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The National Championship season has begun, and it started off strong thanks to the US National Championship in Minneapolis. This event is a chance for LSS to pull out all the stops; it was set up as a three day, Tier 4 event with Top 8 on its own stream.
With CC and Draft on the main event, and the Silver Age Showdown on the Sunday, we got the fullest spread of what current Flesh and Blood can offer.
US National Championships
The field for US Nationals was very diverse, with the representation of a few of the expected top decks, as well as representation of a few of the new Omens heroes.
The metagame was dominated by the top decks of the previous metagame. Arakni, Marionette, Victor Goldmane, High and Mighty, and Gravy Bones, Shipwrecked Looter have cemented themselves as the current meta defining decks.
Oscilio, Constella Intelligence has evolved a lot since the bannings, and the release of Omens. We will discuss how the deck has changed over in the CC Meta Tier List.
The streamed rounds of Draft showed many players veering favourably towards building Oscilio, Scion of the Third Age and Zyggy, given that the ratios to make a strong Aurora, Emissary of Lightning are trickier to find. This limited format is still so new, that finding the definitive spread is not the easiest.
The Top 8 is incredibly eclectic. The two copies of Fai, Rising Rebellion surprised many. It offers players a great deal of aggressive overlap to pressure the Wizards and Victor, and can split the damage among zombies and face for Gravy Bones. Matthew Gump, the first seed player, was entirely undefeated across both CC and Draft going into Top 8.
The real story of the weekend was Jonathan Magnuson making Top 4 with a new hero. There was a meme circulating on Twitter and BlueSky that people would speculate if the Illusionist from the middle set was any good (Gravy Bones and Enigma, Ledger of Ancestry) and that hero immediatle makes US Nationals Top 8. While Zyggy did not take down this event, this version of the Illusionist, with Reality Refractor and easy Go Again with Embodiment of Lightning tokens.
The runner up was Ryan Rich's very defensively slanted Victor Goldmane list. With Defense Reactions, Instants, and non-attack actions which all add to the potential for clash misses, but greatly add to the defensive overlap and match-up specific tech.
Guardian has struggled deeply into Gravy Bones, but with Pilfer the Tomb and Midas Touch, the deck is very well teched to handle the Necromancer. Staunch Response can blank even the biggest Marionette dagger, and triple Clash of Bravado can swing back the Illusionist matchup.
Colin Eriksen, affectionately named Boy Wonder from the AGE Open Circuit is the 2026 US National Champion off the back of his unique and potent Gravy Bones list.
There are a lot of in deck choices here that are to be expected. Chum, Friendly First Mate, Riggermortis, and Sawbones, Dock Hand all make up the key list of zombie allies in every Gravy Bones list. Then there's the preferred turn extenders: Tip the Barkeep and Sea Legs for Rum tokens, and Back Alley Breakline for additional action points if found off Call to the Grave or pitched with Saltwater Swell.
Then there are cards that provide certain tech, such as the one off Loot the Arsenal for more disruption, as well as Gallow, End of the Line to turn off on-hit effects. Then the deck gets to grind into defensive decks like the Victor that he defeated in the final.
Eriksen was very well teched, and well versed into the fatigue matchup. During their finals game, he was able to set up numerous zombies, and send more than one a turn, which presented so much overwhelming pressure that the Victor player ultimately could not handle.
Minneapolis Sunday Showdown
While great strides were happing in Classic Constructed and Draft were happening all over Minneapolis, we also got a chance to see how Omens Silver Age looks after our first taste in Auckland.
The format for Silver Age is decidedly dominated by the aggressive Elemental Runeblade Briar and the card I've seen meme-ed on as Kano's tag team partner, Blaze, Firemind.
The decks under those two are significantly more spread out, in terms of meta representation. We see the usual suspects in the form of Oldhim as well as Draconic aggression in Fai and Dromai. The prevailing theory is that, with Briar as the best deck in format, certain defensive decks are rising up to combat it, then more esoteric decks like Enigma and Iyslander are rising up to beat them.
The top 8 was incredibly diverse, with only 1 Briar and 1 Blaze. The two different Guardian heroes both represent two very different flavours of Guardian, with the uber defensive and the proactive Dominated attacks from Bravo, Flattering Showman.
Wrap Up
US Nationals has started off the worldwide Nationals season and brought the Omens tech to the CC meta. Sage is subject to immense change, and there's much development for both formats going forward.
Keep your eyes to fabtcg.gg for the latest in competitive Flesh and Blood news!
