In recent times, we’ve witnessed the battle of light and shadow, recounted stories from the land of Aria and had the travelling spectacle known as Everfest grace our table tops. Now, mighty draconic illusions take on the flames of the phoenix along with the cold snap of winter in what I believe is the best entry into Flesh and Blood drafting for a newbie to date.
Join me as we fight back against our oppressive overlords, join me in the Uprising!
Draft is a whole lot of fun, not only is it a chance to buy and sell Flesh and Blood singles that get opened, but it’s a great way to learn new heroes.
Here you will find each of our heroes and how you should approach them in draft. This is not the only way by any means, but certainty a good place to start
Fai
Class: Ninja
Talent: Draconic
Fai is a red hot aggressive Ninja looking to put together wide combat chains in order to overwhelm his opponent. This is as close as you can get in this set to ‘Red deck wins’. If you want to go ham at your opponent for very little resource cost, Fai’s your guy.
Pro’s:
- Has a very pro active game plan forcing your opponent into having a weaker offence if they want to preserve life totals
- Can function and be built well with an average draft pool
- Is the only hero to have a non-conditional, permanent offensive tool in the form of his weapon
- His game plan and mechanics are a lot simpler to understand than the other 2 heroes
- Has access to Phoenix flames that can be accessed from the grave once per turn. His ability also allows him to start the game with one in grave.
Con’s:
- If you want to put out the most damage, you won’t be preserving your life total that well
- Your class cards do not block well either (Offence is the best defence though right?)
- You share your talent cards with another hero, therefore more competition in picking the good stuff
- Due to his easier to execute game plan, he will be drafted more frequently by other players a lot of the time
- Being a red deck makes you susceptible to disruption If you can’t pay, you can’t play
So you’re set on Fai, what are we looking for when building him? Of course we want powerful free or low cost attacks with go again, but our weapon does cost 2 and we want to be swinging that each turn if we can. We also need to factor in the extra price we may have to pay against an Ice opponent, so I like to be at around 8-10 blue pitch cards in Fai (Though I have done it on as little as 5).
If we are looking at a 30 card deck, 3 of which are Phoenix flames and 8 of which are blue cards, that leaves us a lot of room for cards that will maximise our offence. Make sure your deck has plenty of ‘starter’ cards (Attacks with no conditions for their go again) and keep an eye out for the ‘Rupture’ keyword, unique to Draconic cards. This attacks will reward your long combat chains with extra damage or on hit effects (Though don’t take too many!). You have a lot of good attacks at your disposal
Dromai
Class: Illusionist
Talent: Draconic
A fiery Illusionist conjuring up magical dragon beasts from Ash giving her a constant threat presence on the field. While Draconic like Fai, Dromai excels best with a hoard of ashwings and dragons in play. These allies have to be attacked and dealt with separately (Having their own life total and attack stats) or else things will spiral out of your control for your opponent.
Pro’s:
- You get dragons!
- Not only are your dragons weapons, they can provide powerful effects
- Ashwings attacking for one are difficult to block, especially if you have many
- While your opponent deals with your allies, they are not attacking your life total
- You have access to large cost effective attacks in the form of Cenipai’s
- You have different build options meaning your opponent won’t always know your game plan
- Your Ashwings come with ‘Arcane barrier 1’ meaning you have a defence against wizards
Con’s:
- Your weapon is a tool to activate your allies and does no damage itself
- If you have no allies in play and no attack actions in hand, you have no offence
- Your allies and cenipai’s all come with ‘phantasm’. Blocked with a 6 strength attack, the illusion is burst and your turn generally comes to an end
- You are reliant on red cards to get your engine running (Making ash and giving go again to allies
- Your sharing talent cards with Fai
- She can be complex to piece together and getting the right cards is key
Dragons are your thing, they’re cool for sure, so what do we want to look out for? As mentioned above, red cards are essential if you are on a dragon game plan and for that reason, you are likely looking at a similar ratio to Fai, She also has access to phoenix flames and can utilise them, however not as well so you’re usually on the hunt for other things.
Your blue ratio will differ somewhat based on the cost of the dragons you acquire. Don’t expect to be able to play the powerhouse’s on a pure red deck, however for the most part, good draft dragons are cheap. Look for cards that can turn your ash into ashwings as well as providing extra ash, with the Cenipai’s a great pick for putting in the big blows. Also note, cards like transmogrify that have the ability of turning a tiny attack (think phoenix flame) into nearly half your opponents life total.
Iyslander
Class: Wizard
Talent: Elemental: Ice
Finally Iyslander, a chilling Wizard who’s aim is disruption to freeze you out of the game coupled with sometimes impossible to prevent arcane damage. Ice’s playstyle is to prevent your opponent from executing their game plan through taxing their resources or cards they can use. Wanna play a zero cost card? Now it will cost you 1 resource. Wanna play that card from arsenal? EHHHH WRONG, it’s now frozen.
Pro’s
- There are only a few ways to prevent the damage you deal in this set, and it has to be drafted
- If they have prevention, you have powerful ways to deal damage to your opponent on their turn while they lack the resources to prevent it
- Disruption turn after turn leaves your opponent severely lacking in offence, preserving your life total
- The sigh and look on your opponents face when this happens
- Uncontested in the draft, your deck will be Godly
Con’s
- The complexity and specific pieces you need to draft to make her work
- Your weapon’s attack is conditional on playing another card first
- You can’t deal with Illusionist allies without attack action cards or wizard cards that allow you to chose a target other than a hero
- Competition for quality cards can be tough
- If there are multiple Iyslander drafters in your pod, it’s likely only one will have a good deck
Building the Ice queen can be super rewarding when you nail it and read the table, but crushing if your ratios are out. Her ability allows you to play blue non-attack actions on your opponents turn, so that’s what we are looking for and half of our deck should be made up of these (xo at least 15 blues). Not only do we need to look out for that, but we need Ice cards to fuse and get off our most powerful spells. The added bonus of play a blue Ice card on our opponents turn is that it creates a frostbite which can sometimes shut them down.
The blues in our deck also function to turn our Mooning Wand: Play one from arsenal (ideally a zero or 1 cost), pay for it with a blue, and use our remaining resources to pay for the want dealing extra damage. In your turn, arsenal a blue and repeat. This is your bread an butter turn cycle though do not rule out attack action cards to build a hybrid game plan as well as power red spells to play on your turn pushing large chunks of damage. Just stay away from yellows. Honestly, don’t take any unless you absolutely must or there is no better pick in the pack. Yes you will likely end up with some, but a lot of the time I’d rather any blue non-attack over a yellow.
Honestly, uprising is so much fun and a great entry point into the game. It offers enough complexity to keep things interesting without feeling overwhelming. If you’re unsure, there are many great places to learn to play flesh and blood in Melbourne and I look forward to seeing you across the table at one soon!
If you would like to draft Uprising be sure to come in to Plenty of Games where we are drafting weekly.
For all your Flesh and Blood Uprising singles needs to be sure to check out ->
Flesh and Blood Uprising Singles
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