It's good to be back.
Back in a new year, back catching the latest FaBTCG news right here on DotGG, back in a new RTN season! Road To Nationals 2026 Week 1 has given us the most diverse and eclectic spread of heroes I've seen since before the December banned and restricted announcement. With three of those decks at the top spot in the meta, it's a wonder why they banned anything.
But that's the topic of another post.
Road to Nationals 2026 Week 1
With a spread of 22 heroes taking at least 1 win, we can see a truly diverse spread of top performing decks in this Classic Constructed metagame.
With the end of 2025, we were all confident in the power of Cindra, Dracai of Retribution, Gravy Bones, Shipwrecked Looter, and Verdance, Thorn of the Rose. As that metagame started to coalesce, decks like Arakni, Marionette and Kassai of the Golden Sand started to show its relative power as potential meta contenders.
Gravy Bones
The game's first and only Necromancer is still secure in the top of the week one leaderboard, with a whopping 5 wins more than his next closest rival.
It's clear at this point that if there was a best deck in format, it's the Necromancer.
Chart the High Seas was a power card that could enable the up-tick of resources, gold, and allies in grave to allow for a spike turn. Generating the resources necessary to send Conqueror of the High Seas spending minimal cards in hand, or provide the resources needed to resolve a Wailer Humperdinck. With the removal of that card, most Gravy lists are resorting to a different blue block 3, such as Give No Quarter to cover the resource card loss and resource gains needed to resolve the big card.
Board state decks have always been strong in Flesh and Blood, particularly ones with such resilient board states like Gravy Bones, with effects like Sawbones, Dock Hand and Fearless Confrontation to defend those allies from incoming damage.
Unless someone comes up with new tech, I do not see the zombie pirate captain moving from the helm of the format any time soon.
Arakni, Marionette
With a marked absence of Cindra (pun intended), we see Marionette filling the role of the aggressive deck of the format. A deck positively loaded with 2-blocks, Mario seldom blocks outside from the odd Defence Reaction and the numerous trap cards like Lair of the Spider or Inertia Trap.
Popularised by Taotao Chu, Mario has become a premium reaction based aggressive deck, centred around dealing high damage at reaction speed with daggers, rather than with attack actions. By consistently pressuring and applying pressure with Hunter's Klaive and reapplying the Mark, you get more consistent disruption on the Agents of Chaos, instead of the traditional attacks and reacts that Assassin has.
Because a lot of the disruption has to go at the hero, this makes Mario somewhat weak into Gravy Bones. The Necromancer is absolutely fine with having his Arsenal or cards in hand banished if it means that the allies on board stay on board. It's interesting that their combined meta share cover each other's bad matchups.
Kassai of the Golden Sand
The deck which put me deeply in love with this game is relevant in the meta for the first time since Heavy Hitters released in 2024.
This Warrior had not changed much of her game plan since the Draw Swords was popularised late last year. But when her third specialisation card Blood Follows Blade was released, it was a critical game changer for the deck as it made the Gravy Bones matchup significantly better. Creating an ally token on hit, diversifies the damage Kassai can do turn to turn, and helps her to go three chain links wide.
With the lack of Florian, Rotwood Harbinger in the format, Kassai has become incredibly well suited as once of the main value decks of the format.
Verdance, Thorn of the Rose
Even with the banning of all colours of Rootbound Carapace, Verdance has kept her spot as the format's premium Wizard. Kano, Dracai of Aether will not be missed.
The banning of Carapace insists on the Verdance playing somewhat more proactively. There are no more defensive Decompose effects. This has resulted in Earth decks playing red and blue Cadaverous Tilling to pressure above rate damage alongside the Earth power house cards like Felling of the Crown and Plow Under.
Verdance still has the inevitable end game states, that if she has 2 blues, and either Burn Bare, or Light Up the Leaves she can kill an opponent from as high as 9 life, by using Storm Striders and Waning Moon.
Other Decks
The good thing about Road to Nationals events, is that they're held at local game stores across the world. Local metagames can determine the spread of decks across the field.
Cindra, has a shockingly low showing during Pro Quest week 1. It's evident that the bannings hit the Draconic Ninja the hardest. Wrath of Retribution offered a spike turn, that even as a one of, that wasn't included in every matchup, was deemed too strong for the current metagame. The removal of Brand With Cinderclaw meant that Cindra's ability to make certain cards Draconic became reliant on using Fealty tokens. Cindra has not fallen into total obscurity. She picked up significantly more wins than the smallest sectors of the pie chart. There may be more life to the Draconic Ninja.
With Cindra's absence, the question of what the best Aggro deck is remains to be seen. At present the consensus feels that it's Marionette, given that it can present absurd numbers, at reaction speed, with the odd bit of disruption here or there. At the same time, Dash I/O has presented similar, if not better numbers at action speed. She has access to additional card draw and recursion, as well as instant speed on hits, in the form of Boom Grenade. The only issue with Dash I/O is that her nature of getting fatigued is quite high, especially by the value decks such as Kassai.
Wrap Up
Road to Nationals 2026 Week 1 has ended by showing us just how diverse and open this early year metagame truly is. It feels as though the best decks were only mildly annoyed by the bans, and have not lost their stride (except for Cindra). Truly anything could happen in the coming weeks of Road to Nationals.
Keep your eyes to fabtcg.gg. We have so much to cover going into this huge year for Flesh and Blood, and you can expect to find the latest news and strategy right here!
