Late to the discussion here (sadly) but I think the key issue with FaB and affordability isn't necessarily the prices of top tier decks. As you've shown, those are on par with MtG modern lists, and YGO decks. The problem I see with FaB is the new player experience. There's no casual/budget/affordable scene. Any opportunity to play FaB is with top tier, highly optmized lists that would cost around 500 dollars. A new player wants to play their blitz precon, and gets told CC is the way to go. They then buy an armory deck, and struggle to learn the game and beat the optmized builds of enfranchised players. They find out there's a blitz event, take their deck and get mauled by CC decks converted into blitz, even faster and stronger. The competitive aspect of it can motivate some people, but not everyone has the time and disposable income to jump from "this game looks kinda cool" straight into "I wanna compete at nationals" level. FaB really needs to promote more casual formats, like UPF, the PvE mode they mentioned and never went back to, or something else. Hell, even promoting Commoner tournaments would give new players the thrill of the competitive scene with minimal investment, hooking them into investing into CC or Blitz. If the new player experience is to jump straight with the sharks into competitive CC and Blitz, they'll be demotivated by the monetary barrier of entry, the game's complexity curve, or both.
I feel they need stronger cheap options to best in slot… like a cheaper version of fyendal or crown which is slightly weaker. Most budget options are pretty trash in comparison
@@OmfgItsSteven that's also true, and something the new equipments in the armory decks seem to address. Those decks are a huge step in the right direction, but the need to invest in a viable less competitive alternative for new players is still in my opinion the main thing they should be doing to grow the playerbase.
Price is still absolutely a stopgap for me at the moment. While I'm very excited for Rosetta, it makes me really sad to think that something like heart of fyendal could be an "Auto-include" in Verdance. At least it's legendary, so it's not as huge of a loss at just 1 card. I think it mostly hurts because of how much I adore the base game of FAB, and really enjoy how some classes are designed. At the moment though, things like Dynamo keep me off of Warrior, Creepers off of runeblade, Codex off of Assassin / Ranger. I've settled for Mech because it dodges the necessity that generic staples CnC / EStrike, etc present. it's just a bit demoralizing.
It is a decent up front cost but you can build much of what you want and use filler gear until you can dedicate to that bigger card. That card will most likely be really good for that class for a long time
Okay so unless you want it to not be a tcg there will always be expensive cards. Yes CNC and EStrikes and Art of wars are really important in many decks.. but unless you want a booster box to be worthless some playable cards will be expensive based on playability. Heart of Fyendal is not overpowered to a level that it NEEDS to be included and most equipment is very much replaceable by budget options. Idk I've collected for a couple years now and built a collection that includes alot of the must haves. I now trade out cards depending on what I am wanting to play and sell crap if it skyrockets so my collection builds itself now.
@@SUNIKIGAMINGI think the main issue here is that there is no 1-to-1 budget replacements for Staple cards in FAB vs other games. For example in Yugioh if Impermanence is too expensive, Effect Veiler exists in MTG for Shock Lands, Check lands or Fastlands are "good enough" There is no such thing as a "good enough" replacement for FAB. No other card in the game gives all your action cards +1 Power for the turn except AOW, there exists no other 6 Power with 3 Block other than CNC. And don't even get me started with equipment. Your budget options are one and done type things that either destroy themselves to activate or can block only once or none at all. No one is saying that cards should have no value. But there should be budget replacements for cards/more "good enough" type cards for the mid level players who want to play at higher than a casual level but not necessarily competitive level
I totally agree and it's super annoying when my local game store has a bunch of people that just came back from nationals or pro tour or whatever. They walk into casual game night with 3 cnc's and a tunic and all that jazz. But that can only take you so far and if you just play what you have it can be fine. I was building Zen and had no interest in dropping $70+ on a tiger swipe shuko so I ran the Tearing Shuko that I have that costs literally 5¢ and went 2-1. I highly encourage you to try commoner format. There is no "well I just have the big card so I just win"
I've found that by helping out new players with some of the essential cards, it can really make a big difference in their experience and encourage them to come back. And who knows, it might even lead to long-term loyalty and growth for our game community. I'm not looking to profit from my own collection, but I do believe that by sharing knowledge and resources, we can all benefit as a whole.
I think options like Katsu (who has some excellent budget options and can upgrade with expensive generics that will see play elsewhere), Boltyn (already pretty cheap, likely getting some interesting tools for budget builds out of his Armory Deck) and Kayo (again, you can budget with the Armory Deck for the chest piece) are all decently affordable, do not require a new player to pay too much into a specific hero (and feel locked in early in their time with the game) and can help them get to grips with the game very well
Exactly the path I choose. Went with the Kayo Armory deck, and upgraded with some cards I could afford. I am having a blast so far in my armory events. I know the video is about competitive play, but new players have to start somewhere, right? Haha
@@Scariestkid Yup. And I think it is really worth highlighting someone like Kayo specifically because of the amount of success he has had in such a short time frame. He is obviously a top end competitive deck, not a fringe competitor (like Boltyn is). And yeah, it is great to focus on what tournament winning decks are costing, but I think the topic of "how much does a competitive FAB deck cost?" doesn't really matter at all without taking into account the group for whom the cost of a competitive deck matters the most: brand new players. Established players will be like, sure, if I wanna buy something from scratch, this number matters, but a lot of us have things like CnC and Tunic after enough time anyway. The cost to flip to a different deck isn't ever going to be that full cost anymore. But to a new player, showing them competitively viable budget builds with built in upgrade paths (particularly when those upgrade paths are heavily revolving around generics that will see play in other decks anyway instead of hero specific cards that will be less useful if that hero LLs or the new player finds they don't like them) is incredibly valuable. They can trade into and buy pieces bit by bit, feeling a definite sense of progression in the power level of their deck. And that is how you help make someone an addict who starts telling other people about budget builds for new players so they can con more people into playing the game with them...
