With the National Championship season officially come to an end, we reached out to our brand new 2022 National Champions to learn more about their experiences playing at their Nationals events, how they prepared for the big tournament, and what they might be looking forward to at Worlds! This is the first article in our two-part series, so tune in next week for more from our Champions around the world. Congratulations to all of our 2022 National Champions, and we look forward to crowning our first World Champion next month!
Some players opted to answer a series of example questions we provided, and some chose to write their own responses.
Matt Rogers, 2022 and 2020 New Zealand National Champion
"We started Nationals season testing for all 3 nation champs for Team Dragon Shield that were each on different dates (Australia, Canada, New Zealand). Oldhim is one of my favorite heroes so with Prism banning this is where I wanted to start and focus most of my time. Nick, Tariq, and I spent the majority of the time tinkering the lists for how we wanted to play into each matchup and forming our plans. We are in different time zones and countries so playing games was done mostly over an online platform but more importantly, we talked daily about the deck, matchups, and our plans for each through messenger. The whole season was amazing as we each helped and celebrated each other's wins.
Without the team, I am not confident we would have won any of our Nationals but together we won all 3, and I think this is the biggest testament to playing as a team and supporting each other. For those wanting to better their game, my biggest piece of advice is simply to find someone as dedicated as you and put in countless time and effort into helping each other, and you will rise and improve together. We look ahead to worlds now with utter dedication to bringing the trophy home for Team Dragon Shield!"
Michael Hamilton, 2022 United States National Champion
"I decided to play Iyslander for US Nationals because I thought I had a pretty unique take on a hero that I thought was both powerful and fun. I tested primarily online with the wolfpack and also played a few games on Talishar and a few with some of the midwest crew. With the support of my team, we refined the list to a point that I was quite happy with it in most of my matchups.
I'm really looking forward to the World Championship and next year's tournament circuit. I've gotten to play so many different heroes in the highest level of events we've had and my favorite part of the game is bringing innovative lists to big tournaments and finding success. I think there's still a ton to explore in the game, so I would advise people to go out on a limb and try things that they think have the potential to be good. Don't feel constrained by the decks that others are putting out there, because the game is still very far from being solved. Innovation has been finding success at tons of tournaments, so don't be afraid to try things!"
Mohamed El Fardi, 2022 France National Champion
How/why did you decide which hero to play at this event?
"J'ai essentiellement choisi ce héros car c'est celui avec lequel j'ai accumulé le plus d'expérience (je l'avais joué au Calling d'Utrecht et au Pro Tour de Lille durant l'été)."
"I basically chose this hero because it's the one with which I have accumulated the most experience (I had played him at the Calling Utrecht and at Pro Tour Lille this summer)."
How did you prepare?
"J'ai beaucoup joué avec une petite équipe parisienne, les Paul (oui, ils sont deux), Valentin, Ariela et Hugo en fin de soirée dans certains LGS ou chez nous certains dimanches. Pour les héros que le groupe ne jouait pas, j'ai pu compter sur des joueurs français expérimentés sur ces héros. Sans être exhaustif je pense à Marc Alexandre et Pierre Canali pour Viserai, Soon pour Iyslander, Etienne Duruy pour Bravo, Benjamin Cohen pour Fai, il y en a sans doute d'autres que j'oublie."
"I played a lot with a small Parisian team, the Pauls (yes, there are two of them), Valentin, Ariela, and Hugo mostly at the end of our day work in some Local game store or on some team member's home some Sundays. For the heroes that the group did not play I was able to count on experienced French players on these heroes. Without being exhaustive I'm thinking of Marc Alexandre and Pierre Canali for Viserai, Soon for Iyslander, Etienne Duruy for Bravo, Benjamin Cohen for Fai, there are probably others I'm forgetting."
What was the highlight of the event for you?
"Rencontrer tous ces joueurs venus de toute la France, j'ai beaucoup de gratitude de faire partie de cette communauté, les gens sont vraiment très sympas et je crois que nous avons tous passé un super week-end à jouer au meilleur TCG du monde!"
"Meeting all these players from all over France, I have a lot of gratitude to be part of this community, the people are really nice and I think we all had a great weekend playing the best TCG in the world!"
What advice do you have for players wanting to enter the competitive scene and become the next National Champion in 2023?
