ProQuest Season 2 Metagame, Week 3

We're pleased to welcome back Drew Cordell as a guest writer for the second season of ProQuest! Drew previously wrote a series of articles for us for ProQuest Season 1, and has returned to bring you up to speed on the metagame during the ProQuest season. This week's article covers Week 3 of events.

Welcome back to the third week of ProQuest Season Two! If you missed my meta coverage from last week, you can read that article here. As expected, ProQuest continues to be an exciting time for Flesh and Blood Classic Constructed players as local scenes converge to battle it out in a high-stakes competition for some awesome prizes. Like my previous articles this season, we’ll take a look at the data from this week by itself, then compare it to the aggregate view of weeks 1+2 combined to show how the meta has shifted over the season. Let’s dive in!

The same as last week, Bravo, Star of the Show, Chane, and Prism continue to be the three major heroes representing the majority of the meta share. Briar and Lexi remain strong contenders next in line to the ‘big three’—with both of these heroes continuing to post strong showings and results week-over-week. This week, Bravo, Star of the Show posted the highest overall win conversions, nearly doubling Chane’s win percentage despite a much narrower margin in Top 8 conversions between the two heroes. Prism trailed behind Bravo, Star of the Show and Chane in Top 8 conversions, but actually had the same overall win percentage and number of overall wins as Chane this week! With a staunch response (obligatory Guardian joke), Players adapted their lists and strategies to tackle the meteoric rise of Chane, reducing his efficacy in converting overall wins from Top 8 placements week-over-week.

Briar has become more popular week-over-week and Lexi has become slightly less popular in week three compared to the aggregate view of weeks one and two. Both hero which trail behind the ‘big three’ are over twice as popular than the next highest-represented hero (Dash) out of the list of heroes that makes up the remainder of the list. Briar was able to convert a higher percentage of wins during week three as more players sought the elemental Runeblade route.

Some notable and interesting facts from the data this week:

• There were 94 events in ProQuest Season Two week three across 28 different countries.
• One event was mis-reported, bringing Viserai’s total wins down to one ProQuest event this season.
• There is one unconfirmed win for Kano this season that occurred last weekend. LSS is still verifying.
• A legitimate young Chane (20 life instead of 40!) placed in the Top 8 of an event last week. [06/21/22 - NB: We have since received more information about this event, and the store has now confirmed that Paul played Chane, Bound by Shadow, not a young hero.]
• Boltyn and Levia secured their first overall ProQuest event win this week!

Overall shifts in the ProQuest meta have been less-drastic than I initially expected week-over-week. Mainly, my prediction that Oldhim would rise up to take more meta share as aggressive aggro decks like Briar and Chane rose in popularity was incorrect. While minor, Oldhim was marginally less popular in week three than he was in weeks 1 + 2.

Notably, I missed the inclusion or proper consideration of the headwinds that Oldhim is facing. Primarily, the loss of Awakening in Classic Constructed does hinder Oldhim’s power. Awakening was an incredibly powerful card that had the ability to shift tempo in the blink of an eye—even without an earth card in hand to fuse with. The addition of Pulverize in Everfest gave Guardian on-demand access to the largest attack ever printed in the history of the game. Despite an otherwise strong kit, Oldhim has suffered with the loss of Awakening. Secondly, Autumn’s Touch is suspended until the official release of Uprising. While Oldhim traditionally only uses the blue version, single element cards that can block for three are in high demand and short supply and lower-quality substitutions like Evergreen (that block for two) do chip away at the bottom line. Perhaps Oldhim will favor some of the new ice cards from Uprising!

Heroes like Bravo, Showstopper, Dash, Kano, Levia, and Rhinar have all enjoyed marginal increases in their representation week-over-week in week three, while some of the other lesser contenders depreciated further in representation. Week over week, hero representation has been relatively stable with no major changes or drastic swings one way or another for overall meta representation. It appears that ProQuest and Calling New Jersey did an excellent job at helping players all over the world understand how their heroes were positioned. The thousands and thousands of cumulative testing efforts of some of the best players and teams in the world helped paint a well-defined picture of the state of Flesh and Blood Classic Constructed heading into ProQuest Season!

Of the heroes to watch heading into Uprising, I continue to be fascinated by Kano’s rise in the ProQuest meta this season. It’s encouraging to see his representation rise week-over-week as he has historically been underrepresented in Classic Constructed despite being a Blitz all-star. Players will need to strongly consider if they feel comfortable enough with their gameplan and deck of choice to bring anything less than two arcane barrier to the table—and if you’re wondering, Arcanite Skullcap with its conditional Arcane Barrier 3 is not a great substitution for lighter-weight nullrune equipment.

Taking a look at the Living Legends board update from June 1st, we see that Chane is very likely to hit Living Legend status and take his place with Bravo, Star of the Show as we conclude ProQuest Season 2. Prism trails behind in third place at 780 points. While it is statistically improbable that Prism hits Living legend status this season, it’s likely that Uprising will shake things up with the introduction of the new heroes and cards which will bring updates to classes even outside the main three heroes of the set.

Living Legends

What should you expect heading into the final week of ProQuest? With more datapoints to draw upon, it’s realistic not to see any major changes to the week-over-week averages for heroes during the last weekend of ProQuest season two. Bravo, Star of the Show continues to win the most events after placing in the Top 8 and is likely the strongest choice for the final week. Prism and Chane, as well as Briar are also very strong choices if you seek to win your event. While Lexi is still a strong choice, her overall win conversion rate was much lower than other heroes. But as I’ve mentioned in other articles on fabtcg.com, play what’s fun for you, and play what’s comfortable. You’re much better off on a hero or deck you are more experienced with than something that you don’t enjoy playing.

The beauty of Flesh and Blood and its non-set-rotating formats is that each new release adds incredible new depth and breadth to the game. New cards, heroes, and classes always have the ability to change and influence the meta game in new and interesting ways. Just because your favorite hero isn’t in the top three most played heroes in ProQuest season doesn’t mean that the hero won’t be extremely viable or have their time in the spotlight in the future, especially as Bravo, Star of the Show and Chane rotate out.

Please join me next week for my coverage of the final week of ProQuest in my last article this season. I’ll take a deeper dive into the season as a whole as well as help highlight the Classic Constructed meta’s position heading into the release of Uprising. Plus, we’ll have a few Uprising card spoilers revealed by then that I can talk about and how they may impact the future Classic Constructed meta! For all of you who will be competing in ProQuest events during the final weekend of the season, I wish you the best of luck!

Drew Cordell 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.