Got the MTG blues due to Wizards acting so crumby lately.

Gonna visit my brother in law (we usually play Magic (and ignore my sister)) this weekend, so wanted to try FAB.

So I ordered 8 blitz decks off eBay for super cheap; my local game store doesn’t sell FAB. I also bought official Dromai and Fai blitz decks because I heard they’re a good match up.

I noticed the oficial decks came with a card ranking their difficulty to play. Dromai is 4.5 stars difficult I guess, and Fai is 2 stars.

Played a game with my wife and it was challenging to get the hang of defending, and knowing what to pitch, and realizing you don’t have another action point.

Anyways I’m hoping to get some suggestions on which decks we should start playing with, that hopefully also will be fun to play against each other. Just by reading some heroes, I feel they’d be hard for a beginner. The decks I have are:

  • Azalea
  • Dorinthia
  • Bravo
  • Katsu
  • Rhinar
  • Viserai
  • Kano
  • Dash
  • Fai
  • Dromai

Wife and I played Bravo v Dorinthia and she really struggled trying to get two attacks with her weapon each turn, and I don’t think I ever used my weapon. Azalea seems like she might be straightforward.

Super excited to play another game.

Maybe the game just takes time to comprehend, but the difficulty ratings made me wonder. Thanks for any help!!

  • UnPassive@social.fossware.spaceOPEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    Update: Played Fai vs Azalea last night. It was fun but on my (Fai’s) first turn I had a huge chain and did a bunch of damage. Took a bit for my wife to figure out Azalea but the game ended up being close.

    May try another game with these decks since we liked the themes, but my first impression was that Fai “forces” Azalea to block and without enough cards in hand Azalea might only get one arrow shot. Meanwhile Fai could block once or twice and still get in quite a few swings. I’m guessing blitz is more swingy since it’s such a short game. I was wondering if Katsu vs Fai might be fun since they’re both ninjas

    • TwoMindsQ@lemm.eeMEnglish
      4·
      1 year ago

      Welcome to FaB!

      That’s a pretty good range of heroes for you to start with!

      I would suggest watching this video or one similar to try to get a good handle on blocking. Making good decisions on what to block with and when will improve your skill and generally make you more comfortable during the game.

      So Dorinthea really wants to keep tempo so she has a full grip each turn.If your on the back foot choosing the right card to save for your turn to arsenal and then eat damage to come back with a five card to have a “pivot turn” (when which player has tempo changes) is most heroes goal in that position.

      Fai is pretty good at big chains of damage but can also in into the problem of not having many high damage cards late, that’s admittedly mostly an issue with classic constructed not blitz.

      Azalea can be a very tough opponent but is pretty reliant on way to reload and if I remember right the blitz deck isn’t the best at that.

      Honestly play whoever you like the most (change it up if your start to feel bored or that you don’t like that character as much) and just play games. It’s tough at first but gets much better once you have more of a handle on the game.

      • UnPassive@social.fossware.spaceOPEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Thanks! I don’t think I realized tempo during our game, but it’s obvious now. The video was super helpful as well. Gonna pummel my wife tonight (just kidding, I’ll share what I learned).

        Really glad to hear that there isn’t really a “bad match-up” problem, but you just need to learn how to play against different heroes. In MTG we’ve discovered quite a few bad match-up decks. We have the most fun when it feels like skill is involved, and no player pulls too far ahead. I’ve even made some decks with the intention of them playing against each other. So FaB not suffering as much from this excites me!!

        This weekend I’ll try and get a few more games in but my wife is studying for a big test so we’ll see. I might try out Fai vs Katsu for the first game to teach my brother in law. I’m hoping having more, cheap attacks means less planning during blocking so maybe the game starts to click earlier. Then we’ll hopefully move on to try other heroes.

        The 8 decks I got from ebay didn’t have all the equipments for each hero. Just a pool of generics, and a few specialized. But Azalea had a bow that I don’t think the official precon has, this one lets you pay 1 to put a card from hand face up in your arsenal. I’m pretty excited to try and pick out some good equipment for each hero! Really wishing my LGS sold FaB so I didn’t have to order online.

        • TwoMindsQ@lemm.eeMEnglish
          4·
          1 year ago

          Glad I could help!

          Yeah blow out matchups just don’t exist like they do in mtg.

          I didn’t connect that you didn’t buy official precons but that definitely makes sense now and was honestly probably a better option than the official ones.

          Ninja v ninja should be fun. Fai makes big fiery chains and katsu pokes holes in you then combos.

          I understand the shop dilemma. I have about an hour drive to my closest lgs and would much rather support them than shops online.

          If your wanting some practice play in the mean time, I would suggest Felt Table to play against ai or Talishar to play against people. Both are browser based so no downloads. You can use fabdb or Fabrary for deck lists to play on either site I believe but it’s been a while since I’ve used felt table.

          Felt table honestly helped me learn a lot when I first started.