World Tour Singapore was the second of the three Tier 4 events of the year. With Pro Tour London well in the rear view mirror and the World Championships to look forward to, we are well on our way through the 2025 competitive calendar.
Pro Tour Singapore was the event the vast majority of players had their eyes on, and the results from this historic event had us cheering on for a home team player. During the same weekend, we had the Classic Constructed Calling and a Living Legend Battle Hardened spectate on.
Pro Tour Singapore
Over two days of gameplay, featuring Classic Constructed and Draft, we saw an eclectic but well defined metagame across all three stages of Pro Tour Singapore.
The day one meta breakdown reflected what the overall best performing decks were during Nationals. Arakni, 5L!p3d 7hRu 7h3 cR4X being the most represented deck was surprising, but not unexpected. Gravy Bones, Shipwrecked Looter and Cindra, Dracai of Retribution also filled out the top spot as they had done throughout Nationals Season.
380 players in the event, and approximately 20% of them were on the Chaos Assassin. The rest of the field all converged on the remaining decks that prevailed during Nationals Season. This then shows a good scope of the metagame throughout this High Seas season.
The natural counters to Gravy Bones in the form of Cindra and Slippy also have reasonable game into the other mid tier heroes. The overall metagame is split in ways that many commentators, including us here at fabtcg.gg, all agreed on.
The story changes somewhat after the day one's 5 rounds of Classic Constructed and 3 rounds of Draft.
The conversion rate for each hero is on display here. We see that more than half of the registered Gravy Bones players made it to day 2. The others being Arakni, Marionette only dropping a third of its players and the only Puffin, Hightail piloted by Aidan Barsony making day 2 with all 13 copies of Copper Cog and utility galvanise cards.
The distinctly high conversion rate on the Gravy Bones decks is all built on the deck's ability to pressure their bad matchups. We've seen the strong evolution that the decks have undergone to be able rely less on the allies and present cards like Swiftwater Sloop and Saltwater Swell to present Go Again, as well presenting disruption and strong attacks to give their allies the breathing room to stay on board.
The tension of the matchup between Slippy and Cindra is what possibly contributed to the drop off of the Assassin's and Ninja's numbers going into day 2.
Dark horse decks that may have prevailed going into day one are ones that can reliably combat the big three decks, namely Oscilio, Constella Intelligence, who presents wide chains into Gravy Bones, tall arcane damage into Cindra, and Dorinthea Ironsong which punishes the two aggressive decks in their difficulty blocking and farming allies to grow counters on Dawnblade.
The conversion rate of these also maybe hinged on their otherwise bad performances in the 6 rounds of Draft.
Pro Tour Singapore has been fresh on the minds of players for showing us what the very best decks in this metagame are, and that's indicative
After 9 rounds of Classic Constructed and 6 rounds of Draft, we saw our Top 8 be locked in to a very clear bracket.
1 Cindra, 1 Verdance, Thorn of the Rose, 2 Slippy, and 4 Gravy Bones all filled the top spots. It's clear what the best decks are.
The bracket was dominated by Mirror Matches in the quarter finals and the grand final. For anyone who wants to see clinics on how best to play Gravy Bones or Slippy should definitely watch the replays of these games.
The Pro Tour winning Gravy Bones piloted by Shirui Wu features a great deal of tall Go Again and a versatile switch board of allies to tech for each matchup. It's well suited to play into the mirror match which is why the deck prevailed quite so well. There's more of a detailed deck tech in the video on the fabtcg youtube.
Calling Singapore
After numerous rounds of Classic Constructed, with some players making their way out to Singapore just to play this calling, and some who did not prevail during the Pro Tour the day before, the Classic Constructed Calling produced an eclectic Top 8.
This eclectic top 8 has the two top decks from this Pro Tour, Slippy and Gravy Bones, but the remaining decks are all figures of metagame's past and rising met contenders of Fang, Dracai of Blades and Oscilio, Constella Intelligence.
For those who make their way to the final of Calling Singapore on the Flesh and Blood Youtube is in for a treat. The pilots of the two final decks are Pro Tour Champions in their own right. Michael Feng won Pro Tour Baltimore in 2023 with Oldhim, Grandfather of Eternity and has been known for playing Enigma, Ledger of Ancestry to a very high level. We also saw Feng make the final in Battle Hardened Houston a few weeks ago.
Conversely, Shoma Yamamura won Pro Tour Amsterdam in 2024 with the very fringe deck choice: Uzuri, Switchblade. He's also presented a fringe pick in both this Calling and the Pro Tour, with the same registered list for Ira, Scarlet Revenger.
The game shook down in Shoma's favour off the back of the wonders of well timed disruption and the soul read on his opponent. Censor is a card I have lamented on multiple times in my own gameplay and testing. In this match, we saw Conqueror of the High Seas languish in Michael Feng's hand and arsenal for multiple turn cycles.
Disruption aside, the gameplan for Ira is well favoured into Gravy Bones, by nickel-and-diming down the zombie allies while sending disruption to face. This version of the deck is what the commentators and player base called "Boomer Ira." Shoma has politely declined to play any of the cards from Armory Deck Ira or anything reasonably newer. The deck is centred on efficiently leveraging disruptive attacks with at least one attack with Harmonized Kodachi.
For those who are in the Japanese community, Shoma delivered a deck tech video explaining his card choices and the strengths the deck has into both Slippy and Gravy Bones.
Battle Hardened Singpaore
While this weekend was dominated by Classic Constructed results, the weekend also featured a Battle Hardened in the Living Legend format.
After the intense bannings of several key cards which heavily impacted the viability on what was the best decks in that format: Chane, Bound by Shadow and Bravo, Star of the Show.
The unbanning of Hypothermia brought the viability of Iyslander, Stormbind to a Top 4 finish at this Battle Hardened.
The final was fought between David Lee playing Briar, Warden of Thorns against Naib Mobassir on Ira, Scarlet Revenger.
The Briar list resembles the original Cheerios Briar play style during her prominence. 0 cost cards with Go Again like Scar For a Scar and Lightning Surge, all buffed with effects like Channel Mount Heroic and [/card]Plunder Run[/card]. New card from the Aurora Armory Deck Skyzyk and Skyward Serenade.
The winning Ira deck is indication of how Ira could have looked in the Hunted Metagame if they hadn't the sense to ban Zephyr Needle. Needle's downside is mitigated by the many retrieve effects in Pick Up the Point and Up Sticks and Run. As a result, the uses their daggers very aggressively with Flick Knives and gaining extra resources with Blood Splattered Vest; following the play style like Cindra.
In addition to Needle, the deck is also able to consistently maintain the number of Blues it can play on certain turn cycles with the banned duo of cards Belittle and Minnowism.
Aside from that, this deck has the same style of play that won the Calling in Singapore; nickel-and-diming their enemy with daggers then sending disruption well tuned for their opponent.
Wrap Up
Pro Tour Singapore gave us a strong look at Flesh and Blood played to the highest level. The metagame, though it has converged around the new Necromancer hero, this weekend has shown it has reliable counters and predators. Not only that, the deck has an extremely high skill floor, and demands a lot from its pilot. We can speculate on if the deck needs balancing, but I am confident in the counters rising up to meet the Necromancer.
Keep your eye to fabtcg.gg for up to date news on Flesh and Blood TCG.
