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. We look forward to sharing his articles with you over the coming weeks.
Welcome to my coverage of ProQuest Season Two, my name is Drew Cordell and I'm a competitive Flesh and Blood player and content creator. I'm honored to be invited back as a guest writer on fabtcg.com to write another article series on the second ProQuest Season. This time, I'll be focusing on meta-analysis and providing strategic commentary to help you prepare for the field in your local events! Players who can win a ProQuest event will secure some valuable prizes as well as a PTI to Pro Tour: Lille, France this August.
There's no doubt that the Classic Constructed meta is in a state of flux after the recent banned and restricted announcement hit on a few key Bravo, Star of the Show cards—Autumn's Touch, and Elemental Guardian staple, Awakening. We also saw a dramatic decrease in Viserai players with the loss of Bloodsheath Skeleta reducing the efficacy of the impressive often unstoppable force that is Sonata Arcanix when backed by otherwise impossible pseudo-resource generation for patient players.
Chane became the go-to Runeblade hero almost overnight—though many players still saw valid motivation to pursue the Elemental route with Briar. With less Viserai in the mix, more aggressive Runeblade strategies could emerge to combat Prism's dominant meta share over the weekend.
The world witnessed an impressive and interesting field of contending heroes this past weekend in New Jersey in both the Pro Tour and Calling, with many of the world's best players showcasing new and interesting builds, including some truly incredible Kano builds that were primed to exploit the fact that almost every Flesh and Blood player had left the bulk of their Nullrune equipment at home for the weekend.
It would be a disservice to the game I love not to briefly step away from the meta to mention the incredible weekend that was Pro Tour/Calling New Jersey. The experience was unforgettable. From the events themselves, to the record attendance, to the positivity and excitement of the community, to the artists who help bring life and vibrancy to the game—I'm so thankful I could take part in this landmark of Flesh and Blood history. Special shout-out to all the incredible people I was able to meet in person and play over the weekend including many of my own Patrons and the Fresh & Buds podcast crew.
Though Bravo, Star of the Show achieved Living Legend status with Mateusz Sass's win of the Calling: New Jersey this past weekend, the hero will still be legal for play for the remainder of ProQuest Season two. Expect many Starvo players in your local events until the release of the newest set, Uprising.
Let's take a look at the data from the first weekend of ProQuest Season two which took place in tandem with the Calling and Pro Tour. This data represents the aggregate field of both combined event sets. The first weekend of ProQuest saw 32 individual events across 20 different countries:
The current Classic Constructed ProQuest meta is reminiscent of the meta during Tales of Aria. Prism will counter defensive control decks. Hyper aggressive decks like Chane and Briar will counter Prism. And defensive control decks like Oldhim will counter the hyper-aggressive decks that try to beat Prism or race Starvo. Unlike Tales of Aria, there are many, many wild cards in the mix. You may look at the representation of the meta from the first weekend and be inclined to pick one of the highest-represented heroes, but what about Kano's explosive showing at the Pro Tour despite only being piloted by 1.28% of the field? I expect many of these 'wild cards' and 'upsets' throughout the duration of ProQuest Season Two. The meta will likely sway with a high degree of variance from week to week as players dig into the data and make adjustments to their existing hero of choice or switch heroes entirely.
It's also important to note that players in ProQuest events will benefit from factoring in what their local players typically play in the Classic Constructed format. Though there will almost always be players who are not regulars of the local game store participating in ProQuests, your deck construction and hero selection may hinge on the insight you have into the expectations of your local meta which may be vastly different than the aggregate meta being presented. If you missed my article last ProQuest season, read what it takes to build a top-performing deck here.
It's also reasonable to expect that many players in ProQuest events will be using the data from the Pro Quest itself and weighing that heavily heading into week two. After all, many of the top players who participated in the event are part of large, devoted testing groups. The lists they brought with them carry the significant effort devoted by those groups in testing and understanding the current state of Classic Constructed as a whole.
