LA Weekend Recap

Three times per year, the Flesh and Blood community rallies together for events that stand head and shoulders above the rest. We go to exotic locales, ranging from Lille to New Jersey, from San Jose to Barcelona. We participate in events so large that we find within them whole other events: the Pro Tour Los Angeles had not only the Pro Tour, but also a Calling, a Battle Hardened, and a slew of side events. After playing in day one of the Pro Tour and day one of the Calling, I picked up a few side events and even engaged in a personal side quest: there's just so much to do and see in our global scene!

For players who were invited to the Pro Tour, the player reception was a free event featuring a catered dinner and something even more delicious: spoilers. All three of the new heroes from the next set were spoiled (Alex Truell offered his early take on the Heroes of Mistveil last week). This set smacks of Uprising to me: flavors of a brand new talent, a Ninja, an Illusionist, and.... this time, an Assassin. We've seen the heroes of that set wreak pure havoc for their entire lifespan - Dromai, Fai, and Iyslander all made their marks on the game and occupy the upper echelons of Living Legend. Will Nuu, Enigma, or Zen change up the meta the most? Who will you be taking to the top tables of the next Calling?

And let us not forget! New characters are interesting, it's true, but there was yet more news: a huge set of events were announced, but easily the most important of which is this: Flesh and Blood Worlds 2024 will be hosted in Osaka, Japan!

The Pro Tour is a twice-yearly event that is fed by Pro Quests. If someone made it to the Pro Tour, they earned their way there. 388 players were in attendance to duke it out across both Classic Contructed and Draft - to be a pro, you can't just rely on a single format to carry you, you've got to sharpen all of your Flesh and Blood skills!

At the end of the first day, only 183 players were invited back for the second day: only those with a positive record of 4 wins to 3 losses (or better) could progress.

Come Sunday, it was time for the Top 8: a mere 2.06% of all the players invited could make it this far, and here are the final standings:

• 5th Peter Ward, from the UK
• 5th Filipe Lima Cardoso, from Brazil
• 5th Joshua Lau, from the USA
• 5th Sebastian Grondal, from Denmark
• 3rd Daniel Correas, of Spain
• 3rd Joel Repta, from Canada
• 2nd Maximilian Klein, of Germany
• and in 1st Arthur Trehet, from France, playing Dromai

This means that Dromai is a mere 4 points away from hitting Living Legend status, a feat nearly two years in the making... who will push her over the edge during Pro Quest season, starting in April? Will it be you?

The Calling in LA started up on Saturday, the day after the start of the Official Pro Tour. This means that if you didn't make day two of the PT, you could still find yourself in the Calling, playing Classic Constructed. The common concept here is that, well, all the best pros made it to Day Two of the Tour, so, it should be a little easier to contend with the Calling event... but let's not fool ourselves into thinking that the Calling at the Pro Tour would be easy! It's a grueling 16 rounds for the winner and runner-up, and they definitely don't get to the top without earning it. Let's scope out the final standings:

• 5th, Nova Chan from
• 5th, Pierre-Nicolas Perrin from USA
• 5th, Kyle Yoder from USA
• 5th, Yifei Wang from Australia
• 3rd, Eric Lerer from Canada
• 3rd, Dennis Zhang from Australia
• 2nd, Majin Bae from USA
• and in 1st, Matthew Dilks from Canada piloting Kassai

And just like that, Kassai earns 100 Living Legend points, courtesy of our champion Matthew Dilks! It is always exciting to see new champions, new heroes, new names rising to the top. It takes a lot of skill to even Top 8 events like this one; Matthew Dilks should be proud.

We have been trying to get you prepared for the Living Legend format ever since Starvo exited Classic Constructed, and hopefully you were just as excited by this weekend as I was: top tier decks, with top tier pilots, fighting with some of the craziest cards ever printed in FAB. What's not to love?

