The Maleficent VII: Classic Constructed's Most Iconic Heroes and Villains

So with our third birthday having taken place the other week on October 11 and the first ever Flesh and Blood World Championship coming up in just over seven days now (wow…time flies, feels like just last month I was jamming Katsu against Dorinthea at the kitchen table trying to wrap my head around what a “go again” is and how to use a defense reaction), what better time than now to take a stroll down memory lane and look back on some of the most innovative, significant, menacing, powerful and dominant Classic Constructed decks in the history of this great game we all know and love!

Today I’ll run you through what I reckon are the seven most interesting heroes and archetypes and a few nostalgic moments in time from some of their stellar designers and pilots from the dawn of Flesh and Blood’s existence till today.

It was a lot of fun digging through the archives of tournament coverage, decklists, interviews and articles for this piece. While reacquainting myself with yesterday’s metagame monsters, some of the decks and innovations truly blew me away with the degree in which they changed metagames, influenced new styles of play and deckbuilding and of course…how absurdly powerful some of these heroes were! (If you haven’t met Starvo, you’re in for a treat!)

Another curious fact that stood out to me was that even in the case of a deck or two’s power level being reduced due to bans and restrictions, they still went on to see massive success- even winning not one but two Pro Tours!

I think it’s important to look to the past as we blaze new trails into the future, and if this list is anything to go by, the players, deck designers and heroes of Flesh and Blood have a future hotter than the heart of the Flamescale Furnace ahead of them.

Control Katsu (Ninja Turtle)

Who says innovation can’t be found with just a single booster expansion? Definitely not Pro Tour New Jersey Top 8 finisher and two time Calling champion Sasha Markovic! On February 8 2020, with only Welcome to Rathe and hero starter decks in the card pool, Sasha took down one of the earliest, large Calling events with an incredibly original, against the grain Katsu control deck. While most (all) Katsu decks at the time were looking to go wide and attack as many times as possible in a turn, aiming to string together combo attacks to draw cards and pump up their myriad of martial art attacks on the combat chain, Sasha was looking to “combo off” in a different way completely.

While the Ninja Turtle aka Flying Spaghetti Monster aka Katsu Control deck was still packed with premium attack actions such as Fluster Fist, Pounding Gale, Snatch, Enlightened Strike, Mugenshi: RELEASE, Lord of Wind and more, this list was more centered around the first Flesh and Blood card to be banned- Drone of Brutality and its suite of defense reactions. 27 defensive reactions. The nine copies of Flic Flak were the main attraction here as, while many of the Ninja combo cards were able to attack and pressure the opponent, they shone much brighter in the role of defending after a Flic Flak had been played, getting the +2 defense buff, usually defending for 5 with a single card. Drone of Brutality was the cornerstone of this list and whether it was being used to attack or defend, it would always go back to the bottom of the deck. This enabled a game plan of being able to pressure the opponent turn after turn with Kodachis and attack actions, while defending with ridiculous efficiency and knowing that the opposing hero would always reach fatigue (no deck left) before you. A new strategy and a new archetype to, what was at the time, a new trading card game that changed the trajectory of the meta forever.

Despite consisting of a colossal number of defense reactions the deck still put the opposing hero on a clock. Harmonized Kodachis would relentlessly attack each turn and the ever-present threat of Razor Reflex played a key role in keeping the enemy guessing as it could surprise an unprepared opponent at any time, while being able to grant valuable go again to many of the deck’s attacks. Tome of Fyendal and Remembrance did a lot of work in certain matchups too, creating more time and ways to get to the deep waters of the deck’s end game by gaining life and drawing more key cards, or by shuffling said key cards back in.

Different iterations of Sasha’s Katsu Control have popped up over the years to varying degrees of success in the competitive space, but after Drone of Brutality got the chop March 26, 2021, the Ninja Turtle was never quite the same. Flic Flak and Katsu’s combo cards still live on, so there is still hope in the future for those who desire to defend their way to victory, while delivering a death of a thousand cuts.

