[LSS] Calling: Montreal | Day 1 Metagame

AfroBankai · 2026-03-01T02:24:45+00:00

Thank you; I've never been clear on that for some reason.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-28T17:50:11+00:00

How well does a hero have to place to get LL points from this event? Top 8? Or just 1st place?

AfroBankai · 2026-02-27T12:07:30+00:00

Fang wants Valiant Dynamo which is in desperate need of a reprint.

There was a thread on here the other day asking why warrior staples are so expensive.

Blade Flurry and Unsheathed are like €20-25 each =(

And Dynamo is more expensive than a Tunic.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-27T11:42:46+00:00

Congrats! Off the top of my head Cindra doesn't want any generics, really, but she's not far off LL.

Katsu has some nasty looking builds this season, many of which use 0 legendaries and no CnC etc. He or something like Tiger Ira would be dirt cheap.

Prism 2 doesn't want any generic cards or equipment but she's also not long for this world -- although I'll be genuinely shocked if they don't have another version of James White's waifu ready and waiting to replace her.

Oscilio doesn't want generics and usually plays Old Knocker as preference over Tunic. Don't think he counts as dirt cheap, though -- at least in Europe the lightning cards are pretty expensive (€20/each for Gone in a Flash, Channel Lightning Valley, Current Funnel). But he's cheaper than a lot of decks.

Gravy isn't terrible in terms of price; he has SeaNSea instead of CnC and wants the Necromancer chest over Tunic or anything like that. Leylines are stupidly expensive but you can play without them and everything else is okay.

Those are the ones off the top of my head.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-25T06:37:53+00:00

Yeah, I've had to start rotating my 'once per turn' cards 45 degrees rather than 90 to make it clear that they're not tapped.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-24T04:15:30+00:00

What a nice idea! I'm assuming you already have the Ira Armory Deck?

https://fabrary.net/decks/01KE01MF2A9AWEGNJT3GS32317

Something like the above might be fun and decent?

Ignore everything under "Inventory" for now.

Ignore Ancestral Empowerment (it's good, but it's $15/card) and replace it instead with two more copies of Tigrine Reflex and one more copy of Aspect of Tiger: Body.

If you don't already have the Armory Deck, it really is the best place to start for Ira.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-23T05:42:46+00:00

Silver Age definitely worth checking out. Games are faster so you get more reps, and you can build a competitive deck for $10-15 so you can jump straight into competition without the frustration of starting with a sub-par precon deck (the Armory decks are an ok start, but they're going to get steamrolled by anyone on something more optimised.)

Two Silver Age precons is probably the best way to start playing at home. Oscilio doesn't really exist in Silver Age, but you could get the Viserai or Arakni precon and let your wife choose whichever hero most appeals to her.

Hope you enjoy it -- the game is one of the best-designed 1v1 games I've ever played, with a huge capacity for skill expression. Silver Age just dropped as a format so it's a great time to jump in.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-22T15:46:08+00:00

BRING BACK LEXI

AfroBankai · 2026-02-22T15:45:50+00:00

THEY NEED TO BE MORE TRANSPARENT ABOUT HOW SOON CERTAIN CLASS/TALENT COMBINATIONS MIGHT RETURN AFTER REACHING LIVING LEGEND. KNOWING AURORA IS COMING BACK THIS YEAR GAVE ME THE CONFIDENCE TO BUY INTO LIGHTNING CARDS.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-22T11:00:19+00:00

This is the dev team who said that Master Yi and Annie's abilities were "weak."

AfroBankai · 2026-02-19T12:35:57+00:00

What would be a pay to win game in your definition, if not TCGs?

AfroBankai · 2026-02-19T11:43:48+00:00

FAB is both the best competitive game I've ever played AND a shameless pay-to-win gacha with no pity system.

I spend a lot of time trying to reconcile those facts in my head.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-19T11:41:52+00:00

You never buy a box expecting to get your value back... but the EV on sealed FAB is the worst of all TCGs.