@@OmfgItsSteven if you want it in full power yes. But you can save a couple of hundred dollars and be not really that much worse. That’s the point. Kayo is still super strong in comparison so most other decks even when you are not 100% equipped.
I think what gets lost in the translation is the barrier to entry. Yes, if you compare the prices of competitive decks in rotating formats you see that your dollar goes further in FaB. The issue I see, as someone new trying to get into the game, is the barrier of entry seems to be that I need to put in a minimum of 200$ to start having fun and being somewhat competitive. That just is not a thing in other tcgs, I can play a competitive pokemon deck for 40$, I can play a competitive magic deck for 40$, learn the game with a deck that won't get rolled and have fun. With FaB I seem to find no support, or information, for players who want to put in 40$ and play FaB. Everyone will tell you to go to Blitz, but then proceed to tell you that Blitz is not the true FaB experience.
FaB is *generally* more expensive to compete than other TCG's at the local level. It was very easy for me to find a $50-$100 MTG Standard deck that could take wins off of the $500+ control lists at FNM back in the day. That is just not viable in FaB because so much power is frontloaded into expensive equipment and generic "silver bullet" cards. If you want to compete, you gotta shell out. But I think that goes away the moment that armories become more casual. Which I think LSS is aware of. Looking at the power level of the Armory Decks I think it's clear where they want armories to be and it isn't chock full of Fyendal's, Fables, and C&C's.
Big fab fan here, but those prices are very wrong. If a card isn't available from the selected seller it won't come up in the total, and those are usually very pricey cards
That's interesting, because I added the deck lists to the description and just checked the hatchets list via TCGplayer to see if it was wrong. Minus shipping, it was actually slightly cheaper than what was displayed on Fabrary.
@@DMArmada yeah sorry, I didn't check every list but as someone said, the dash list is not 200 to 300, balance of justice already is over 140 bucks alone, and i am buying the cards for DIO right now and it definitely don't cost 60 bucks in total
The better comparison would be : how much money does it take for a beginner to beat an experimented player with a competitive deck. Most TCG have some variance and game mechanics allowing a beginner to sneak up a win once in a while with a 10-20$ deck. This is plainly impossible with flesh & blood : more expensive cards hit more and defend more while commons are usually the worst cards, so you can just play the math against a beginner's deck and get the win. Another issue is that you can't trade for cards in Flesh and Blood, a box of boosters will get you only 7 Majestics and all the other cards will be worthless. Also the Pay2Win aspect expands to the knowledge of the game since most of the articles discussing strategies are locked behind a patreon wall.
fab players should really be calling Classic Constructed a pseudo-rotating format. calling it eternal is a bit misleading as entire pools of cards can be "rotated" for months, if not more than a year at a time before becoming playable again.
@@ftgrimm1016 i mean, not really, not in the same way. flesh and blood enforces it's mini-rotation usually a few times a year as a mandatory function. if wizards decided to not power creep modern ever again it would probabaly stay 90% the same for the rest of time. if LCC decides to never print a card stronger than head jab ever again the LL system would still be forcing changes and rotations at minimum once per year (often more). i say this as a diehard fan who likes the systems FAB has, but the community has to be realistic when trying to sell the game to newcomers. otherwise we risk getting people engaged under the false pretenses that you can play the same character forever and souring them on the game when they realize otherwise.
I feel if they made cards like cnc more available and cheaper overall, it would bring in more players = more $$$ Or have more common/rares that are slightly worse versions of the mythic/legendary equipments which allow a cheaper entry
@@DMArmada I think cards also rotate when they turn to be useless after hero rotates out or you can't really play them anymore. Like ice cards right now. Also not sure why they don't reprint those expensive majestics. CnC needed reprint like 2 years ago. Still most decks play it. They do some gimmick reprints like judge pack version (AoW) or fable version (CnC) which not really helping to the situations. Now we starting to have other cards like Codex of frailty. I have 6 CnC's to just have two different competitive decks that I don't have to take apart all the time.. Can't even lend a deck if I had only 3.
@@wigitiPretty sure they don’t want to reprint CnC because it’s (still) too strong and they don’t want more of it around. It clearly comes from a time where power levels for some cards were clearly above rate. James White recently said they if they could, they would redo Generic cards like CnC, Fate Forseen, and Sink Below.
@@emida2012 They should ban it then.. Not reprinting a cards that most deck use, because it's too powerful is bad solution. Specially when this is competitive game and not casual one. If you go for tournaments you need to have best deck possible.. What they gonna do when CnC is 1000$ card? You need to drop 10 000$ to get best possible deck to your competitive play.. That will be the price 10 years from now if they don't reprint any key majestics.. Or maybe not, because people will quit when they are prized out, so game stops growing. Either way it's not good. Imagine if your main format is vintage mtg :D
@@wigiti Yeah, it’s not ideal. They tried printing many other good Generic 2 for 6 3 blocks, but that hasn’t really done much. I feel like sooner or later they have to embrace CnC simply being overpowered and reprint it like they did with Tunic. Can’t even imagine the days when that was a $250 card anymore haha
@DMArmada having grown up with Pokemon I'll always love it but man is hard to enjoy after moving over to FaB. There's so much more skill expression and less dependence on luck with FaB, it's crazy.
