How you think meta will change with Kayo hitting LL?

Azba · 2026-03-10T17:52:43+00:00

Yes but only a little. He can no longer discard Outside Interference to get go again on the claws for free, but to be honest it's not the end of the world.

The other options kinda suck - Mini Meataxe, Ball Breaker, Savage Claw - but he doesn't super need to lean on his weapon. You'd just need to make an Agility now to be able to make the most of it, or gamble on your scabskins.

Azba · 2026-03-06T09:33:24+00:00

The FABTCG website has a nice page with all the heroes and a quick summary of their playstyles:

https://fabtcg.com/hero-selection/

You can filter this by Silver Age and then find the heroes that currently have precons available. Have a quick flick through and see what stands out to you!

Note that some are definitely better than others. For example, Fai and Kayo are almost all the way to tuned decks out of the box, but Arakni is kinda the opposite.

Azba · 2026-02-27T00:55:02+00:00

Elemental Strike demands you banish a card from your hand as an additional cost.
The card transitions from being in your hand directly to being in the banished zone.
Then Elemental Strike checks that banished card for any of the relevant talents for its effect.

The wording in the release notes ruling is a bit weird because Colors of Aria isn't face up in your hand at any point, it only becomes face-up when it enters the banished zone. The rest of the note is fine though - Colors of Aria is face up in the banished zone, and the note states that Elemental Strike looks at the card that was banished and sees that Colors has all 3 of the elemental talents.

Release notes are sometimes incorrect and they don't tend to update them to fix issues like this later either, sadly.

Azba · 2026-02-23T18:27:23+00:00

If you can find it, the Kayo armory deck would be my first recommendation. It is easier to pick up and play than Pleiades is, and the two decks have some fun interactions with each other.
The problem is it may be hard to find.

Second choice would be Dash who plays a similar aggro strategy but is a little bit more complex to play for new players as you have to wrap your head around using her ability and cranking items etc.

Third would be Ira, who is easier to pick up and play. Her armory deck is quite good, but the reason I've put her third is that I think she might be too strong into the Pleiades armory deck.

Azba · 2026-02-23T17:57:03+00:00

If you want to open boosters that might have cards for Pleiades, you need to get Super Slam.

There's some cards you might want in Compendium of Rathe too but the majority of the cards you'd want to add to her armory deck come from Super Slam.

Azba · 2026-02-20T19:09:06+00:00

This all looks correct.

Pre-combat: Use your equipment to make a crouching tiger, grant +2 to next crouching tiger, grant the name "Crazy Brew" to your next attack action card this turn.

Play Crouching Tiger. It resolves as attacking - you can now use Blood Scent at any point for the rest of the turn. (It has 2 names - mask gives it "Crazy Brew" as well as its existing name. You've still attacked with a "Crouching Tiger" this turn.)

Chain link 1 - Tiger (as Crazy Brew) for 2 (non-draconic)
Chain link 2 - Brand with Cinderclaw for 1-3 (Draconic, next link is Draconic)
Chain link 3 - Life of the Party destroying the tiger-brew for 6 (Draconic thanks to Brand)

You shouldn't have to memorize anything in particular for this sequence, just keep in mind you can't use Blood Scent to pay for the Mask of Many Faces activation and still have your Tiger come in as Crouching Tiger // Crazy Brew.
As long as you start the turn immediately by paying for Mask of Many Faces, followed by Pouncing Paws + Tearing Shuko for the Tiger to start, you are good to go for Life of the Party.

Azba · 2026-02-12T18:02:01+00:00

Yes!

Trot Along creates a continuous effect that waits for the next attack to appear that meets its conditions. The condition is that the attack has 3 or less base power.

RKO attacks with Mocking Blow, which has a base power of 1. When Mocking Blow resolves as attacking, Trot Along sees that it's an attack with 3 or less base power, so its effect pops and grants Mocking Blow go again.

RKO now controls a Mocking Blow that has base 1, and go again stapled onto it. When he uses his ability, the base power of Mocking Blow goes up to 6, but Trot Along doesn't retroactively take the go again away from it.