Sasha Markovic: Calling Auckland February 2020

Wynton Bedford: ProQuest Auckland June 2021 (Post Drone of Brutality)

Control Dash

The Dash Control deck from the mid-year 2020 Road to Nationals season is one of the purest forms of a control deck Flesh and Blood has ever seen. With a value, grind ‘em into dust engine centred around the infamous Induction Chamber, most forms of the deck touted no less than 18 defense reactions- often with Sigil of Solace, and even at times, Sun Kiss- in tow, to buy precious extra time to set up the “Pistol-plan”.

Starting the game with an Induction Chamber in play is a great way to get the end game strategy of 2 to 3 Chambers, Teklo Plasma Pistol and a fistful of blues started, but when combined with Spark of Genius to search up more Chambers (and occasionally draw a card in the process) the number of Induction Chambers giving your Pistol go again enter the arena at a rapid pace- leading to a rapid decline in the enemy hero’s health.

The combination of Tome of Fyendal and Mage Master Boots to draw extra cards, gain life and go again is yet another brilliant buffer in the quest to drag the game out into deep waters before seeing the late game cycle of pitching a number of blue cards to a trio of Chambers and “pew-pew” ing for 2 until the game is yours.

Just Welcome to Rathe and Arcane Rising were released at the when this deck tore up the vibrant New Zealand scene in the hands of Jacob Pearson, Matt Rogers and others and a few big hitter, still current day mainstays were included in the deck to chip away at the enemy’s life early to mid game such as; Enlightened Strike, Command and Conquer as well as a smattering of Mechanologist Boost attacks.

Jacob Pearson took this list to a first place finish on July 4 2020 without dropping a match all day while defeating Matt Rogers in a mirror match grand final. A game I was fortunate enough to witness myself in the flesh and blood and to this day it remains an all time classic. The weeks after, Matt Rogers took Dash Control to a second place and four first place finishes, truly establishing the deck as an all time great of the game, even though Flesh and Blood was still making its way across the world at the time.

Today we still see fragments of the 2020 Dash deck’s legacy in the largest tournaments out there, albeit with fewer defense reactions and a less linear gameplan. Fair enough when you have five and a bit more releases in the pool! Dash’s evolution from these control roots still influences Mechanologist deckbuilding today and it seems like the power of Induction Chamber and friends will be with us for a pew more battles yet.

Jacob Pearson: Road to Nationals July 2020

Matt Rogers: Road to Nationals July 2020

Chane, Bound by Shadow (with Seeds of Agony)

Chane, Bound by Shadow ripped through reality and the gateway to íArathael and into the world metagame on July 13 2021 showcased by Senior Game Developer Jason Chung in the DEV-ASTATION! gameplay series and the world was never the same.

The Shadow Runeblade in its first and most unbridled form, was an aggressive deck which hit the opponent with both physical and arcane damage while accruing more and more card advantage each turn, thanks to the Soul Shackles Chane would create, (while also giving your next Shadow or Runeblade action go again!) banishing cards from the top of the deck- many of which were able to be played from the banished zone. As the turns went on, the combat chain would get wider and threats would continue to mount up.

A lot of the deck’s cards have Blood Debt. Take a damage at the end of the turn if this is in in the banished zone, but this debt was a small price to pay when the Chane player would often play out every Blood Debt card in a turn, or scarier yet, set up a few sickly synergistic cards over a turn or two taking minimal Blood Debt damage to really put the pain on the enemy with one or two turns of massive burst damage.

Some of the deadliest culprits in the deck- especially in multiples, were Rift Bind, Bounding Demigon and the sometime-after banned, Seeds of Agony. With plenty of non-attack actions to balance the attack actions, Chane had no shortage of ways to power up Rift Bind, make a Runechant or deal arcane damage to fulfill bonuses on cards like Bounding Demigon.

Art of War played a predominant role in the lists too. Not only would the Chane player often pump the board’s attack (and defense) power, but banishing a card to draw two…essentially drew you three cards if you banished one with Blood Debt!

