Pro Tour Lille Snap Shot

Day 3

The stage has been set and the combatants are ready to battle for the right to be called Pro Tour Lille Champion in the Top 8 at Pro Tour Lille!

Bartosz Ziemba, Matthew Foulkes, Pablo Pintor, Pheano Black, Jakub Irzyk, Shahmir Samee, Ian Zhang and Christian Hauck sat down for quarter final matchups on Sunday in Lille, France.

In the first quarterfinal, we saw Poland's Bartosz Ziemba (Top 8 at Poland Nationals, Battle Hardened Krakow and 2022 European Champions' Battle) playing Briar, Warden of Thorns defeated Germany's Christian Hauck (German National Champion and Calling Krakow finalist) playing Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire.

Quarterfinal two saw Poland's Jakub Irzyk (8-6 at Pro Tour NJ) playing Briar, Warden of Thorns defeat USA's Pheano Black (Calling Indianapolis Finalist) playing Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light.

The third quarterfinal saw UK's Shahmir Samee (World #55 on 90 day XP) defeat the first player to Top 8 back to back Pro Tours, Pro Tour New Jersey champion, Spain's Pablo Pintor playing Viserai, Rune Blood.

Quarterfinal four saw tournament co-top seed UK National Champion Matthew Foulkes playing a very innovative Briar, Warden of Thorns defeat Netherland's Ian Zhang (Pro Tour NJ T16) playing Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light.

After some hard fought quarterfinals featuring some of the most brilliant games of Flesh and Blood ever seen on stream, the semifinals left us with just four players and four copies of Briar, Warden of Thorns.

Friends and countrymen Jakub Irzyk and Bartosz Ziemba held nothing back and showed no mercy in a lightning quick game between the two aggressive Elemental Runeblades in semifinal one, but in the end, it was Bartosz Ziemba who took the W and advanced to the Grand Final.

Semifinal two saw fellow UK players Matthew Foulkes take on Shahmir Samee in a dramatic, Channel Mount Heroic-fuelled spectacle where UK National Champion Matthew Foulkes was able to pick up the win and take on Poland's Bartosz Ziemba in the Pro Tour Lille Grand Final!

It was quite fitting that the top two players- both Foulkes and Ziemba finished 12-2 after Swiss rounds- came head to head for the trophy in the grand final. Despite both players choosing Briar, Warden of Thorns, this was not your regular mirror match.

Channel Mount Heroic played the lead role in both players' decks however, where Bartosz took a more traditional aggressive Briar approach, Matt's deck really focused on the power of the Tales of Aria Legendary, Spellbound Creepers to gain extra action points and in turn, draw a lot of extra cards.

It was hit after hit on both sides of the arena from both players, but slowly the life point gap grew broader and broader in the UK Champion's favour. Matt's Spellbound Creepers was activated no fewer than three times before defending and going to the graveyard. Bartosz wasn't going down without a fight though. He played a Channel Mount Heroic and sent a 9 power Command and Conquer Matt's way which extract's three cards from his hand.

Bartosz adds a second Channel Mount Heroic to the arena and attacks with a Ravenous Rabble for ten! The next attack from Bartosz is an Exude Confidence for ten and takes another two cards from Matt's hand.

Matt has two cards in hand and one in arsenal. He plays a Sonata Arcanix, looking for another attack action to seal the game. He reveals a card, a centrepiece of his deck, Belittle, creates a Runechant with Grasp of the Arknight, attacks with Belittle and it is enough to become Pro Tour Lille champion!

Congratulations Pro Tour Lille champion Matthew Foulkes!

Day 2

After two days of competition, Pro Tour Lille is down to the Top 8!

It's been a fantastic weekend for the European players, who have taken seven of the Top 8 slots in their home Pro Tour. Topping the table after day two were UK National Champion Matthew Foulkes and Poland's Bartosz Ziemba (Top 8 at Poland Nationals, Battle Hardened Krakow and European Champions' Battle), both running Briar decks. For Foulkes this was a return to familiar territory, as he was the first player in the world to run out the Briar deck that dominated much of the 2021 National Championships season.

Leading the pack of 11-3 players was Spain's Pablo Pintor, Champion at Pro Tour New Jersey, running the sole Viserai deck to make the Top 8. Joining him in the T8 bracket are USA's Pheano Black (Calling Indianapolis Finalist), Netherland's Ian Zhang (Pro Tour NJ T16), Germany's Christian Hauck (German National Champion and Calling Krakow finalist), Poland's Jakub Irzyk (8-6 at Pro Tour NJ) and UK's Shahmir Samee (World #55 on 90 day XP)

Desperately unlucky to miss the cut on tiebreakers were two more American players; Michael Feng (Calling Cincinnati Champion, US Nationals finalist, World #8 Constructed Elo and World #11 Limited Elo), and Cody Williams (US Nationals Semifinalist, Calling Indianapolis T8, Battle Hardened Syracuse T8 and Battle Hardened Pittsburgh T8)

Coverage was streamed on our YouTube page, and you can check out all the Top 8 decklists below!

Pro Tour Standings After Day Two

Day 1

Day 1 of Pro Tour Lille saw 354 players sit down at the beginning of the main event, with players travelling from all around the world including 26 of the top 30 highest ranked players on the planet, on Friday morning in France.

Pro Tour players got ready for 3 rounds of Uprising draft, followed by 4 rounds of Classic Constructed to make up the first of the three day Pro Tour Lille experience with all players with 4 or more wins advancing to day two.

Fans watched the draft rounds of a monster pod live on stream featuring both Michael Hamilton and Matt Rogers and then at the end of round three were able to watch the draft viewer as Matt picked each card of his Dromai deck- while Matt himself provided a thought process commentary.

The day one Draft metagame consisted of:

147 Fai

105 Dromai

102 Iyslander

In between the Uprising draft and CC rounds, James White introduced the world to The Emperor of Volcor...

The Classic Constructed metagame for Pro Tour Lille was anyone's for the taking! After Jason Zhang's victory with Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire at Calling Singapore last weekend, it was expected that the Mechanologist would see a surge in popularity and compared to recent weeks, it's safe to say that that's what's been seen. However, it was the Runeblades- Briar Warden of Thorns and Viserai, Rune Blood, and the Draconic Ninja- Fai, Rising Rebellion- the aggressive decks of the format (as well as Prism!) leading the pack and shaping the field.

At the other end of the breakdown, we may see only one Ser Boltyn, Breaker of Dawn, but that didn't stop experienced Light Warrior player Joshua Lau from picking up a spectacular victory dropping his opponent from over 30 health, down to zero (while gaining at least ten life of his own) in one turn thanks to a triple Lumina Ascension turn Round 4 on stream!

After three rounds of Uprising draft and four rounds of Classic Constructed, three players were undefeated on 7-0!

• Easton Douglas
• Chu Heng Eng
• Dagan White

See below for the standings of all top ranked players as we head into Day 2.

Check out the official Flesh and Blood Facebook, Twitter and come back to the YouTube stream Saturday 10.30am CEST for 3 more rounds of Uprising draft and four more rounds of CC before we cut to the Top 8 on Sunday!