@@slotholopolis2314 pokemon for a while was not that cheap, they been doing great work for making the cost of decks cheaper and affordable for players while keeping chase cards for collectors. I think LSS could learn something from that game.
I think with present day Magic that commander is probably the widest applicable metric to compare FaB to. But that's a lot harder to quantify, as they typically are a lot more personalized. That being said, commander decks certainly get pricey quickly.
As someone who wants to start FaBLCG now and start with Florian, am I thinking this correctly, that Rosetta Cards now are hyped and now so may opened boosters yet, so overpriced? And in a month or two prices might be way cheaper?
Super cool if you are planning on being more competitive. I'm just so grateful for the armory decks because I just want something that can play against my friends more expensive decks and not get stomped and that does it for me. :)
@calebmuir5615 But they can learn. We do not need more Kanos. Unless they just blow up all the tournaments and he LLs, then we need as many Kanos as possible
Unless Kano gets a big boost in Rosetta (which is very probable) he probably will be in a weird spot because more AB will be in everyone's sideboard for the runeblades and wizards already.
I know this this video is meant to encourage trying fab for newcomers, but you dodge important critique: the prices for fab decks arent stable because the format switches like every 3-4 months with LL or a new set, meaning your deck can just kind of get worse in a competetive sense. also we see important generic sideboard staples in like every set like warmongers or weakest links that become format defining 30-50 bucks cards. the reality is that as competetive player(if you play more than one deck) you need an arsenal of sideboard options that might or might not be budget friendly just to be able to deckbuild properly and decks that stay meta relevant are few and are usually not that beginner friendly (we look at you codex of frailty) to build. budget friendly decks like mech can also just suck in a local format or just be not fun. Im not a friend of forcing people in classes that fit their budget just to avoid staples also.
This is true of nearly every TCG in the hobby. I'm hardly dodging that critique by not pointing out a fact of life when any TCG experiences a new set release. If anything, this happens slightly less frequently in FAB as the sets release every 4 months vs. every 3 in many other games.
Oddly, FaB has a good argument that this is mitigated for a deck - a lot of the expense in a FaB deck is in the standards or the Equips. As DM said, if you pick up a Tunic, it's good for the life of the game. You will absolutely need to stay current and adapt to the meta, but that's a much cheaper option if you play a single hero or a single class. Especially if you're picking up the cheap cards when you can. I started on Azalea way back when she was terrible cause I just enjoyed her playstyle. I did not pay a ton for most of her deck because of that. Now that she's good, I've avoided most of the price spikes because I already had all those cards. When she finally LL's out, I will still have all the good cards for Ranger. But yes - if you want to be on the bleeding edge of competition all the time, pony up for the new hotness every set. That's how TCG's work.
i totally hate the pricing for fab cards. I recently started to play FaB with some friends. I already dropped over 100€ on boosters, 2 blitz decks, a Armory Deck and a playmat/sleeves. And i still cant even think about playing a local tournament for fun. Extremely unsatisfying. Meanwhile i started Pokemon at the same time and already got 2 top tier decks (iron thorns, lugia) for 80€. FaB is just too much fun to stop.
Love to see accessibility in the game to help on board new players into the game. It's a difficult line to balance cards retaining value and cards being affordable. Also, nice meeting you at Nats btw!
Any FaB player if patient and smart enough, can make the game even cheaper than that Way before PMT was revealed, I was buying all my ninja cards for pennies because the classe was not meta Bought my harmony and swipes for dirt cheap, while harmony is now $40 Did the same for runeblades, knowing that LSS will bring back a strong elemental runeblade someday I had my creepers, carapace and playset of swarming revels for 3 times cheaper than they are now Peoples need to understand that fab singles market is so easy to navigate if you are patient
You do see how this is a problem for attracting new players right? Era advantage is a thing and if every staple goes to the moon we never get new players again. I started this game under the pretense that only equipment and a few generic cards were expensive but now even sideboard cards are expensive as hell e.g warmongers diplomacy
@@Deingel12 So are every single TCGs ever ? LCGs exist just to let you know, it’s like tcg but you buy the whole set from the editor and there is no randomness in what you get Personally, from a player’s perspective, I’m happy that I have been rewarded with cheap runeblade staples because everyone else were buying into Kayo then Zen chasing the meta
@@Bakingsodaincake how is it a problem for new players ? A new player join your local, explain them what the meta look like atm, and that they can invest right now in top meta deck (calling powerlevel) for big bucks Or buy into a cheaper hero because it’s not meta Which is an accessibility factor Warmonger, Hold the Line, CnC, codex and others strong staples are indeed expensive, it is a fact But unfortunately that’s TCGs for you, sometimes a card is really good and everyone want it If you need the card for your nats, you can buy it, play with it try to spike your national championship, then resell it Because if you play 1 calling/BH a year, and all the rest of the year, you are playing at your locals and the highest stake is the armory CF, well maybe you don’t need to buy into the pro tour winning list every time there’s a new meta/set If I want to go back to modern mtg and want a competitive Pro tour ready deck, I’m gonna have to buy my playset of rings, sheoldred and else Each of these cards are between 50-70 each, but slots in many different decks Or I could build merfolk or boggles, a weaker deck but more affordable But the cards I will buy will never be able to be swapped into meta deck because archetype specific Exactly the same as fab Buy CnC/Warmonger, and have a strong staple playset for every hero you will play forever
