THE BEGINNING
It all started in Tokyo, Japan back in May this year. Michael and I flew across the world to play in the Calling Tokyo running alongside the World Premiere of Part the Mistveil and the first appearance of Japanese language cards in Flesh and Blood.
This was a pretty awesome weekend for several reasons. I got to see Japan for the first time, meet a bunch of players from there who (as every FaB community on the planet amazingly seems to be) were very kind and welcoming, and eat a bunch of Famichiki from the FamilyMart! It’s basically a chunk of easy-to-eat boneless fried chicken that is very tasty. I did go out to a proper restaurant to try some local cuisine in the evening, but my main form of sustenance throughout the Calling was 8 orders of Famichiki per day instead of ham sandwiches.
Michael and I both ended up making the top 8 of the Calling and having to draft right next to each other! One of the craziest parts of this weekend was memorizing the new set in order to draft with all Japanese cards during day 2. We had very handy translation booklets to help during gameplay, but we weren’t allowed to look at them during the draft process. I ended up on Nuu and died right away in the quarterfinals, and Michael piloted Enigma all the way to the finals before falling to Oh Oh’s Zen. Shoutout to Japan for their growing FaB community and hosting an awesome first premier event!
CLASSIC CONSTRUCTED
Gearing up for the first CC tournaments of the season, I decided to lock in Azalea before the set even released. I remembered trying to test many different heroes and matchups prior to Pro Tour LA before eventually realizing it just made sense for me to play what I already knew well, and I didn’t want to repeat that process of burning time when I could be working on Azalea’s new matchups.
It turns out that was a mistake. I tested into the new heroes, played against them in PQ+s here in Dallas and Battle Hardened Las Vegas (which I ended up winning!), and felt like I had a solid matchup into all three based on those games. What I regret not doing is trying out any of those heroes myself.
Flash forward to US Nationals - I hadn’t tested as much for this event as majors in the past, but I felt good about my decklist and had established plans for every matchup. I started off day 1 with a win vs Nuu, then a loss. Then another loss. Then another loss! Starting 1-3 meant I was already dead for top 8 contention. I came back with a 3-0 Enigma draft but decided I would rather go for gold in the Calling than play for top 16 in Nats day 2.
My Calling started off pretty well, closing out day 1 at 6-2. My favorite part of the day was playing some ninja matches that helped me figure out a sideboard choice I’d been making incorrectly on Friday. I always like to identify where I went wrong in my losses, and two of the games from Nats had been bugging me because I couldn’t put my finger on it until then. I slept soundly that night and came back ready to fight, blasting through the first 4 rounds of day 2 to 10-2. Sadly, I was the one who got blasted in my win-and-in, falling to Kano and ultimately coming in 10th. That day, my year-to-date streak of playing only Azalea came to an end.
ZEN
My biggest mistake at Nationals wasn’t any sideboarding decision; it was hero choice. I played my first games piloting Zen the Friday after the tournament and pretty quickly regretted not doing so earlier. It took playing the deck myself to recognize what many people had been saying - it was nuts.
I got to experience the power of pre-ban Zen in the field at Battle Hardened Seattle-Tacoma, falling short of Battle Hardened Top 8 but climbing to the semifinals the next day in the PQ+. I got knocked out by Pankaj’s Nuu, who went on to win both of the tournaments that weekend! This event gave me a good taste of what I was getting into with this hero and which hard matchups like Nuu and Victor I needed to work on.
The next month was a bit of a break in the tournament scene, which gave me time to relax with friends at home and make my way to Niagara Falls, Canada to commentate their National Championship! That weekend was another showcase of Zen’s power, with him performing in several stream games and Sunny Yang piloting him to the crown of National Champion.
NEW JERSEY
My favorite tournament of the summer was Battle Hardened New Jersey. I got to spend the weekend with two of my favorite people in FaB, Michael Feng and Michael Hamilton, at Feng’s place in New Jersey. We played board games, tested Zen in CC, explored the area, tested Zen in blitz, ate yummy food, tested Zen in LL (ok I don’t think we actually did that one :P), and overall had a great time hanging out.
This weekend was after the fateful ban of Bonds of Ancestry yellow and blue, so we had a lot to explore in CC with the new and slightly less powerful version of Zen. We also learned that he was quite the powerhouse in blitz, showcased by his recent speedrun to Living Legend during Skirmish season.
While jamming games and putting our decklist together, we realized we were down copies of a couple of important cards. Friends we messaged didn’t have any. Vendors were sold out. What could we do? Easy. Open up Michael’s sealed product until we found what we needed. It was just one Weakest Link, how hard could it be? 20 something boxes later… we got our answer. Later in the day we realized we also wanted to try playing 3 This Round’s On Me each, and we had 0. Thankfully Michael found his playset in another deck, but it still took us another dozen or so Everfest boxes to get our 9. That was a long day of pack cracking.
