Build your first Flesh and Blood deck: step by step

New to Flesh and Blood? How to build a playable deck: hero, equipment, the red, yellow and blue pitch system, 60 cards and common mistakes.

Flesh and Blood plays differently from most card games: you start at your strongest and wear down over the course of the game. Many people collect Flesh and Blood for the artwork but have never built a deck of their own. This guide takes you in 7 steps from “I have cards” to “I have a playable deck”. No prior knowledge needed.

Flesh and Blood in one minute

• Your hero has life (right, often 40) and intellect (left, usually 4): that is how many cards you draw back up to at the end of each turn.
• Whoever reduces the opposing hero to 0 wins.
• There are no lands or energy. You pitch cards from your hand as resources: red gives 1, yellow 2, blue 3.
• Each turn you have 1 action point, some cards give you more.
• Defending is free: you block with cards from your hand or equipment and use their defence value.

Step 1: Pick a hero

The hero sets class and talent. Your deck may only contain cards of that class and generic cards. For the normal format, Classic Constructed, you need an adult hero.

Step 2: Weapons and equipment

Next to the deck you have a weapon and equipment for head, chest, arms and legs. They are in play from the start and help with attacking and defending.

Step 3: At least 60 cards

In Classic Constructed the deck has at least 60 cards, at most 80 including weapons and equipment. Each card may be included at most 3 times. The same name in a different colour counts as a separate card.

Step 4: The skeleton

These are guidelines for a first deck, not fixed rules.

Step 5: The right colour mix

The colour mix is the key lever. Too many reds: you can't pay for your attacks. Too many blues: your attacks are too weak. Draw test hands and check that you can pay for one good attack each turn.

Step 6: 3 copies beat lots of singles

Your most important cards belong in the deck 3 times, so you actually draw them. A deck of many different single cards plays differently every time and rarely well.

Step 7: Test and adjust

• Shuffle and draw 4 cards. Check that you can do something useful in your first turns. Do this 10 times.
• Play a few games against friends.
• Cards that never did anything go. Replace them with another copy of your best card.

The shortcut: a ready-made deck as a template

There are ready-made hero decks (for example Armory Decks) that are playable right away. Their card lists are online, for example on Fabrary. Paste such a list into TCG-Completist and see what is already in your collection.

How TCG-Completist helps

1. Open 🃏 Decks in the account menu and click “New deck”. Choose Flesh and Blood as the game.
2. Paste a list, for example with “3 Snatch (Red)”. Use the English names with the colour in brackets, for example (Red).
3. You see right away which cards you own, which are missing and roughly what the rest costs.
4. If you want to play a card as Rainbow Foil or Cold Foil, set the print with one click. Add missing cards to your wishlist with one click.

The deck builder is free. Guides for other games are under Deck building.

The 5 most common beginner mistakes

1. Wrong colour mix. Red to attack, blue to pay, you need both.
2. Off-class cards. Only your hero's class and generic cards.
3. Forgetting equipment. It defends every turn.
4. Too many reactions. You don't win without attacks.
5. Only single copies. Better 3 copies of your best cards.

That's all your first deck needs. Build it, play it and improve it after every game.