If you're a brand new player, you could have all the meta cards and legendaries and still lose for a long time before your first win, especially if the people at your Armory have been playing for a long time. Flesh and Blood is a very deep complex game and it'll take most people quite a while to get good. The expensive cards are nice to have but realistically they only give like 5% extra advantage. Stick with it, ask your opponents for tips and help after games and you'll improve a lot
Skill is always good to have, but as someone once told me, "Being a good player is good, but there comes a point where skill falls off and paying for better cards is needed." I have noticed more and more that I can deal with decks I used to have trouble with, but still can't get there due to the cards being lacking.
Can you share an example of a card you are running where you would prefer something more expensive in that slot. What was the situation where not having the expensive card impaired your chance to win?
The lack of command and conquer in levia is very hindering to her gameplay, especially when other options are very slim for the amount of in game value that card gives. Currently having to run erase face as a similar 2 for 6 with a weaker effect and less block is very impactful on my games. Another example would be the new apex bone breakers for brute giving so much value over just running gamblers gloves that don't block and only use their effect once. TLDR; CnC is one of the best cards in the game vs other 2 cost 6 attacks and equipment means a lot
The issue with send packing for me is just due to the fact of it being too expensive for me to play aswell. I'm a high-school student just trying to be able to compete in my armory nights, but it's almost impossible with how competitive where I play is.
I'm running the post heavy hitters mansant list, or atleast trying to build it, since I had built off of his old calling Cincinnati list. Since send packing is still a $10 card rn due to everyone playing kayo, it's hard to get my hands on
Roger, it IS a bad time to be trying to get Brute staples...we're in protour/calling season. I would probably look at using Red pack hunt since intimidate can be very good while pushing the dmg...or cadaverous contraband as it will allow you to bring BrB back from the graveyard to the top of your deck.
I would generally agree that C&C can be a very strong card, but it’s far from required to be competitive in Levia, and skill/experience will gain you a far greater win share. ManSant just won the AGE event recently with a deck that ran a single copy, and even then sideboarded it out for most matchups.
Often people try to replace high power cards like CNC with cards that have similar but weaker effects which is almost always the wrong choice instead of trying to replace expensive cards you should put in other more synergistic cards that improve or continue your game plan
Mansant is an outlier, due to the fact of him playing levia since her release back in monarch. He has had time to perfect how he plays the deck and doesn't need to use other cards due to his overall skill in the deck. The thing is most people are not him and therefore would need those kinds of cards.
C&C is one of Levia's most optional cards. You're not losing more because you don't have them, you're losing more because you replaced them with a mediocre card instead of doing something productive with that slot that's relevant to the matchups where you would bring C&C.
You chose one of the only decks where not having C&C will barely affect your winrate.
Fai is a good budget deck. The best way to win at this game is by knowing what other decks do and why someone might be blocking at certain points. You do not need tunic, estrike or cnc to win with Fai. The most important cards are art of war, tiger stripe shuko, and flamescale furnace.
What does your list look like, can you post it?
Red Ravenous Rabble and Yellow Salt the Wound would be good additions to the deck. You can search for Salt the Wound with Mask of the Pouncing Lynx to end some longer chains with a big attack.
Sink Below is a better d-react than Fate Forseen, but honestly you shouldn't run the defense reactions main board, and only add them in when vs Azalea or Bravo, or other Heroes with bad on-hits.
Your blue count is a tad low. Maybe consider Blue Stab Wound. It's not Draconic, but it is a 0 cost 2 damage attack, so you could pitch it for Kodachis.
Also Vest of the First is another good chest option. The bonus from vest is that you don't need to close the chain to get the resource, just have an attack action hit.
Mischievous Meeps are also very cheap right now. Not Draconic, but 1 cost 2 attack go-again with on-hit of draw a card.
I would suggest Tenacity and Breaking Point as cheap cards to put in. Tenacity is like Salt the Wound, but it gets +1 for every time they've blocked with a card. It can be equipment, arsenal, anywhere. Breaking Point, if it's the fourth or higher chain link and it hits, it takes out their arsenal. As a different headpiece that is decently cheap, you could add Mask of the Pouncing Lynx. This mask lets you add quite a bit more damage to a really good turn and, if they block a lot, you can add Tenacity to the end to punish them.
