As part of our 3rd birthday celebrations, we caught up with some of the key figures from the earliest days of Flesh and Blood - community members, content creators, and competitive players who helped shaped the community for the years to come. Thank you to everyone who joined us for the release of Welcome to Rathe, and everyone who has joined us in the years since. We hope you enjoy reading some of the stories and experiences of our earliest days in the Flesh and Blood, and look forward to sharing many more to come!
Wen Wei Xie, Creator of the Flesh and Blood Fan Page
The Flesh and Blood fan page on Facebook was created in 2018 after Flesh and Blood was officially announced, well before anything about the game had been revealed. Wen Wei got involved and helped to found the Flesh and Blood community in the days when the only thing they had to go on was a logo and a set of Ironrot equipment.
"Pitch, Pitch. Swing for 6.
Those five words bring back a massive string of memories, from the start of the Friday armories at Card Merchant WestCity where it would sometimes end up being just me, Jordan, and Regan, or when Matt Rogers would not leave me alone and kept asking me to go to his house so we could practice sealed and draft pools, 2019 was a wild time before arcane shenanigans ever came out, and I absolutely loved it!
I was introduced to the world of Rathe in 2019 when I was invited to a special sneak peek event a few months before the Ira world premiere and immediately fell in love with the game, from the subtle art of reading pitch stacks and knowing when to play Whirling Mist Blossom, I was instantly addicted to it. Games were fast-paced and fun, and there always seemed to be an out available, even if Dorinthea had 4 counters on her Dawnblade, it never felt like a game was lost until the last attack went through, and I think that's what drove me to play more and more, from theory crafting the horrible brute deck that I called PoopNar (The dreaded Brute deck that only played 9 Barraging Beatdowns as it’s brute cards, and filled the deck with Snatches, Razor Reflexes and Sink Belows!) to playing around the Steeblade Shunt, the game rewarded those that were skillful and paid attention, and heavily punished those that were unable to react to the situation fast enough.
I have been part of the community before the game was officially released, making the Flesh and Blood Fan Page in December of 2018, and have been like a proud dad watching the community grow, expand and nurture itself throughout the years, and I must say, that overall the community has been great! I have made a ton of friends over the years both locally in New Zealand and as well as overseas, and I cannot wait to see how the community develops in another 5 years' time when inevitably the dreaded Mechanologist-Runeblade dual class comes out (eek!) To all the players out there, keep playing and developing your craft, and most importantly, keep having fun! The last thing we want to be is to be like a saw without purpose.
I hope to be able to meet everyone in future in the Flesh and Blood, and meet you in the battlefields of Rathe.
Signing Out,
Wen Wei Xie - Creator of the Flesh and Blood Fan Page"
Luke Badger, Winner of the Ira World Premiere event
The Ira World Premiere event on August 31st, 2019 was the official debut of Flesh and Blood, a tournament shaped around the Ira welcome deck. Luke Badger was among the first in the world to play Flesh and Blood, and won our first-ever event.
"I first heard that James was developing a TCG years ago and thought it was a pretty bold undertaking so when I heard that they were having a world premiere for it I was very excited to check it out. I turned up to the investor event and was able to see the game in person and it was really impressive. It seemed to fix so many issues I had with competitive card games... but at the same time there were still some confusing elements like 'what are these colour bands for and what do they do??'. My mates and I got our hands on an Ira starter deck and started playing some games. There was so much to discover and we had a blast.
The turnout for the event was amazing! It was the largest tournament I had ever been at in New Zealand and it was great to see some familiar faces. The feeling of excitement in the room was palpable.
The day went by in a blur for me and after 7 matches I had 6 wins. I even got to beat Matt Rogers (hasn't happened since) on the way!
Somehow I managed to fight my way through to the final and the cameras came out and at that moment I knew I was going to lose on camera! Borden chose to go first both times though and I ended up squeaking out 2 wins to take first place. It was an absolute highlight for me and if I had to choose between winning the world premiere and then no other tournaments, I would have taken that deal. (And maybe I did, because I haven't won anything since) :)
The greatest gift that trading card games has given to me is the friends I make along the way, and FAB has not disappointed in this regard! Best of luck on the next 3 years FAB TCG!"
Sasha Markovic, Calling: Austin 2019 Champion
Our first-ever Calling event in Auckland was won by Isaac Olssen, but his opponent in the finals would soon go on to win the Calling: Austin in December. Sasha Markovic then became our first two-time Calling Champion when he won The Calling: $10k Auckland two months later. After a long hiatus, he returned to competitive play earlier this year to make the Top 8 at Pro Tour: New Jersey.