Chane was released into this world just ahead of the 2021 Road to Nationals season and took out his fair(?) share of RTNs before doing the same in the ProQuest season soon after that year, despite Seeds of Agony being banned on September 24, 2021.You can’t keep a Runeblade down though! Chane continued to see play at the highest levels and took out the very firstPro Tour in New Jersey in the hands of Pablo Pintor before, on June 24th, 2022, Chane, Bound by Shadow officially ascended to the hall of Living Legends.

Check out Sebastiano Cavallo’s list below, one of the more refined Chane builds at the time, from the legendary Shadow versus Light Calling Las Vegas 2021 final, an example of what a Seeds of Agony Chane deck looked like at a time when Chane’s terror and looming doom across the format was at its peak.

Sebastiano Cavallo: Calling Las Vegas September 2021

Pablo Pintor: Pro Tour New Jersey May 2022 (Post Seeds of Agony, Pro Tour winning list)

Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light

Prism was a fan favorite hero from day one of her May 2021 Monarch release. Not only was she the first Illusionist in Flesh and Blood, but she came packing the Light talent too- a new aspect to the heroes of Rathe which the Monarch expansion introduced to the world. Prism invokes Solana’s legendary beings, the Heralds of Sol, which are massive, powerful angelic constructs of Arc Light, certainly a threat to any opponent, but it is in the presence and precision of her Spectra auras, where Prism’s power truly lay.

These instant speed auras which remain in the arena until targeted by an attack, consisted of Genesis, Merciful Retribution, Ode to Wrath, Parable of Humility and Prism’s specialization, the dreaded Arc Light Sentinel. This spectacular suite mixed with some Fate Foreseens and Sink Belows along with an armada of Heralds combined to create a complicated labyrinth of complexity for the enemy hero to navigate and keep under control.

These auras stick around until attacked…and once they are, they vanish from reality and the attacker’s turn ends. The double threat of being able to be played at instant speed as well as demanding multiple action points to clear an arena of two, three, even five auras at time, caused migraines for many decks that were no mere mirages, and saw the Prism player build a board of auras that would stick around turn after turn, snowballing advantage and closing the door to the opponent as the game went on. Time Skippers, Timesnap Potion and other cards which gained action points were often brought to the fight as “go again” would not cut it against Prism’s Spectra auras.

Guardians had a particular disdain for Prism and her insistence on “one big attack per turn” despite that often being a typical hammer swinging hero’s strategy. However, when that large attack is heavily incentivised (or in the case of Arc Light Sentinel, forced) to attack a Spectra aura it was very often a fight the Guardians (and many other classes who just couldn’t generate enough action points or go wide enough) simply could not win.

One hero who was very much seen as a favorite into Prism is the aforementioned Chane, Bound by Shadow. A typical Chane’s super aggressive, card advantage-privileged, go wide strategy would aim to “go under” Prism’s auras, in the hope doing enough damage and taking enough cards out of the Light Illusionist’s hand before she could set up a board of Spectras. This was usually a very good way to take down Prism and many believed it to be a nightmare matchup for her, however in September 2021, Tyler Horspool shocked/saved the world from Chane and the Shadow he’d cast over the Classic Constructed metagame.

Tyler brought a control deck designed to defeat Chane to Calling Las Vegas which was at the time, the largest Flesh and Blood event in history. His masterpiece had some specific tools to interrupt and disrupt the Demonsatery’s Shadow Runeblade menace, such as the rarely seen Snag (perfect for messing up a Rift Bind), Arc Light Sentinel, Sigil of Solace, Sink Below, Prismatic Shield, Soul Shield and Fate Foreseen to buy time and see the Chane player grow closer to “fatiguing out” with no cards left in deck, as well as a good number of Heralds to continue applying pressure. (He also had all the Spectras too!) Tyler defeated seven out of the eight Chanes he played that weekend and his victory of the Light over Shadow will forever be remembered as one of the most iconic moments in Flesh and Blood history.