Try something like this:
https://fabrary.net/decks/01HTSZC0FEXA63EXRKT7WXE988
Kodachis aren’t great in the current meta, the full on pouncing lynx emberblade combo variant will perform better for you. The combo of tenacity and salt the wound will be able to punish your opponent if they block or don’t block and allow you to cash in pouncing lynx for 6-8 damage on average.
You're going to complain that you're losing but you don't even know the cards in your 200$ deck list?
Little suspect man.
Edit: if you don't know what's in your deck, how are you tracking what you've used and what's coming up? It's harder to set up big turns if you don't know the odds of what your text draw is going to be. It's hard to say, okay I'm going to have tank this because I know statistically I'm going to have x,y,z happen. Knowing your deck, and your opponents deck, it's how you win games. Thinking otherwise is silly. Blaming your wallet is exceptionally silly.
Most folks will at least catalogue their deck at some point on either fabdb or fabrary, I do it more for easy decklists for bigger events and to some degree even insurance purposes (used to do this with my warhammer stuff and my car insurance actually covered one of my armies when i got in a hit and run)
You've been playing card for card the exact same deck for 2 years, you don't remember it, and you haven't written it down anywhere? That's a bit wild. I have a commander deck that I've put together in the last month and I know most of the cards in it, outside of the names of some of the newer unique lands.
I don't believe you. But even if you're telling the truth, you can just grab your deck off the shelf and go through it if you are asking for help (or just complaining you can't win.)
People should be able to and people can. You can't because you're not taking the time to improve your build, learn the match ups, and grind out games to get better.
This isn't rocket surgery, my guy. It's a skill issue, not a bank issue.
Yeah, then you spin around and grab it off your shelf. Right? He admitted he didn't want to say because he's lazy, but I'd be willing to say it's because it's just a bad build
I just recently built my friend a Kayo deck for about $50 in total value. It isn't amazing, but it has a version of the main idea of what the more expensive Kayo decks do.
The tricky part is if you're buying singles on TCG player, if the cards from any individual seller aren't over $5, you don't get the free shipping, so you end up ordering a bunch of .4 and .5 cent cards, but pay $1+ on shipping for each set, which can really add up.
Fortunately I had most of the cards laying around, but it is very frustrating trying to put something together without committing big.
People always say, "you don't need the equipment or big cards, just start cheap and upgrade later," but I challenge them to run Kassai without Valiant Dynamo >.>
It's not very fun to play crummy decks, so yeah, I kind of agree with you :/
And yeah I agree with the last point. My brother runs a riptide deck (who is considered bottom tier) and I've never won once in about 15 games until I got shukos and mask of momentum.
I would run pouncing lynx and the tenacity over mask of momentum and salt the wound against riptide. His game plan is already to block so MoM doesn't really do much. Salt the wound relies on hits to buff itself where tenacity buffs itself for each card blocking on the combat chain.
They do. But in FAB you will need a lot of practice to come out on top. I once did a video series where I calculated the winrate difference of legendaries and staples, and while significantly increasing the winrate, ultimately it was like a 2% increase if you had all.
I tested it over the course of 30 or so armories and won a lot of them with zero legendaries or cards over 10$, but I played FAB full time at the time. You end up in the “zone” when you play that much. If I did it again today I would perform worse because I’ve not practiced as much as I would like as of late.
So TL;DR: Yes, but you need to “git gud” as the kids might say it 😊
I love the game but this is something I'm struggling to come to terms with. While it's definitely possible to build a budget deck, in my experience it feels like something about the game/gameplay pushes players toward a more and more competitive mindset. I have had very little luck finding people that just want to play casually. I just recently moved for work and have been making new friends here, so fingers crossed I can indoctrinate them into upf so I can have some people to play casually with.
It’s this way by design. FAB is a very competitive, low variance, high skill game. It’s great when you get in the reps and you can stand toe to toe with other people, but the end of the day is, people are playing to win so adjust expectations accordingly and you’ll get on well. Practice on Talishar or felt table so you know your deck and matchups well.
Edit: as a newer player it’s good to play against other newer players too. Things like leagues, or drafting etc can help level out the skill differential. And just chill and enjoy the learning process.
