing her could have been spent on a more viable hero, and I'd likely be a more competitive player today with a better record of tournament success. But that's never been my primary goal.

You may not be familiar with the term 'flow', but you've definitely felt it. Flow is when you're perfectly engaged with your activity: time slips by, distractions fall away, and you're just doing the thing, deriving from it all the pleasure it has to offer. It's being absolutely in the moment, and it's some of the highest quality rec time you can achieve.

For many of us, gaming is a space where we find flow. But knowing where you, specifically, best tap into that is important. Some of us achieve flow in deckbuilding; others in cracking packs; and still others in gameplay (either competitively or casually, they're very different experiences).

Try to maximize the time you're spending with the best aspects of this hobby. It's not going to be the same for everybody- and that's relevant. There's often pressure to prioritize competitive aptitude above the other levels; but if your best FAB time is spent building decks, you shouldn't cut that portion out with a Pro Tour decklist, even if they're getting better results than you've managed yourself.

To that end, don't feel that you need to bring pro-level decks to your LGS every week. It's perfectly fine to play at a lower level, if you find satisfaction outside of the W. This speaks to the financial toll of FAB too: a top tier deck can cost a lot, but you can still enjoy a game with substitutions or entirely different, budget-conscious decks. You don't need 3 Command and Conquers to play locally, I promise you.

The pursuit of major competitive success is a time-consuming prospect, and it's not going to be a fit with everybody. So don't over-value that level of play. Most people won't make the NBA either, but does that mean they shouldn't shoot hoops with their friends on the weekend?

Gaming is a hobby that scales well. You can fit it into small gaps in your life, or let it swell to fulfill major holes. What you don't want to do is try to cram a whole bunch of gaming into a busy life - that's a recipe for dissatisfaction on some front. Either the other things in your life take a hit, or you end up frustrated that you can't do FAB at the level you want to.

Not to get too deep into life advice, but take stock of your life and decide: do I have my priorities straight? Am I happy with the balance of things? Do I need to adjust my time, or adjust my expectations?

Community matters; without it, we're all just goldfishing decks at home. So while you're pursuing your best FAB experience, try to remember that others are too - and their vision of that might not match yours.

That can mean taking it down a notch when facing a player who's clearly outmatched. That can mean easing up on rules enforcement, slowing things down, and helping a player work their plays through. That can mean cycling decks from time to time, allowing people the chance to face something new, or just a reprieve from losing to your very best deck every week.

We all know the player who's Most Likely to Make a Pro Tour at our local Armory events. Do your part to support them, and be understanding when they come to the table with a more serious posture than your own. Accept that not every round of every tournament is going to be your ideal experience. You're not entitled to that. Do your best to give them the game they're looking for, and accept the loss with grace. Then slide down to the 'loser's bracket' and enjoy a game with lower stakes.

One of my pet peeves in gaming is how players handle defeat. We all learned to be a gracious loser, so there's not a lot of throwing fits - or throwing cards - to be seen. But so often, "good game" is followed by a qualifier about luck. When you blame your loss on bad draws, or comment that they had a lucky hand in the end, you minimize their victory. Let them have their moment - and if Lady Luck is truly to blame, she'll set the record straight next time.

Whatever level you enjoy playing at; whatever aspect of the game you love the most; whatever strategy clicks with you; there's no wrong way to enjoy the hobby.

Don't let the pressure of high-level competition distract you from finding personal satisfaction. You don't have to play the best hero. You don't even have to play the best deck for your hero of choice. Heck, you don't even have to play! Just don't lose sight of your joy, wherever you find it.