Top 10 Reasons You Should Play the Flesh and Blood TCG
Learn more about this rapidly growing TCG and why it’s worth your time and money
I have been playing a lot of Flesh and Blood recently. Between the new league in Path of Exile and this incredible TCG, I’m fresh out of free time! If you’ve been following my writing on SUPERJUMP, you’ll know I write a lot of content on Call of Duty: Cold War and Warzone. I haven’t touched Season 3 yet, which shows you just good this Flesh and Blood is.
I’ve spent so much time consuming as much content around Flesh and Blood, experimenting with deckbuilding from my limited card pool extracted from three booster boxes, and eagerly awaiting the launch of the new set, Monarch, early next month.
If you’ve played other card games, either digital or paper, then you may get a kick from this article and this game. You can also view the video below that covers this article’s content!
Disclaimer: I have no relationship or financial stake in Legend Story Studios. This article is entirely uncompensated.
Top 10 Reasons You Should Play Flesh and Blood
1. Always something to do with your cards
In Flesh and Blood, cards can generate resources, defend against opposing attacks, and can serve as actions with unique effects. Always having something to do with your cards means there is no need for mulligans. The typical variance you’d expect in a card game like this is mitigated to a degree that’s practically unheard of in the genre. Each decision feels weighty, and there are always tradeoffs to be made regardless of which hero class you are playing.
2. Many cards have three different versions
Deckbuilding is interesting because cards of common and rare rarity have three different versions. Red cards are always the most powerful version of a card to play in terms of card effect and raw damage potential (though each version of a card will defend for the same value). There is a trade-off, however. Red cards can only generate one resource point when pitched to cover the cost of playing another card or action.
Yellow cards serve as a balance between red and blue cards. They have a moderate effect and damage and pitch for two resource points instead of one.
As you may have guessed, blue cards serve as the resource-generating powerhouses of the game, creating a massive three resource points to pay for your actions and abilities. But it’s important to note that blue cards will always have a less powerful effect than red or yellow cards.
3. Less variance, every card matters
There is a lot less variance in Flesh and Blood than in other TCGs. Because of the way the draw system works, you will always draw up to your maximum hand size on turns where you are the attacking player. Throughout a game of Flesh and Blood, you will go through most, if not all of your deck. Every card matters and you will have an opportunity to use almost everything in your deck for one thing or another.
4. Games are decided by the overall quality of decisions
Since you will burn through your entire deck, games are often decided by the overall quality of your decisions than any individual card in your deck (though individual cards can certainly pivot the momentum of a game). How you use your cards and your equipment will determine the outcome of the game more often than not. This is one of those games that is easy to learn, but hard to master.
The depth of decision-making and the pursuit of small, incremental gains will be what separates skill and determines the outcome of a majority of games played at higher levels.
5. Majestic and legendary cards can be replaced by commons and rares
Power of cards isn’t as tied to rarity like it is in games like Magic: The Gathering, Hearthstone, or Legends of Runeterra. Common cards can substitute expensive cards without losing the general idea or goal of any individual card. Sure certain majestics and legendaries have powerful effects you won’t find elsewhere, but they feel only incrementally more powerful in the slot than say a 1-cent common card or 15-cent rare. Players with higher skill and only commons/rares can beat out opponents of lower skill using majestic and legendaries in their deck.
Though Legend Story Studios does have a reprint policy that should support the accessibility and health of the game, I do have some concerns with legendary cards.
As it stands now, legendary cards have an expected rarity of 1/94 packs. That’s only one per CASE of four booster boxes on average. A lot of chase legendary cards command a price upwards of $200 at the moment, and though you only need one as a playset in any deck, it’s still a steep asking price. Though some legendary equipment cards are generic and can be used by every class, others are narrow and limited to a single class.
If you want to be as competitive as possible, you’ll want some of these legendary cards, but you can still beat a player with legendary equipment even if you don’t have any yourself.
Take these two cards for example. One is only a few pennies and the other is $225. Unless I am specifically going against a wizard or runeblade as a guardian, I would sometimes rather take the common. Given the choice between Arcanite Skullcap and Nullrune Hood, I would almost always take the skullcap in a matchup where arcane barrier mattered.
6. Ebb and flow between turns
Flesh and Blood is very much a back-and-forth game. There is an ebb and flow between turns. Sometimes you need to defend against a lot of powerful attacks knowing you probably won’t have a chance to hit your opponent back next turn. That’s fine — take a breather and hope to set up a powerful barrage of attacks on your next attack turn. Throughout the game, you will attack, defend, deal, and take damage. It feels brutal, and the decisions you make feel weighty.
7. Equipment provides flexibility
Equipment cards give some flexibility in your turn structure. They are a resource just like anything else. Because you start the game with your full set of equipment, you’ll have more options and available lines of play earlier on in the game. Certain equipment is good at defending against attacks, and other pieces are more useful for providing additional utility to your deck’s strategy. Striking a balance between the two is often a good approach to deckbuilding.
8. Blitz captures the F&B experience in short games
I’ve spent ALL of my time playing Flesh and Blood with the Blitz game mode with lower life totals, smaller, more streamlined decks, and fast-paced gameplay. The format captures the essence of the game while making it more accessible. For now, nothing is banned in Blitz that isn’t banned in Classic Constructed, but decks in Blitz certainly are more powerful than their classic constructed counterparts.
Because decks are smaller and you are limited to two copies of a card instead of three, this format is also cheaper to get into and more accessible for new players.
9. Sideboarding up front
If you’ve played Magic or LoR, then you know certain matchups usually mean a loss on the first game. Only when you can sideboard cards can you hope to reliably beat certain decks in poor matchups.
In Flesh and Blood, you do all your sideboarding upfront. For Blitz, that means simply tweaking which set of equipment you want to bring to a fight. In Classic Constructed, you can tweak some cards in your actual deck once you learn what hero you will be fighting against.
Sideboarding upfront plus the fact that you don’t always want to play first in Flesh and Blood means games can accurately and fairly be determined in a best of one matchup compared to the best of three typically used in many other games.
10. Classes feel unique in mechanics
In Flesh and Blood, all of the classes feel unique and different from one another. The brute class is going to play very differently than the ninja. There are some similarities between classes, but they will feel unique in what they try to accomplish. Generic cards that can be included in any deck bridge certain gaps and provide more flexibility and rounded gameplay. The guardian class won’t necessarily want the same generic card the ninja would, and chances are they would want a different color version of the card as well.
These are just a few of the reasons why you should play the Flesh and Blood TCG! I am eagerly awaiting the launch of Monarch and to explore the new light and shadow talent hero classes that have been spoiled so far. Here’s to hoping that Monarch infuses this game with even more life!
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Learn more about the Flesh and Blood TCG at this new player FAQ post on the community subreddit.