"My Flesh and Blood journey began with a happy circumstance. Jason Chung, one of the initial developers for the game and a long-time cardboard-slinging friend of mine, had invited me to fly across the Tasman to celebrate his birthday which happened to be on the same weekend as the World Premiere. Two-for-one. A hard to resist opportunity for any card player. Living in Australia at the time, I was sent a couple of playmats and copies of the Ira Welcome Decks a few days ahead of the event so that I could learn the rules and start spreading the word on our shores of the new classic TCG. The evening that the care package was received was spent with pizza, friends, and many many games. I was instantly hooked.
The following days, weeks, months, and what's turned out to be years since that fateful weekend have all had Flesh and Blood as a common denominator in my life. Being a card game veteran, playing every form and manner of them since early childhood, I have never been as enamoured with a game as I have been with Flesh and Blood. I found myself on the ground floor of something that I instantly knew to be great and felt a real connection with the mission of the people driving it. In the beginning, there was no community, just a spark of potential. I desperately didn't want to see that potential wasted, so, I strove to be a pioneer of the game; sharing, celebrating, and experiencing it as much as possible with anyone that I could. Visiting game stores, providing demos, teaching players, writing articles, recording podcasts, playing events, previewing cards, travelling worldwide, making friends, and unbelievably joining the team behind it all!
The memories that I have of the tail end of 2019 are some of the fondest that I have and will cherish forever. Luckily, I have witnessed every step of Flesh and Blood's rise to its greatest height (so far) and from almost every perspective; player, competitor, fanatic, supporter, developer, designer, and many more. Since my resignation from Legend Story Studios earlier this year to compete at the first two Pro Tour events and the upcoming World Championship (my last competitive event for the foreseeable future in order to focus and pursue my own personal ambitions), I greatly look forward to seeing how the world of Rathe continues to grow from an outside perspective once again!
My deepest thanks to the team, partners, and players that have made Flesh and Blood possible. As special as the game is, the truly special thing is all of the people that have come together through it! <3"
Kale Brenzi / DeadSummer Art
First joining the community as a tournament organiser, Kale has become known for the YouTube channel DeadSummer Art, releasing his first lore video at the beginning of 2020. Sharing summaries of the world of Rathe and theories about the stories to come, he's continued to organize weekly events at his local game store and feature as a guest creator at ChannelFireball and the Rathe Times.
"It was just over three years ago that a delivery came through the doors at the local game store I work at. Curious as to the contents of the package I had asked my boss if he had ordered it, but he said he didn't. Upon opening it I found two Ira welcome decks, some basic information on the game and its planned release in October 2019, and a beautiful hand-written note from Legend Story Studios asking our store to check out the game. I tried out the game as I was immediately drawn to the beautiful card frames and artwork, and I fell in love. I desperately wanted my store to get the product and support it for release, but my boss was skeptical. We ended up making a deal that if he stocked Flesh & Blood that I would then have to run all the events for it, and to this day I have run every event since!
Ever since then it has been a wild ride! The few classes we had during Welcome To Rathe forced us to evaluate every single card as a potential inclusion in our decks. We saw early on what players were destined for greatness in the pro scene. I still remember Sasha Markovic making massive waves using Pummels in his Katsu "Spaghetti Tornado" deck, as no-one had even thought of using it on a combo'd Open The Center. Future expansions have shaken the game up every time as well. During Arcane Rising spoiler season when we first discovered arcane damage, everyone was losing their minds at how powerful they thought it was! The amount of people who claimed it would be broken in the meta game was massive. It just goes to show how our perception of card power level has changed so substantially over the years.
But the most amazing thing I have experienced with this game is the community. For a brand-new game to be released by a small independent company just before a global pandemic would normally be a death sentence, but the community embraced the game and refused to let go, playing online through Tabletop Simulator and webcam. The amount of faith held by the players in Legend Story Studios is something next level, and I definitely believe the feelings are mutual. Every person involved in this game is ride-or-die, and the passion is certainly infectious. It is what has kept me playing and creating content all this time, and I know that this game will stick with me for the rest of my life.
So cheers to you Legend Story Studios, and happy birthday Flesh & Blood! May you continue your rise to the top for many more years to come!"
Collin Kaiser, Calling: New Jersey 2019 Champion
At our first-ever United States Calling event, the manager of a local game store called Sunshine Games shot into the Top 8 and took out the tournament. Collin Kaiser helped to found the earliest marketplace group to help others in the community get ahold of cards, and this year went on to become our third two-time Calling Champion at Calling: Charlotte.
