Pro Tour London was a stacked weekend of Flesh and Blood gaming at all levels. While many players had qualified for the Pro Tour, the open entry London Calling was on at the same time!
During that event, I had the pleasure of participating, and doing fairly well for myself. While I did not do especially hot, I am proud of my plays, and would be eager to share my experience here.
The second half of this article will also feature a quick breakdown of the Top 8 decks.
My Time in Calling London
This was the deck I registered for the Calling. In hindsight I would have registered fewer copies of strange Go Again cards like dyn226-spectral-prowler-3-dynasty-booster and . It's fairly effective in the mirror, as extra Go Again threaten their ward, and it pushes damage into ast001-aurora-shooting-star-armory-deck-aurora-shooting-star-precon.
Round 1 was against a ros013-verdance-thorn-of-the-rose-rosetta-booster, and despite forgetting to search when I blocked with mst066-cf-traverse-the-universe-part-the-mistveil-booster, I was able to claw up the win by stringing together multiple big attacks and keeping AB2 to protect mst031-manifestation-of-miragai-3-part-the-mistveil-booster.
Round 2 was an incredibly tense game against mst001-nuu-alluring-desire-part-the-mistveil-booster. As this is also a hero I play, and have played against as Enigma often, I know that you have to remove a good number of your Blue cards. I knew I needed to be the beatdown in that game, and that's exactly what I did.
Round 3 gave me the high level play anxiety for multiple reasons. Firstly, an Enigma mirror with someone who openly said they'd been playing since the beginning of the game, and had put up results on meta defining decks like upr001-dromai-ash-artist-uprising-booster and ele001-oldhim-grandfather-of-eternity-tales-of-aria-booster.
Secondly, as soon as we did the "good luck have fun" fist bump, judges swooped in to take our stuff for a deck check. I'm partial to shiny cards, as my partner and I are trying to get #fabmagpie trending on BlueSky. I use an extended art foil mst031-manifestation-of-miragai-3-part-the-mistveil-booster and the Armory Promo mst031-manifestation-of-miragai-3-part-the-mistveil-booster. They're not the bendiest foils in my collection, but they're close.
Our decks came back without a hitch, and on my opponent's first attacking turn, he was sending a evr139-miraging-metamorph-1-everfest-booster at me. I decided to say no blocks, because I had eng026-homage-to-ancestors-3-inner-chi-3-enigma-blitz-deck-precon and lgs285-rf-path-well-traveled-3-inner-chi-3-buy-a-box-part-the-mistveil-promo in my hand. I wanted to double transcend in a way that was only good for me, so I asked a Judge if I played both cards in the Resolution of his attack, would he Go Again.
The Judge looked at me as though I had asked him to do a quadruple somersault or differential calculus. That Judge confirmed with another one, and so I made the double transcend play during the Resolution step. I know from my own look at the rulebook - and from having made this play a billion times - that my opponent would not Go Again. My opponent started to query it, rightly citing that in a rules change in February, that there's no more Link step. We took it further to the head Judge, who showed us the PDF of the rules of the Resolution step. There are motions to check during the Resolution of an attack. The first of which is when Go Again actually triggers, then the non-active player gets priority, which is when I could play my two Chi card.
Short version, yes you can play a card to give something Go Again, after the attack has resolved, but the attack WON'T Go Again.
After that, I somewhat brazenly blocked with fab228-gf-traverse-the-universe-premier-organized-play-part-the-mistveil-promo before my opponent and was able to keep my Miragai through the aggression and prevail.
3-0 in Calling London, after entering the event not exactly confident on my win rate with Enigma. I was sky high, and then it all went down hill.
Round 4 was my first ast001-aurora-shooting-star-armory-deck-aurora-shooting-star-precon. I know that the matchup is winnable, but I find that somewhat hard to believe. Got utterly run over, but I'm still live at 3-1.
Round 5 was against win024-cf-vynnset-iron-maiden-pro-tour-champion-cards-dusk-till-dawn-promo. A tough matchup. After trading hands, I encountered a very interesting rules call where apparently you can attack with dtd193-nasreth-the-soul-harrower-dusk-till-dawn-booster while under "War" on dtd230-warmongers-diplomacy-3-dusk-till-dawn-booster. It turns out activating an ability of an Ally that becomes an attack is totally allowed! The aggression was tough, and being forced to go to 1 means there's only so much we can do against that. 3-2 in Calling London.