@@Bakingsodaincake No I don't see that as a problem New player at your local ? Explain them the meta, which hero is strong/popular, which one is not And let them decide what to do with their money as an adult Buy the list that dominated the nationals for big bucks ? Knowing that as soon as a new deck becomes the best deck, prices for that deck will go gown? Or buy a least played hero to start FaB Which is completely fine if all they do is playing once a week at an armory Also, yeah, Warmonger and CnC are super expensive But if you know FaB well, you know that these cards are sideboard and are not cards a deck need to function and do what its want to do Your Boltyn deck still completely function without CnC, you are just losing a little of agency into the decks CnC is strong against, but your deck is completely functional Which is completely fine for an armory which highest stake is a $20 CF, let's be real If you want to spike your nationals, and you need a playset of warmonger, but can't justify spending $150 for a playset for a hobby Borrow the cards Or buy them, then sell them as soon as you are back from your nationals
so most of the top tier decks are around 1.5x to 10x the price of competitve standard magic decks? Was thinking about getting into this game but thats just a hard pass. Meta decks not being accessible for sub 100 dollars for almost anything you want is just a hard dealbreaker, having to make suboptimal substitutions and not play multiple different decks cheapens the experience. I've heard that this game is cheap to get into but i guess not. If meta is not available to casual players because of budget, your game is not new player friendly.
Well, as a previous magic player, there is a bit more nuance to "playing multiple decks" in flesh and blood. Do you want to build one, two or three classes? I would say that it's quite rare for people to like more than three classes. If you try fab on talishar for about six months to get an idea of what you like completely for free, you could just pick the class you want to buy into. Buying into a class and make something absolutely top tier after you deck built and tried on talishar is about 450 euros on average (200 to 700). Buying into new classes are usually cheaper after the first, like 200 euros, but it's very unlikely you will do it cause you will be actually probably stuck in the class you like and deckbuilding in that class is virtually free after the initial investment. Acquiring new staples and spicy pieces that you are actually using in the classes you run is about 150 euros a year if you want to stay updated on the best cards. Fab is a hyper consistent game that rewards hero mastery more than anything else, so sticking to a budget build for 6 months could give you more success than running all the staples. In magic if you want to try different deck archetypes in your favorite color you have to acquire a higher variety of much more expensive cards, and playing decks that play completely different is much more expensive (although it's true, the mana base in non rotating formats is a long term investment, but you could argue that a good mana base in modern for a two color deck is a much bigger investment than buying into a class)
For any players looking to get in to this game, this is standard FaB Cult hivemind coping. "This game isnt expensive" or "you dont need all these expensive cards." FaB is so outrageously expensive, the new players run away when they see the price of generic staples, which is close to $1000. Budget in this game is $500... outside of the 2 decks you showed that not everyone wants to play. Why cant FaB players call out the issue? Instead we get these $250 "budget" lists when realistically there are cards in this game that are not AA that cost $300: Eye, Heart, and Shard. Individual pieces of Equipment costs +$100...
If you are using eye, heart, sharp as examples to add to your argument then you are new and actually do not understand what those cards are or how to play the game.
As someone who got into this game in the past few weeks - £10 for a Blitz deck, a friendly person on the UK Discord sent me a couple of kg of the basic cards so I have options for cost of postage. My hero, two sets of 3 hero action cards and a special hero equipment which puts me into a respectable deck to learn with that’s avoiding pricey stuff - £30. With the postage for the donation and the blitz deck, I’m about £45 into this game and reckon I could play a solid six months at local Armories to get some reps in without needing anything more. Sure, I’d do better with 3 Command and Conquers and a Spring Tunic, but the difference that gives when I’m learning the game and the meta is so marginal it’s daft to throw money at.
@birdsflapatnighttogether2304 No, you are just proving my arguments, "you don't need x card." It's the shear denial from this community that is so wild to me. I have 5 decks put together currently. You must be confused that someone who actually plays the game could ever have anything negative to say about it.
Which generic staples are you including in that 1k figure? Crown, Tunic, C&Cx3, and E.Strikex3 are around $510. $570 if you choose Balance over Crown. Art of War and anything beyond it is fairly hero specific.
@ravenousbabble the same list that FaBRec uses for generic staples: Fyendals: $100 Crown of Prov: $80 Balance: $130 3x Warmongers: $195 3x c&c: $250 3x E.Strike: $90 3x Art of War: $105 So what's that $950 before taxes, shipping, and handling? Not counting the cheapo Staples like Sinks and such. And also not counting class specifics like Phantasmals, Creepers etc.
A very important PSA: Price on FaBrary means next to nothing. *Not all cards are going to have price there.* That might skew the price way too much to the ground and give a false impression of the deck being cheap. Always check the Pricing tab
Prices are kept artificially high by gluttonous basement dwelling card flippers who by up the stock and hold piles of cards hostage to an arbitrarily high price
This certainly was the case in FaB a few years ago (And was absolutely a very real problem). But thankfully, LSS has taken a lot of action to quell this kind of behavior in regards to most of the playable tournament staples thanks to pack restructuring and well needed reprints. We've been seeing a steady decline in the average price of most of the high dollar staples, and most of the crypto-bros who tried to horde FaB staples have bailed out at this point. There's still more work to be done to ensure accessibility for everyone, but LSS is definitely taking the right steps so far.