Next, we'll dig a little deeper into the data sets of the weekend including Top 8's and conversions:
ProQuest Season 2, Week One Metagame Data
| Heroes | Players | Top 8's | Wins | %Meta | %Top8's | %Wins | T8Conv | WinConv | T8toWin |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azalea, Ace in the Hole | 9 | 0 | 0 | 1.92% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% | #DIV/0! |
| Bravo, Showstopper | 11 | 4 | 0 | 2.35% | 2.02% | 0.00% | 36.36% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Bravo, Star of the Show | 68 | 35 | 6 | 14.53% | 17.68% | 18.18% | 51.47% | 8.82% | 17.14% |
| Briar, Warden of Thorns | 32 | 14 | 4 | 6.84% | 7.07% | 12.12% | 43.75% | 12.50% | 28.57% |
| Chane, Bound by Shadow | 65 | 36 | 13 | 13.89% | 18.18% | 39.39% | 55.38% | 20.00% | 36.11% |
| Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire | 16 | 6 | 0 | 3.42% | 3.03% | 0.00% | 37.50% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Dorinthea Ironsong | 20 | 5 | 0 | 4.27% | 2.53% | 0.00% | 25.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Kano, Dracai of Aether | 6 | 1 | 0 | 1.28% | 0.51% | 0.00% | 16.67% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Katsu, the Wanderer | 32 | 13 | 2 | 6.84% | 6.57% | 6.06% | 40.63% | 6.25% | 15.38% |
| Levia, Shadowborn Abomination | 12 | 3 | 0 | 2.56% | 1.52% | 0.00% | 25.00% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Lexi, Livewire | 37 | 11 | 1 | 7.91% | 5.56% | 3.03% | 29.73% | 2.70% | 9.09% |
| Oldhim, Grandfather of Eternity | 19 | 4 | 0 | 4.06% | 2.02% | 0.00% | 21.05% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light | 90 | 44 | 5 | 19.23% | 22.22% | 15.15% | 48.89% | 5.56% | 11.36% |
| Rhinar, Reckless Rampage | 23 | 9 | 1 | 4.91% | 4.55% | 3.03% | 39.13% | 4.35% | 11.11% |
| Ser Boltyn, Breaker of Dawn | 15 | 5 | 0 | 3.21% | 2.53% | 0.00% | 33.33% | 0.00% | 0.00% |
| Viserai, Rune Blood | 13 | 8 | 1 | 2.78% | 4.04% | 3.03% | 61.54% | 7.69% | 12.50% |
For those less familiar with these statistics and the associated percentage calculations, I'll give a brief primer. Top 8 Percentage is the percentage of the total field's Top 8s that an individual hero makes up. Win Percentage is the overall percentage a hero makes up for all of the event wins (first place) over the past weekend. Top 8 Conversion is the number of top 8 players with the hero divided by the total number of players on that hero. And finally, Win Conversion is the number of first-place finishes for an individual hero divided by the total number of top 8 players on that hero.
Naturally, the more players who are on an individual hero, the more chances there are for a hero to place within the Top 8 or even win an event by raw count. This is why percentages are so essential as they paint the full picture and help provide weighted values to understand how those values should be interpreted.
As with any statistical analysis, the reliability and confidence of the data set improves as more data becomes available (i.e., more events are played and more hero data is collected). Looking at the data from the past weekend, there are not many surprises. The recent Banned and Suspended announcement has introduced a strong disruption to the meta. And while it appears Starvo is here to stay throughout the duration of ProQuest Season Two, the notable absence of Viserai had created a gap in the meta in which many other heroes now have the ability to contend and take share.
It's clear that Chane has done extremely well against the field on week one and is one of the main decks to beat. This hero earned the highest Top 8 Conversions, Win Conversions, and Win Percentage among all the Classic Constructed heroes on week one—even doubling the next closest hero (Starvo) for Win Percentages over the weekend. The data from week one suggests that Chane players who make it into the top 8 are more likely to convert that placement into an overall win than any other hero.
Chane has the capability to adapt his strategy on the fly, race Starvo, as well as generate a staggering amount of pressure against control decks that can threaten to output more damage than they can hope to prevent with ideal circumstances. Chane rewards high levels of skill in pitch stacking, awareness of how Soul Shackles will influence how and when the game will end, and what combos can be ensured. Even in the absence of Seeds of Agony, skilled Chane players have the means to setup and execute a flurry of Blood Debt cards late in the game and play out their single copy of Eclipse.
While Prism was a strong pick on week one, she is being pressured by both Starvo and Chane, in addition to many of the aggro decks in the format that naturally excel against her typical aura-based strategy. Unlike Bravo, Showstopper and Oldhim, Bravo, Star of the Show enjoys a much better Illusionist matchup than the historically awful win percentage of Guardian in the matchup in the past. Continued strong performance of both Chane and Starvo could whittle away Prism's meta representation in ProQuest over the coming weeks. With less Prism in the mix, super-defensive control decks like Oldhim could further emerge to combat the staggering rise of Chane with fatigue-based strategies which would help pull Chane's growing representation in the meta down.
If I were to rank who I believe to be the top contenders heading into week two, they would be Chane, Bound by Shadow, Bravo, Star of the Show, and Prism, Sculptor of Arc Light. There is heavy contention for the honorary fourth slot on my list, and it is very likely that the meta will continue to shift considerably as the player base reacts to the first week of data being released.
Good luck to all players who will be competing all over the world in ProQuest events! Join me each and every week of ProQuest Season Two as I dig into the meta-analysis and help provide insight into some strategic considerations to help you take down your local ProQuest events! Until then, you can connect with me and check out my other Flesh and Blood content here.
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.