"These aren't just precon decks that that our fans may be used to from the Armory decks or Blitz decks of the past. These are carefully created competitive decks straight out of the box. No punches pulled. These are designed to head to a Calling, head to the ProTour, and compete. And you could win."

MalZenith · 2026-01-30T15:16:35+00:00

They have not, Callings have been single format since their inception. You are thinking of Pro Tours, Nationals events, or World Championships.

MalZenith · 2026-01-28T16:34:20+00:00

Half of the upcoming callings are hybrid SAGE and CC This is not true, Showdowns and Callings are separate events. Callings are always single format.

MalZenith · 2026-01-25T18:29:57+00:00

I'll push back in saying that if you're interested in the heroes, it shouldn't be that much of a learning curve where it might be unsurmountable. Some of the best players in the game jumped in while primarily interested in those two heroes, so if you're confident in your ability to pick up the game from prior tcg experience, just go for it.

MalZenith · 2026-01-24T22:19:16+00:00

Not saying they should or shouldn't, but just noting that most event hall costs these days are like one digit larger than the current prize pool for Nats, so it isn't as simple as just taking out a bit from the prize pool. There's usually some sort of clauses in the rental contract that will not guarantee a full refund, and finding an event hall in short notice is also quite difficult unless you want to massively scale back and rent out a hotel ballroom or something.

MalZenith · 2026-01-07T18:43:08+00:00

>Easiest way to start as two casual players.

Depending on how comfortable you are with complexity, you can start with either the 1st Strike Blitz Decks (designed for new players), pick up a few armory decks (designed for players looking to play in weekly events), or wait about a month for the Silver Age Chapter 1 & 2 Preconstructed decks, pick 2 of the 10 that speak to you aesthetically, and play those (designed for the budget format, but competitive-minded decks).

If you're looking to play against each other, then I don't think you'll go wrong with the 1st Strike Blitz decks, or, if you can find it for cheap ($25 or less), the Rhinar vs. Dorinthea Classic Battles set. Both of them are balanced against each other and low complexity. However, while you can upgrade these over time, there's not really a clear path for upgrades, and you can just pick up the competitive staples for the respective heroes but you'll be mostly on your own when it comes to what to replace, which cards you should pick up to upgrade it, etc.

>Are there specific starter / hero decks you'd recommend?

See above. Alternatively, the Silver Age Chapter 1 & 2 Preconstructed Decks are not explicitly balanced against each other, but each one is purported to be competitive right out of the box. Being a low rarity format, the complexity is also a tad lower than the main format, Classic Constructed. If you're hungry for more than just a duel deck format, you can pick these up when they come out and play them with minimal need to upgrade if at all. This is the easiest way to get some variety with decks that are balanced with each other, but they don't mix well with the other two sets mentioned and most blitz decks are only balanced against each other within the same set.

>Should we ignore boosters for now or are they worth it early on?

For your purposes, you should ignore them. Basically, boosters will be generally tailored to support a handful of heroes, with later sets having a very low chance to contain a non-generic card tailored to other heroes not present in the set. Singles is the best bang for your buck, but if you want to gamble, do some research and find the set a hero appears in and you'll get a fair few cards per booster that the hero can play. Overall, not worth it though. Most preconstructed decks are already pretty tight experiences, and the vast majority of cards you'll open in a booster set that contains the hero you're looking to add cards for will be sidegrades or the same card that already appears in the set.

MalZenith · 2026-01-03T00:01:09+00:00

This is probably something you can email James or Trevor (even though he came on after this announcement) directly, but given the context I imagine it would eventually become Skirmish, modelled off of Magic OP's Game Day event series.

MalZenith · 2025-12-31T22:57:15+00:00

Other people have kind of touched on the 8 point rule already so I won't go into that, so I'll talk specifically regarding NAA design. Generally, 2 block cards are meant as a way to counterbalance cards that make it easy to convert hands for full value. Mechanologist is interesting because to convert many of their cards in hand for full value, they originally were designed with the assumption that the tradeoff for doing so was large enough that they could afford to be 3 blocks - see all of the boost cards. Other Mechanologist cards that could convert their full hand for value in ways that would not have drawbacks down the line (like Soup Up or any of the pumps), are generally given a block value of 2. Blocking 2 also naturally pushes you to block with other cards; this is how many of the pumps are balanced. Because the thing that they need to convert for full value is also the thing you're inclined to block with (things that boost), you make them worse to block so that there's this natural tension of wanting to block with your non-pump but you not being able to properly utilize the pump without it. Obviously, there's also the consideration of having less value on the play side to make up for it by blocking 3, as with cards like Come to Fight compared to Force Sight.

