“Ready to set the world on fire? Heheheh…”
Art: Fai, Rising Rebellion
by Sam Yang
Table of Contents
Today’s Featured Hero Is:
As a newer player to Flesh and Blood, I was immediately drawn to Fai as a fun and adaptive aggressive deck. At first, I thought Fai was simple. I realized that Fai is actually uniquely complicated while remaining extremely aggressive. I am pretty new to Flesh and Blood, and I wanted to share this list and my thoughts on playing it and testing with it. I certainly don’t think I have the best Fai build in the world, but I have been having a ton of fun with it and wanted to share it with you all! Just like most Fai builds, this deck is extremely aggressive and focuses on nothing but attacking. We do have to block, and most of our cards are block 2, but we typically are ok with taking early damage to hit back with huge swings against opponents. this is, of course, matchup-dependent, and blocking is sometimes the right choice. This is, of course, matchup and meta-dependent. Fai is a blast to play and great for anyone who loves aggressive decks. It can also be used as a great teaching tool for new players. This is our first article here on Flesh and Blood TCG, and we are very excited to show this off! Without further adieu, let’s get it!
I was taught how to play Flesh and Blood on Fai, so naturally, we had to start with a great intro hero. While Fai may be an intro hero, this does not mean they aren’t strong, and they have a lot of little things that you learn over time, like when to go all in on attacks and when to sit back. I am still very new to this game but have been having so much fun in paper and on Talishar so I wanted to write up a deck-tech on a game that has been consuming so much of my recreation time recently.
Gameplan:
We are an extremely aggressive deck that should be attacking every single turn. We get a ton of value out of putting a ton of pressure on opponents and recurring Phoenix flames, as well. This deck is built to attack every single turn and keep attacking; even when opponents attack back with large attacks, there are very few situations where we want to sit back and block nearly ever. Fai is unique because, in the short week I have been piloting them, I have learned so much about intricacies and nuance within the deck; on the surface, it may seem like a simple aggro deck, but it is quite nuanced and fun to figure out. Like most aggressive decks, we can run out of steam, and there are certainly matchups where we struggle an absolute ton, but either way, this deck has been an absolute blast that I have been loving.
Fai, Rising Rebellion Phoenix Flame Aggro Classic Constructed
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| Hero / Weapon / Equipment |
|---|
| Hero: Fai, Rising Rebellion Equipment: Fyendal's Spring Tunic  Mask of Momentum  Searing Emberblade  Snapdragon Scalers  Tide Flippers  Tiger Stripe Shuko  |
| Inventory |
|---|
| Pitch 1: 2x Bleed Out (Red)  2x Command and Conquer (Red)  2x Oasis Respite (Red)  2x Reinforce the Line (Red)  Pitch 2: 2x That All You Got? (Yel)  Equipment / Weapons: 2x Harmonized Kodachi  1x Heat Wave  1x Spell Fray Gloves  |
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Deck Stats:
Attack Cards:
I am going to highlight some of the best and strongest attack cards within the deck. Almost all of our deck is attacks, and there isn’t a ton of explaining to do about many of them. The common them between our deck is go again with strong cards like Double Strike (Red)
and Inflame (Red)
being some of the strongest examples in this list. Bittering Thorns (Red)
is an extremely cheap and aggressive attacker and makes cards like Phoenix Flame (Red)
or, really, any follow-up attack is that much better. Rising Resentment (Yel)
is another great attack for the deck and we almost always want to take advantage of its ability and keep on attacking/casting more and more. We are a Fai deck. All of these attacks are great damage and put a ton of pressure on our opponents.
Non-Attack Cards:
We don’t have a ton of non-attack cards in Fai, but we do have a few, and they are quite impactful. Art of War (Yel)
is a great card that can help us be even more aggressive, the two most common modes we typically choose are modes 1 and 2 which is buff to attack/defense and go again. This card is very strong for this deck and, if needed, can even act as a supplemental card draw. Our only other non-attack card is Sink Below (Red)
which is typically an inventory card for a lot of decks but I found that in the aggressive mirror matches when you are getting high-rolled or falling behind Sink Below can be the difference and has got me out of some games.
Equipment and Weapons:
All of the equipment and Weapons in our deck play an important role so let’s go over each one!
Fyendal’s is a very awesome chest piece that gives us an extra resource every three turns which in Fai where we only run nine blue cards and our resources can be tight, this can be quite helpful. The biggest downside of Fyendal’s is that it does only block for one and has blade break, we rarely want to defend with this unless we are desperate.
Since we are aggressive and can create a ton of chain links in combat, Mask of Momentum allows us to do just that: keep the momentum and card draw coming. This equipment is extremely strong for the deck. This is another piece of equipment we almost never want to block unless desperate.