"I heard about the game from a couple of friends I was playing other card games with at the time. They told me a new game was coming out, and that it was relatively unknown but they were hosting some events in the US and I should give it a shot. I then reached out to LSS to try the game and loved the uniqueness of it. Pretty quickly I started testing limited with a couple of friends in preparation for the callings. During the same time, we created the Facebook marketplace to help with the growth of the game and help people get cards, as we weren't even able to get FAB onto tcgplayer yet.
Once it came time for the first calling, myself and a couple of friends flew up from Tampa to play. I hadn't been to New York at the time, so we flew up a day early just to see the city. Since it was only a day we didn't get to do much, but it was enough to make me want to visit the city again. After that we got some sleep and woke up the next day to play in the first US Calling. My sealed pool ended up having a solid brute pool that carried me through the day only losing in round 3. Going into the top 8 draft, I knew I was most comfortable on guardian and was able to draft a decent deck. It had a lot of 3 blocks and pitches for Anothos, which was really all guardians needed in limited at the time. The finals was a close one against warrior that came down to me being able to run my opponent out of cards in deck thanks to a couple of Drone of Brutality's I had picked up and I secured the first Calling win.
My second Calling was less eventful. I ended up with a sub-par pool with the only option being brute, which was my least favorite class to play. I ended up going X-2 into the final round, where I had to win against the eventual tournament winner, Sasha, to make it into the top 8. Unfortunately, I lost that match to kick me out of contention for Top 8.
After that, I ended up taking a long break from playing card games due to the pandemic to focus on other things and only recently got back into it. A friend of mine convinced me to play in some local road to nationals and I ended up getting 2nd at the 2nd one I went to.I think that was what I needed to get me to start playing card games again, and I quickly started building up my collection again and reconnected with the local community. I only got to playtest a handful of games before the event, but I figured I'd be fine with my years of card game experience. My nationals event ended up going poorly and I dropped after day 1 at 4-3, and decided I would be better off with a fresh start by entering the Calling instead. It turns out I was right, and after a hard-fought tournament I was able to take home my second Calling win."
Andrew Heintz / Dice Commando
There were very few videos about Flesh and Blood when Dice Commando made a video introducing the game, just two weeks after the release of Welcome to Rathe. In the almost three years that Dice Commando have been creating videos about Flesh and Blood, their Go Again series now has over 250 episodes, with a playlist that has over 530 videos to date.
"Just over three years ago, I ran across this promotion for a new and soon-to-release card game. There was Dorinthea - a striking and strong female character, which I suspected may intrigue my wife enough to try the game with me. As I researched the game, I found a fascinating and deep world of lore and potential. But how would the game play? I reached out to Legend Story Studios and was greeted quickly by a gentleman named Alan Hale. Not only was Alan responsive, but his excitement for the product oozed from his emails. A booster box and 4 starter decks later, my wife and I were off to explore Rathe for the first time.
My wife joined me for our earliest Flesh and Blood videos - a mix of unboxings, product reviews, and (looking back now) some truly poor gameplay. As we slowly learned the game, and moved beyond the initial stages of blocking too often and games ending in weapon fatigue, we began to realize exactly how complex and deep the gameplay was. As time went on, my wife decided that FaB's complexity wasn't for her. But I saw true potential not only in the game itself, but the staying power of the product. I began doing learn-to-plays and events at my LGS, Gongaii Games, and started the process of building a local community. All the while continuing to champion the game on my channel videos.
Fast forward three years to today. The game not only made it through a pandemic that hit just as its second set was launching in the US, but picked up steam. The competitive and skill-based play has attracted thousands of players across the globe, and the deep lore, stories, and the art has enthralled many thousands more. For me, a small picture of a warrior on the internet has become boxes of cards, playmats, and posters; and a hobby that I enjoy on a daily basis. I feel Flesh and Blood will be here for years to come, and I couldn't be more excited about being even just a small part of it into the future.
Thank you LSS, and congratulations!"
Kirk Bushell, Founder of FABDB
Shortly after the release of Welcome to Rathe, the link to an unofficial card database began to get passed around the community, with creator Kirk Bushell adding a collection manager and deck builder in the months following, and the launch of sister project the Rathe Times in 2021.
"I found out about Flesh & Blood via an ad on the Good Games Top Ryde Facebook page (link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/toprydecity). What really captured me was the artwork they used - it was the foil variant Razor Reflex with the reflections in the blade. I was so gripped by the artwork I had to find out what this new TCG was all about, and got in touch with Kenny Michael who had been pushing the game in the store at the time. I played one game with Kenny and was HOOKED!