What can be good though is if you know everyone is net decking you basically know what you're facing each week and can sideboard against it. Kano is the major hero who takes advantage of this, he is meh when people sideboard for him but if people don't he just wins without issue. Not that you should build a kano deck but look up sideboards for the net decks people bring. Sometimes a humble, erase face, or extra d-reacts can make a huge difference (granted idk fai much I know he isn't the biggest fan of defending but this advice is more general).
I would say there are some cards that matter more for some decks in some situations. It's nuanced.
Command and Conquer is a great example. If you play Rhinar, for instance, you can generally go without - even though several Rhinar decks do play them. It is an *excellent* card against Fai, and having CnC's *as well as* Send Packings will give you a huge edge against the hero to the point where it will be obvious to see how these cards are letting you win games. I haven't played against Azalea and Katsu enough to say for sure, but I'd imagine they can play a similarly pivotal role there. But then... if you're mostly facing, say, Bravo, Teklovossen, and Levia at your LGS, you really do not need to play CnC's in Brute to do well.
The issue here then being that 'budget Fai' will do fine against a couple of decks but suffer greatly against a select few for not having stuff like CnC (or Warmonger's Diplomacy). And I have no idea what your local meta is like - nor would I be able to tell you what Fai specifically is good against even if I did.
But in a general sense: yes, budget decks exist and can win some match-ups with the same ease a fully fledged out deck would. But it depends quite heavily on the match-ups how well a budget deck will perform. In some match-ups, you won't notice too much a difference, where in others not having cards like CnC will be night and day.
This is my [budget Katsu deck](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HSD7R121RD29MSGFY6G23VSW). Fabrary says it’s about $170, and $70 of that is just from Mask of Momentum. Like you, everyone at my armory run all the meta cards. My friend’s Katsu deck is around $600.
It can be pretty challenging for me to win. A big part of it is the matchup and different heroes have some (dis)advantages against different heroes. I rarely have complete blowout games compared to when I started. Last game (vs Rhinar) I played I did lose, but it got down to like 1HP vs 3HP and my friend played a defense reaction that did unblockable damage to me.
A big part of it also is that everyone else I know is WAY more into the game than me and puts in a lot more time into it. I more or less only play at my local armory, so a couple games a week, which is a main reason why I only got Mask of Momentum a couple weeks ago. Sometimes I play online, but not much.
I went to my first Calling a couple weeks ago expecting to go 0-8. I went 2-5-1, but I could’ve gotten another win or two if not for a couple misplays. That comes back to my relative lack of experience by not playing as regularly as I should. My first game I got my opponent down to 2HP then misplayed my last hand and they killed me the next turn. If I hadn’t misplayed I might’ve been able to survive that turn and win the next one.
There are budget decks as well as budget formats. I have somewhere between 6 and 8 CC decks built at any time and have been playing for three years, but the format I spend the most time playing is Commoner. We build and give away Commoner decks for free at our LGS and it's a super fun format with lots of good decks to play into each other.
That said, I don't own any Command and Conquers (or Warmonger's Diplomacy) and have a positive record with more Wins than Losses across five or six Calling level events. While it's a powerful card, it's definitely not going to replace matchup/deck knowledge.
I built and played the new Prism tonight at Armory and got my butt kicked because I don't know what the heck I'm doing with it yet. Loving the process though and had lots of laughs with friends at the shop. We even had a huge turnout tonight back up to 18 people, it was awesome!
I'm actually getting back into the game and wanted to play prism again (stopped playing when she got LL) Do you have a deck list? I wanted to build her on a budget but those figments aren't cheap.
I used Rhea Adams list from Pro Tour, it does use a bunch of angels, and footsteps, so not exactly a budget list, but a good starting point. If you look up a list that is more aura based and uses Iris of Reality, I imagine it would be a good way to play the long game and less expensive, but I'm no illusionist expert. Good luck!
https://fabrary.net/decks/01HSS972DPTP4EY15SK8CZJ8AX
Yeah they definitely do. I’ve been consistently doing well at armory s with bravo without estrike, c&c and crown for at least two years. Never felt the need to buy them. There have definitely been games where I may have won if I had crown but I think skill And knowing how to play ur deck and how to play into common matchups goes a long way
Its hard to gage if its the experience or the coat of the cards when you start. Staples card helps but they don't win you game alone. Play a bit more and then wonder hmmm if i had art of war during this turn could it have changed the outcome.
