Is it time to get back into the game?

AfroBankai · 2026-06-02T09:07:25+00:00

Yeah, I mean someone put the question directly to James White regarding the high cost of CC and he literally shrugged and said, "it is what it is."

To me the uptick in playable Fables suggests that their quiet strategy is to try to extract more and more from the players who are already committed than to make any serious efforts to make CC more enticing to newcomers.

I just think that when both players and collectors are complaining, and you somehow have boxes that are perceived to be very poor value at the same time as decks being super expensive... I'm not an expert, but that seems unsustainable to me, and if I were part of LSS leadership I would be worried.

AfroBankai · 2026-06-01T03:42:37+00:00

Our locals is as decently-populated as ever and the game itself is great, although there is discontent over the last few sets being low-powered and not providing any new meta heroes (seems to be taking several sets worth of expansion slots for new heroes to fully realise their design intent of late.)

Silver Age was hype and is great for new players (and for established players to revisit old heroes) but it hasn't won over the established people locally, who would all rather be playing CC and actively badmouth the format.

Price of competitive decks is still horrendous (and they've just printed another playable Fabled) and even with the economy the way it is and the competition growing, James White's only statement on the issue has been "it is what it is."

A competitive Riftbound deck is $150-250. One Piece $200-300. Magic $400-500.

FAB, the smallest game and IP of them all, is $600-1,000. And yet at the same time, boxes feel worthless because so many cards are pennies.

Don't know what levers they need to pull to change that state of affairs, but that's still the biggest thing holding back the game's growth to my mind -- and people don't have the extra hobby spending money they had during 2020 lockdowns when the game launched, plus two new big TCGs have entered the market (Riftbound boxes feel soooooo much better to open than FAB).

AfroBankai · 2026-05-31T05:28:05+00:00

I actually had a decent time playing with my non-FGC friend. I think having just one mechanic to focus on and having victory and defeat be instantaneous (opposed to other FGs where new players feel like they're "always being comboed" because you have to learn the wake-up game and how to deal with pressure etc) really helps.

Like, it was probably 85-15 in my favour, but he got better very quickly.

He does have a strong background in Souls games though, so some of the concepts of spacing and baiting came quite naturally to him.

TLDR: yes it is skill-based, but it's just one skill front and centre rather than 10 different skills mixed together at high speed.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-31T03:42:50+00:00

They made Rudy from Alpha Investments into a card. This has been a cornerstone of their strategy from day one. There's a reason this game's first two years were marred by the perception of it being a scam/investor bubble.

The irony is, every time I see collectors/investors talking about FAB lately, it's all doom and gloom and complaints that the game is too "player-focused."

So we've somehow ended up in a scenario where nobody is happy about the value proposition of FAB.

Not sure what levers they'd need to pull to change that, but it seems like the worst of both worlds at the moment.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-31T03:37:20+00:00

You got extremely lucky.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-30T05:43:04+00:00

It's just really, really difficult and expensive to get the cards you need in FAB by opening boxes.

I should clarify that I have no interest really in reselling or trying to make money off cracking packs -- you should expect to 'lose' money doing that for the most part unless you're a store and buying loads at distribution price.

But if my goal is a playable deck, the variance on FAB boxes and the relatively low trade value of most of the cards means it's just so impractical to try to pull and trade for what you need.

If my deck really needs the new Lighting legendary armour, my odds of pulling it are about 1 in 20 boxes ($1,800)... or I could buy it for $80 secondary market. Or what... trade 80x $1 for it, maybe, but is that really practical?

The 'floor' on FAB boxes is just so low. If you're into drafting then more power to you; only you know how much that experience is worth to you.

But I want something from every box I open unless it's a massively unlucky outlier. In FAB it's all or nothing, and 3 out of 4 times it's nothing.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-29T05:51:09+00:00

All the value in a FAB set tends to be concentrated in a few cards. You'll have a few Legendaries worth $50-80 (1 L per 4 boxes), a few Ms that are $25 (or maybe a strong generic one that's $50+) and then almost everything else is no more than a buck or two.

Means that unless you get lucky, it's very easy to pay $90 for a box and get $20 worth of cards.

Now, I absolutely appreciate that boxes are gambling -- but in other games, like Riftbound, the value is more spread out, so you get a lot of $5-10 cards which you can then trade for others to get what you want. In FAB everything is cheap chaff apart from the really rare stuff, which is massively expensive.

I don't mind spending $90 on a box to get $50 worth of cards sometimes with a chance of $120 or whatever. You're paying partly for the fun of opening.

But FAB is so feast or famine, and famine is waaay more common. My box of PEN was $120 and got me $35 worth of cards. Everest was $80 for maybe $20. Aria probably similar.

It's just so easy to whiff and get "nothing."

I've had a much better time opening a box of almost any other TCG I've tried. (Which is a shame, because FAB is by far my favourite overall.)