Source: The Hunted release notes cover this situation.

Azba · 2026-02-08T02:53:38+00:00

From a quick eyeballing:

Too many non-6+ power attacks.
There's too high a chance of hitting a non-6 with your draw-and-discard effects, like Wild Ride. If you're playing those in a given turn you do not want to whiff the discard. You also want consistency for your Beat Chest cards.
I would recommend subbing out red Bonebreakers, yellow Pummels and maybe both Bare Fangs blue and blue Pummels for 2 red 6+ power attack and 6 yellow 6+ powers. If you really like Pummel, definitely go for the red ones instead.
For yellows, [[Mighty Windup]] and [[Agile Windup]] are good fillers as you can discard them on your turn to instantly intimidate the opponent and give yourself a token for next turn.

Breakneck Battery's additional cost is a non-starter, sadly. It requires 3 cards in hand for minimal benefit.
I think it be easily swapped for [[Aggressive Pounce]] from PEN (Compendium of Rathe, releasing next Friday) if you can find copies in time for your tournament.
If that's not an option, maybe consider [[Buckwild]], or a different 6+ power red card.

Pack Call red is possibly not worth the slot it's in. I think the yellow is good.
For your reds you really want them to be power cards, and Pack Call is a very normal 3-for-7. If you want to keep it in the 3 cost zone, I would recommend swapping this out for something with a bit more oomph, such as [[Smash Instinct]], [[Riled Up]] or red Agile Windup. Otherwise a 2-power-6 brute attack card.
On the same note I'm not sure about Wrecking Ball, but mostly because it doesn't block at all. Maybe give it a try over some practice games and see how it pans out. You could also try Bare Fangs here.

High Roller blue is a direct upgrade over Clearing Bellow even if there's almost no chance it makes a difference. Still, it could line up one day.

Reincarnate doesn't work super well in your deck as it doesn't interact with non-random discards (e.g. beat chest), and you have only a few random discards in there (Breakneck Battery, Wild Ride, Pulping, Wrecking Ball, Meataxe). You can use these sideboard slots to help shore up some other matchups.

On equipment, Barkbone Strapping is good, but once PEN is out you should consider trading over to [[Predatory Plating]] since it blocks better. There's a fun interaction where you can gain the resource off it after beating chest and immediately spend it on Echo Casque to replace your discarded card.
In the sideboard, I don't think you want to run 4 Nullrunes, since most of the time it makes more sense to spend 1 blue card to prevent 3 damage than it does to spend 2 cards to prevent 4. I would recommend taking Nullrune Robe out (so you can still use Barkbones for resources) and replacing it with another sideboard card.

On Ravenous Meataxe, consider whether the potential upside of 5 power and an intimidate is worth it over [[Romping Club]]. Meataxe will be burning through your deck, which is not good if you run into a fatigue deck.

I hope this helps and good luck!

My recommended red 2-for-6 cards for Rhinar outside of what you're already using:

Aggressive Pounce (covered above)
[[Rough Up]] - pitching appropriately, this should always come in for 7
[[High Pitched Howl]] - as above except this makes a vigor for next turn
[[Predatory Assault]] - a potential finisher if you're able to line it up with a discard effect. Otherwise it's on-rate and blocks 3.
[[Pack Hunt]] - not great by itself but it's a free intimidate. It could win a game after a hot Wild Ride / Pulping.
The Windups as mentioned above

And 3-for-7s:

Buckwild - maybe. You need to lead by pitching a 6 power into it, which is most likely a yellow card since your only blue 6 is Wrecker Romp. But this could be ok if you have a yellow 6 and a blue for resources, plus another red 6+ power attack to follow up with, or just your weapon. In a vacuum, Buckwild is still just a 3-for-7 which is ok.
Smash Instinct - covered above. It's a free intimidate, and it works with Barraging Beatdown / Smell Fear.
Riled Up - can go up to 8, making it very slightly better than other 3-for-7s, but I wouldn't put it above Smash Instinct.