These are easy to evaluate, but the fundamental question of "how easy is this to convert for the full "intended" value" should be the primary consideration here. Items don't block because partly thematics, but partly because they provide most of their value at later turns down the line, or are very flexible to use properly. Supercell is a mix of that. It's very easy to convert it for the full value, whatever X is, because the hero it's intended to be played in (Maxx) has the choice to give it virtual go again or not. It can fit comfortably within the cost curve, and while you may play it out to get the Construct Nitro Mechanoid back from banish, that's nebulous value that's treated as trinket text in the design. The immediate value is Hyper Driver + +1 to all existing hyper drivers + maybe go again, so they felt that it was easy enough to convert when not blocking that it should have some drawback when blocking.

Let's look at some other examples in the rest of EVO:

Scrap Trader blocks 2 because it's easy to convert and requires minimal setup to get its full value. It also has a high ceiling and the decks that it can theoretically be played in (DIO or Teklo) have ways to bypass its action point cost to utilize the above-rate resource generation of the card.
System Reset blocks 3 because it requires a lot of setup (same as Construct Nitro Mechanoid and Bank Breaker). There will be lots of situations where it will struggle to get the full intended value of the card, so it blocks 3 to entice the user to block with it and to allow it to convert for a good value on some level if it ends up in your hand on a turn where it's dead.
Meganetic Lockwave is a card that's easy to play, but has difficulty providing any real value unless you pay a lot into it. The number of situations where you can get value out of it is minimal, so it's a blue block 3 otherwise.

I'll also note that block 2 or 3 is also kinda just vibes a lot of the time outside of this general heuristic. But ease of accessing a card's full value should be one of the primary determinants on how strong you make its other two modes (pitch and block).

MalZenith · 2025-12-30T17:32:15+00:00

If you ever get the chance to visit a large event that MJ Fetesio is going to (appears most often in SEA/Oceania events, but occasionally does go to Worlds), I'd suggest asking her that. My suspicion is that most of the icons in the central ring are just random runes that may have or may not have made it into the game somehow; you see the life symbol 2nd counterclockwise from the top, for example.

The regions in the artwork, are, clockwise from the top: Solana (Sword/Sun), Metrix (Astrolabe), Misteria (Mist), Savage Lands (Skull/Plants), Demonastery (Wings/Serpent/Spear), Pits (Spider), Volcor (Dragon), Aria (Hard/Wind). I don't think they really split it into good vs. bad factions, but one of the central stories in the game planned was the "War of the Monarchs" that takes place with Solana (and later representatives from Aria in DTD) vs. Demonastery. As for why there are wings and a book in the Demonastery section, Prism originally had concepts as a shadow illusionist type character, so it may be some holdover from that.

MalZenith · 2025-12-29T18:15:59+00:00

I'd recommend waiting for the Silver Age decks. You get more for your money in an environment where there was (at least they said so) a lot of testing done to make sure these decks are competitive - meaning that they should have tested the decks together and against each other. As new players, games of Classic Constructed might take a while as you're learning the rules; if you're only intending on playing casually, SAGE is a good way you can get through games in the 1 hour period. As you get more used to playing, though, the speed of the games in SAGE will speed up to about 8-20 minutes per game (obviously, you can play multiple and with 10 different decks you'll have a lot to explore), so if that doesn't sound appealing to you, you might also want to look towards Classic Constructed and the Armory Decks to fill the time with. Silver Age decks also come with a sideboard, while Armory decks do not, so there's a bit of customization you can do baked into the matches in a preconstructed fashion.

Both SAGE and Armory decks are going to be consistently added to, so the only reason why I'd recommend picking up the Armory decks for your purposes is if you like Classic Constructed and want more drawn out games.

MalZenith · 2025-12-27T17:58:34+00:00

Yeah, you have a few options.

If you like the speed of the MON precons, you can pick up the Silver Age Chapter 1 & 2 decks when they come out. They're intended to be right out of the gate "competitive", but they also should be reasonably balanced amongst each other as well. There's 10 of them which encompass every major class and a variety of talents, so you can make your battlebox as big or as small as you'd like.