"Peut-être de ne jamais oublier de prendre du plaisir, sans ça le voyage n'en vaut juste pas la peine. Essayer d'apprendre à chacune de ses défaites ce qui aurait pu être fait différemment et enfin se confronter aux meilleurs en se rendant à des Pro Quest, Battle Hardened, Calling ou Pro Tour."
"Maybe never forget to have fun, otherwise the journey just isn't worth it. Try to learn from each of his defeats what could have been done differently (quoting Flake: "You're not losing if you're learning") and finally face the best by going to Pro Quest, Battle Hardened, Calling or Pro Tour."
What are you most looking forward to seeing in Flesh and Blood next year?
"Un mode multi-joueur immersif (différent de l'UPF) et un set centré sur la région de Metrix."
"An immersive multiplayer mode (different from UPF) and a set focused on the Metrix region."
Where to next? What are your FAB goals for the future?
"Continuer à prendre du plaisir à jouer au jeu en essayant de jouer à mon meilleur niveau avec le temps libre à ma disposition."
"Continue to enjoy playing the game while trying to play at my best in the limited free time I have."
Are you attending the World Championship? What are you most looking forward to? What are you most hoping to see with the release of Dynasty?
"Je ne vais malheureusement pas pouvoir me déplacer aux Worlds pour des raisons professionnelles, mais j'ai hâte de pouvoir suivre tous les joueurs français qui s'y rendent (il y a au moins Pierre Canali et Marc Alexandre qui feront le déplacement, je leur souhaite de passer un bon moment et de faire un top résultat).
Pour Dynasty j'espère que l'on aura de nouveaux équipements sympa pour toutes les classes et que la méta post Dynasty sera au moins aussi ouverte que celle de la saison qui s'achève."
"Unfortunately, I won't be able to travel to the Worlds due to professional obligations, but I can't wait to be able to follow all the French players who are going there (there are at least Pierre Canali, Natalia Berger and Marc Alexandre who will make the trip, I wish them to have a good time and to have a top result).
For Dynasty I hope we will have some cool new gear for all classes and that the post Dynasty meta will be at least as open as our current one."
"Je souhaite remercier ma femme qui m'a encouragé cette saison, mon équipe avec qui nous avons essayé de tous level up et Tristan qui m'a fait découvrir ce jeu. Je remercie aussi toutes les boutiques parisiennes chez qui nous avons pu jouer, Uchronies Games (et son extrême flexibilité), LudiWorld (et leur super journée full Flesh And Blood organisée par Ludo et Poisoned), Playin et Majestik. Merci aussi à Zhikan pour tes précieux conseils par téléphone, à l'oeil d’Ophidia pour offrir des coverages et du contenu en français et enfin tout le Discord Français qui m'a encouragé toute la saison passée et bien sûr LSS pour avoir créé ce magnifique jeu."
"I would like to thank my wife who encouraged me this season, my team with whom we tried to all level up and Tristan who made me discover this game. I would also like to thank all the Parisian LGS where we were able to play, Uchronies Games (and its extreme flexibility), LudiWorld (and their great full Flesh And Blood game day organized by Ludo and Poisoned), Playin and Majestik. Thanks also to Zhikan for your precious advice by phone, to the eye of Ophidia for offering coverages and content in French and finally to all the French Discord who encouraged me all past season and of course LSS for creating this wonderful game!"
Mário Abrantes, 2022 Portugal National Champion
"In smaller countries with growing communities, the Nationals event is very interesting to prepare for because your usual teammates and local playgroup, which you practice and prepare for international events with, is suddenly your direct competition which you need to prepare to play against and tech your deck for.
While my deck choice was mostly public knowledge (since I had already played Oldhim in the RtN season and in PT#2), it was a brand new meta to prepare my Oldhim deck for due to no longer having to worry about Prism, and in order to do so, I practiced a lot using Talishar to figure out sideboards and play patterns for each matchup and fine-tune my list using the awesome deck results data provided by Fabrary. The tools provided by these two websites were absolutely crucial for my preparation and for that I would like to thank both of their development teams.
Moving forward I'm excited to see and help the local, national and international Flesh and Blood communities grow, so more and more people can enjoy and compete in all these great events.
Last but not least I'd like to shoutout Drawstep's team for the awesome and flawless event, GG Lounge's team for being a driving force in FAB's Portuguese community, my testing partners, and my local playgroup for the countless hours of testing, theorycrafting and company for all the travels to events both national and international and of course my family and my girlfriend for all the support."