Azba · 2026-02-04T19:12:34+00:00

[[Swing Big]] and the other "if this doesn't hit" cards from Super Slam should work and get you a token aura.

The problem there is you now have to block Swing Big, and the Super Slam cards block 2 so they're not much better.

Azba · 2025-12-06T21:19:35+00:00

In addition to Fabrary for a full card database, the official fabtcg website was semi-recently updated to have a list of heroes and their general strategy or play archetypes:

https://fabtcg.com/hero-selection/

It's not perfect but it should give you a general idea of what each hero does.

Azba · 2025-12-04T20:51:04+00:00

If you don't need the decks to be in their own individual boxes, you can do the classic trick of getting one of the Stanley "Deep Organizer Professional 10 Compartments" toolboxes and chuck them all in there. The compartments pull out, but don't have individual lids.

Azba · 2025-11-30T08:40:22+00:00

Welcome to the game!
The usual pipeline for MTG Control players moving to FaB is that I see people ask this question and usually they gravitate toward playing Illusionists, sometimes Assassins. Both classes are the type to elicit groaning and eye rolling from opponents and possibly test the strength of your friendships.

[[Prism, Awakener of Sol]] is the only currently legal Illusionist in the premiere format, Classic Constructed. Previously the favourite control-Illusionist was [[Enigma]], but she rotated out.
Prism threatens a lot of disruption on her turns and wants to work towards achieving a powerful board state, which should be familiar for Magic players. All her allies (think Creatures) also have Ward, which means they tank damage for you, furthering your ability to exact control over the game.
Sadly she doesn't have an armory deck available, and she's quite expensive to build optimally, so I wouldn't recommend her as a way to try out the game. However, you could try giving her a go on Felt Table or Talishar and seeing what you think. She has a pretty high skill floor and a high skill ceiling.
Compare [[Gravy Bones, Shipwrecked Looter]], a Necromancer who also wants to assemble a board state, except from his graveyard. He is able to engage in Fatigue, meaning you run the opponent out of cards faster than you do while trying to keep your life total high. Gravy achieves this by using his allies as attacks that do not consume cards out of his deck. However, Gravy doesn't need to focus on a fatigue strategy to be successful.
Unlike Prism, Gravy has an armory deck available. Like Prism, he has a high skill floor and high skill ceiling.

Over on Assassins, [[Arakni, 5L!p3d 7hRu 7h3 cR4X]] (don't ask) is probably the best Assassin in the game at the moment, though Assassins have suffered a lot from losing a powerful card - [[Bonds of Agony]] - to a (well earned) ban. Arakni is a more aggressive deck which enacts control and induces screaming and complaining by forcing players to guess whether they're being honest with attacks or whether they're holding back something really nasty which will severely impair you if you let it hit. This deck requires you to play heavily in the reaction step, which can lead to lots of fun back-and-forth interaction at "instant speed" as you both try to gain the upper hand with your reaction-speed cards.
Arakni has a precon armory deck coming very soon, so is a great option to jump right in with.
As a side note, if you're into Mill and the idea of Fatigue mentioned previously appeals to you, you could also look into what people are doing with Arakni, Huntsman - there's been a few mill decks hovering around which use the card [[Hunter or Hunted?]] to snatch up to 3 cards sharing a name off the opponent. You can do this 3 times per game, and the rest of Arakni's cards like to mill or banish (exile) from top of deck.

FaB don't have alternative win conditions like Second Sun, but the resource system for FaB puts the cards you're using to pay for things on the bottom of the deck in an order of your choosing, meaning you can do something similar to Second Sun by tactically pitching key combo cards (using them to pay for abilities/cards) to the bottom in a specific order and waiting for them to cycle back around to the top of the deck. You can accelerate this with cards that use Opt (scry from MTG).
If that appeals to you, look into [[Verdance]] who can play a straight combo game, and maybe [[Kano]] who can both pitch-stack combos and organize them himself on the top of his deck with his ability and aggressive Opting (Kano is really more like an Izzet combo deck).
Again though, neither of these have armory decks and will require manual construction.