Round 6 was my second Aurora, which was just as much of a wash. At 3-3, I was ready to call it a day. I spoke to a friend of mine, one of the Judges helping at the Calling said that because my first 3 rounds were wins, I should play on just to improve my ELO.
I stared at the name I was paired into for Round 7, saying to myself that they sound so familiar. I sat down then realised that it's the winner of Battle Hardened Dublin. Playing another Enigma mirror, I got utterly punished for not registering hvy209-ripple-away-3-heavy-hitters-booster because playing it to fizzle my eng008-spectral-manifestations-1-enigma-blitz-deck-precon is just devastating.
After 3-4, I cut my losses and met up with my good friend and content creator Scowling Fleshbag.
The Calling will be an event that draws in players of all skill levels, and those who are able to prevail through the Gem Lottery and by playing to their very best ability. I am happy with my results, and with the upcoming Pro Quest season I will lock in.
Top 8
Enough of me rambling about myself, let's catch up on what the good players were doing in the Top 8.
The Calling London Top 8 was stacked with household names like Brian Lorenz on Enigma and Pro Magic Player Andrea Mengucci on Aurora. The 8 decks featured 4 Enigma, 3 Aurora, and 1 "Slippy".
"Slippy," as he's been affectionately named by the community, has been on a meta uptick since Battle Hardened Milwaukee and the AGE April Open. This aggressive Assassin seeks to provide the mind game of which Stealth attack to respect since both have Go Again. The high number of reactions also means you can reliably enable mst103-bonds-of-agony-3-part-the-mistveil-booster.
The choice of equipment was popularised by Chris Iaali during the AGE Open. By playing cards like fab123-gf-redback-shroud-premier-organized-play-outsiders-promo to discount a ara018-spike-with-bloodrot-1-arakni-blitz-deck-precon to force through damage in the Enigma matchup, or cards like ark003-mask-of-perdition-the-hunted-blitz-deck-arakni-precon to get extra banishes for life on the Nuu stealth cards or silver on the Contract cards.
Calling London Final
Slippy was the only outlier in Calling London. The remaining decks were all Aurora and Enigma. With the deck lists from every rated event available, we can easily see them on the fabtcg website. So we will spotlight the finalist decks here.
A Magic Pro Player knows to jump into FaB on the strongest aggro deck currently going. His take on Aurora is fairly stock standard, with a few interesting takes. The inclusions of out184-down-and-dirty-1-outsiders-booster to be an easy popper into Enigma and Prism, and one cru182-snag-3-crucible-of-war-booster to shore up the Assassin matchup.
Not registering Face Purgatory, Mengucci is instead playing fab183-gf-balance-of-justice-premier-organized-play-heavy-hitters-promo to assist in the mirror in case other Aurora's are able to draw multiple cards from fab264-cf-channel-lightning-valley-2-calling-rosetta-promo or 1hp371-snatch-1-history-pack-1-booster.
Emily Froese's version of Enigma features a lot of the key cards, with some notable exceptions that do not feature in a great deal of Enigma lists.
It's a deck builder's preference if an Enigma list includes mon103-spears-of-surreality-3-monarch-booster. I personally included it as it works as a very good turn extender into other Enigma decks. It's also an innocuous attack that some players are hesitant to pop.
There are interesting defensive inclusions. The single cin027-put-in-context-3-the-hunted-blitz-deck-cindra-precon is particularly strong against the Assassins. Meanwhile the copy of mst078-unravel-aggression-3-part-the-mistveil-booster is very interesting. On its stats, it's 1hb024-unmovable-3-bravo-blitz-deck-precon, but in a deck with all the Chi it's allowed to play, it can definitely block while providing card advantage.
The thinking behind the inclusion of Unravel may be what lead to the one-of fab230-cf-cosmic-awakening-3-marketing-content-creators-part-the-mistveil-promo. Being able to pitch it one or two times a game then attack with it for 20 is a truly back breaking way to end the game. That's the thinking behind how Zen plays, so I could see it being a very effective end game.
Wrap Up
Calling London was close to breaking attendance records alongside the most attended Pro Tour in history. We can hope as Flesh and Blood fans that an event will return to London soon.
For more up to date news from the world of FaBTCG, keep your eyes glued to DotGG Media.