Prism left her mark on Rathe and ascended to the hall of Living Legends on August 30, 2022, and will live on until the end of time. She taught us that hope is never truly lost…and that her fantastical arc light spectras need not only be figments of imagination.

Tyler Horspool: Calling Las Vegas September 2021

Ian Zhang: Pro Tour Lille August 2022

Cheerios Briar

Halloween 2021 was a ghoulish time for a few reasons. Vampires, werewolves and Briar, Warden of Thorns. In some far out, fiendish way, she could be described as a Frankenstein’s Monster of sorts. Matthew Foulkes shared this creation with the world on October 31, 2021 as he went 15-0 to take out the United Kingdom National Championships with a deck which was seemingly cobbled together of an assortment of underplayed and underrated cards such as Nimblism, Lightning Surge, Captain’s Call, Electrify and others which together, formed a monster much greater than the sum of its mostly rare and common parts.

A week later, Tariq Patel, one of the deck’s primary designers, took Briar to another National Championship title, this time in the United States. The deck became known as Cheerios, as much like the shape of the popular cereal, a circle, the Cheerios deck had a lot of circles- zeros in it. 67 cards that cost zero appeared in Tariq’s decklist, including just 11 which pitched for three.

Despite picking up a trophy a week earlier, Cheerios took the vast majority of players by surprise at US Nats 2021. The deck aimed to attack as many times as possible a turn, as cheaply as possible. Often not pitching a single card in a turn. Of course, when the time came to pitch a blue, value was always around to be had as, like a good Runeblade does, Briar had a brilliant balance of non-attack and attack actions to draw cards, pump up attack actions, “two and two” with Rosetta Thorn and pressure the opponent turn after turn (after turn) with both physical and arcane damage.

Ball Lightning (which was banned alongside Plunder Run January 17, 2022) was particularly horrifying in this build of Briar. It of course cost zero, was a Lightning card (great to fuse with many other cards in the list), had go again and added plus one damage to other Lightning or Elemental attack action cards on the combat chain. There were a lot of these in the deck. Combine that with Sting of Sorcery which saw any attack action card deal one arcane damage on attack (not on hit) and things very quickly spiraled out of control. We aren’t done yet though. Once upon a time, Briar’s Embodiment of Earth token would be created after each attack action dealt damage. Not hit. Not once per turn. This deck was terrifying. Embodiment of Earth tokens would pop up after Sting of Sorcery triggers, Arcanic Crackle/Shockwave triggers, hell, even regular attack action hits would trigger it. This version of Briar wasn’t a big fan of defending too much, but when she needed to, one non-attack action card was usually more than enough.

Briar also has also seen much success in similar but slightly more cost intensive builds featuring Channel Mount Heroic- still a top tier threat today- and more recently took out Pro Tour Lille with another innovative chapter in the Briar deckbuilding evolution (again in the hands of Matthew Foulkes) showing that she has the flexibility and resilience to grow and thrive wherever the metagame may take her.

Tariq Patel: United States Nationals November 2021

Matthew Foulkes: Pro Tour Lille August 2022 (Post Ball Lightning, Pro Tour winning list)

Starvo

This guy was juiced to the gills! Bravo, Star of the Show rolled into town as the charismatic ringleader of the Everfest carnival February 4, 2022 and took his final bow June 24. The first hero to ascend to Living Legend in Classic Constructed also did it in the shortest amount of time. “Captain Planet” came in second place at the first ever Pro Tour in New Jersey thanks to Florin-Cristian Loghin, scooped up three Calling trophies in the hands of Mateusz Sass, Sheng-Xun Luo and Michael Hamilton, six Battle Hardened victories and a casual 221 (approximately… come on, I lost count) ProQuest wins in his four and a bit months on Earth.

