Table of Contents
Hello, friends! Welcome to my favourite cards for the latest FaB set: The Hunted.
It seems Arakni is up to his usual tricks, and 😯 Oh No, he’s gone and shanked the Emperor. Will he never learn that stabbing people up is terribly impolite!?! 😖 Now, he has Cindra and Fang chasing him down.
Anyway, the following list contains my personal favourites from this set. Some of these cards are quite specific to the new characters, but some have utility for others too. None of these are in any particular order. Enjoy…
Quickdodge Flexors
I normally try to leave Legendary cards out of my lists because of the price tag attached to them, but this one was too good to leave out. The card reads:
Defense Reaction — 1 resource: Add this to the active chain link as a defending card. It has 2 base defense this chain link.
At the beginning of the end phase, if this defended this turn, destroy it.
These things are amazing! Yes, you have to pay, but if you do, you can block every attack in a combat chain, so long as you have the resources.
This is good for an all-out defence turn, when your opponent has the upper hand and is putting the pressure on, or when they are needling you with several low-damage attacks.
They’re a great way to block attacks that you don’t want to waste a card defending, possibly allowing you to take the upper hand in your next turn.
It’s not good for every situation, but against heroes who like to throw many low-damage attacks at you (looking at you, Ninjas!), you’ll be happy to have a pair of these in the arena.
Retrace the Past
Now, here is one of those specific Hero cards I mentioned in the intro. This is an Expansion card, and a Katsu Specialization one at that.
I’ve always liked Katsu as a Hero; being able to dump a Combo card to draw in the hope of filling the missing link in a played Combo always seems OP to me.
Now, with this new card, he’ll have to throw away fewer cards to get what he wants. The card reads:
Katsu Specialization
Combo - When this attacks, if a card with Gustwave in its name was the last attack this combat chain, name a card, then this gets that name, +2 power, and go again.
0 cost and 3 Def is decent, but the 2 Str is BS. It’s a sad reality of being a Blue card, unfortunately.
Being able to name a card and fill in the missing piece of your combo chain is pretty sweet. It also opens more build options, as you don’t need to add every card in the combo chain.
Katsu gets a new tool to fill his diminished bag of Combo tricks. With the banning of Bonds of Ancestry, he has had a rather glaring hole in his best Combo chain.
This goes some way into filling that gap. Sadly, 3 cards hardly fills the 9 card gap in my Katsu deck list. Now, players will have a new way to drop the Dishonor Combo on their opponents! 🤣
Happy days!
Imperial Seal of Command
The Imperial Seal of Command, or the ImpSoC as I’m now calling it forever, is a good include in just about any deck that requires a decent amount of Physical damage to get through. It will work better for the new Cindra and Fang because of the additional if you’re Royal trigger, but it is still good without that. The card reads:
Legendary
Action — Destroy this: Defense reactions can't be played this turn. If you are Royal, the next time you hit a hero this turn, destroy all cards in their arsenal. Go again
A generic stop to defence reactions? Yes, please, that’s mega! Having one or two of these things in your deck can practically guarantee that your killer game-winning play will connect. Knowing when to play this is going to be an interesting mind puzzle. Drop it too soon, and your opponent will see what's coming, or throw it out early and hope they forget about it. (To be fair, that would work on me! I regularly forget I have equipment I can use. 😅)
Shelter from the Storm
With the above IMPSoC on the list, I thought I’d add a card that is functional, even if it's a Defence Reaction. This card reads:
Instant — Discard this: The next 3 times you would be dealt damage this turn, prevent 1 of that damage.
Utility is the name of the game! A 0 cost Defence Reaction is always good, but the instant ability to discard and prevent damage can come in clutch (No cheeky thrown daggers will stop any who drop this at the right time).
It’s about time LSS came up with a Defence Reaction that's possibly better than Sink Below. It’s been the go-to for too long!
Take a Stab
I felt the bite of this bloody card in the pre-release sealed event that some friends and I did. It’s a shame it specifies Dagger attacks instead of Weapon attacks, but you can’t have everything. This is still a great card. The red version reads:
Target dagger attack gets +3 power and "When this hits a marked hero, you may attack with it an additional time this turn."
0 cost is always nice, but 2 Def blows a bit. +3 Str to a dagger attack is pretty standard as far as damage buffs go, but the on-hit ability is why this card makes the list.