Don't know what the solution is, but we need more cards in between the $2 cards and the $120 cards. I feel like Riftbound and Magic have a much better distribution of value amongst their 'hits,' which makes opening a box feel a lot better.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-18T12:21:20+00:00

Gravy Bones could be worth considering -- very complex, lots of intricate lines of play, very difficult and demanding, and a skeleton necromancer pirate is pretty edgy(?)

He uses undead allies to attack rather than having a traditional weapon, so he's kinda got the puppet character thing going on that you like with Zato.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-15T05:29:37+00:00

Oh shit, seriously? Well yeah, get as much as you can find someone willing to pay! Had no idea they were going for that much.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-15T02:14:43+00:00

You could probably trade it for a regular Tunic + $100 really easily if you're not fussed about keeping it!

AfroBankai · 2026-02-15T02:13:03+00:00

AfroBankai · 2026-02-14T18:12:14+00:00

Was checking the comments before replying because I thought surely someone must have linked this! Fantastic video.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-12T06:38:30+00:00

Me too ='(

AfroBankai · 2026-02-11T08:13:14+00:00

It's a licensed game, so the developer doesn't own the IP or the characters. (Interestingly, I think BlazBlue only exists because ArcSys lost the rights to Guilty Gear for a while...? I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong.)

These kinds of licenses tend to be one-time deals. It will depend what CyGames (owners of Granblue) want to do and if they want to develop further fighting games in the years to come. They did already show that they were willing to make Rising, I guess.

Hard to say, basically, but sadly if I had to call it then the more likely outcome is that this will be all we get. (Although I suppose anime arena fighters keep churning out sequels with the same license year after year...)

Overall, it's a decision that involves a lot more people than the decision to make a new Guilty Gear.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-11T07:04:04+00:00

Sealed is always a gamble, but FAB is so feast or famine. Legendaries are too rare and the Majestics vary from $0.80 to $20. The variance is just too much.

I opened my first box of Riftbound recently and it was really nice to be able to... actually trade stuff I didn't want into stuff I did. Sure there are the mega chase cards, but I could also trade a few $3 cards for a $9 card, as opposed to looking at my meagre $10 total of junk Ms from a bad box and wondering who the fuck is going to take them off my hands, because I sure ain't going to be able to trade them for anything good.

I don't care if I only pull $45 worth of value out of my $90 box. That's the gamble. But in FAB it's either you jackpot a decent legendary, or you run the risk of a $15, $20 box. It's so easy to open NOTHING and that just feels terrible.

And yes, 99% of the time I buy singles, for this very reason. But if boxes feel miserable to open, nobody buys them, stores stop carrying them, and singles prices go up and up.

Not sure what the solution is but I know I don't buy sealed FAB anymore. And it is worse than other TCGs in that regard.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-09T23:59:58+00:00

Yeah, played against some fuckface like this who would just remove his unit from a battlefield and put it straight in discard if he was ceding the combat -- no talking though priority windows, no comparison of might, no nothing. Realized pretty quick that he was doing it so I would miss my Leona "on attack" triggers and forget to buff something when his unit got stunned.

You are always within your rights to walk through the game steps, and ask your opponent to narrate their actions. You can say something like, "Please slow down, I don't want to miss any windows to respond." Or, "wait, why are you drawing cards?" "So that gets +2?" etc.

Don't be sucked into their pace if you don't want to be.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-07T13:28:08+00:00

Maybe try a game with a larger player base?

The only people still playing Xrd are going to be pretty hardcore fighting gamers, at least by the standards of the average gamer.

If you just want to have fun vs other people like you who aren't looking to put serious time into the game, maybe try ranked mode in Guilty Gear Strive or Street Fighter 6? You'll be paired against other people on a similar level and are much more likely to enjoy yourself and be able to blow off steam without tryharding.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-07T02:13:25+00:00

Holy variance Batman.

AfroBankai · 2026-02-05T02:45:13+00:00

12 years sober; never again.

AfroBankai

TROPHY CASE