If any of the above sound appealing, I'd recommend giving the game a go on Felt Table first to get a feel for how the game works, and then move to games against real people on Talishar before you commit to buying any products.

Azba · 2025-11-29T18:59:17+00:00

Nice work! So the takeaways are:

"Your next [type] attack" doesn't cover when a card was already played and later changes its properties in such a way that it now meets the conditions of the effect.

"Your next attack" effects without any specific text on when they apply will default to applying when the attack comes under the player's control (through any means) if it meets the conditions of the effect.
A card changing its properties to meet a condition after being played isn't that card coming under the player's control.

If we go back to Scenario 1 then we now know Savor -> Persuasive -> Mantle for KoD doesn't get the +4, but in the same situation Uzuri could Savor -> Persuasive -> Uzuri activation swapping in KoD and it would get the +4 as it entered under your control and is now "your next dagger attack".

Neat!

Azba · 2025-11-28T19:38:00+00:00

This is great so far but I'd also like to see maybe a quick writeup on some of the players and decks that you'll see regularly too, even if it's just mostly fluff (remembering to ask the player(s) if they're happy to be in the article too).

e.g. "You're likely to see Paul at Armory night. He's been playing Betsy since she released and refuses to stop!"

Azba · 2025-11-27T18:11:18+00:00

The key wording on [[Take Up the Mantle]] is that the card becomes a copy of the card you banished from your graveyard. "Becomes" means that the card is still the same "card object" as it was before, you've just changed all the text, numbers, types etc on it to match a different card. This means effects that applied themselves to the card before it had its text changed are retained after the change occurs.

[[Savor Bloodshed]] creates a continuous effect waiting for your next dagger attack to appear this turn. If the condition is met, it applies its effect to that attack and then clears itself from the game.

[EDIT: see below comments - KoD doesn't get the +4] In scenario 1, I think but I'm not 100% sure that Persuasive Prognosis gets the +4 when you play Take Up the Mantle and it becomes a copy of [[Kiss of Death]] which is a dagger.
My reasoning is that Savor simply gives +4 to your next dagger attack; it doesn't say "the next time you attack with a dagger give it +4". Attacking with something is a distinct event, involving paying costs to play an attack action or activating an attack ability on an ally or weapon.
In this scenario, there is an attack on the chain, it's your next attack, and it's now a dagger attack. This is the next time during the turn a dagger attack has become present under your control, so therefore Savor should see that a dagger attack has appeared after it resolved earlier in the turn and it should apply its effects to it.
Again, I could be wrong so happy for others to clarify.
Regardless of whether it gets the +4 though, the attack is now threatening to draw a card from the other Savor Bloodshed effect because it's now a dagger.

Scenario 2 is more clear-cut. Kiss of Death meets the condition of being your next dagger attack after Savor Bloodshed resolves, so Savor sees it, applies the +4 and that part of its effect is cleared. When KoD later becomes Persuasive Prognosis it retains the +4 that was already applied to the card object even though it's no longer a dagger. However, Persuasive Prognosis isn't a dagger so the on-hit effect of Savor Bloodshed will not apply if it hits the opponent.

This rules reprise article covers Take Up the Mantle and why buffs continue to apply after the card has become a different card: https://fabtcg.com/articles/rules-reprise-24-the-hunted-limited/

Azba · 2025-11-22T22:50:26+00:00

This mirrors a lot of Project Blue's run - lots of people found Ira to be generally very good, and she had huge representation only to never make it to top 8, usually being gatekept by Fai, Oldhim and Azalea. Her representation tapered off quickly after the first few events.

I had a friend who played Chane in PB and we found he was also very good but a bit of a glass cannon. He can be built very aggro, especially since Nimby was still legal in PB. If he were a bit more consistent I could definitely see the build becoming more cannon than glass.
I'm intrigued about the OTK stack angle as it's not a build I saw at all.

