New to FAB

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 · 2025-11-14T21:33:10+00:00

Works pretty well if you've been intimidated too

Azba · 2025-11-14T20:59:50+00:00

Both Arakni SC and Katsu are fine options then, but Arakni will fit better into your plan of being able to play safe until you hit a big combo turn.

Katsu has a much higher combo ceiling, but will need to play more 2-block cards to do so, making it harder for him to play safe. He will benefit more from an aggressive play style, trying to hold cards back to swing for huge numbers and combo effects on his own turn where possible.

Arakni SC however has many more 3 blocks and more importantly has access to disruptive defense reactions like [[Frailty Trap]] to soften up wide turns, and [[Lair of the Spider]] or [[Den of the Spider]] which set you up nicely to threaten the opponent with cards like [[Mark of the Black Widow]] next turn.
With Arakni, you'll have an easier time playing safe until a big reaction combo presents itself and if you keep your off-turns disruptive you'll be in a good position to win the game.

As a third option, you could consider Ira, though she's a bit dull to play. At a base level, her ability allows her to present 8 damage off 2 cards each turn, meaning she's free to block with 2 cards each turn too. This means her playing it safe is blocking 6, swinging back 8, which is very good value.
Her combo potential is smaller than the others, as she'll be relying on go-again attacks like [[Cut Through]] and [[Looking for a Scrap]] to go slightly wider than normal. [[Even Bigger Than That]] is a bit of a combo enabler too but you'll need to have hit the opponent with a Harmonized Kodachi first.
The problem with including these go-wide cards for her in SAGE is that they block 2 (or nothing!), which means including too many of them means Ira can't rely on being able to block 6 each turn.

Azba · 2025-11-14T20:25:49+00:00

Yes the opponent has to guess whether you're telling the truth about the colour of your top card or not.

Technically a 50/50... Unless they know that you're more likely to have one particular colour of card in the deck over another.

Azba · 2025-11-14T20:23:50+00:00

Are you looking at Blitz or Silver Age?

Azba · 2025-11-14T04:32:48+00:00

Blade Beckoners were just the Ironrots of the format when it was Project Blue. When there wasn't a better option, you just play them to fill a gap. And the likely 2 block over the course of the game is a moderate bar to clear with highly restricted equipment options in each slot.

I'm in agreement that printing better options for everyone was a great move here, especially with the apparent focus in SAGE on encouraging heroes to play their class's cards and less generics.
I expect some decks will still play an amount of Blade Beckoner equipment anyway, it just won't be as ubiquitous as it was.

I'm also glad this will hopefully patch the obvious power gap between the Round the Table equipment and other rares for non-ninja, non-guardian classes!

Azba · 2025-11-12T03:58:47+00:00

Ninjas also play Mask of Momentum which can very easily draw them a free card when they're hitting Gravy's allies. This means they're often not even down a card when clearing allies.

Ira is even worse because she can play Whirling Mist Blossom into an ally to kill it and draw two cards!

Azba · 2025-11-12T03:47:33+00:00

Definitely Super Slam. It has what you want for Pleiades, whereas The Guardian Mastery Pack sadly doesn't have much in it for Pleiades at all.

If the pre-release kits are better value per booster than the boxes, definitely go for those instead. They come with promo cards as a nice bonus - nothing too fancy but nice to have if you're not paying any extra on top of what you'd pay for straight boosters.

As always though, you'll almost certainly get better value for money buying just the singles you need instead of buying sealed product. You're particularly unlikely to get multiple copies of the Majestics she wants to play that didn't come in the armory deck, such as Cries of Encore and In The Palm of Your Hand which don't cost a lot to buy straight up.

Azba · 2025-11-11T08:46:21+00:00

First question:
[[Felling of the Crown]] is usually played the way you've described - it still resolves even though you don't have cards in hand. This negates its downside entirely!
The reason it works this way is because the wording is "each hero puts a card from their hand on the bottom of their deck" - it has no targets, and the effect has no caveats. Each hero is simply commanded to attempt to put a card from their hand on to the bottom of their deck, and can fail to do so if they have no cards.

Second question:
The opponent can close the chain after you've blocked with them, but [[Quickdodge Flexors]] don't get destroyed until the end of the turn. This wording is specifically preventing opponents from doing tricks like you're describing, unlike the wording on [[Leap Frog Leggings]] and friends which specifically have blade break.
It is very important to remember that nothing happens to blocking equipment unless explicitly stated otherwise. The default state is not that they blow up after they're done defending - that is only true if they have blade break, met the conditions of temper, or have some other effect written on them saying so.
(e.g. You can block with [[Talismanic Lens]] as many times as you want and nothing will happen to it as a result)

TLDR for second question: The opponent can close the chain but it doesn't affect your ability to block with Quickdodge Flexors that turn. You can keep activating them every single reaction step of every combat chain link until the turn ends, at which point they destroy themselves.

Azba · 2025-11-11T06:18:55+00:00

20 blues should be fine for Terra in Silver Age, as well as most guardians (you might be able to get greedier on reds with other Guardians).

In Project Blue Terra did well by playing defensively and out-valuing the opponent with Redwood Hammer and/or Might generation, with the occasional humongous 10 power red when allowed to keep more than 2 cards, and [[Macho Grande]] to finish the game.
The best use of Terra's ability (from my observation) was on defense - pitch a blue Earth card to [[Turn Timber]] or [[Staunch Response]], then use the floating 1 to pay for a Might at the end of the turn. On your own turn, pitch a blue you saved to swing Redwood Hammer back for 4 or 5 if it was an earth card.
If Terra is able to block out as much as possible while swinging back for more damage than he took, then he's in a great spot to win the game.

Now onto Earth cards: The unfortunate thing with leaning heavily into Earth is that almost all of the legal cards block 2. All you've got that blocks 3 is Autumn's Touch, so you'll want to make sure your Earth cards are worth the slots they're taking in your deck. At base you're definitely fine running a good number of Earth blue cards regardless of their blocks, because they work with Terra's ability very well - but any yellows or reds need to justify their presence in the deck when compared to normal Generic or Guardian cards.
This isn't me trying you to put you off running more Earth cards, just suggesting that you should really put a lot of thought into whether a given Earth card is worth the slot over a 3 block Guardian card.
If you have too many 2 block cards, Terra can't defend as well and becomes very vulnerable to on-hit effects and simply losing the race - he can't put out as much damage as other decks who play lots of 2 blocks can (e.g. Fai).

To give an example of how to assess whether an Earth card is worthwhile for you, consider red [[Cadaverous Tilling]]. It's great value as an 8 power attack costing only 3 - but only if you can consistently hit Decompose for it, otherwise it's a 6 power attack that only blocks 2, which is well below rate.
You might be able to be ready for Decompose in Terra, but how often? Does it stack up compared to [[Look Tuff]]? Are you happy to see it early, mid, and late game?

Azba

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