Late to the discussion here (sadly) but I think the key issue with FaB and affordability isn't necessarily the prices of top tier decks. As you've shown, those are on par with MtG modern lists, and YGO decks. The problem I see with FaB is the new player experience. There's no casual/budget/affordable scene. Any opportunity to play FaB is with top tier, highly optmized lists that would cost around 500 dollars.
A new player wants to play their blitz precon, and gets told CC is the way to go. They then buy an armory deck, and struggle to learn the game and beat the optmized builds of enfranchised players. They find out there's a blitz event, take their deck and get mauled by CC decks converted into blitz, even faster and stronger. The competitive aspect of it can motivate some people, but not everyone has the time and disposable income to jump from "this game looks kinda cool" straight into "I wanna compete at nationals" level.
FaB really needs to promote more casual formats, like UPF, the PvE mode they mentioned and never went back to, or something else. Hell, even promoting Commoner tournaments would give new players the thrill of the competitive scene with minimal investment, hooking them into investing into CC or Blitz. If the new player experience is to jump straight with the sharks into competitive CC and Blitz, they'll be demotivated by the monetary barrier of entry, the game's complexity curve, or both.
I 100% agree
I feel they need stronger cheap options to best in slot… like a cheaper version of fyendal or crown which is slightly weaker. Most budget options are pretty trash in comparison
@@OmfgItsSteven that's also true, and something the new equipments in the armory decks seem to address. Those decks are a huge step in the right direction, but the need to invest in a viable less competitive alternative for new players is still in my opinion the main thing they should be doing to grow the playerbase.
Price is still absolutely a stopgap for me at the moment. While I'm very excited for Rosetta, it makes me really sad to think that something like heart of fyendal could be an "Auto-include" in Verdance. At least it's legendary, so it's not as huge of a loss at just 1 card.
I think it mostly hurts because of how much I adore the base game of FAB, and really enjoy how some classes are designed. At the moment though, things like Dynamo keep me off of Warrior, Creepers off of runeblade, Codex off of Assassin / Ranger. I've settled for Mech because it dodges the necessity that generic staples CnC / EStrike, etc present. it's just a bit demoralizing.
You said exactly what I wanted to. Glad to know its not just me that feels that way
It is a decent up front cost but you can build much of what you want and use filler gear until you can dedicate to that bigger card. That card will most likely be really good for that class for a long time
Okay so unless you want it to not be a tcg there will always be expensive cards. Yes CNC and EStrikes and Art of wars are really important in many decks.. but unless you want a booster box to be worthless some playable cards will be expensive based on playability. Heart of Fyendal is not overpowered to a level that it NEEDS to be included and most equipment is very much replaceable by budget options. Idk I've collected for a couple years now and built a collection that includes alot of the must haves. I now trade out cards depending on what I am wanting to play and sell crap if it skyrockets so my collection builds itself now.
@@SUNIKIGAMINGI think the main issue here is that there is no 1-to-1 budget replacements for Staple cards in FAB vs other games.
For example in Yugioh if Impermanence is too expensive, Effect Veiler exists
in MTG for Shock Lands, Check lands or Fastlands are "good enough"
There is no such thing as a "good enough" replacement for FAB. No other card in the game gives all your action cards +1 Power for the turn except AOW, there exists no other 6 Power with 3 Block other than CNC.
And don't even get me started with equipment. Your budget options are one and done type things that either destroy themselves to activate or can block only once or none at all.
No one is saying that cards should have no value. But there should be budget replacements for cards/more "good enough" type cards for the mid level players who want to play at higher than a casual level but not necessarily competitive level
I totally agree and it's super annoying when my local game store has a bunch of people that just came back from nationals or pro tour or whatever. They walk into casual game night with 3 cnc's and a tunic and all that jazz. But that can only take you so far and if you just play what you have it can be fine. I was building Zen and had no interest in dropping $70+ on a tiger swipe shuko so I ran the Tearing Shuko that I have that costs literally 5¢ and went 2-1. I highly encourage you to try commoner format. There is no "well I just have the big card so I just win"
I've found that by helping out new players with some of the essential cards, it can really make a big difference in their experience and encourage them to come back. And who knows, it might even lead to long-term loyalty and growth for our game community. I'm not looking to profit from my own collection, but I do believe that by sharing knowledge and resources, we can all benefit as a whole.
It’s hard moving from my game, (Digimon TCG) because our “expensive” deck is like 250-400 dollars. Most decks are in the 50-200 range.
Pokémon decks are like 140 and the game is awesome too
Really grateful with seeing my deck getting mentioned in a video like this
Congratulations on becoming National Champion!
I think options like Katsu (who has some excellent budget options and can upgrade with expensive generics that will see play elsewhere), Boltyn (already pretty cheap, likely getting some interesting tools for budget builds out of his Armory Deck) and Kayo (again, you can budget with the Armory Deck for the chest piece) are all decently affordable, do not require a new player to pay too much into a specific hero (and feel locked in early in their time with the game) and can help them get to grips with the game very well
Exactly the path I choose. Went with the Kayo Armory deck, and upgraded with some cards I could afford. I am having a blast so far in my armory events. I know the video is about competitive play, but new players have to start somewhere, right? Haha
@@Scariestkid yes it's actually the best power to invest ratio if you choose to upgrade SOME cards step by step.