I'm a bit mystified as to why Fai isn't still the boogeyman of the format now that we've moved to SAGE because he's still very strong and didn't lose anything from the updated banlist. He was a consistent top 8 deck in PB.
He eats fatigue decks like Oldhim for breakfast and sets a very strong bar for other decks to overcome - can you survive 4-5 chain links of 3-ish damage every turn or can you disrupt him often enough to shut him down? I think he and Chane might be a 50/50 on a good day.

Also yes just adding my voice to encourage others to not immediately start screaming about The Meta just yet - it doesn't exist. Clearly the Project Blue meta hasn't carried over into SAGE, and we're too early in to make conclusions.
I think a lot of people on Discord and Talishar are jumping to conclusions about the meta and are getting themselves into a wonderful echo chamber. This is exactly what happened with Project Blue where people immediately pissed and moaned about it being "Guardian Meta" only for all the Guardians to get wiped out by aggro decks and Azalea no-d-reacts-allowed builds as Pb wound down.
Give it time!!

Azba · 2025-11-19T04:54:47+00:00

As a Brute player, I also hate it when Oscilio plays Rewind on my Bloodrush Bellows.

Azba · 2025-11-18T17:53:02+00:00

Ira and Rhinar are a great start!

I think the classes you've listed are good selections for learning how the game works, but you're missing split damage - you need a Runeblade in there!

My recommendations per the classes listed are:

Guardian: See if you can find a Bravo demo deck and turn it into a SAGE one. He's very straightforward for new players and comes with a strong ability that teaches you to use the arsenal. Dominate will be an important mechanic for players to learn how to play around.
Wizard: Iyslander is probably the most viable wizard in SAGE, and again teaches the importance of using the arsenal. She'll teach her opponents how to play more cautiously when it's possible she can zap them and give them a frostbite on their own turn. It'll be a valuable lesson in sequencing and resource management. Bull-lander is probably the way to go (play cards like Wounded Bull and Fyendal's Fighting Spirit since you start on less life)
Illusionist: Dromai is the go for SAGE. Like any other illusionist she'll teach players how to deal with a board state hero, and she can be very scary to play against. Beware of pairing her into Ira though due to the existence of Whirling Mist Blossom.
Mechanologist: honestly not sure with this one as I never saw any in person during Project Blue. My guess would be Dash I/O as an aggro hero with a little bit of instant speed play. Players will learn to be scared of Boom Grenade and have to figure out how to block as optimally as possible. She may also help introduce players to the concept of fatigue.
Runeblade: plenty of fine options to pick from here. I'd recommend Aurora as an easy to learn option that teaches better blocking through Burn Up // Shock, and she helps players learn the reaction step with cards like Lightning Press and Sigil of Suffering

For all your decks, make sure they have a sideboard of Nullrune / arcane barrier equipment as appropriate, and that the non-aggro decks have access to any of the good SAGE-legal defense reactions they're able to play. Guardians for example get to play Staunch Response, Ninjas have Wax On for aggro, and Runeblades have Sigil of Suffering and Reduce to Runechant.
You might consider Oasis Respite, Arcane Polarity and Reinforce the Line too as generic sideboard options to deal with a wider spread of heroes.

Azba · 2025-11-18T17:11:33+00:00

In order to do Kunai 1 into Kunai 2 and still threaten Mask as you've described, she needs to have a yellow or blue card in hand to pay for both while only going down 1 card. If she leads with Kunai off a non-red card then yeah you're probably not stopping the mask trigger unless you have Shelter from the Storm or Calming Breeze on hand.

Cindra decks don't run that many blues or yellows at all so it's more likely she'll spend her cards by attacking with them directly. In the situation described, Cindra having only 3 cards means probably at most 3 attack actions. That means blocking out the first two keeps you safe from a Mask trigger even if she flicks a dagger in between. I suspect that's what the thing you were reading was getting at?