Mark is such a big part of The Hunted, and keeping your opponent Marked as much as possible is key to the strategies of all the new characters.
It’s probably better for Arakni than Fang, but only because Arakni has access to cards that let him throw his daggers, which counts as an attack!
Though the additional attack effect would appeal to any Fang player…🤔
Savor Bloodshed
Much like Take A Stab above, this card is a split class card, possibly still angled more towards Arakni, but Fang could force an Attack buffed by this through sheer Strength! The card reads:
Your next dagger attack this turn gets +4 power.
The next time you hit a marked hero with a dagger this turn, draw a card.
Go again
There is nothing bad about this card's stat block! I have no complaints. 😤
Now, I’ve said in previous blogs that in Flesh and Blood, Card Draw is King and is a beautiful example of how to do that.
Hit an opponent with an Attack buffed by this, and so long as they are Marked, you draw a card. Nice and simple, right?
Doing this is made all the easier with all the cards that let you lob your daggers about, not so much for the Warrior but for the Assassins out there. The Danger Digits equipment piece has just the Attack Reaction to accomplish this.
Poisoned Blade
Now, this may be an Assassin/Ninja card, and it’s a fairly balanced one at that. The card reads:
Whenever a dagger you own hits a hero this combat chain, they lose 1 health.
Go again
The stat block on this card leaves a bit to be desired: 1 cost, mediocre Str in all colours and 2 Def. Not great.
It’s the ‘when a Dagger you own Hit’ ability that makes me ignore the downsides, especially with the number of ways to launch, what’s essential, cutlery at your opponent in this set. It turns an otherwise underwhelming hit for 1-damage into a 2-damage hit. This may not sound like much, but if you can get the right cards in hand. You could attack with both daggers, then throw both, retrieve both from the Graveyard and then possibly attack with both again. You could potentially do 12 damage without any other buffs to Str.
I like this card as an opener on any turn. It focuses your opponent's attention on your weapons and, potentially, away from other shenanigans you may have in hand.
Whether your opponent blocks the daggers and takes the other cards or vice versa, they’ll be taking more damage on a turn when this is on the field than they’d probably like to.
Another way to use this card is by doubling the damage of your thrown dagger. It's a nice way to finish out a game. Let your opponent think they’ve blocked all the damage before using something like Throw Dagger, Blood Runs Deep or Silver Talons to yeet your used or unused daggers at them.
Personally, I see this one as a Ninja card more than an Assassin card, but I suppose it depends on how you’ve built your deck.
Pick Up the Point + Up Sticks and Run
These two cards are so similar I couldn’t mention one without the other. Both allow you to re-equip a dagger you’ve slung at an enemy previously. The cards read:
Pick Up the Point
When this attacks, you may retrieve a dagger from your graveyard.
Go again
Up Sticks and Run (red)
You may retrieve a dagger from your graveyard.
Your next dagger attack this turn gets +4 power.
Go again
I could rant about the mostly underwhelming stat blocks of these cards, but I’ve found as I play them, it doesn’t matter.
I don’t care if Pick up the Point is blocked because it does its job just by attacking.
Dagger retrieval is awesome! It opens up some crazy long chains due to the Dagger entering the arena from the Graveyard as a new entity, meaning the Once Per Turn actions are reset! Excellent!!
I like to play these cards, one after the other, leading with Up Sticks and Run. Grab a dagger and buff the next dagger attack, then drop Pick up the Point to grab the other dagger and swing for some damage, or be blocked, and your opponent is down a card.
Whether your opponent blocks or not is technically irrelevant because now is the time to use either the Danger Digits or Throw Dagger card to punt a dagger into the face of your opponent’s hero. There’s a lot of combo play around these two cards. I think it’s time for my first love, Benji, to get an overhaul!!!
Drop of Dragon Blood
Now, then, this card is just daft! If it didn’t have the Legendary Keyword, it would be the single best card in the whole game.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the brains at LSS had the foresight to see how this card would go without Legendary. The Killjoys!!! The card reads:
Legendary
This costs 1 resource less to play for each Draconic chain link you control.
Gain 1 resource. Draw a card.
Hhm, a potentially free resource and Draw a card? Yes, please!! Imagine what a riot having three of these things in a deck would be like! 🤯
Well, keep dreaming because the Legendary tag means you can only have ONE copy in your deck… Still, you’ll have a baller turn whenever you get it off for free, so every cloud and all that, I suppose. 🤣
Jagged Edge
Going into my first The Hunted event, I was slightly underwhelmed when I found out that every character would be using daggers for weapons.