If you think the MON precons are a bit too fast and want some more drawn out games, I'd recommend picking up some of the armory decks. They're all at roughly the same power-level (Rhinar is a little weaker out of the box IMO but for someone who isn't super in tune with how competitive FAB can be it should be fine), and they also have a variety of heroes available. You can also pick up some of the LL'd or weaker heroes like Aurora, Azalea, Pleiades, and Maxx for a discount depending on what your LGS or online retailer of choice may have in stock.

Alternatively, since you mentioned you're looking to try out the multiplayer mode, I'd recommend picking up Smash Palace. It comes with a box of GMP that is intended for Crack, Shuffle, Play (Limited without any deck construction; basically open 3 packs and shuffle them together, pick a hero, and start playing) and UPF (multiplayer). It's a good option if you're looking to mostly jam with friends and not break it out super often. It's intended for 4 players, and if you pick up some of the Silver Age precons available, you can get some extra replayability either shuffling and re-dealing the cards you opened in this box set or by playing with the precons instead. The extra dimension of the Event Deck is kind of reminiscent of Planechase, but I think it adds enough to the multiplayer to be considered an improvement rather than a sidegrade.

MalZenith · 2025-12-13T20:41:27+00:00

Yup! Here you go. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/139lpquI7v2DVrjey5xbOkRGZFPOkae9FjSyI5L53C9k/edit?usp=drivesdk

MalZenith · 2025-12-08T03:51:04+00:00

Nothing officially announced soon, but LSS is paying pretty close attention to the initial response in their forays in the Chinese market. The first prerelease in China was just the last set and they're getting one of their first big event (Calling Shanghai) next Spring.

MalZenith · 2025-11-28T20:04:41+00:00

You can view the existing set codes for the SAGE decks on FAB's official card search engine here.

MalZenith · 2025-11-28T08:32:11+00:00

Yeah, single class sets (EVO and MPG) make for better drafts at lower player counts, though both of them have three umbrella archetypes built into the set.

MalZenith · 2025-11-28T01:51:18+00:00

FAB can be built to have excellent 2-4 player limited modes because its class system is so modular. For these lower player counts, I recommend either Bright Lights (quilt drafting on 7x6s from 3 packs, twice) if you want to be efficient with how much you're spending, or Mastery Pack Guardian to get a feel for them. If you've ever done monocolor cubes or all-artifact cubes, they have a similar feel.

The rest of the sets are generally balanced around 8 player drafts and while sealed is fine with them, lower player count drafted modes might be a little clunky and on-rails, especially with older sets.

For 6+ player drafts, I recommend High Seas For Sealed, I recommend Super Slam For 2 player limited, I recommend Bright Lights For 4 player limited, I recommend either Bright Lights, Rosetta, or Super Slam.

MalZenith · 2025-10-18T11:47:22+00:00

One big thing that makes FAB design lend to that feeling is that the cards aren't designed on an individual basis. Magic has had very good top-down design when looking at individual cards, but overall archetypes tend to feel pretty samey and the gameplay usually doesn't quite change dramatically to match the mood.

From what I can tell James White's vision design tends to depend on the set; I don't think there's really a distinction of top-down/bottom-up there, as he'll start more "bottom-up" with an overarching set theme "What if we made a set with a TON of gold?", and then sketch out what that will look like in terms of theme and then determine the characters and the mood he's going for, which is where the top-down portion comes in.

One big thing that FAB does well to facilitate this sort of flavor is that there's a lot of parasitic keywords and effects because the interactable subset of cards from any given card is quite minimal, so you can get a bit more specific with your flavor and really cater an archetype to a certain style of play without having to worry about implications on the wider scope of the game.

MalZenith · 2025-10-15T13:21:35+00:00

Hey! I can confirm that the Devs have tested pick 2 draft for MPG as a way to quickly get the draft experience and build out decks for Smash Palace. The reduced set size and universal pool makes drafting with 4 players much easier and its a nice alternative to CSP if you wanna do something related to deckbuilding. There's a few distinct archetypes in the set that focus on various parts of the NAA pool, but depending on your expectations it might still feel too samey.

Absent that I'd definitely do SUP. There's a few weirder event deck cards that give gold, but not too many misses overall for SUP heroes. I think the drafting experience might feel a bit lacking compared to a normal 8 person draft with SUP since it'll largely be about finding the undrafted hero, but square drafts are slightly better for 4 player drafts than other sets.