Immediately after this game, I started researching the cards and realised there was no card database outside of the fabtcg card gallery, so I reached out to LSS to ask if I could use their assets for my project, and they obliged! So we were off to the races :) 2 weeks later I had the initial card database ready to go, and then just a few weeks after that I had the collection manager done. By January of 2020 we had the first Flesh & Blood deck builder ready to go! To say that I was both excited and inspired was an understatement. We're now three years into development on FaB DB and haven't slowed the pace since our inception.
I absolutely adore Flesh & Blood and have been watching from afar as the meta continues to evolve and shift, while I spend my free time developing a tool the community loves :D
Flesh & Blood has given me much more than a game, it's given me a real passion for web development once again that I thought I'd lost."
Alan and Iain / Radio Reflex
One of the first podcasts in the community, Radio Reflex was created by LSS staff Alan Hale and Iain Kenderdine (a.k.a. Ritetime Gaming), and featured some of the first interviews of competitive players, LSS staff, and artists.
Iain: "We started Radio Reflex, basically, because no one was doing anything consistently. There had been a couple of one-offs - I think the longest podcast before we started, it had lasted five episodes, I believe. Maybe even less. The real idea behind Radio Reflex is not that we were super competitive players, it was more to get something out there and inspire other people to create content. Alan, obviously, was playing a bit more than he is now because he had one less child, and we were also working with the company. We just wanted to get something out there.
When the pandemic hit, we went from being a fortnightly podcast to a weekly podcast, just so people had something they could connect back in with."
Alan: "And also so that we had something to do. We'd do the podcast every week to reach out to people, and that was important to us as well.
Iain: "We tried to make a point of reaching out to our Aussie neighbours and people around the world, and sort of connecting as much as we could with the global community, just to try and bring people together - while not in the flesh and blood, at least digitally together once a week to let people know what was happening in FAB.
Alan: "We got to do some of the first interviews with other LSS staff, the likes of MJ and Nicky — Mr. Sam Yang, as well. And a few other community members along the way."
Iain: "I believe we had Nick Butcher, as well, he was one of the first interviews as well on our podcast. Now, sort of post us, you have Session Blood, Arsenal Pass, Outcast's Haven; they all came on board and did a far better job at covering the competitive scene than Alan and myself! We were always more about the social aspect and reviewing what was happening than necessarily giving an in-depth breakdown of games and stuff. But we always enjoyed doing spoilers and talking about how we saw the game from our side of playing, which was more of a casual fan of card games than necessarily meta-defining competitive players.
Alan: "Plus the odd public service announcement for Auckland and national events."
Iain: "We've sort of passed the torch on to the plethora of great content creators that are out there now, and we still come back every now and again when we're lucky enough to get a spoiler or we've got something that we want to talk about. It's been really nice to sit back and where the content creators have gone to since we started in 2019."
Alan: "Yeah, people who are a lot more competent and a lot more skilled than we are!"
Iain: "We were very connected with the New Zealand community, being a part of LSS at the tie, and also a big thing that a lot of the international players don't know is just how well-known James White is in the New Zealand gaming community. What was really amazing about that too, the Ira World Premiere and the early events, was seeing a bunch of guys who are a little older, like myself and Iain, the sort of lapsed card games who took a step back because of family or work commitments- there were a lot of us that sort of came back into the card game community because we wanted to support someone who holds a lot of mana in the New Zealand community.
James had a hand in making a lot of games successful here in New Zealand, and he really bred a lot of positivity in the community. It was great to see people coming back into the community to see what James was up to, like "look, I don't know if I really want to get back into a card game, but I'll come out to this thing to support James." And a lot of them stayed because the game was great. There are a lot of people who can't come back into card games full-time but have been enjoying Flesh and Blood and come to prereleases and stuff like that.
One of my favourite things has been catching up with all of the people I used to play with sort of ten years ago, all these people that I've sort of lost contact with because we weren't competitively gaming anymore; this game has brought people back together in the flesh and blood again."
Alan: "My best memories have been all of the little things that happened - like the first person to foil out their deck, Cayle foiling out his Guardian deck, or like Gary with Dorinthea coming in 12th place at an event but still getting a foil card for Dorinthea because he was the top warrior player. Just like, as things progressed, and especially those first content creators were really cool as well. Also the first draft event I went to outside of the studio where there were just four of us, and before long, the Armory events are eight people, twelve people, sixteen people... Seeing it grow has been a lot of fun."