Once all the dust settled, these were the standings:

• 5th, Daniel Dreisziger from Canada
• 5th, Kevin Brayer of the USA
• 5th, CYK Lionel from Taiwan
• 5th, Peter Buddensiek from USA
• 3rd, Jake Warburton of the UK
• 3rd, Gordon Koh Koh from Singapore
• 2nd, Brodie Spurlock of the USA
• and in 1st place, Michael Feng from the USA

There are no living legend points on the line in this format: after all, this is where heroes retire to, not from. Nevertheless, Michael Feng fought through the field and came out on top as Chane, Bound by Shadow. As a Guardian main, I feel comfortable saying: I'm glad it wasn't just Starvo again! I wish Oldhim didn't get so sidelined by the bans meant fro Starvo, but if it means that we can see some of the other interesting decks, like Chane, Lexi, Prism, and more come to the fore then I am all for it. Hopefully we can see a hero-specific ban list though, as I would love to see Old Man Winter get some play on the tables again.

As we exit March and enter April, keep in mind that there are a ton more events jsut around the corner. Dromai will perhaps be picking up her final LL points in the Pro Quest season that is set to start in early April, and maybe I'll get lucky and Fai will take down some of the summertime National tournaments. It's always competitive season here in Rathe, so if you're keen to get sharper and slice through the competition yourself? There are a ton more events on the way.

Perhaps you had seen the image floating around on twitter of the Armory Deck? Well, now we know: the first of these are coming in May, with the Armed and Dangerous Kayo! Who knows what all will be inside, but we do know that they will be available at stores that are active in GEM, stores that are running armories, and that the decks are intended to be Armory competitive. I wouldn't hold my breath over a playset of Cast Bones, but you really just never know until it's in your hands. As soon as we can, though, Rathe Times will keep you informed about the spicy contents and strategies of each Armory deck.

Don't expect these to come out all at once: Kayo is due in May, with the other decks slowly dripping out across the year. Will they make an impact at your local scene? Only time will tell...

Starting with Part the Mistveil, the blitz decks for each set will be available as a boxed set containing the relevant decks and a playmat, sort of in the same style as the Round the Table product release. Not only do you get all of the decks and a playmat, you'll also get a stylized storage box to store your cards in. Will stores end up opening their kits to sell the decks individually, the way we have seen happen with Brevant and Ira? Time will tell, but I'm personally pretty excited by the prospect of not having to chase down each deck individually - Kassai and Kayo sold out right quick at my local game stores here in Colorado, and completing the set of six was a bit of a pain thereby. Plus I get a cool mat? Let's go!

Right after the big weekend, Mr. Bryan Gottlieb got on the horn and sounded off about a new Banned and Restricted list. The playtesting team is working on the future of the game, and in an effort to keep it all good and healthy, some changes needed to be made.

We've all speculated about the theoretical top-end of cards like Berserk, but the dev team is here to tell us that we were right. In some future meta, the card is so broken that games can devolve in to: Brute reveals cards off the top of their deck until you die. So, while the card is still sitting at a low price point, the lines were severed and the card has been banned.

I always hate it when a good card, something that has performed well and earned a high price, gets banned. Nobody likes spending money on Sunday to find out that the card they jsut bought is banned on Monday, even if it is for the health of the game - so I applaud LSS for preemptively banning Berserk before it jumped way up in price.

Now, as a Guardian main, it's tough to hear that my boy Crown of Seeds is on the way out, but I think we all know that this is for the best. The ability to cycle cards, hide information, AND prevent damage was just a bridge too far when it coems to value. Put it up on the board: that's one more card from Tales of Aria getting clipped by the ban-hammer! Who knows when Earth will make its way back to the format, but the devs are testing in those waters as we speak... and boy, am I excited! I hope we can see some forward-leaning earth Guardian, someone who can use Turn Timber AND Channel Mount Heroic in equal measure... now that's what I'm talking about!

Another week of Flesh and Blood news in the books - if you like staying up to date, come on back and check in with me next week for the next installment!