The entire world of FaB TCG is gearing up for the first Pro Tour of 2025. High level players have been testing ever since arc075-viserai-rune-blood-arcane-rising-booster ascended to Living Legend in February.
This meta tier list has taken into account the top 8 performance for all Calling and Battle Hardened events between the last week of Road to Nationals, to all events leading into Battle Hardened Dublin and Jakarta.
Another friendly reminder that this is a tier list just for Classic Constructed. When the next high level event for another format like Blitz or Living Legend comes near, we will visit those formats.
Tier List
Meta Overview
The heavy aggro laid out by Cindra when The Hunted released stabilised a bit, and with Viserai leaving, another u-arc078-rf-grasp-of-the-arknight-arcane-rising-unlimited-booster deck has leapt out to the lead.
There are plenty of other decks under Aurora. Ones that present disruption to trip the aggro Runeblade up, ones that play on a different axis like Enigma, and ones that can weather the storm but still send above rate damage like Zen.
S Tier
Aurora, Shooting Star
Aurora is the Magical Girl that could. The strength of the Lightning card pool out of Rosetta has propelled the Shooting Star to the top of the metagame.
Her main suite of attacks are a plethora of zero cost, 4 power attacks, all with some conditional Go Again. ros089-flittering-charge-1-rosetta-booster is easy to enable in Lightning with multiple instant cards. ros101-second-strike-1-rosetta-booster is always enabled with it having dealt damage from either breakpoints, or arcane damage. Aurora is able to benefit from generic Go Again attacks such as u-wtr159-enlightened-strike-1-welcome-to-rathe-unlimited-booster and i-wtr191-scar-for-a-scar-1-ira-welcome-deck-2020-precon.
As well as being an aggressive deck, she has access to a reliable mid to late game combo with both ros010-arc-lightning-2-rosetta-booster and ele065-flicker-wisp-2-tales-of-aria-booster.
Without a doubt, the strongest card in the deck is ros077-channel-lightning-valley-2-rosetta-booster. Drawing cards in FaB is incredibly strong, as it likely extends your turn, or offers a consistent arsenal target. It's particularly strong if you're able to deal damage during your opponent's turn with either ros012-burn-up-shock-1-rosetta-booster or ele227-sigil-of-suffering-1-tales-of-aria-booster to deal damage and draw a card on your opponent's turn.
On top of both the aggressive and combo gameplan, cards like the mentioned Sigil of Suffering and generic Defence Reactions like asb016-sink-below-1-armory-deck-ser-boltyn-breaker-of-dawn-precon. Against defensive decks, mon245-exude-confidence-1-monarch-booster is a great way to stay free and clear against decks that seek to grind you down.
The below decklist is the Carlos Eduardo Amaral da Silva - Aurora, Shooting Star - Calling: São Paulo winning list.
A Tier
Zen, Tamer of Purpose
Zen has been meta dominant since Part the Mistveil was released. He's transitioned greatly since the bannings, and is now the closest a deck could be considered to midrange in Flesh and Blood.
The deck still presents a lot of consistency with his on board ability to search for combo cards like mst161-chase-the-tail-1-part-the-mistveil-booster and dyn047-tiger-swipe-1-dynasty-booster.
As well as sending out consistent damage, Zen is now more consistently okay with playing two card hands, sending disruptive staples such as arc159-command-and-conquer-1-arcane-rising-booster, mst192-the-weakest-link-1-part-the-mistveil-booster, and https://dotgg.gg/fabtcg/cards/upr187-erase-face-1-uprising-booster/.
As well as the disruption, Zen offers consistent defence in the form of evr050-wax-on-1-everfest-booster and evo239-wax-off-3-bright-lights-booster.
With the consistent value that Zen can generate, he can usually wear down a proactive opponent or race a defensive one, securing a sudden win with mst076-cosmic-awakening-3-part-the-mistveil-booster.
The featured deck below has was part of a winning lineup in a team Battle Hardened. Sleeve up Zen at your own peril; at the time of writing this article, Zen has 991 living legend points and is likely to cross the threshold in the next month or two.
Enigma, Ledger of Ancestry
Enigma has been at the top of the meta game in the past. The early resurgence of Cindra held the illusionist back for a good while, but she's now adapted to what's going on with Aurora, Florian, and the other Mistveil heroes.