Adrian Fjell, 2022 Norway National Champion
"I can introduce myself first. My name is Adrian Fjell from Oslo, Norway and I have been an avid card game enthusiast for the last 7 years. I started out with Pokemon TCG which I have been playing for 7 years now and I also play the Digimon card game which I have been playing for a year.
I got introduced to FAB in March where I learned to play the game starting with some blitz decks. The game was really fun and skill intensive, but I did not have the time to play it on a regular basis at that moment. Fast forward to June 2nd I played my first armory and to my surprise, I won! I was playing Dash which was a really good starting point and it learnt me how to be efficient with my cards and resources which was a very good way to learn the game.
Later on, Uprising got released and my friend and fab-mentor Christian Bergesen lent me his self-made Dromai-deck. I got in a good amount of games with the deck, learning the ins and outs of the deck. The mechanic with making illusionary dragons and a board state. Making allies is a more reminiscent way of playing card games to me so I guess it appealed in a way. I had a lot of fun with the deck, got a lot of help with the sideboard guides and general playstyles from Christian, and I played a lot of local events to hone my skills going into the nationals. Also based on the local meta, Dromai seemed to be a really good pick.
Big shoutouts to my mentor Christian Bergesen and the Norwegian FAB community!"
Bartosz Ziemba, 2022 Poland National Champion
How/why did you decide which hero to play at this event?
"I played Briar for over a year now, she was my choice for both the last year's Nationals, and also for the PT Lille, so I was really confident in my abilities to pilot the deck well. People in Poland love the deck, and we banded together before PT Lille to perfect the list, so it only needed slight changes before the Nationals to be ready for the tournament. Also, I believe her to still be the best deck out there, and wouldn't be surprised for her to reign at the World Championships - although that would mean that getting GF Rosetta would probably be impossible until LL format becomes a thing."
What advice do you have for players wanting to enter the competitive scene and become the next National Champion in 2023?
"Practice makes perfect, so attending as many major tournaments as possible to play with the best and learn from them would be my biggest advice. Learning from your mistakes and not getting discouraged by a series of bad finishes at any level of play, asking for pointers from your opponents to get to know in's and out's of all of the decks present in the current metagame, and always striving to improve your game. What we always do in our testing is streaming our matches and kinda 'play together', so that we can better recognise play patterns and talk through all of the possible lines if something interesting comes up during the game, so just watching someone play or being watched helps a lot to grasp what mistakes you might be doing that seemingly are the right plays."
Is there anyone - teammates, testing partners, friends, family, significant others or supporters - that you'd like to give a shoutout to?
"The same as in Lille - to my main testing partners Piotr, Tomasz, Mateusz, and my brother Łukasz as we are always traveling together to the bigger tournaments and bouncing off ideas to perfect our lists, but as well to the whole Polish community, as the list was made by all of us together and only slightly changed before the Nationals. I would also like to shout out the best FaB podcast out there 'Pummelowanko', as it is always a big encouragement to perform well, as each week everyone who finishes in the top spots gets to join them to talk about the game we all love."
Donovan Van Beek, 2022 Netherlands National Champion
"I've been playing Guardian decks for a long time and during last Pro-Quest season I was on Oldhim but switched to Bravo (my old time favorite) for the Pro Tour at Lille. At that time I thought Bravo was able to attack the meta a bit more. I switched back to Oldhim a couple weeks before Nationals because I felt more comfortable playing Oldhim in the current meta and thought it had a better match-up against Iyslander which I expected to see a lot during Nationals. I love playing the fatigue game and being in control, that’s why I really enjoy Guardian as a class even though I played a somewhat more aggressive Oldhim variant during Nationals. I practiced a lot with my local group in Arnhem and in particular with my girlfriend Yael Belder who also did really well at Dutch Nationals, coming in at 10th place playing Dorinthea.
The highlight during last week's Nationals was seeing the wall that Nino created, filled with pictures and memes of all events Dutch players participated in since we started playing the game back in June 2020. Seeing everyone enjoy that and laughing out loud looking back at precious memories is exactly why I love playing this game. It makes me proud to be part of the Dutch community.
Having won Dutch Nationals, making it to the top 4 last year, and winning the Battle Hardened (Blitz) at New Jersey last May makes me confident about playing Blitz and Classic Constructed. My main focus for next month will be on playing some drafts. It took me a bit longer to figure out all Uprising had to offer in comparison to the other sets I've drafted. I'm looking forward to the next couple of months, playing at the World Championship, and the new set release shortly after."