Awakening and Autumn’s Touch went under the ban hammer just before Pro Tour New Jersey on May 2, 2022 in an effort to reduce Starvo’s explosivity, hero power consistency and see a broader range of strategies emerge in the metagame. Awakening had the ability to trade for the most explosive turns an opponent could come up with, for little cost. Awakening, in a sense, created a 2 cost Pulverize, Crippling Crush, or Spinal Crush. If you have less health than your opponent, whatever the difference, make that many Seismic Surge tokens, each one making your next Guardian attack action cost one less. It also searched up whatever Guardian attack action you so desired.

So what made the Brostar so good? There were certainly a few ways to build this hero, Michael Hamilton showed us that Callings could still be won when Starvo’s brakes were pumped a bit, with a much more controlling build than the more common show you two or three cards and smash your face in every turn strategy which was very on-trend and effective, however, revealing an Earth, Lightning and Ice Elemental card at the start of the turn to gain +2, go again and dominate on your first big attack action was a popular and highly successful circus trick.

The Pulses from Tales of Aria; Volthaven, Candlehold and Isenloft were incredible at firing up Starvo’s hero power turn after turn. Simply reveal one of these as well as the missing element and you were good to go! Bravatar (some people did in fact refer to the Star of the Show as this) loved a cold one too! A “cold four” was a term often heard when an Ice card was pitched to Winter’s Wail, the most popular hammer of choice, and this added yet another…element…to his gameplan. Throwing an occasional Frostbite in the mix via the hammer was just one more way Starvo could put the hurt on his enemies.

Bravo made a lot of enemies during his whirlwind tour of Rathe, but he made a lot of champions too. His performance in the spotlight is desired to be forgotten by many, but his power, prestige and performance as the ringmaster of the Legendarium and the star of the show with the power of the Flow coursing through his veins will be remembered until the end of time.

Michael Hamilton: Calling Indianapolis March 2022

Florin-Cristian Loghin: Pro Tour New Jersey May 2022 (Post Awakening)

Fai, Rising Rebellion (with Stubby Hammerers)

Fai with Stubby Hammerers (affectionately known as Stubbies from this point on. Hammerers that is…not Fai) is the most recent and probably the most controversial on this list. When chatting with a few people much more in the know about this kind of stuff than I am, it was proclaimed to me; “What? Fai?! Best decks ever?” I was like “Well, yeah..the whole strategy was banned in like a month.” “Oh..true…I suppose so then.” Some people just aren’t into 50 plus damage turn two I guess.

While Fai and Stubbies haven’t won a record number of events, ascended to Living Legend or won a Pro Tour, there was a month or so of madness unlike almost anything seen in Flesh and Blood history. Fai, Rising Rebellion and Uprising were unleashed on the world June 24, 2022 and Stubbies was out the door via the banned list on August 1. 38 days of destruction for this dynamic duo.

The Stubbies lists that very quickly became optimized killing machines during their short time on Rathe didn’t look too different from what is seen in a Fai list today. Apart from the equipment. Blaze Headlong, Belittle and Minnowism, Flamecall Awakening, Spreading Flames, Salt the Wound and of course Art of War were all in attendance, however instead of today’s mostly agreed upon, slightly slower and more steady-although still five or six chain links a turn, go-wide aggro Fai deck which might defend with one card a turn and aim to win over four or five turns, the Fai from July builds were more in the business of not defending even once (unless it was significantly detrimental to the Fai player) and aimed to deal 40 plus damage in a single turn by attacking as hard and as wide as possible with a combination of cards including but not limited to; Spreading Flames, Art of War, Tome of Firebrand, Salt the Wound, Mask of the Pouncing Lynx, Blossom of Spring and of course the innocuous little piece of common equipment itself, Stubby Hammerers.

Despite the Road to Nationals season at the time still having a reasonably balanced spread of winning heroes, Sebastian Grøndal took out the European Champions Battle and Sander Neeft, the Calling Utrecht. It was clear that the singularity had arrived and time was up for Stubbies. What a month it was to be a Ninja player. Everyone else…not so much.

Sander Neeft: Calling Utrecht July 2022

George Rodger: UK Nationals September 2022 (Post Stubby Hammerers)