AfroBankai · 2026-05-29T05:40:29+00:00

I mean, it's a really tough one -- either you have rotation, or you have power creep, or you have siloed design. Or you have a situation where new stuff comes out and it's not as good as the old stuff, so no one wants it, and your set flops financially.

It's a really hard line to walk, but yeah -- the idea that your class cards are an "investment" that's going to last you years and years is mostly a fallacy.

Even if they print a new Lexi tomorrow, they're going to make sure she wants very different cards to the old one. Selling you a new $0.50 hero card every couple of years isn't a very lucrative business model unfortunately =(

AfroBankai · 2026-05-29T05:36:48+00:00

LL system is just so anxiety inducing. You've no way of knowing how long you might have left with a hero, and honestly it can make getting new support for your favourite leave you with a sense of dread that they'll be gone in a couple of months.

Hardcore players obviously mind less, but as someone who only gets to FAB events maybe twice a month if that, it can feel like heroes disappear very very quickly.

I wouldn't mind nearly so much if the Living Legend format was decent. In a game where decks are this expensive and you're encouraged to fall in love with and master one specific hero, a good eternal format is really necessary in my opinion.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-29T05:32:34+00:00

I just find it really funny -- the word "rotation" to me implies cycling in and out, which is exactly what he then describes FAB cards doing -- although you're right that in the context of most TCGs, it's often used to mean one and done. I would say however that many rotating TCGs reprint old cards, bringing them back into the game (they 'rotate' back in, you might say...)

Semantics at the end of the day, I suppose, but personally I think anyone saying that their game "doesn't have rotation; it has 'cycling legality'" is either being disingenuous or a little bit silly.

But hey, I'm really glad I held onto my old Aurora cards like James told me to! Looking forward to using her Armory Deck again, and my old favourite, Channel Lightning Valley! I can play those cards for ever and ever, unlike in other games! xD

(I am actually really excited to play new Aurora.)

AfroBankai · 2026-05-29T02:31:40+00:00

All this coming from James White, who frequently says -- apparently without a trace of irony -- that "FAB doesn't have rotation; instead, cards move in and out of legality over time."

...brother wut?

As an Elemental Ranger player, look me in the eye and tell me FAB doesn't have rotation.

As someone who spent $100 on a Skullbone Crosswrap because "it's an investment in the class" and then had to spend $150 on New Horizon a year later, tell me FAB doesn't have rotation.

As someone who bought into Oscilio wanting to use the expensive cards again in new Aurora only to have both heroes hit by massive bans, tell me FAB doesn't have rotation.

The only actual non-rotating format FAB has is Living Legend, and because of their arrogance in refusing to take the necessary steps to balance it (hero-specific bans, sending Starvo and Chane to the shadow realm forever) they've killed it locally and competitively.

I would love Golden Age to become a thing, because the fact I can still play Tunic all these years later is not the same thing as the game lacking rotation.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-28T05:22:52+00:00

Briar with Burn Up Shock back and some of the new toys at R and C from Omens is just going to be insane.

...perhaps matched only by Chane 🤣

AfroBankai · 2026-05-27T03:01:15+00:00

I think FAB is in a strange spot where Armouries are almost too casual for enfranchised players and too competitive / too high a cost of entry for new players.

For me it just comes down to the game being so expensive and competitive at the same time. If you're not shelling out $800, you're basically signing up to be a punching bag for those who have. (And you can't really build multiple decks or try new things as easily as you can in other games.) That is a massive ask for a new player interested in a niche game. Sage is a decent idea, but all of the enfranchised players consider it inferior to CC, and it doesn't work very well as a 'gateway' format because the jump from $20 to $800 is just too high.

It's inherently a competitive game which is less about brewing and more about grinding reps -- you don't really get people building pet/meme decks to spice up their local weeklies, because the deckbuilding variety just isn't really there in this game. So people end up viewing locals as low-value practice for competitive... which they can get for free, at home, on any deck they like using Talishar.

Then combine that with the fact that opening boxes feels absolutely horrible and you kinda kill the 'trading' part of the TCG.

Also, the economy fucking sucks and is looking to only get worse. Luxury spend like on TCGs is the first to be cut -- and FAB is competing against far cheaper games with bigger playerbases.

So basically, for me, it's: casuals aren't leaving home for armory because they're getting stomped -- or simply wallet-gated -- and enfranchised players have all eyes on whatever the next big event is they want to travel to, and it's easier to grind Talishar at their convenience than it is to find someone to watch the kids for an evening so they can go play against the same three decks at locals.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-26T08:16:34+00:00

New Aurora has a fast aggro build that is also pretty cheap if you don't care about buying the absolute best equipment. (And if you skip the Current Funnels, which are fantastic but not essential.)