Mikko Airaksinen, 2022 Finland National Champion
"I chose Iyslander as the hero to play because I really loved the concept from the moment it was revealed as a CC hero in Uprising. I initially was still playing Viserai but after a mediocre run at Calling: Utrecht and Prism getting Living Legend status I decided to go all-in on Iyslander.
I spent a month playing a lot of games and building an elaborate spreadsheet to make sure all of my ratios in the deck were where I wanted them to be as Iyslander really requires you to have a very specific amount of blue pitch cards and ice cards etc. I played in every Armory I could make it to and also practiced online with webcam and Talishar.net. I strongly believe in FaB’s core thesis of playing with physical cards, but as a father of a 1-year-old the reality is online was the only possibility to get practice in at times.
My highlight of the nationals was beating Bravo on 1 life after getting hit with a pummeled Crippling Crush not once but twice in the same game. Iyslander is such a wonderful deck because it feels like you always have a way out of even the most desperate situations. My advice for people entering the competitive scene and becoming a National Champion is to find a hero you really enjoy playing and put in practice instead of trying to find online guides for the “best deck”. I strongly believe that in order to do well you have to truly enjoy the games and for me at least playing a hero I like is the best way to achieve that.
As for the future, on a personal level I hope to do well in Worlds this year, but even more than that I look forward to meeting a lot of cool people as to me the community of the game is by far the best part of it. If I’m lucky maybe I’ll earn an invite for the next Pro Tour as well. I think Flesh and Blood is in a really good place right now and the two things I am really looking forward to is a new draft set (because I love drafting) and some support for the heroes that are struggling a bit (Levia, Azalea, Boltyn come to mind) because I want everyone to be able to play their favorite hero and not feel like they are massive underdogs from the get-go.
Lastly, some shoutouts. I want to first and foremost give a massive thank you to my lovely wife Karoliina for being supportive and understanding of the late-night testing sessions I had to put in to do well at nationals. Also a thank you to the international community and all Iyslander content creators (EthnicSmoke, Papaya, HowlingMines, ThePitchStack, and many more) for putting in the work for someone like me to be able to absorb their ideas. Extra special shout out to the Finnish FaB community as well, we’re not a big country but I think the community is truly special with some top-tier memes. War Command!"
Richard Anthony Bustamante, 2022 Philippines National Champion
How/why did you decide which hero to play at this event? How did you prepare?
"I played Oldhim for this event. I'm always fascinated with the Control/Midrange archetype in games. I prepared by attending the Calling in Singapore to grasp the competitive feel and testing every single day on Talishar since then."
What was the highlight of the event for you?
"The highlight was in the finals when I had an earth card, a blue pitch and an oaken old. Using Crown of Seeds to dig that ice card for the win."
What advice do you have for players wanting to enter the competitive scene and become the next National Champion in 2023?
"Mental preparation is vital. Not only knowing how to play your own hero, but identifying how other heroes work will define victories. Always have a learning attitude towards losses. It's the key to 'gitgud'."
What are you most looking forward to seeing in Flesh and Blood next year?
"More events like this! We are on the right direction and I hope to see the game grow even further, especially in my country (the Philippines)."
Where to next? What are your FAB goals for the future?
"My next goal is to grow the Filipino FAB community and train the next players to become the next National (or even Protour) champions."
Are you attending the World Championship? What are you most looking forward to?
"Unfortunately, the next VISA schedule to travel to San Jose will be in 2023 and I couldn't go. I'm excited to meet people who are considered "Pros" and have a chat with them. I'm also a huge fan of the artists in FAB so it's one of the things I'm excited about in an event."
What are you most hoping to see with the release of Dynasty?
"More support with the existing classes we know and love, especially some rangers, mechanologists, and warrior. (I'm a huge Dorinthea fan)."
Is there anyone - teammates, testing partners, friends, family, significant others, or supporters - that you'd like to give a shoutout to?
"Chuck Cruz and his staff of ScryGames for hosting the Nationals event. The Baguio Community: LGSs Johnson Gaming and Honor's Ground Hobby Shop for traveling 7 hours to the event. Amol Singh (Vagabond Games, NZ), Adrienne Morales, Uhyoung Choi, Justin Wong from NZ, PH Chung (HK), who played with us during lockdowns and testing decks. Dr. Carl Celera for making our Oldhim deck built from scratch; the Filipino FAB community for making this an experience we all won't forget. And to my Wife, Raissa, and daughter Riel for always being a huge support."