Nicholas Holding joined the world of Flesh and Blood in November 2019, shortly after the release of Welcome to Rathe. He's participated in three Skirmish seasons, three Calling events, the New Zealand National Championship in 2020, and went on to become the second-ever New Zealand National Champion in January.
Nick played his first card game at 'about six or seven,' and after twenty-two years in the game, he has a fair amount of experience as a competitive player. He traveled around the country to play in competitive events, including several in Australia. Through this background, he heard that a fellow player was creating a new card game - that fellow player being James White.
"I heard that he was making a new card game, and once that did finally come out... I decided to pick it up and start playing it, and I realized just how amazing the game was. I've dabbled in other card games, but... never really got that into it until Flesh and Blood came along.
It's been really amazing to see the community grow. Like, ever since the start, when we just had a small group... maybe ten people showing up for Armories, we were all eager to help each other out with cards... and even when it came to travel, we'd help each other out with rides and stuff like that. And even now, the player size has doubled, maybe even tripled, and it's still the same; everyone still helps each other, everyone still does what they can to just keep the community growing."
The Calling $10k Auckland, February 2020
Nick attended both National Championships and three out of four Calling events in New Zealand; what has his experience been like, attending these events, as the community has continued to grow?
"I've found that more and more friendly faces are popping up you know, like the game's enjoyable. I always seem to get along with my opponents and things like that, you know, they're always keen to have a chat afterwards and [they're] all nice people, as well as everyone's gotten really good [at the game]. So it's even more challenging. Now, you know, we're better at the game, so it becomes a lot more complicated, especially if you're trying to win. Yeah... I've just really loved the way the community is growing and how nice everyone is, and just everyone coming together to have fun and play cards.
The highlight, for me, is just seeing all the people that were there on Day One are still here today. You know the game is still good. There's a lot more faces, I've made countless new friends through this game, and that is something I will always treasure. Yeah, honestly, it's just... every event it's just lovely to see everyone again- like at Nationals when all the Aucklanders came down, it was so good to see them again, not just talk behind a screen, you know."
At the first New Zealand National Championship, Nick won the ProQuest event with Kano and was crowned the 'first Dracai of Aether' for becoming the first player to win a high-level competitive event as the wizard- a feat that wouldn't be repeated until Pietro Gerletti's win at the Italian National Championship the following year. So what was it like to win the event with Kano, and does he still carry the staff as a wizard player?
"That was the highlight for winning that event for me- it wasn't winning and... getting the random gold [cold foil legendary] drop; it was more the fact that I won with Kano and the first person to. Ever since Arcane [Rising was released]... all I wanted to play was him, and I knew he was a lot- he fared off a bit weaker than everyone else due to his health and getting that special Kano signed by James just meant more to me than everything else. And ever since then, I've- honestly every Blitz event I've always played Kano, like I still love to play him, and I'm hoping to be able to play him in Constructed sometime soon."
Going into the National Championship in January, what did Nick expect to see from the metagame, following the rest of the National Championships in late 2021?
"I was wondering if it would be similar to [the overseas meta], and have a vast majority of Briars... But at the same time, I had a feeling that some of the better players in the country weren't going to be playing Briar, and they were the people to beat. The likes of Matt Rogers, even Cayle [McCreath], I knew that they weren't going to be playing Briar, so I figured if I wasn't playing a deck that couldn't beat them, I probably couldn't win the event. Still, I expected a lot more Briars than there actually were. Which obviously, with my choice, was not a good one, but I still wanted to stick to my guns.
I had played around with Briar to see if I could like it, and I just couldn't do it. So I stopped, went back to my old guns, which was Prism, and I've been playing her ever since Monarch came out since I got sick of being beaten in [Classic] Constructed all the time with Kano. So she seemed like a better option since she could actually put up a fight. I came in knowing that she would be weakened if Briar met her, but I was lucky to dodge them all, and then I just took over in the draft."
"I thought there might have been more Prisms. I believe there [were] only about six people there playing Prism, I thought there might have been a little bit more, but yeah, everything else was pretty much what I thought it would be, mostly guardians with a couple of different runeblades in there."
Nick is known for championing Kano and Prism, the resident wizard and illusionist of Flesh and Blood. What is the correlation? Does his experience with Kano influence his playstyle and deckbuilding choices with Prism?
"Oh, absolutely. The most relatable thing between the two decks is they like to play at instant speed, and a lot of the time spent in Kano learning the right times to do things really helped me with Prism, so that's why I ended up playing the style of the deck that I did.
My main deck's idea was to be a bit of both; so I could play the auras against the control matchup, and then against decks like Briar where I don't have the time to play the auras, I'd switch more to the heralds and try to race them down, which obviously was mostly in the Briar's favor, but it was still the only shot I had against them."