Searing Emberblade is a great weapon; while it is a little expensive resource-wise to attack, we almost always have to go again on it, and we can use it to help create more chains and activate Fai’s ability.
Tide Flippers is an inventory card in many Fai lists, but since I was going up against a high number of arcane decks, I have been running it in the main. It is great aggressive equipment that can protect us from arcane damage and can give one of our smaller attacks again a true win-win to have equipped.
Tiger Stripe Shuko:
Tiger Stripe Shuko is arguably the best equipment in our deck and when hit with something huge like a Salt the Wound (Yel)
it can be quite broken to have that damage unable to be prevented. Just like the rest of our equipment, it does have blade break, so no blocking unless absolutely necessary.
Inventory Equipment:
2x Harmonized Kodachi:
While some decks are all in on the main deck Kodachi, I prefer them in the inventory, and for certain longer-game heroes, we can bring them out since we can reliably give them go-again.
1x Heat Wave:
Even though we get a ton of value out of our Phoenix Flames I still think Heat Mask is an inventory card that can be brought in as needed, but I still prefer Mask of Momentum:
1x Spell Fray Gloves:
Spell Fray Gloves are something we always bring against arcane damage decks, but other than that, they don’t serve that great of a function for the deck.
Strengths of the Deck:
- We are quick and aggressive, and this allows us to put a lot of pressure on opponents, with a consistent threat to their life total on nearly every turn.
- We have a high starting life total, allowing us to freely not block in the early turns with almost no hesitation.
Weaknesses of the Deck:
- While we do have a very strong offense, the trade-off for that is that we have a very weak defense and often don’t block at all, which against the wrong matchup can be devastating.
- The Fai mirror match and matchups against other aggressive decks often feels like a high roll, and if you draw a set of bad cards, it can be enough to fall behind and ultimately lose the game.
Deck Matchups:
Please note: I am still fairly new to the game and haven’t played every hero with this deck. These are just from the games I played and some notes and takeaways I have.
Best Matchups for the Deck:
Our matchup against other Fai’s is typically pretty good, as always variance and high-rolls make it so sometimes one of the Fai’s will steamroll and just run away with it, but we have pretty consistent high damage as does our opponent, and they likely won’t be blocking either, luck and a race for damage is mostly what this matchup is! The largest caveat to this race is we do not want to lose the die roll going second; it hurts a ton.
Dash is quite aggressive, just like we are, but this tends to be a favorable matchup for us as we can consistently output a ton of damage and hit quite hard. The aggressive vs aggressive matchup is very “high-roll,” and sometimes we get a hand that just can’t beat Dash and vice-versa. This matchup is nothing more than a race. Let’s try to get 1st place!
Worst Matchups for the Deck:
Generally speaking, our worst matchups are anything hero that has a ton of high block cards coupled with high attack cards. We have a ton of issues with assassins because stealth is just very good against us, combined with that, we almost exclusively have block 2’s with the exception of a few cards, and these matchups can be a nightmare.
Uzuri overall is just a bad matchup for us, and we can struggle even after sideboarding. Uzuri’s game plan of hard-to-block creatures and becoming even stronger attackers if we can’t fully block them does not lend well to a deck filled with block 2’s. The same is true for most assassins. I played against Uzuri quite a few times, and the only times I could sneak out a win was a chain of unlucky/dead hands for an opponent; this is certainly an extremely tough matchup for us to win, with almost no defense reaction in the deck.
Bravo is certainly an interesting matchup for us, and it typically is build-dependent because of our aggressiveness. I found a lot of trouble against control builds of Bravo and found a little bit more success versus more midrange style lists. It’s the same problem as Uzuri. We can’t really block, as Fai and Bravo tend to be able to block many of our attacks. While we may be able to get some nice chunk damage in the early game, as the game goes on, we get worse, and Bravo gets considerably better. We do have cards like Sink Below (Red) in our main deck which helps a ton with the bravo matchup but I find without a bad Bravo hand and a high roll we can certainly struggle with this one.
Inventory Guide:
I don’t have a comprehensive inventory guide for every hero since I have not played against all available heroes. Here is the Inventory Guide from all of the games I jammed. Bravo and Uzuri are the two most common matchups I had so that’s why they both have guides:
Conclusion:
As a new player to Flesh and Blood, Fai has been so much fun for me to pilot; while I haven’t played a ton of matches against a ton of different heroes, I have had so much fun crafting and learning so much about the intricacies of a hero and this game. I hope you enjoyed my build/thoughts as a new player of Flesh and Blood. Thanks for reading to the end and for all of your support!