@@Scariestkid Yup. And I think it is really worth highlighting someone like Kayo specifically because of the amount of success he has had in such a short time frame. He is obviously a top end competitive deck, not a fringe competitor (like Boltyn is).
And yeah, it is great to focus on what tournament winning decks are costing, but I think the topic of "how much does a competitive FAB deck cost?" doesn't really matter at all without taking into account the group for whom the cost of a competitive deck matters the most: brand new players.
Established players will be like, sure, if I wanna buy something from scratch, this number matters, but a lot of us have things like CnC and Tunic after enough time anyway. The cost to flip to a different deck isn't ever going to be that full cost anymore. But to a new player, showing them competitively viable budget builds with built in upgrade paths (particularly when those upgrade paths are heavily revolving around generics that will see play in other decks anyway instead of hero specific cards that will be less useful if that hero LLs or the new player finds they don't like them) is incredibly valuable. They can trade into and buy pieces bit by bit, feeling a definite sense of progression in the power level of their deck.
And that is how you help make someone an addict who starts telling other people about budget builds for new players so they can con more people into playing the game with them...
Kayo is 700$ deck, Katsu is 700$ deck, they are still almost 500$ without command and conquers
@@OmfgItsSteven if you want it in full power yes. But you can save a couple of hundred dollars and be not really that much worse. That’s the point. Kayo is still super strong in comparison so most other decks even when you are not 100% equipped.
I think what gets lost in the translation is the barrier to entry. Yes, if you compare the prices of competitive decks in rotating formats you see that your dollar goes further in FaB. The issue I see, as someone new trying to get into the game, is the barrier of entry seems to be that I need to put in a minimum of 200$ to start having fun and being somewhat competitive. That just is not a thing in other tcgs, I can play a competitive pokemon deck for 40$, I can play a competitive magic deck for 40$, learn the game with a deck that won't get rolled and have fun. With FaB I seem to find no support, or information, for players who want to put in 40$ and play FaB. Everyone will tell you to go to Blitz, but then proceed to tell you that Blitz is not the true FaB experience.
The difficult part is to finally find a video that I am hoping to get some information out of and I still see deck lists in the triple digits.
FaB is *generally* more expensive to compete than other TCG's at the local level. It was very easy for me to find a $50-$100 MTG Standard deck that could take wins off of the $500+ control lists at FNM back in the day. That is just not viable in FaB because so much power is frontloaded into expensive equipment and generic "silver bullet" cards. If you want to compete, you gotta shell out.
But I think that goes away the moment that armories become more casual. Which I think LSS is aware of. Looking at the power level of the Armory Decks I think it's clear where they want armories to be and it isn't chock full of Fyendal's, Fables, and C&C's.
Also, great call out on Kano. It's insane how a top-tier, nationals winning, Calling competitive deck can cost
No locals here in Connecticut at all, 😂
Big fab fan here, but those prices are very wrong.
If a card isn't available from the selected seller it won't come up in the total, and those are usually very pricey cards
For example, clearly balance of justice wasn't listed
Yep, this is more specific to anyone looking at minmaxgaming prices though. TCGplayer has all the cards listed with their prices.
That's interesting, because I added the deck lists to the description and just checked the hatchets list via TCGplayer to see if it was wrong. Minus shipping, it was actually slightly cheaper than what was displayed on Fabrary.
@@DMArmada hatchets are fine, it's the dash lists effected I believe.
@@DMArmada yeah sorry, I didn't check every list but as someone said, the dash list is not 200 to 300, balance of justice already is over 140 bucks alone, and i am buying the cards for DIO right now and it definitely don't cost 60 bucks in total
Budget is $50 to $100 max in every other card game. $500 is ridiculous.
The better comparison would be : how much money does it take for a beginner to beat an experimented player with a competitive deck. Most TCG have some variance and game mechanics allowing a beginner to sneak up a win once in a while with a 10-20$ deck. This is plainly impossible with flesh & blood : more expensive cards hit more and defend more while commons are usually the worst cards, so you can just play the math against a beginner's deck and get the win. Another issue is that you can't trade for cards in Flesh and Blood, a box of boosters will get you only 7 Majestics and all the other cards will be worthless. Also the Pay2Win aspect expands to the knowledge of the game since most of the articles discussing strategies are locked behind a patreon wall.
Some of your points are definitely valid, and some are off base
As someone who has been trying to get into the game in a budget, this is the perfect video I wanted to see in my feed
fab players should really be calling Classic Constructed a pseudo-rotating format. calling it eternal is a bit misleading as entire pools of cards can be "rotated" for months, if not more than a year at a time before becoming playable again.
That literally happens in every non-rotating game. Hell mtg now has de facto rotation of their eternal formats with the Horizon sets.
that happens in every eternal format in all tcgs. Nothing new.
@@ftgrimm1016 i mean, not really, not in the same way. flesh and blood enforces it's mini-rotation usually a few times a year as a mandatory function. if wizards decided to not power creep modern ever again it would probabaly stay 90% the same for the rest of time. if LCC decides to never print a card stronger than head jab ever again the LL system would still be forcing changes and rotations at minimum once per year (often more). i say this as a diehard fan who likes the systems FAB has, but the community has to be realistic when trying to sell the game to newcomers. otherwise we risk getting people engaged under the false pretenses that you can play the same character forever and souring them on the game when they realize otherwise.
have you heard about Yu-Gi-Oh?