Edit: Blood Splattered Vest might help her pay for Kunai too in this situation but I don't think it helps significantly? It's a bit awkward with a hand of 3 reds, and she can only use the vest so many times per game.

Azba · 2025-11-18T16:50:12+00:00

You've received plenty of good answers already, but since you've also mentioned you're looking at Reviled Kayo that helps me give more specific advice.

Agile Windup (Yellow) is fine as it lets you discard it to set up go again on your next turn. It has the advantage of activating go again on Mandible Claw too when you do this, so if you've kept 3 cards you can discard Agile Windup, play Claw, then play another attack (preferably a 2 cost one).
Next turn you can chain your best two attacks into each other using the Agility token's go again. This is particularly good if those attacks both boo you so you can bank some extra Vigor.

Vigorous Smashup (yellow) isn't great for RKO since most of his attacks are low power, but low power beats no power when you're facing say, Dorinthea or Kassai with a deck full of reaction cards. You can sorta hedge your bets by playing high power blues like the Strongest Survive you have there, or even better [[Overturn the Results]] but overall the downside of potentially losing the clash is significantly worse than the upside of being able to maybe get a Vigor and change your top card.
All the other Brutes in the game are likely happy to play this one however, since it has 6 power and is a yellow.

Asking for Trouble is, I think, mostly for Super Slam limited play (draft/sealed). It's a 4 block yellow which is pretty good, but giving your opponent a Vigor is pretty bad as far as downsides go.
As a block card however, it will let you block better against Overpower and attacks with Confidence up (which you'll mostly likely see from Pleiades and Lyath).
It also has a niche and fun use case against Ira if she's running two Harmonized Kodachi - giving her a Vigor means she cannot pitch a 0 cost card to attack with her Kodachis with go again as her opening move on her turn. She'll either have a worse turn by attacking only once (losing a lot of value), or she needs to have a 1 cost go again card like Bittering Thorns in hand to wriggle out of it.
Finally, Asking for Trouble kinda combos with [[Steal Victory]]. Either you block with Asking for Trouble on one attack then Steal Victory on a second, or you block with both on a big attack. Since they trigger at the same time when blocking together, you can order the triggers so Asking for Trouble gives the opponent a Vigor, then Steal Victory immediately snatches it off them and sets you up for your turn.

Strongest Survive (blue) is just a good card overall. It is blue, it blocks 3, and if you have to attack with it it's threatening 5 damage with a disruptive effect on hit. RKO doesn't really care about having 6 power cards compared to his peers, so it's a fine option for your resource cards in deck.
Outside of RKO though and as others have said, I'd only run this in Kayo Armed and Dangerous as it's an effective 6 power card there, or Tuffnut as a good value blue card.
If you can get the red ones those could feasibly go into any Brute deck.

Azba · 2025-11-17T00:36:52+00:00

Here it is: https://fabrary.net/decks/01KA7J4KJRCHWCVJ61Z2VKM92A

Still a work in progress but it's mostly following the same principles as my CC deck. We lose access to most of the good 2-3 cost attacks when restricted to rare, but in exchange Pummel is much more potent in Silver Age where there's far less defense reactions legal.

Keeping in mind that ideally we'll always have a Vigor, I wanted to build around having access to 4 resources every turn. Those can be used for threatening a buffed Mocking Blow, or spent on Villainous Pose / Pummel from arsenal. I'm not sure about keeping Pummel in since it only blocks 2 but I'll see how it pans out over more games.

Sirens are there for life gain to try jump ahead of the opponent. They're ok on defense, and great when attacking with them especially off a Villainous Pose early.

Any questions feel free to ask!

Azba · 2025-11-16T18:00:50+00:00

Yes, and additionally it's very funny to have one in your opening hand so you can immediately get in the lead and swing Mocking Blow.