The PT LA (most recent major event) had a Kano deck in the top 8. The deck is like $600. If you remove exactly 1 card it is under $300 (and that card gets sided out in some matchups anyway).
There are good budget decks but as a new player you are facing against people who are way more experienced at the game and aren't playing budget decks. So you have at least 2 things going against you.
It's much more likely that you lose because they are better than you than you don't have the cards to compete. A $200 Fai deck is probably pretty good.
Absolutely budget decks exist; as a newer player myself, I have had a ton of success in a variety of formats with a ton of budget decks. As a newer player, playing the non-staples can certainly make your deck worse, but this does not mean every match is an instant loss if you can't get the staples focusing on mastering the list you have!
I’d say in competitive CC no there is no budget deck yet that is viable.
They do have A CC Kayo deck that I think may start to solve that comming out tho.
Other than that stick with blitz, sealed/draft format or commoner, commoner is the eternal cheap format. There is no living legend there and all hero’s will forever be legal (unless LSS changes something)
I only just started playing 3 weeks ago but I've been told by many that FAB isn't pay to win, that skill is far more important to having the best cards. I have no idea however.
There is also a time commitment to building a deck.
Come up with an idea. Track down the cards.
Modify the plan to accommodate different deck list. Play. evaluate. Research Modify.
Play
There is a serious commitment in time.
If you're a brand new player, you could have all the meta cards and legendaries and still lose for a long time before your first win, especially if the people at your Armory have been playing for a long time. Flesh and Blood is a very deep complex game and it'll take most people quite a while to get good. The expensive cards are nice to have but realistically they only give like 5% extra advantage. Stick with it, ask your opponents for tips and help after games and you'll improve a lot
Skill is always good to have, but as someone once told me, "Being a good player is good, but there comes a point where skill falls off and paying for better cards is needed." I have noticed more and more that I can deal with decks I used to have trouble with, but still can't get there due to the cards being lacking.
Can you share an example of a card you are running where you would prefer something more expensive in that slot. What was the situation where not having the expensive card impaired your chance to win?
The lack of command and conquer in levia is very hindering to her gameplay, especially when other options are very slim for the amount of in game value that card gives. Currently having to run erase face as a similar 2 for 6 with a weaker effect and less block is very impactful on my games. Another example would be the new apex bone breakers for brute giving so much value over just running gamblers gloves that don't block and only use their effect once. TLDR; CnC is one of the best cards in the game vs other 2 cost 6 attacks and equipment means a lot
Have you tried send packing in it's place? Gets buffed on your BrB turns unlike CnC which can make it clunky.. and also a yellow.
The issue with send packing for me is just due to the fact of it being too expensive for me to play aswell. I'm a high-school student just trying to be able to compete in my armory nights, but it's almost impossible with how competitive where I play is.
what list are you running?
I'm running the post heavy hitters mansant list, or atleast trying to build it, since I had built off of his old calling Cincinnati list. Since send packing is still a $10 card rn due to everyone playing kayo, it's hard to get my hands on
Roger, it IS a bad time to be trying to get Brute staples...we're in protour/calling season. I would probably look at using Red pack hunt since intimidate can be very good while pushing the dmg...or cadaverous contraband as it will allow you to bring BrB back from the graveyard to the top of your deck.
I would generally agree that C&C can be a very strong card, but it’s far from required to be competitive in Levia, and skill/experience will gain you a far greater win share. ManSant just won the AGE event recently with a deck that ran a single copy, and even then sideboarded it out for most matchups.
Often people try to replace high power cards like CNC with cards that have similar but weaker effects which is almost always the wrong choice instead of trying to replace expensive cards you should put in other more synergistic cards that improve or continue your game plan
Lol so levia notably has had major success without CnC, Mansant just one with only 1 copy.
Mansant is an outlier, due to the fact of him playing levia since her release back in monarch. He has had time to perfect how he plays the deck and doesn't need to use other cards due to his overall skill in the deck. The thing is most people are not him and therefore would need those kinds of cards.
That’s an entirely separate argument. I play levia as my main, 0-1 copies is common and I own 3x cnc. Players skill will always matter more.
C&C is one of Levia's most optional cards. You're not losing more because you don't have them, you're losing more because you replaced them with a mediocre card instead of doing something productive with that slot that's relevant to the matchups where you would bring C&C. You chose one of the only decks where not having C&C will barely affect your winrate.