@@Superaalleexx yugioh was mad dope until like 2010s, now reading a single card feels like reading a law in the constitution
I am not sure I would recommend any beginners to start with Kano
I feel if they made cards like cnc more available and cheaper overall, it would bring in more players = more $$$
Or have more common/rares that are slightly worse versions of the mythic/legendary equipments which allow a cheaper entry
Only competitive non rotating format in fab is Living Legend ... the rotation is just little bit different, but it's there
The heroes rotate, but the cards don't.
@@DMArmada I think cards also rotate when they turn to be useless after hero rotates out or you can't really play them anymore. Like ice cards right now.
Also not sure why they don't reprint those expensive majestics. CnC needed reprint like 2 years ago. Still most decks play it. They do some gimmick reprints like judge pack version (AoW) or fable version (CnC) which not really helping to the situations.
Now we starting to have other cards like Codex of frailty. I have 6 CnC's to just have two different competitive decks that I don't have to take apart all the time.. Can't even lend a deck if I had only 3.
@@wigitiPretty sure they don’t want to reprint CnC because it’s (still) too strong and they don’t want more of it around. It clearly comes from a time where power levels for some cards were clearly above rate. James White recently said they if they could, they would redo Generic cards like CnC, Fate Forseen, and Sink Below.
@@emida2012 They should ban it then.. Not reprinting a cards that most deck use, because it's too powerful is bad solution. Specially when this is competitive game and not casual one. If you go for tournaments you need to have best deck possible..
What they gonna do when CnC is 1000$ card? You need to drop 10 000$ to get best possible deck to your competitive play.. That will be the price 10 years from now if they don't reprint any key majestics.. Or maybe not, because people will quit when they are prized out, so game stops growing. Either way it's not good. Imagine if your main format is vintage mtg :D
@@wigiti Yeah, it’s not ideal. They tried printing many other good Generic 2 for 6 3 blocks, but that hasn’t really done much. I feel like sooner or later they have to embrace CnC simply being overpowered and reprint it like they did with Tunic. Can’t even imagine the days when that was a $250 card anymore haha
I find FaB cheaper once you get the generic equipments. If you go for a lesser hero even the Majestics are cheap.
Coming from Pokemon, the sticker shock for FaB was insane lol. Good thing the game is amazing or I'd have peaced out a long time ago.
Yeah, everything compared to pokémon is insane!
@DMArmada having grown up with Pokemon I'll always love it but man is hard to enjoy after moving over to FaB. There's so much more skill expression and less dependence on luck with FaB, it's crazy.
@@slotholopolis2314 pokemon for a while was not that cheap, they been doing great work for making the cost of decks cheaper and affordable for players while keeping chase cards for collectors. I think LSS could learn something from that game.
as someone whos restarting FAB - this was gold.
My wallet still hurts tho
Welcome to TCGs 😭
@@DMArmadanope Star Wars tcg 40 dollar deck(when I bought it now it’s 90) got top 2 in showdown
@@DMArmadatry buying 3-4 decks for play testing
I think with present day Magic that commander is probably the widest applicable metric to compare FaB to. But that's a lot harder to quantify, as they typically are a lot more personalized. That being said, commander decks certainly get pricey quickly.
As someone who wants to start FaBLCG now and start with Florian, am I thinking this correctly, that Rosetta Cards now are hyped and now so may opened boosters yet, so overpriced? And in a month or two prices might be way cheaper?
Super cool if you are planning on being more competitive. I'm just so grateful for the armory decks because I just want something that can play against my friends more expensive decks and not get stomped and that does it for me. :)
Do not tell people Kano is cheap. We don't need more Kanos
I would take an influx of new kanos. The new ones ain't the ones ya gotta worry about
@calebmuir5615 But they can learn. We do not need more Kanos. Unless they just blow up all the tournaments and he LLs, then we need as many Kanos as possible
We ALWAYS need more Kanos!
Unless Kano gets a big boost in Rosetta (which is very probable) he probably will be in a weird spot because more AB will be in everyone's sideboard for the runeblades and wizards already.
I know this this video is meant to encourage trying fab for newcomers, but you dodge important critique: the prices for fab decks arent stable because the format switches like every 3-4 months with LL or a new set, meaning your deck can just kind of get worse in a competetive sense. also we see important generic sideboard staples in like every set like warmongers or weakest links that become format defining 30-50 bucks cards. the reality is that as competetive player(if you play more than one deck) you need an arsenal of sideboard options that might or might not be budget friendly just to be able to deckbuild properly and decks that stay meta relevant are few and are usually not that beginner friendly (we look at you codex of frailty) to build. budget friendly decks like mech can also just suck in a local format or just be not fun. Im not a friend of forcing people in classes that fit their budget just to avoid staples also.
This is true of nearly every TCG in the hobby. I'm hardly dodging that critique by not pointing out a fact of life when any TCG experiences a new set release. If anything, this happens slightly less frequently in FAB as the sets release every 4 months vs. every 3 in many other games.