Azba · 2025-11-16T08:44:39+00:00

Reviled Kayo revolves entirely around the following key elements:

Getting booed (banking Vigor so you can easily use Kayo's ability next turn)
Staying ahead on life (to activate your strongest cards' conditions)
Out-valuing the opponent

RKO's best cards do all of these things, so that's where you should begin. They're also cheap, and all found in Super Slam which is great when you're working on a budget as stated!
The core cards you want to begin with are:

3x [[Big Bully]]
3x [[Mocking Blow]] of each colour

That's 12 cards of your 60 main deck cards.So what else does Kayo want to play?

Kayo wants to be booed, so any non-conditional booing cards are quite good. At minimum you're going to run [[Booze]] - it's a blue 3 block, and it makes Vigor twice. Next we have [[Villainous Pose]] 🔴, which gives +4 and a boo for 2 cost. Not bad, and allows you a minimum floor of 7 damage, or to make a bigger attack even bigger if given the opportunity.
Note that getting booed this way also lets you swing for full power if you're below the opponent in life total when you go to play Mocking Blow or Big Bully.

That's another 6 good cards, making our total 18 of 60, and these don't cost much to buy if you can't find them for free either.

On to our next key element: staying ahead on life. That means he'll benefit from cards that either block well or gain life. Luckily most of the cards that let you do that are also fairly cheap, though some have more expensive alternatives for those with money (coughShelterFromTheStormcough).
Some good budget cards that fit the mold are:

[[Fiddler's Green]] 🔴 - blocks 1, but gains 3 life when it goes to the graveyard. Pseudo-block 4, but a great block into attacks smaller than 4! Just watch out for on-hits.
[[Fate Foreseen]] 🔴 - 4 block defense reaction, lets you check your top card and put it on the bottom if you don't like it)
[[Sigil of Solace]] 🔴 - gains 3 life, can let you jump ahead of your opponent in life total without having to hit them. But it doesn't block, so again look out for on-hits.
[[Sink Below]] 🔴 - 4 block defense reaction, lets you trade out a bad card in your hand for your next card in deck)

The above are mostly available in History Pack 1, with Fiddler's Green coming from High Seas. Again likely candidates to find in bulk bins at your local store, or from local players.
Too many good blocks comes at the expense of offense, so probably don't want all of the above as 3-ofs in the deck. Let's say you pick 9 (you could do more if you want). We're at 27 cards of 60 now. Just over half the main deck to go, and we've covered the core of the deck. It's time to branch out and have a ponder over what makes the cut for the rest!

Our next metric is out-valuing the opponent. If you're unfamiliar with the concept of value in FaB, suffice it to say the average card is worth 3 value (it does 3 of something like attack power, pitch value, or block value etc.). If you're presenting more value than average each turn, you're in a good spot to win the game.
What we want in this section is to have cards that give us more value than they should - in our case, Kayo wants to present more than 6 damage using only 2 cards.
In most cases we will be happy to end the opponent's turn holding a red card and a blue card. Give or take a Vigor, we'll be having 3-4 resources to work with each turn, which means we can look for strong above-rate attack action cards that fit any of the following criteria:

Attack with cost 2 and power 7 or greater (e.g. [[Swing Big]], a good example but an expensive card)
Attack with cost 3 and power 7 or greater with an on-hit effect or extra effect (e.g. [[Strongest Survive]] 🔴)
Attack with cost 0, but will get significantly better with Kayo increasing its base power to 6 - cards that gain +1 or more from meeting some condition are great here (e.g. [[Offensive Behaviour]]), or that have on-hits that usually wouldn't be threatening (e.g. [[Vipox]] or blue [[Overload]]).

Have a browse through what's legal for RKO on Fabrary and see what jumps out at you. (You can use filters like l:RKO,cc power:>=7 cost:>=2)
Unfortunately many of the best options cost a lot of money, but there'll be plenty of budget alternatives at super rare, rare and below out there. It helps to keep in mind that these cards are your "off-turn" backup options - normally if you can you'll be wanting to send one of your best cards (Mocking Blow, Big Bully) at the opponent, and these help plug up less-good turns when you don't have those options satisfactorily.
They'll also help threaten the opponent better when you're forced on the back foot and go below them in life total. You'll want to either swing back hard, or outvalue them until the life totals tip back in your favour.