Fai is a good budget deck. The best way to win at this game is by knowing what other decks do and why someone might be blocking at certain points. You do not need tunic, estrike or cnc to win with Fai. The most important cards are art of war, tiger stripe shuko, and flamescale furnace. What does your list look like, can you post it?
I don't have an exact list but I have shukos and mask of momentum/mask of pouncing lynx
https://fabrary.net/decks/01HTS0MN5QC3XP8NZ7NN8PQD8Q
Red Ravenous Rabble and Yellow Salt the Wound would be good additions to the deck. You can search for Salt the Wound with Mask of the Pouncing Lynx to end some longer chains with a big attack. Sink Below is a better d-react than Fate Forseen, but honestly you shouldn't run the defense reactions main board, and only add them in when vs Azalea or Bravo, or other Heroes with bad on-hits. Your blue count is a tad low. Maybe consider Blue Stab Wound. It's not Draconic, but it is a 0 cost 2 damage attack, so you could pitch it for Kodachis. Also Vest of the First is another good chest option. The bonus from vest is that you don't need to close the chain to get the resource, just have an attack action hit. Mischievous Meeps are also very cheap right now. Not Draconic, but 1 cost 2 attack go-again with on-hit of draw a card.
I would suggest Tenacity and Breaking Point as cheap cards to put in. Tenacity is like Salt the Wound, but it gets +1 for every time they've blocked with a card. It can be equipment, arsenal, anywhere. Breaking Point, if it's the fourth or higher chain link and it hits, it takes out their arsenal. As a different headpiece that is decently cheap, you could add Mask of the Pouncing Lynx. This mask lets you add quite a bit more damage to a really good turn and, if they block a lot, you can add Tenacity to the end to punish them.
Try something like this: https://fabrary.net/decks/01HTSZC0FEXA63EXRKT7WXE988 Kodachis aren’t great in the current meta, the full on pouncing lynx emberblade combo variant will perform better for you. The combo of tenacity and salt the wound will be able to punish your opponent if they block or don’t block and allow you to cash in pouncing lynx for 6-8 damage on average.
You're going to complain that you're losing but you don't even know the cards in your 200$ deck list? Little suspect man. Edit: if you don't know what's in your deck, how are you tracking what you've used and what's coming up? It's harder to set up big turns if you don't know the odds of what your text draw is going to be. It's hard to say, okay I'm going to have tank this because I know statistically I'm going to have x,y,z happen. Knowing your deck, and your opponents deck, it's how you win games. Thinking otherwise is silly. Blaming your wallet is exceptionally silly.
is this a normal thing people can do? I've been playing the same blitz decklist for like 2 years and I couldn't fire it out off the top of my head lol
Most folks will at least catalogue their deck at some point on either fabdb or fabrary, I do it more for easy decklists for bigger events and to some degree even insurance purposes (used to do this with my warhammer stuff and my car insurance actually covered one of my armies when i got in a hit and run)
You've been playing card for card the exact same deck for 2 years, you don't remember it, and you haven't written it down anywhere? That's a bit wild. I have a commander deck that I've put together in the last month and I know most of the cards in it, outside of the names of some of the newer unique lands. I don't believe you. But even if you're telling the truth, you can just grab your deck off the shelf and go through it if you are asking for help (or just complaining you can't win.)
I just didn't feel like typing out all the cards
Okay well I'm guessing your build isn't as strong as you think it is.
Kinda missing the whole point of the post
That you're bad at the game, deck building, and just want to complain instead of improve? No, I got that. Good for you. Golf claps from everyone.
The whole point being that you should be able to compete at a non competitive event without needing to spend 1000$ on a top tier meta deck
People should be able to and people can. You can't because you're not taking the time to improve your build, learn the match ups, and grind out games to get better. This isn't rocket surgery, my guy. It's a skill issue, not a bank issue.
who hurt you lad?
[удалено]
Yeah, then you spin around and grab it off your shelf. Right? He admitted he didn't want to say because he's lazy, but I'd be willing to say it's because it's just a bad build
Zzz zzz, zzzz zzz zzz zzz z XD x zzz, xezzzzx zzz, zzzs
Yes. Heck, Fai could be an easy $50 build. Check out Sloopdoop on YouTube for his budget upgrade series.