Enigma's always played with some number of ward auras, turning them into her consistently attacking for her while they also provide defence. Smaller auras like mst043-waxing-specter-1-part-the-mistveil-booster and mst040-waning-vengeance-1-part-the-mistveil-booster have flittered in and out of popularity, but mst031-manifestation-of-miragai-3-part-the-mistveil-booster has always been incredibly powerful if you're able to threaten your opponent with it more than once.
Some versions of Enigma are playing more of a stompy, tempo game. Playing strong Phantasm attacks like mon091-phantasmaclasm-1-monarch-booster and evr139-miraging-metamorph-1-everfest-booster. There have been fewer and fewer spectra auras in Prism, as the proactive gameplan is what's most consistent.
Here's Michael Feng - Enigma, Ledger of Ancestry - Battle Hardened: Charlotte winning list.
B Tier
Nuu, Alluring Desire
Despite not converting well, Nuu has been taking a good deal of top 8 finishes in this season. The deck still plays to the Assassin's disruptive style, but removing cards in hand with mst104-persuasive-prognosis-3-part-the-mistveil-booster, mst103-bonds-of-agony-3-part-the-mistveil-booster, and Assassin staples like dyn122-surgical-extraction-3-dynasty-booster.
Since the release of The Hunted, some Nuu deck builders are including cards such as hnt009-hunters-klaive-the-hunted-booster and cards which care about Marking your opponent, such as hnt034-mark-of-the-black-widow-1-the-hunted-booster.
As a stalling, disruptive deck, there's a debate for whether or not the deck should include ros223-count-your-blessings-1-rosetta-booster.
The following is Jacob Clement's second place Nuu list. So far, this post RTN season, no Nuu deck has won a major event.
Florian, Rotwood Harbinger
With Viserai no longer legal, those who want to get the feeling of the defensive Runeblade who wins by sending an above rate attack with approximately one million Runechants will get a kick out of playing Florian.
There's an inherently defensive style to playing Earth. While the best Decompose effects are proactive, like ros031-felling-of-the-crown-1-rosetta-booster, there are versions of Florian that runs both red and yellow versions of flr011-rootbound-carapace-1-rosetta-blitz-deck-florian-precon, and can effectively block multiple kinds of damage with ros120-haunting-rendition-1-rosetta-booster.
Though he's somewhat of a specialist choice, with a somewhat lack lustre Enigma matchup, he does very well into Aurora, and is a deck I expect to be the premier midrange deck once Zen Living Legends. The following list was Tatsuya Okanishi's (岡西 達也) Calling: Kobe winning deck.
Honourable Mentions
The other decks on the list all featured on one or more top 8s. For the upcoming Pro Tour London metagame, I can foresee a high number of Aurora, Zen, Enigma, and Florian being represented, with some number of Nuu making it into the mix. The following decks are ones I don't expect to be represented quite so highly, but are ones that had noted success at a few particular events.
Fang, Dracai of Blades
Warrior has never had a particularly strong meta share, however the physical damage output that Fang is significant enough for this particular list to be propelled to the winning table at Battle Hardened Eindhoven.
During the first few turns, the blues are used for resources as you aggressively mark and chip down your opponent. Once you get to 3 Fealty tokens, you can output a great deal of damage. At the same time this deck is running multiple main deck Defence Reactions and it's only legs equipment is fab020-gf-valiant-dynamo-premier-organized-play-monarch-promo. It can attack and defend very well.
This may be enough of a reason to consider Fang as a contender in the new metagame going into Pro Tour London.
Jarl Vetreiđi
The definition of a grindy deck. Jarl was able to take out Battle Hardened Sao Paulo. A truly defensive and stalling deck, that was able to survive through a field of Auroras and Cindras.
The guardian play style revolves around blocking with 2 cards, then sending back one card that always has disruption. Being an elemental guardian, Jarl is often able to play an effect that will create a ele111-frostbite-tales-of-aria-booster token, which taxes your opponent's first card. Forcing aggressive decks to pitch can reduce their damage output drastically.
His whole game plan is built around removing and denying your opponent's equipment utility. I particularly remember one game on the live stream where a Florian deck played without fab010-gf-grasp-of-the-arknight-premier-organized-play-arcane-rising-promo which was incredibly debilitating.
Another factor that added to Jarl's strong performance in Sao Paulo was ros223-count-your-blessings-1-rosetta-booster being able to stall out the game.
Wrap Up
Despite the dominance that Aurora has over the current Flesh and Blood Metagame, there are a good selection of viable decks to take to events as serious as the Pro Tour, or as low stakes as your local Armory.
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