We learned a lot about our Zen deck over the weekend, sharing feedback and noting possible improvements to get ready for the upcoming Pro Tour. None of us made it into top 8 in CC, but I felt like we learned from our decklist and piloting mistakes which is the number one thing I hope to get out of these events. On Sunday, Michael H and I met in top 4 of the blitz Battle Hardened, and he took me down in the Zen mirror. The nice silver lining to this was that Michael F and I got to hop in the booth and commentate his finals match together!
The second most hilarious part of the weekend (nothing’s going to top opening 30+ boxes in search of 2 Ms) was a mini hiking trip after the Sunday tournament wrapped up, as we waited for our train back to the area where Michael lives. I brought my suitcase and backpack with me to the tournaments, so we ended up hauling ourselves and my luggage down this very, very, very long road (shoutout to Michael Feng for doing the bulk of the heavy lifting!!!) that led to food and maybe also the train station? I don’t remember because after all that, our train ended up getting delayed so many times we had to uber home!
PRO TOUR AMSTERDAM
I made my way straight from New Jersey to Amsterdam for the Pro Tour the next weekend. It was my first time in the Netherlands, but I didn’t have time to sightsee! I had to put the finishing touches on my Zen deck and buy some local ham and bread before the big day.
I started off the tournament losing a Zen mirror, but made my way back to finish day 1 at 5-2. The next day, I sat down at my draft pod across from Pudding Tam, a very formidable opponent and the player I faced in the finals of Calling Phuket. He played masterfully and got his revenge, knocking me to 5-3 and dead for top 8 contention. I won the next 5 rounds and lost the final CC match in swiss to Shoma Yamamura, FaB’s newest star and a very friendly guy who went on to take down the whole PT.
THE LAST HURRAH
After Pro Tour, I had another break from tournaments for several weeks. I played a lot of sand volleyball, which is something I just learned this summer and is quite fun! Then it was time for my first trip to the Philippines and Calling Manila! Thank you so much to Carlo, Justin, and the Unbox community for graciously hosting me and making me feel welcomed there. I got to stay for almost a week and had so much fun exploring the city, trying the food, playing Blood on the Clocktower - the best social deduction game of all time! - with new friends, going rock climbing, and of course playing in the Calling. I made it to top 8 with Zen before falling to Gordon, the eventual champion, on Nuu.
After an awesome week in the Philippines, I flew straight to beautiful San Diego, which is one of my favorite places in the world now. I stayed with my friends from the AGE Pro Team for this one and had an action-packed weekend of Fruity Pebbles (A-tier cereal), more Blood on the Clocktower, and my first introduction to what I’ve learned is an AGE all-timer, Monopoly Deal!
Playing Zen for what I didn’t realize then might be the last time, I made my way through 9 rounds of the Classic Constructed Battle Hardened all the way to the finals vs MajiinBae on his signature Kano deck. I’ve played against Majiin several times in tournaments now, and he recently knocked me out of a top cut when I was playing Azalea. I was ready for my rematch, this time on a hero better equipped to deal with Kano, but Majiin piloted expertly as usual and took the crown. As much as I would’ve loved to win, I was really happy to see him get his first Battle Hardened victory after an impressive but maddening number of 2nd place runs!
I came back the next day for the August AGE Open, my final tournament playing Zen in CC. I had arrived at a stable decklist, I knew my matchups well, and I was hungry after coming so close the day before. With that prep, determination, and a bit of good fortune, I went 9-0 to claim my only 1st place trophy with Zen. I said goodbye to my friends from AGE, California, and beyond, said goodbye to the lovely city of San Diego, and said goodbye to Zen.
THE FALL
James White just published the most significant Banned & Restricted announcement the game has ever seen. More important to me than the cards banned was the reiteration and improvement of LSS’s philosophies for designing and developing FaB. There were so many factors to weigh, and this was a bold move, but I believe it is a really positive change for the future of the game. I am more excited about what’s coming in Flesh and Blood right now than ever.
Looking into the future, I just found out that I’m going to have the opportunity to represent the United States in the World Team Cup later this year in Osaka!!! The format for this event is going to be Team Living Legend, which is already my current favorite format, and now I get to play alongside great friends and players Evan Herndon and Andrew Rothermel. It feels like every single format in Flesh and Blood just got a clean slate, and I cannot wait to pour my heart and soul into three of them in the coming weeks to chase victory in Osaka! Summer has ended, and it’s time for the fall.
