I’ve been playing Flesh and Blood for about six months (and card games for just about 25 years), so I wanted to take a look at some of the things I’ve learned diving into a new game.

One of the first things I learned was that equipment is as important as your card choices.

Deckbuilding in FAB doesn’t stop with the cards in your deck, as your choice of equipment is crucial to victory. When I first started playing Blitz, I would look at the cards in my deck and figure out what I wanted to do, with tweaks here and there. Once I was done, I’d then figure out what equipment looked good and toss that in. 

That’s not the right way to go about it. Your equipment is in your deck, and that’s even how deck lists are displayed. I was treating it like an afterthought, a bonus – “cool, I got some nice boots and a sword,” when it’s clearly integral to your strategy.

As most anyone can tell you, choosing equipment is just part of the deckbuilding process, and there’s even a metagame component to it. First, you want the right weapons and other gear to go with your deck’s strategy, whether that be Harmonized Kodachi to trigger Mask of Momentum or Crucible of Aetherweave to make your spells pop off. Second, you want some good answers to popular decks. The base version of this is having Nullrune gear to stop Arcane damage, but there is plenty you can to do customize your equipment against different decks.

At the end of the day, equipment is a huge part of deckbuilding, and I now prioritize it as such.

There’s a natural urge to defend yourself in games like this. Blocking attacks seems good, right? You want to stop the opponent from hitting you and prevent them from winning the game.

I’ve largely found that to go the other direction in FAB. I often prefer to take more damage in order to have a bigger counterattack, and one of my favorite things to do is take a massive hit and try and win the game on my next turn.

That’s not to say that there aren’t great decks and strategies built around playing defensively, or that you should never try and stop yourself from taking damage. I’ve just leaned towards blocking less and attacking more as I’ve grown more experienced.

Next time you’re in a close spot, consider taking a more aggressive line – at the very least, you’ll learn something.

At the end of your turn, you refill your hand, which gives you a ton of incentive to use every card in your hand, every turn. I initially found myself sometimes holding on to a card or two because I wanted to fully optimize them, to combine them exactly the way I’d planned.

Don’t do this.

By all means, Arsenal a card – that’s a great use of your turn. But you should strive to never have an actual card in hand before redrawing, or you’re losing massive value. I’d rather use a card poorly than not use it and cost myself a free card, as that’s just a bad deal. Using a card for a third of its value is still better than not using it, as you get an entire new card to replace it.

Now, as with all these heuristics, sometimes you’ll make a play that contradicts this, but I found my win rate to go up once I just prioritized emptying my hand rather than trying to set up ideal scenarios for every card.

Flesh and Blood is a fast-paced game and it often ends within five or six turns (sometimes less). My first impressions were that every game was over in a flurry of attacks. Well, as most of you know by now, that is definitely not the case.

The recent banning of Drone of Brutality underscores this, as decks were using this as an inevitable win condition in extremely drawn-out games.

Drone of Brutality Banned! - Inside Flesh and Blood's First Banned Card

Flesh and Blood has gotten its first ban with Drone of Brutality, but why was it banned and what was its history? Brendan breaks it down!

When I first began playing, I wouldn’t pay much attention to what was going on with the bottom of my deck after pitching it or which cards I’d used. After all, I’ve learned from games like Magic that you usually see only a third of your deck at most, and you don’t need to worry about that sort of thing.

In FAB, even in a medium-length game, you’ll go through most or all of your deck, thanks to the rapid redrawing of cards. As a result, it really does matter which cards are left and what’s on the bottom. Paying attention to that is important, and the best players definitely know what they have to work with when making decisions.

As you get more familiar with your deck or the game itself, you can really level up your skills by keeping track of what cards you have left to see and what you’ve put on the bottom. It’ll help you make better decisions, and as a result, win more.

These are just some of what I’ve learned playing FAB – it’s a sweet game, and I have plenty left to figure out!