FaB: Review - Dash in Living Legend and Nationals

One of the things that sets Flesh and Blood apart from other TCGs is its Living Legend system. Instead of removing cards from the card pool in certain formats from two to two years, for instance, each hero that wins bigger competitive events, like National tournaments or Callings, gets a certain number of points. Whenever this hero stacks a certain number of points, they become a "Living Legend" and are no longer available in their respective format.

This system is considered by many players one of the best "rotation" tools around because it makes formats eternal. This means that, though a certain hero (and their Signature Weapon) will no longer be available after they become Living Legends, the rest of their deck remains in the format. You can keep using them with other heroes in that same class or talent.

However, in the last few years, Living Legend became a tool that simply removes heroes too strong for their formats, and there are many examples of this: Tales of Aria and Part the Mistveil were the strongest sets in all of Flesh and Blood, Bravo, Star of the Show was the strongest hero ever, and so on and so forth. Even Aurora, Shooting Star seems "unfair" in her own way, and each hero that ever became a Living Legend is "traumatic" to more than a few players.

However, Living Legend, as a concept, doesn't only remove strong heroes from the formats. Some heroes climb steadily but slowly and stack up points in a healthy way. Different players dedicate themselves to their strategies, and these good, yet not broken heroes just get there.

Last Nationals weekend (from July 4th to July 7th), after 5 years in the game, Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire hit Living Legend status, and her set partner, Azalea, Ace in the Hole, is nearly there (she's 1 point away).

Let's take a look at this new Living Legend and see how she got here.

Dash, Inventor Extraordinaire is one of the original Flesh and Blood heroes released in Arcane Rising. She was also the first hero in the game to introduce the concept of controlling the match with permanents (in her case, items).

Unlike any other hero at the time, Dash had a devastating end game. Her main game plan was to put Induction Chamber and Plasma Purifier in play and try not to lose life at all costs. Then, she'd finish the game with a powerful Teklo Plasma Pistol with go again and without spending any cards in your hand.

Later on, when Teklo Pounder came out, an excellent way to play Dash was born, one that dealt as much damage as aggressive lists. Hanabi Blaster was also a lot of help in that plan, but if you preferred combos, an uncommon option was Nitro Mechanoid. Despite being less popular, it was still decent.

One of Dash's greatest strengths was making her opponent wonder which build they were facing: should they sideboard for a control/fatigue Dash, or bring more Defense Reactions to deal with a Boost Dash?

But, what made her take so long to become a Living Legend?

A Difficult Journey

Flesh and Blood has survived some dark days: the Monarch meta was dominated by Chane and Prism (two of the strongest decks in the history of the game), Tales of Aria was dominated by Briar at her peak, Uprising brought Iyslander and Fai, and Part the Mistveil was overrun by Zen. Dash has never been, indeed, the best deck in these metas, but she was always there. She even managed to beat these extremely powerful decks and take a few trophies home occasionally.

Finally, after just over a year without winning any relevant tournaments, Dash took her final steps at Nationals and became a Living Legend. She not only left and took one of the best Mechanologist weapons with her, but also made a legion of players quite sad to see her go (me included).

But what made Dash win her last few matches?

The image below shows the meta at this year's Nationals after Nuu, Alluring Desire became a Living Legend last month. And we can say, with some certainty, that this is one of the most open metas in the history of the game. Let's go through it a bit more closely.

Cindra Returns

When The Hunted came out, Cindra premiered quite spectacularly. However, the meta slowly adapted to the new cards. Aurora, Shooting Star was still the best aggressive deck in the format, and Cindra became a bit less popular. Then, when Aurora became a Living Legend and Florian... started dominating the format, Cindra found some space. She was great against Florian, but Nuu was still a problem because she was very disruptive.

Once Nuu became a Living Legend, Cindra's path was once again clear. This Ninja is simple but powerful and punishes those who can't play around Mask of Momentum or don't respect Flick Knives. She is an excellent, aggressive hero that seems to never run out of cards and practically only plays red cards.

Furthermore, her many Flick effects, like Flick Knives itself or Blood Runs Deep, are very difficult to stop and often put your opponent in a very delicate position.

Slippy: Disrupting the Opponent

But how about a deck as aggressive as Cindra but that also disrupts the opponent? Arakni, 5L!p3d 7hRu 73h cR4X (or just Slippy) can be an exceptional answer against Cindra and the meta in general.

Slippy gets a free go again every turn, so it can attack several times per turn and set up incredibly annoying lines for the opponent, like Bonds of Agony or Persuasive Prognosis. But these aren't the only ways it disrupts opponents. Mark of the Black Widow (1), Leave no Witnesses, and the infamous Codex of Frailty are also part of this incredibly powerful kit.

Most of Slippy's list costs zero, but this doesn't mean it doesn't deal a decent amount of damage. Infect deals more damage with Bloodrot Pox, Razor's Edge (1) can target nearly all the attacks in this deck, and Tarantula Toxin makes sure you'll deal damage through any means necessary.

Slippy plays many surprising tools, including the best aggro decks can offer and the best Assassin, as a class, can offer. It also heavily punishes those who don't know how to play against it.

Gravy and His Crew

Gravy Bones is rather new, but he is already quite phenomenal and an important part of the meta.

His Ally strategy might not work exactly as the Illusionist Allies do, but it is certainly strong enough to make him a meta deck. Sawbones, Dock Hand, Chum, Friendly First Mate, and Riggermortis are a few Allies that demand respect. If your opponent disrespects them, Gravy will create an uncontrollable board state and win - no question about it.

Cindra can easily kill his Allies, that's true, but Gravy Bones is great against the rest of the meta, and, as such, he has established himself as one of the best decks in the format.

Now that the meta is open, we have more than enough excellent options to play.

Verdance, Thorn of the Rose checkmates the most Midrange heroes and is evenly matched against aggro lists. With the Earth talent, Felling of the Crown and Plow Under are extremely strong. Furthermore, Cadaverous Tilling (1) makes Decompose deal a lot of damage. If the opponent has less than nine life, Verdance can end the game because of Storm Striders and Waning Moon, like any great Wizard.

Prism, Awakener of Sol is the only Illusionist left in Classic Constructed. In a meta that blocks less, she can definitely take advantage of how powerful her Heralds are to put many Allies in play and tip the scales in her favor considerably. However, if she does become popular, the rest of the meta may end up adding more cards that have 6 power in their inventories to face her, which may make things a lot harder.

A meta wide open for aggressive decks, as no one wants to block? That's everything Dash I/O wants to hear. With less decks centered around fatigue and without Nuu's disruption, this Mechanologist was able to stand her ground as an aggro/comgo list that deals a lot of damage quite fast with items like Boom Grenade (1). She may have struggled a bit with Slippy's disruptions, but was able to take advantage of decks that can't block very well, like Cindra and Gravy.

After Nationals, the meta should remain the same. Considering the Mastery Pack Guardian and the new set, Super Slam, are scheduled for September, we can reasonably assume Guardians will take over, but, overall, the meta should remain as it is for a few more months.

Flesh and Blood's Classic Constructed meta is wide open, and, as such, it is one of the best metas of all time. Soon, a few more heroes may become Living Legends, like Azalea, Ace in the Hole (which sits at a peculiar 999 points), and Kano, Dracai of Aether, but many decks are still finding their way and searching for a place in this new Classic Constructed.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!