Table of Contents
Flesh and Blood came back home to New Zealand for World Tour Auckland. With another hit of the Omens of the Third Age Limited Format, and the first look at Silver Age after the benchings, there was much to be excited about!
Calling Auckland
World Tour Auckland broke the traditions for a few Flesh and Blood stops. Instead of the Calling being the featured stream, it was the Sunday Showdown instead.
This means that players who were partaking of Omens Sealed and Draft were without much to view to aid their study. This makes sense from LSS' perspective. The view rates tend to drop, and be lower on average for Limited gameplay compared to constructed. People are prepared to watch a World Premier, but a full on Limited Calling is not as engaging to some viewers.
Sam Sutherland was victorious in this Limited Calling, drafting a deck similar to that which took down the World Premier in Prague: Oscilio, Scion of the Third Age.
Showdown Auckland
The Silver Age Showdown in Auckland was the bigger talk of the town. The single day tournament took six rounds of Swiss to bring us the result we wanted from the very first games of Silver Age in this new metagame.
The metagame in Auckland was surprisingly diverse among the 48 players.
To the surprise of no one, Briar had an incredibly large meta share. We got to see a fair number of decks under it, and the overall win rate of those decks under it, perform surprisingly well.
A few maverick inclusions like both and new Oscilio, as well the spread of Draconic decks at the top of the metagame.
The Top 8 kept up that eclectic spread of decks. The double Briar is to be expected but the spread of two, very different styles of Guardian rising to combat the Runeblade and Draconic aggression, it appears that the overall metagame is very open ended thus far.
The runner up deck was Rhinar piloted by Manuel Solomon. This aggressively leaning version of the original Brute gives players a shot at how things look in a world without Kayo.
The same power cards from Kayo are here, in the form of staple cards Bare Fangs, Pulping, and Wild Ride. This deck also leverages the aggressive output of Rhinar by leaning on the Intimidate mechanic with Smell Fear to temporarily take more cards, and Aggressive Pounce to extend your combat chains.
It was the Brute variance, of discarding a "miss" that ultimately cost Solomon the win.
Competitive TCG titan Andrea Mengucci went undefeated at the Showdown with this take on Briar.
The architecture of the deck is so abundantly clear. We see that with Beckoning Haunt banned, the deck has moved away from Sigil of Voltaris. Instead, it has returned to pure Go Agains all the way down, with the new card Quick Succession there to provide even more power to those go again attacks.
In matchups when one may want to cover certain on hits or taller damage, cards like Sigil of Suffering and Stinging Sprite punish the defender for blocking.
Wrap Up
World tour Auckland gave players so much to consider. We have many fundamental notes to help us understand the limited format going into Nationals, as well the first true look into the Silver Age new metagame.
Keep your eyes to fabtcg.gg for the latest in Flesh and Blood news.