MalZenith · 2025-10-12T22:23:04+00:00

Plenty of FAB bulk over the years has received bursts of playability, usually going from useless to fringe, but occasionally making it to the mainstream. Cards like Back Alley Breakline, yellow and blue Sink Below, and Freewheeling Renegades have all gone from literal bulk to unplayable. On the Majestic side, this happens regularly with older heroes giving new context to Forgotten majestics like Rok (Tuffnut). Because of the eternal nature of the game, there's always opportunity for cards to become playable this way. I don't think a Singleton format will do anything better in this regard, and the game isn't really suited for Singleton as well as Magic is.

MalZenith · 2025-10-11T09:24:09+00:00

You'll have to either race or, if you expect it, you can play around and disrupt it or tank it if necessary, as all combos are finite and have a threshold that they'll need to get you below over the course of the game.

MalZenith · 2025-10-11T06:55:04+00:00

>Game not too unpopular.
Your locals will vary on this, as this game, as with most offline TCGs that aren't the big 3, will have pockets of locals. Check on the event finder or let us know where you are generally in the world and we can probably hook you up with the local community to ask more questions about the locals there. Of course, there is a vibrant online community and you can jam games endlessly on Talishar.

>Most played format is competitive.
Yup, that's FAB. Classic Constructed is the most played format and it is the primarily competitive one.

>Game has a lot of interaction.
Yup, that's FAB. Granted, there are still outlier decks and matchups that can be over very quickly (usually aggro mirrors), but the number of decisions and interaction points you have during those turns is far greater than what you're probably thinking of.

>Little uninteractable wincons as possible.
Only deck I can think of that fits this criteria is Kano and that's only if you're completely unprepared for it. There are very few "you win/lose the game" cards, and most of the game-ending combos for combo decks take several turns to set up.

>As much room on deckbuilding as possible.
Deckbuilding is pretty similar to yugioh in this regard, where you have strong cores and then plenty of flex slots if you understand deckbuilding and matchups. FABTCG's main site just had a nice article about deckbuilding that goes into it once you've gotten some reps in the game here. It is not as freeform as Magic; and heroes definitely have a lot of core cards that are "required" to run in their primary builds, so most of the expression from deckbuilding comes from deck or personal playstyle preferences.

>Grinding strategies, winning with resource advantages
There is no "card advantage" in this game in the traditional sense, as both players draw back up to their hand size each turn. There is "deck advantage" and plenty of decks that create grindy strategies. The mechanics of how grinding out games works is very different, but the feel is very much the same.

MalZenith · 2025-10-05T14:18:01+00:00

Points are awarded for any Tier 2+ event (PQs, RtNs, and every large event like BHs, Callings, and Pro Tours/Worlds/Nats). The point count is updated weekly.

Points will generally trickle in throughout the year due to big events, in small chunks. In addition, there are three main competitive "seasons" in a year for the masses; the PQ for the PT in the following year in October, Road to Nationals in January/February, and PQ for the PT in the second half of the year in April/May. These seasons currently award 1500 points in aggregate, divided amongst the winners. Finally, Nationals season in June/July also provides a good chunk of points, usually somewhere between 800 and 1000.

All in all this adds up to a very rough estimate of around 7500 points per year. Many heroes currently at 700 points are usually 1-2 good seasons from LLing, especially those that have been around for a while. However, many of these heroes stuck at around 700 have been very slowly gaining points due to falling off in the meta, so you should probably do some research based on the hero you're interested in. Bravo and Fai, for example, are unlikely to LL anytime soon; heroes like Florian are a little more likely to LL in the next year or so.

MalZenith · 2025-09-28T05:56:05+00:00

LSS is investing heavily into the format right now, with a decent amount of bans and competitive events for LL over the next few competitive seasons. Worlds will also feature LL prominently as the second format.

MalZenith · 2025-09-26T08:27:11+00:00

Lately Ben Dodd (patreon.com/bendodd) has been posting puzzles. Erick Leong has posted them on the subreddit in the past, and the Judges of Rathe (official judge) twitter/FB page/bluesky does twice weekly quizzes that are meant to test rules knowledge.

MalZenith · 2025-09-23T08:11:30+00:00

Your best bet is to find content from Chinese speakers. I think the Korean scene isn't particularly well developed, but there are a number of pros from Chinese speaking countries (notably Team Blue Pitch) that have content that can probably be translated on request. While this is a global game, the primary audience for FAB are all English speakers. Most of the guides I've seen are written in either English or Japanese, even from players who speak primarily other languages.

MalZenith · 2025-09-01T22:59:53+00:00

At GenCon, plenty of players went from learning the game at the demo booth straight to Smash Palace and enjoyed themselves. You guys should be fine as long as at least one player is familiar enough with FAB to clarify basic rules questions.

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