Nick Holding came prepared for the drafting portion of the event; his testing group had been holding drafts once or twice a week, getting in plenty of practice ahead of the tournament.
"It was just a matter of getting that practice in and learning what to pick and all that sort of stuff, and it really helped with the draft portion of Nationals.
I felt very happy with both [my day one and day two] drafts. The first one, I felt like I got given everything I could have ever asked for, and even in the second one, I felt like the right cards were coming up for the style of deck I was trying to play at the time. I managed to get the right stuff and get there in the end... I think I went 6-0 in draft?"
Going into the Top 8 as Prism, Nick had his eye on one Briar player in particular.
"Tom Penny... a very good Briar player. I feel like if he'd managed to beat Matt Rogers in the semi-finals, he would have easily taken me out in the finals. So that was a bit of a blessing to have Matt win there. I was a little worried about... the other Prism, just because my deck was more teched to beat guardians than to win the mirror, so I feel like if we'd versed, he probably had the advantage in that, too."
And how did he feel when Matt Rogers won the semi-final, and Nick realized he'd be facing the 2020 National Champion?
"Oh, it was very intimidating. Even though I was in the favored matchup, I still felt like if I made the slightest mistake anywhere, Matt would immediately punish me and take the game. I had to play slow, think carefully, and make sure I played the deck the way it should be. And hopefully, it'll get me to the end, which it luckily did.
There was a moment where Matt decided to not attack one of my auras, and keep going face, and that was really good for me just because I had probably the perfect cards to punish that play. Otherwise, I would have been in a lot of trouble if I didn't have those, but that's when I realized things were really starting to look my way in this game."
When it came to winning the tournament and becoming the second New Zealand National Champion, Nick admits that it took a few days for the victory to really sink in.
"It's just something I've always wanted, and then for it to actually happen? I couldn't comprehend it. I just figured it was a dream or something. [It took days] before I finally realized, wow, you know, I bet the best in the country in the finals to take- take out the whole nationals."
With a National Champion title under his belt and two years of competitive events behind him, Nick's plans for the future include going to every event possible.
"I want to try to continue winning, you know. We've got ProQuest coming up, so I'd like to win those if I can, do everything I can to win. Sadly, I can't make the New Jersey one, but hopefully, in the future, I'll be able to make more overseas trips."
As more events take place worldwide, particularly after a season of National Championships, I asked what Nick would be looking forward to the most at a Flesh and Blood World Championship.
"Just being able to meet the best in the world- I haven't met many players outside of New Zealand. I've met a couple of Malaysian and a few Australians, but there's a big world out there that plays FAB now. It'd be nice to meet a whole bunch of different people, and every country has different metas, so it's just- it's- there's much to learn from other countries, especially when you verse them in like a major tournament such as Worlds.
I'm not sure what Nationals it was, but they also want to nationals with Prism recently, I believe. I think it might be in French or Italy, something like that. I would love to verse him. Someone that plays Prism, I'd love to have a game against another Prism player."
Tuomas Kainulainen and Dimitris Doganis took Prism to a semi-final finish at the Finland and Greece National Championships, respectively, but Tyler Horspool won the Calling: Las Vegas with Prism ahead of the first National Championship of 2021. I pointed out that the Italian National Championship was won by a Kano player, Pietro Gerletti, and Nick immediately snapped his fingers.
"Him too, I'd like to play both- anyone who plays Prism or Kano across the world, I'd love to verse."
Coming from a devoted Prism and Kano player, I asked Nick what he wanted to see from a post-Everfest metagame.
"I'm expecting to see a lot more guardians, and I'm hoping to see a lot of creativity with the new Bravo, he's got such a big card pool that surely someone's going to find some ridiculous deck, and it's going to make all their jaws drop. The year looking forward, I'm just excited to see all the other different decks that come out of all these cards, you know, Everfest has so many cards for so many different classes, it's, there's just so many windows open, and all it takes is the right mind to find the right deck. They could easily take out a major event with it."
After over two years of Flesh and Blood events and a National Champion title, my final question to Nick was to ask his advice for new players wanting to work their way up the competitive ladder.
"My biggest thing would be to take constructive criticism. There's always room to improve. No one's perfect at this game, but if you can identify your own mistakes in a game, that will make you better as a player. You've just got to be willing to accept that you've made mistakes. There's nothing embarrassing about it. There's more to learn. And the more you identify the mistakes, the less you will make them."
"I'd like to thank my testing group which consisted of Adam Little, Jason Thompson and Ollie Berry, we made up many days a week just sitting there playing hours of Constructed games- and they all tried to talk me out of playing Prism as well, which was quite funny when I ended up winning with it, of course. I also have to give a shout out to Kieran Carnegie. He's helped me a lot. He also plays Prism and he also is a Kano player, so he and I get along just fine."