Hello reader :) my name is Jessie (she/her). I got into Flesh and Blood early this year and felt like writing a recap on how this year of FAB went, talking through my journey and what I seek to do differently in the new year. You may think of this as a diary of sorts, or as a love letter to this game I’m really passionate about :) Some of this may read like word vomit, as it serves no real purpose but to help me collect my thoughts and find areas of improvement, but I’ll do my best to give it enough structure!
Also, all text timestamps have an embedded link to the video with the corresponding timestamp.
I’ll be looking to write a recap like this one every year, but here’s some background given it’s my first.
I got into Yu-Gi-Oh! at a pretty young age. I started taking it more seriously around 2017, but Lebanon had no real avenue to competitive play, so “taking it more seriously” didn’t really amount to much. I took a hiatus from the game during COVID lockdown, moved to Toronto in February 2021 (still mid lockdown), and sold out of YGO before stores reopened. I wasn’t completely off the game, but the more thought I gave it, the more I realized that I enjoyed the hangs with my YGO homies and getting dinner after each locals infinitely more than I enjoyed the game itself. Now that I was no longer around said homies, I thought I’d find this same atmosphere in a different card game with more compelling gameplay.
I got into Modern briefly after MH2 release, and got into Legacy around mid 2022. This writeup isn’t about Magic so I won’t yap too much there, but I started off playing Modern UR/UW Control, and most of my success in Legacy was with Delver and Death & Taxes. I have no success to speak of in other formats, but played a lot of Amulet Titan in Modern.
https://x.com/TrueMonarchTCG/status/1748917638724546859?s=20
https://x.com/TrueMonarchTCG/status/1729164651479331187?s=20
My first introduction to FAB was through the Ira welcome decks. I wanna say that was in Q1 of 2024. The gameplay was interesting, but not quite compelling enough to get into. I was fairly entrenched in Magic, and didn’t have enough incentive to pick up a new card game.
I picked up the Jarl Vetreidi Armory Deck from 401 Games (for half of MSRP, mind you :P but I didn’t know that at the time) upon release as my first FAB product. I was really big on control decks in Magic for a while, and Guardian felt like a natural starting point. At that point, I was more interested in getting into FAB but wasn’t quite looking to jump ship yet. The Jarl deck collected some dust in my drawer for a bit, and I took it for a spin once or twice during 2024.
Between December 2024 and January 2025, I picked up my first FAB singles. It was a Crown of Providence, a Fyendal’s Spring Tunic and three Command and Conquer. I wasn’t committed to any class or hero at that point, and started there since it seemed to me that these are gonna go into whatever deck I decide to play.
I was hoping to play Battle Hardened Toronto on January 11-12 as my first event, but I had a bouldering accident on the night of the 10th. Tests showed a broken vertebra, but thankfully no nerve damage. I was nevertheless out of commission for the weekend, and spent it at home playing Foundations drafts on MTG Arena.
Instead, my first FAB event ended up being Hunted prerelease at Anime Alley on January 27. My record was 2-2. I don’t have a whole lot to say about it really, the limited format seemed fun but I didn’t have the set knowledge or sample size to properly evaluate it. From there, I played two Hunted draft armories at Anime Alley (February 3) and The Negative Zone (February 6) leading up to my first RTN, and got records of 1-2 and 2-1 respectively.
My last Magic event was Regional Championship Gatineau on January 24-26. I was on Mardu Energy, my prep felt pretty good, with the one caveat of I would’ve liked to prep the Eldrazi matchup a little more than I did. Lo and behold, all of my losses in Day 1 were to Eldrazi, including my Day 2 win-and-in in round 9. My R9 opponent had to call the judge over for relatively basic rules interactions, but played Karn, the Great Creator on turn 2 both games and neither of them were close.
That event wasn’t singlehandedly the reason I quit, but it was a big factor. I had no more “sometimes your prep is good but it’s not your day” left in me, and decided it’s likely time to call it quits.
Some of the other factors included:
I didn’t hard quit Magic right after RC Gatineau, but it marked a huge shift in my interest from MTG to FAB, and I slowly started selling my MTG cards, or trading them in for FAB cards. This did not include Crown/Tunic/CnC but started with the first FAB deck I picked up.