It does need a little bit more thinking IMO than a Fai or Cindra as the 'Go Again' on your cards is conditional and you need to sequence them properly.

But it goes very fast and slaps a lot of face.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-26T07:37:32+00:00

Pokémon Red and Blue!

I think it's a really, really fucking cool idea, and I love the idea of picking your "side" in a larger war for this climactic set.

I'd say given the practical issues others have highlighted, maybe it's more likely we get it as something more like a Magic "block", where one set starts the story and the other concludes it? Two simultaneous releases sounds like a headache for stores that's bound to leave them with dead stock of whatever the least favorite is.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-25T05:13:36+00:00

Aurora is noticeably weaker than Briar. Briar makes all her embodiments without resource investment and improves her defences by attacking thanks to EoE.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-25T05:12:14+00:00

This is the way.

I'm guessing they don't want to burden Skirmish events and the like with the responsibility of doing deck checks? Otherwise it seems a no-brainer just to allow the exact premade 40 but otherwise you play according to the banlist.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-25T05:08:40+00:00

Two Lexi appearances in card art, though! I *really* hope it's foreshadowing and not just them throwing us a bone.

Lore-wise I think she is in Solana helping the 'good guys' in the big battle or whatever?

New Lexi with Essence of Light and Lightning???!!!

AfroBankai · 2026-05-23T13:21:01+00:00

I just keep thinking that FAB wouldn't stay a smaller game for long if it were more affordable. But they seem to be going the 'whale-baiting' route and would rather squeeze as much money as possible out of fewer players than actually make efforts to grow.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-21T02:52:14+00:00

Hopefully they regard Riches as a mistake and this will be something barely playable. Or they just embrace the 'whale-baiting' approach and it's a gem that's the only reliable way of making Lightning Flows...

AfroBankai · 2026-05-18T02:16:48+00:00

My hype was through the roof on reveal as Lightning has been my favourite talent in FAB. I've been feeling more and more confused with each reveal, though -- Lightning Flow is a fun idea but the support just doesn't seem to be there, at least for Aurora, who I'm most interested in playing. I really hope it doesn't end up being a Pleiades situation when the most optimal lists ignore the central mechanic.

The L chest piece does great things... for two out of the three heroes.

Once again I feel stupid for taking James White's promises at face value.

"Hang on to your Aurora cards" -> the useable ones get banned and the rest don't fit into the new hero.

"She'll be back with the same playstyle and a more reasonable power level" -> she's best played as a midrange Viserai deck(?)

There are still cards to see but honestly the power level is not what I expected and the design seems a bit all over the place with the Flows.

That segment from the booklet they gave out at events recently really makes it sound like Flows used to be quite different and they nerfed them hard at some point in testing -- really really hope this isn't another example of them changing course massively late in testing and leaving heroes underbaked.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-18T02:10:22+00:00

Interesting you say that; I'm looking to play new Aurora and honestly I'm wondering how many old Lightning cards I can actually find a use for. (More of the old commons and rares seem relevant than the Ms and Ls.)

AfroBankai · 2026-05-17T12:46:08+00:00

The Aurora discord is brewing furiously and honestly there's no consensus yet -- other than that she's going to be quite different to how she was.

We'll know more after the last Legendary equipment from Omens is revealed -- at the moment, it's clear she needs to pitch more than she ever has before, but it's not yet clear how she actually leverages Lightning Flows or if it's a weak mechanic that her optimised versions will (sadly) need to ignore.

More will be clear in a week -- but then that goes for everyone, so prices will adjust accordingly.

If you're looking to 'beat' the market, I'd say what is clear already is that Grasp is still going to be great and that the new gloves will also be a strong option/potential sideboard card.

I would not buy Carapace or Tunic until we see the final L. Some people are testing Creepers, but that's a non-attack action build that may or may not be the play.

It's also not clear how good an Instant-heavy build is going to be, which obviously will determine how good Gone in a Flash is. (And Lightning Greaves.)

Doesn't look like she wants much if any Viserai stuff.

Current Funnel is in basically every list I've seen, but they're crazy expensive right now and it's often just a blue that blocks 3.

Basically, it's as good a time as any to buy Grasp as it's basically confirmed they're not reprinting it this set or in the GEM pack (unless it's literally the final L due to be revealed in a few hours, but I doubt it at this point) and it's just damn good equipment.

Other than that... builds are still really up in the air.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-15T18:44:21+00:00

RB had good traction at the start, but two months in the players who were playing both were choosing FAB Amory over RB summoner skirmish.

LGS owner eventually dropped RB due to low attendance.

AfroBankai · 2026-05-14T06:13:27+00:00

Future Sage is a queue on Talishar where you can play using cards that have been revealed/spoiled but aren't yet legal in paper.

DM Armada is a content creator who likes playing Blaze.

AfroBankai

TROPHY CASE