UPF: Deck It Out

We'd like to welcome guest writer Zachary Cauchi as he continues our brand new Jump Start series with his Ultimate Pit Fight introduction piece! Zachary is an Australian player and has been a ProQuest champion in both seasons. He finished in the Top 8 of the Sydney Battle Hardened tournament earlier this year, and enjoys playing both competitive and casual formats with the Brisbane Flesh and Blood community.

In my last article I introduced the Ultimate Pit Fight format and explained why I believe it’s one of the most enjoyable ways to play this great game. One of the big strengths of the format is the opportunity to brew decks that you simply can’t play anywhere else. Either it’s because their core strategy wouldn’t realize its potential in other formats, or because the cards needed to execute its game plan simply aren’t legal anywhere else! Today, I’d like to showcase a few decks that are designed with this unique format in mind. This article is intended to guide you on how to build these decks, how to win with them, and ultimately, how to have some great fun with your friends.

Genis, the Bric-a-Brac Investor

If you like to invest your early game to build towards your future, this is the deck for you. In this deck, the goal is to bide your time building up silver and making allies, before using your new found wealth to close out the game against a single opponent. This deck might seem unassuming, but trust me when I say Items are going to pay BIG dividends next quarter.

The core of this deck is built around its namesake card, Knick Knack Bric-a-brac. On the one hand, we have cards built to generate silver. Genis’s hero ability itself allows us to offer the entire table the option to provide us with a way to generate this resource in exchange for fixing their hand. The second source of silver is the aptly named Silver Palms. This powerful tool not only generates silver passively - it encourages our opponents to keep us at a higher life total than them. Encouraging our opponents to send their attacks elsewhere is an important strategy this deck uses to make sure we survive to the end game. Fog Down and This Round’s on Me are powerful cards we can use to slow our opponents down and deter aggression from them

Once we’ve amassed all the capital we need, it’s time to invest in our future, that is where Knick Knack Bric-a-Brac comes into play. This card costs 3 and searches up one item from our deck into play. For each additional pair of silver we spend, we get to search out another item, this way we’re gaining a serious amount of advantage from this single card. Energy Potion and Potion of Strength are key pieces we’re searching to make sure we can finish off our final opponent with a deadly fire-breathing at the end of game, and Potion of Healing is one of the many ways to ensure we live long enough to get there.

Briar, Combo Queen

The next deck I’d like to showcase is the creation of a local player and fellow article author, Wesley Lingard. This powerful combo deck is all about abusing some of the most powerful and unique cards Briar has access to. Fulminate, Force of Nature and Amulet of Earth are key combo pieces that all share a common trait - they offer ongoing effects that benefit every attack you play on your turn. I’ve seen this deck wipe out 3 opponents at once, when none of us were expecting the game to end any time soon. If you like decks built around maximizing the value of your cards and powerful one-turn-kill turns, this is the deck for you.

This combo deck is all about cards that scale as wide as you can make the combat chain stretch. Specifically, the goal is to start the turn with Force of Nature, and then follow it up with either Fulminate or an activation of Amulet of Earth. This will give every attack action card you play that turn an increase to its base attack, and the threat of a card draw on hit. If you want to really lock up the game, you can partner this with the powerful Blossoming Spellblade. Partnered with either Ball Lightning to increase the arcane damage dealt with it’s ability and Mark of Lightning, You can trigger its ability to play non-attack action cards from your graveyard multiple times and gain redundant cards and action points to fuel a devastating combo turn that wipes out each of your enemies in succession.

I understand that this seems like a very ideal situation - but this is what makes deck building in UPF so fun and unique. You can use the multiplayer format to your advantage in order to survive and execute a powerful end game sequence. By playing cards that can benefit your opponents such as Promise of Plenty and Coax a Commotion, you can help turn a neighbor at the table from a threat to an ally. In my experience, players in UPF are eager to cut a deal and have one less thing to worry about. This leaves you down to a single opponent to focus on while you set up a pitch stack of attack action cards, and deploy a few items such as Energy Potion and Amulet of Earth to help facilitate your OTK turn.

Once you do begin the carnage, I personally recommend you target the opponent seated to your left first. The reason for this, is that if they have had to use cards to block the player seated on their left, they won’t have had the opportunity to draw up to their intellect at the end of turn yet. Less cards in hand for them means it’s more likely you’ll be able to deal damage with your blossoming spellblade; which you can then use to fuel your final turn as you crush your remaining enemies under a mountain of value.

Prism, Phantasmal Fusion

The decks I’ve written about so far have focused on leveraging political power to deceive your enemies before you crush them in a single turn. This deck is very different, instead focusing on maximizing as much damage as possible every turn. Using powerful buff cards such as Phantasmify and Transmogrify, you can empower the most powerful generic attack action cards in the game with illusionist might, and then copy their powerful effects with a devastating Fractal Replication to destroy your enemy for good.

The primary plan of this list is buffing already powerful attack action cards. Once they’re illusionist cards thanks to a non-attack action card buff or Phantasmal Symbiosis, granting them go again from Luminaris is so powerful it almost feels like cheating. I’ll admit - this deck doesn’t have quite as robust a strategy as the others I;ve showcased, but this is a deck I’ve always had an affection for and UPF is the perfect format to showcase it.

In a more casual format such as UPF, I always recommend you discuss seating arrangements with your opponents. This deck in particular won’t be satisfying to play if you're seated between the Valda and Oldhim players with decks full of phantasm poppers, so a quick chat to ensure this is the right deck for your pod is especially important here. Even once you’re in a pod, after you start wiping your neighbors out with empowered cards like Snatch and Vipox, it’s likely the table will recognise you as the greatest threat and target you for down. As I said in my previous article, the journey is often more important than the destination. Even still, there’s a tonne of fun to be had in becoming the undisputable enemy at your table, and doing your best to hold your own against the combined onslaught of two opponents really feels like you’re wielding fire in your hands.

Final Advice

Whether or not you end up playing these exact lists, I hope you can find them inspiring and give this format a try for yourself. I recommend you begin building your own decks by focusing on what you’re drawn to in Flesh and Blood. Political machinations, value engines or something unique thematically are all great options. When you’re playing a deck you love and having a great time, that energy is infectious and in my opinion, leads to the most fun you can have playing this great game.

Zachary Cauchi is a competitive Flesh and Blood player and author of content relating to gameplay and strategy. The opinions expressed in the above article are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Legend Story Studios.