I laughed when I was up against Fang, thinking a Warrior with daggers would be able to do ‘that’ much. Then I got slapped with this little gem! The card reads:
Target weapon attack gets +3 power and "Damage this would deal can't be prevented."
Now, by the time this was dropped on me, we were late into our round, we were both low on Life, and I was down to my, as I called them, emergency defensive options.
I had a handful of Calming Breeze, a 0 cost Generic Instant that allows you to prevent 1 damage from the next 3 instances of damage. I had three of them, but I had no armour or defensive capabilities.
When Jagged Edge hit the table, I knew I was screwed. Damage prevention is pretty scarce outside of a few sets and heroes, but when you’re counting on it, it almost always fails. In my experience, anyway.
The moral of this not-at-all-exaggerated tale is to keep a couple of these in your Inventory.
You never know when one of the tricksy damage preventers like Enigma or Prism is going to pop up.
Jagged Edge will let you hammer them down like loose nails!
Long Whisker Loyalty
The artwork of this card had me hail it as ‘The Old Whiskered Wanker’! Mostly because it amused me but also because I got hammered flat by it twice. The card reads:
For each Draconic chain link you control, choose 1;
- Target dagger attack gets +2 power
- You may attack with target dagger an additional time this turn.
- The next time target dagger hits a hero this turn, mark them.
The purest bullshit is when the guy you’re up against drafted loads of Draconic cards and nothing else! He had two of these cards, and he Alpha and Omega’d me with them. Hit me round one and closed the game with it.
Still, it is exclusively a Fang card, at least at the time of writing, which is unfortunate, but the sheer utility you get from one card. Despite being shafted from both ends by this card, I love it. It has great utility for long games and is a great finisher to end games. Grand!
Art of the Dragon: Scale
There aren’t many cards in this game that aren’t locked to specific Heroes that can damage equipment, and on an Attack trigger, no less. This sort of thing is normally locked behind an On Hit trigger. The card reads:
When this attacks, if it is Draconic, it gets "When this hits a hero, put a -1 defence counter on an equipment they control. Then if it has 0 defence, destroy it."
The 1 cost sucks a bit, but the 5 Str and 3 Def is a solid stat block. The trigger is where the magic is, though. Making it Draconic isn’t too difficult, one of the guys I did a Sealed with was making it rain Fealty tokens in one game.
It takes a bit of work to get the pay-off, but just imagine your opponent’s face as you knacker their Legendary equipment before they can use it. 😈 Marvelous!!!
Back Stab
This is a great option to drop at the start of a turn with potential high damage. Restricting defensive options is always a good ability, regardless of the situation. The card reads:
Stealth
Defense reactions can't be played this chain link.
With a decent stat block to back up the Defence restrictions it imposes, the tricky part of playing this card is to decide whether or not to pile Str buffs on to it with Non-Attack Actions and Attack Reactions. Do you wait until the next attack to try and fake out some of your opponent’s cards as they over-defend, expecting to be hammered with Reactions, or go hell-for-leather and throw all your cards at it in an attempt to close out the game? Decisions, decisions…
All-round, I like it. The ability makes sense, too. You wouldn’t be able to react to being stabbed in the back. 😂
Take up the Mantle
Say hello to the newest Assassin Combo piece. Have you used up all your best Attack Actions? Well, why don’t you just copy them?
The card reads:
Target attack action card with stealth gets +2 power. If it's attacking a marked hero, instead it gets +3 power and you may banish an attack action card with stealth from your graveyard. If you do, the target becomes a copy of the banished card.
Oh, the potential… There’s no feeling better than shattering your opponent’s mood as you slap them with the same card over and over again! 🤣
True, you have to Banish the card you want to copy, but this is a quality late game finisher. Your opponent is SOOOO confident because all your best cards are in the Graveyard. Guess again, Sonny Jim!
I love how it’s a Reaction, too. So, when it drops, it's too late for your opponent to defend against the unexpected onslaught they’re about to face-tank. 😂
It’s the ultimate take-that card. The victory snatcher! Love it!
Looking to pick up some Flesh and Blood TCG? Shop booster boxes, sealed cases, blitz decks, and armory decks right here at Gathering Games.