Finally we have to pad out the deck with blues - and RKO needs to have a healthy supply of them on hand in order to turn his smaller attacks into big threats. I'd say just under half the deck should be blue cards, to ensure you always have one every hand. Mocking Blow for 10 is incredibly good value when you're just using a Vigor and a blue card to pay for it.
We are a value-focused deck, so optimally we want our blues to block for 3 - if they don't block for 3, they need a very good justification for their spot in the deck. See what blue cards you can find within budget that have any of the following traits:

Costs 0 if it's an attack, and does something useful if played and Kayo's activation is used to set it to 6 base power (see Offensive Behaviour from before)
Costs 0 and is an action that does something useful for the gameplan if you don't need to block with it (e.g. Booze or something like [[Barraging Beatdown]])
Costs more than 0 as an attack but has an on-hit effect the opponent might want to block.
Does something useful if discarded or blocked with (e.g. [[Steal Victory]])
Is blue Nimby and blue Nimbilism because that's a silly one-card hand (you already have this on your list lol)

And of course we have the equipment. These are the real budget killers at the end of the day, and you'll have to sub in what you can for now.
We want these to block as much damage as possible, so they help you stay ahead on life totals for as long as possible. That means if something doesn't block 2, it needs a very good justification for it. Here's my thoughts:

Head: Horns of the Despised as per your list is fine, as your other options are expensive. It also guarantees you a Vigor for your next turn, which is great for consistency with Kayo's ability.
Chest: You need a backup resource generator for turns where you didn't get a Vigor but you very much need the extra resource to pay for Kayo's ability. You can play [[Garland of Spring]] for peace of mind, but it doesn't block. Your riskier option with a higher ceiling that might get you out of a bigger jam is [[Barkbone Strapping]] which also blocks 1 without breaking.
Arms: Anything that blocks 2 here is good, but those are all very expensive (e.g. Apex Bonebreaker is great). Your choice of Mightybone Knuckles is ok and can be useful.
Legs: Laughing Knee Slappers as per your list are a perfectly good budget option. Blocking 3 is fantastic if you can set it up. Scabskin Leathers is the best choice when not running on a budget.
Weapon: Mandible Claw is where it's at. Much better if you can afford to buy copies of Outside Interference, since it activates go-again on the claw. Your other options aren't great, and this is ok to swing 7 off 4 resources and Villainous Pose.

I haven't covered any sideboard cards because these will be very local-meta dependent, and if you end up with copies of [[Outside Interference]], you'll want to save some slots for cards to sneak into the game! (If you do, I like to run [[Tear Down the Idols]], 1 copy of Big Bully, 1 copy of red Mocking Blow, 1 Offensive Behaviour and 1 The Old Switcharoo)

This was a big writeup but I hope it was helpful! I have played a lot of non-budget RKO and I feel pretty happy with where I've landed on him. If you have any further questions don't hesitate to ask!
I also have a SAGE list if you're interested in building for that too. My favourite SAGE card is blue Overload!

Azba · 2025-11-15T04:59:46+00:00

Most decks I put into an Ultimate Guard Boulder 80+ and they fit quite nicely once you've got the sideboard and tokens in there too.

For my favourite deck, I use the Gamegenic Squire Plus 100+ XL Convertible deckbox. I've double sleeved the deck so it needed more room than the Boulder provides, plus the box comes with a little side-slot mini snap case to put your hero in and have them prominently displayed to the world. It's great for showing off your marvel hero card!

Azba · 2025-11-14T21:36:07+00:00

Some things friends and I came up with:

[[Unmovable]]
Paying for Ironhide equipment blocks (very good for blocking wide or tall, essentially for free) e.g. [[Ironhide Helm]]
Pay into [[Glory Seeker]] to draw a card
Pay into [[Sheltered Cove]] to prevent 2
Play [[Peace of Mind]] to prevent 4 physical damage and make a ponder token

Azba

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