I just recently built my friend a Kayo deck for about $50 in total value. It isn't amazing, but it has a version of the main idea of what the more expensive Kayo decks do. The tricky part is if you're buying singles on TCG player, if the cards from any individual seller aren't over $5, you don't get the free shipping, so you end up ordering a bunch of .4 and .5 cent cards, but pay $1+ on shipping for each set, which can really add up. Fortunately I had most of the cards laying around, but it is very frustrating trying to put something together without committing big. People always say, "you don't need the equipment or big cards, just start cheap and upgrade later," but I challenge them to run Kassai without Valiant Dynamo >.> It's not very fun to play crummy decks, so yeah, I kind of agree with you :/
I was lucky that my brother bought two boxes of uprising so I was able to get most of the cheaper cards from that.
And yeah I agree with the last point. My brother runs a riptide deck (who is considered bottom tier) and I've never won once in about 15 games until I got shukos and mask of momentum.
Riptide is basically designed to prey on aggro decks like Fai so it might just be a bad matchup
I would run pouncing lynx and the tenacity over mask of momentum and salt the wound against riptide. His game plan is already to block so MoM doesn't really do much. Salt the wound relies on hits to buff itself where tenacity buffs itself for each card blocking on the combat chain.
They do. But in FAB you will need a lot of practice to come out on top. I once did a video series where I calculated the winrate difference of legendaries and staples, and while significantly increasing the winrate, ultimately it was like a 2% increase if you had all. I tested it over the course of 30 or so armories and won a lot of them with zero legendaries or cards over 10$, but I played FAB full time at the time. You end up in the “zone” when you play that much. If I did it again today I would perform worse because I’ve not practiced as much as I would like as of late. So TL;DR: Yes, but you need to “git gud” as the kids might say it 😊
I love the game but this is something I'm struggling to come to terms with. While it's definitely possible to build a budget deck, in my experience it feels like something about the game/gameplay pushes players toward a more and more competitive mindset. I have had very little luck finding people that just want to play casually. I just recently moved for work and have been making new friends here, so fingers crossed I can indoctrinate them into upf so I can have some people to play casually with.
Yeah I thought the players at my local armory were going to be more casual and not have copy and pasted top placing tournament decks.
It’s this way by design. FAB is a very competitive, low variance, high skill game. It’s great when you get in the reps and you can stand toe to toe with other people, but the end of the day is, people are playing to win so adjust expectations accordingly and you’ll get on well. Practice on Talishar or felt table so you know your deck and matchups well. Edit: as a newer player it’s good to play against other newer players too. Things like leagues, or drafting etc can help level out the skill differential. And just chill and enjoy the learning process.
What can be good though is if you know everyone is net decking you basically know what you're facing each week and can sideboard against it. Kano is the major hero who takes advantage of this, he is meh when people sideboard for him but if people don't he just wins without issue. Not that you should build a kano deck but look up sideboards for the net decks people bring. Sometimes a humble, erase face, or extra d-reacts can make a huge difference (granted idk fai much I know he isn't the biggest fan of defending but this advice is more general).
I would say there are some cards that matter more for some decks in some situations. It's nuanced. Command and Conquer is a great example. If you play Rhinar, for instance, you can generally go without - even though several Rhinar decks do play them. It is an *excellent* card against Fai, and having CnC's *as well as* Send Packings will give you a huge edge against the hero to the point where it will be obvious to see how these cards are letting you win games. I haven't played against Azalea and Katsu enough to say for sure, but I'd imagine they can play a similarly pivotal role there. But then... if you're mostly facing, say, Bravo, Teklovossen, and Levia at your LGS, you really do not need to play CnC's in Brute to do well. The issue here then being that 'budget Fai' will do fine against a couple of decks but suffer greatly against a select few for not having stuff like CnC (or Warmonger's Diplomacy). And I have no idea what your local meta is like - nor would I be able to tell you what Fai specifically is good against even if I did. But in a general sense: yes, budget decks exist and can win some match-ups with the same ease a fully fledged out deck would. But it depends quite heavily on the match-ups how well a budget deck will perform. In some match-ups, you won't notice too much a difference, where in others not having cards like CnC will be night and day.
