slightly obsessed.
sunday, february 23rd, 2025.
Oh hey! Sorry, it's been a while since I wrote on my blog here. My wife got a new job recently and it's been a little hard to find free time to write and get all the usual chores and errands done. Truth be told, I've become slightly obsessed with Flesh & Blood since we attended the Flesh & Blood Calling in Memphis last month.
Alas— I don't have a huge amount of time right now to write and gush about the event. The long and short of it is that it was amazing. The energy and atmosphere were so positive. Everybody was gathered together to share their love of the game. There were shops, artists, cosplayers, and hundreds of games in progress at any given time.
After the Calling, we returned back to our local FaB armory group with a doubled sense of enthusiasm for the game. Between the two of us, we now have decks for most formats of the game. My wife has Azalea for Blitz and Fai for Classic Constructed (they'll eventually buy into Verdance for CC). I bought into a Riptide decklist from Alexandra and graduated my own Nuu deck to CC. Building my Nuu decklist was such a fun experience and there's a copious amount of notes in the above decklist info section if you care to look.
Our local FaB community is absolutely booming. LSS released a new store support package, GEM Pack 1. They used to offer prizes to hand out to the winner and top players of local armory events, but the GEM Packs are intended to reward participation in the local armories. This has been huge, because it turns the local events into more of a gathering place for fun games and less like a tryhard first step on the road to becoming a professional FaB gamer. As a result, people are building really interesting (but "uncompetitive") decks and just having a blast. Beginners are less likely to be dumpstered on their way to 0-3 records, too.
The GEM Packs themselves contain a variety of extended and alternate art cards, some of which are highly sought after. I don't know what the price range is off of the top of my head, but $10 and up per card is what I've seen and they're only going to become more valuable as time goes on.
I've got my very first GEM Pack 1 unopened and on display on my desk at work as a fun little bit of memorabilia. The "collectible" part of "collectible card game" is, perhaps, my least favorite aspect of FaB, but this one holds a special place in my heart.
Anyway, that's all for now I think! I'll try to find time to write again soon but I've also got taxes to file, bicycle and car maintenance to do, a lawn approaching springtime, and bicycle advocacy to get back into. I do not lack for interesting things to do, that's for sure! But I'm also really thankful that my Flesh & Blood community has become a third place with other gaming nerds and no bar tab.
Until next time, be well. :)