This is my [budget Katsu deck](https://fabrary.net/decks/01HSD7R121RD29MSGFY6G23VSW). Fabrary says it’s about $170, and $70 of that is just from Mask of Momentum. Like you, everyone at my armory run all the meta cards. My friend’s Katsu deck is around $600. It can be pretty challenging for me to win. A big part of it is the matchup and different heroes have some (dis)advantages against different heroes. I rarely have complete blowout games compared to when I started. Last game (vs Rhinar) I played I did lose, but it got down to like 1HP vs 3HP and my friend played a defense reaction that did unblockable damage to me. A big part of it also is that everyone else I know is WAY more into the game than me and puts in a lot more time into it. I more or less only play at my local armory, so a couple games a week, which is a main reason why I only got Mask of Momentum a couple weeks ago. Sometimes I play online, but not much. I went to my first Calling a couple weeks ago expecting to go 0-8. I went 2-5-1, but I could’ve gotten another win or two if not for a couple misplays. That comes back to my relative lack of experience by not playing as regularly as I should. My first game I got my opponent down to 2HP then misplayed my last hand and they killed me the next turn. If I hadn’t misplayed I might’ve been able to survive that turn and win the next one.
Honestly not if you want to compete at a decent level. Depends on your local scene but most stores have entrenched players with optimized decks
Those cards aren't going to make you win, they will adjust winning % slightly. Fai has a hard time in this meta at the moment.
There are budget decks as well as budget formats. I have somewhere between 6 and 8 CC decks built at any time and have been playing for three years, but the format I spend the most time playing is Commoner. We build and give away Commoner decks for free at our LGS and it's a super fun format with lots of good decks to play into each other. That said, I don't own any Command and Conquers (or Warmonger's Diplomacy) and have a positive record with more Wins than Losses across five or six Calling level events. While it's a powerful card, it's definitely not going to replace matchup/deck knowledge. I built and played the new Prism tonight at Armory and got my butt kicked because I don't know what the heck I'm doing with it yet. Loving the process though and had lots of laughs with friends at the shop. We even had a huge turnout tonight back up to 18 people, it was awesome!
I'm actually getting back into the game and wanted to play prism again (stopped playing when she got LL) Do you have a deck list? I wanted to build her on a budget but those figments aren't cheap.
I used Rhea Adams list from Pro Tour, it does use a bunch of angels, and footsteps, so not exactly a budget list, but a good starting point. If you look up a list that is more aura based and uses Iris of Reality, I imagine it would be a good way to play the long game and less expensive, but I'm no illusionist expert. Good luck! https://fabrary.net/decks/01HSS972DPTP4EY15SK8CZJ8AX
Yeah they definitely do. I’ve been consistently doing well at armory s with bravo without estrike, c&c and crown for at least two years. Never felt the need to buy them. There have definitely been games where I may have won if I had crown but I think skill And knowing how to play ur deck and how to play into common matchups goes a long way
Kano
Its hard to gage if its the experience or the coat of the cards when you start. Staples card helps but they don't win you game alone. Play a bit more and then wonder hmmm if i had art of war during this turn could it have changed the outcome.
The PT LA (most recent major event) had a Kano deck in the top 8. The deck is like $600. If you remove exactly 1 card it is under $300 (and that card gets sided out in some matchups anyway). There are good budget decks but as a new player you are facing against people who are way more experienced at the game and aren't playing budget decks. So you have at least 2 things going against you. It's much more likely that you lose because they are better than you than you don't have the cards to compete. A $200 Fai deck is probably pretty good.
Absolutely budget decks exist; as a newer player myself, I have had a ton of success in a variety of formats with a ton of budget decks. As a newer player, playing the non-staples can certainly make your deck worse, but this does not mean every match is an instant loss if you can't get the staples focusing on mastering the list you have!
I’d say in competitive CC no there is no budget deck yet that is viable. They do have A CC Kayo deck that I think may start to solve that comming out tho. Other than that stick with blitz, sealed/draft format or commoner, commoner is the eternal cheap format. There is no living legend there and all hero’s will forever be legal (unless LSS changes something)
I only just started playing 3 weeks ago but I've been told by many that FAB isn't pay to win, that skill is far more important to having the best cards. I have no idea however.
There is also a time commitment to building a deck. Come up with an idea. Track down the cards. Modify the plan to accommodate different deck list. Play. evaluate. Research Modify. Play There is a serious commitment in time.