You just described every TCG except Pokemon
Oddly, FaB has a good argument that this is mitigated for a deck - a lot of the expense in a FaB deck is in the standards or the Equips. As DM said, if you pick up a Tunic, it's good for the life of the game. You will absolutely need to stay current and adapt to the meta, but that's a much cheaper option if you play a single hero or a single class. Especially if you're picking up the cheap cards when you can. I started on Azalea way back when she was terrible cause I just enjoyed her playstyle. I did not pay a ton for most of her deck because of that. Now that she's good, I've avoided most of the price spikes because I already had all those cards. When she finally LL's out, I will still have all the good cards for Ranger. But yes - if you want to be on the bleeding edge of competition all the time, pony up for the new hotness every set. That's how TCG's work.
Dash IO, lets go!
Man, if only TCGs were affordable. Way too expensive for pieces of cardboard.
i totally hate the pricing for fab cards. I recently started to play FaB with some friends. I already dropped over 100€ on boosters, 2 blitz decks, a Armory Deck and a playmat/sleeves. And i still cant even think about playing a local tournament for fun. Extremely unsatisfying. Meanwhile i started Pokemon at the same time and already got 2 top tier decks (iron thorns, lugia) for 80€. FaB is just too much fun to stop.
What is the site where you check the meta decks?
@@tamasnemeth7659 fabrary.net
No Pokémon but decks are usually $40-$110
Yeah Pokemon is the insane outlier to just about every other TCG with regards to deck prices
@@DMArmadayeah and tournaments are massive
@@nickfanzo there's a reason the game is in the Big 3! Heck, it's basically the Big 1.
@@DMArmada and it’s a great game as well
Love to see accessibility in the game to help on board new players into the game. It's a difficult line to balance cards retaining value and cards being affordable. Also, nice meeting you at Nats btw!
Any deck that doesn't run cnc is a reasonable priced deck .
Cnc is imo the only consistently overpriced card in fab
Good thing I bought ten of them when they came out 😂
Any FaB player if patient and smart enough, can make the game even cheaper than that
Way before PMT was revealed, I was buying all my ninja cards for pennies because the classe was not meta
Bought my harmony and swipes for dirt cheap, while harmony is now $40
Did the same for runeblades, knowing that LSS will bring back a strong elemental runeblade someday
I had my creepers, carapace and playset of swarming revels for 3 times cheaper than they are now
Peoples need to understand that fab singles market is so easy to navigate if you are patient
You do see how this is a problem for attracting new players right? Era advantage is a thing and if every staple goes to the moon we never get new players again. I started this game under the pretense that only equipment and a few generic cards were expensive but now even sideboard cards are expensive as hell e.g warmongers diplomacy
So basically the game is cheap if you're a speculator. Got it
@@Deingel12
So are every single TCGs ever ?
LCGs exist just to let you know, it’s like tcg but you buy the whole set from the editor and there is no randomness in what you get
Personally, from a player’s perspective, I’m happy that I have been rewarded with cheap runeblade staples because everyone else were buying into Kayo then Zen chasing the meta
@@Bakingsodaincake
how is it a problem for new players ?
A new player join your local, explain them what the meta look like atm, and that they can invest right now in top meta deck (calling powerlevel) for big bucks
Or buy into a cheaper hero because it’s not meta
Which is an accessibility factor
Warmonger, Hold the Line, CnC, codex and others strong staples are indeed expensive, it is a fact
But unfortunately that’s TCGs for you, sometimes a card is really good and everyone want it
If you need the card for your nats, you can buy it, play with it try to spike your national championship, then resell it
Because if you play 1 calling/BH a year, and all the rest of the year, you are playing at your locals and the highest stake is the armory CF, well maybe you don’t need to buy into the pro tour winning list every time there’s a new meta/set
If I want to go back to modern mtg and want a competitive Pro tour ready deck, I’m gonna have to buy my playset of rings, sheoldred and else
Each of these cards are between 50-70 each, but slots in many different decks
Or I could build merfolk or boggles, a weaker deck but more affordable
But the cards I will buy will never be able to be swapped into meta deck because archetype specific
Exactly the same as fab
Buy CnC/Warmonger, and have a strong staple playset for every hero you will play forever
@@Bakingsodaincake
No I don't see that as a problem
New player at your local ?
Explain them the meta, which hero is strong/popular, which one is not
And let them decide what to do with their money as an adult
Buy the list that dominated the nationals for big bucks ?
Knowing that as soon as a new deck becomes the best deck, prices for that deck will go gown?
Or buy a least played hero to start FaB
Which is completely fine if all they do is playing once a week at an armory
Also, yeah, Warmonger and CnC are super expensive
But if you know FaB well, you know that these cards are sideboard and are not cards a deck need to function and do what its want to do
Your Boltyn deck still completely function without CnC, you are just losing a little of agency into the decks CnC is strong against, but your deck is completely functional
Which is completely fine for an armory which highest stake is a $20 CF, let's be real
If you want to spike your nationals, and you need a playset of warmonger, but can't justify spending $150 for a playset for a hobby
Borrow the cards
Or buy them, then sell them as soon as you are back from your nationals
so most of the top tier decks are around 1.5x to 10x the price of competitve standard magic decks? Was thinking about getting into this game but thats just a hard pass. Meta decks not being accessible for sub 100 dollars for almost anything you want is just a hard dealbreaker, having to make suboptimal substitutions and not play multiple different decks cheapens the experience. I've heard that this game is cheap to get into but i guess not. If meta is not available to casual players because of budget, your game is not new player friendly.
Well, as a previous magic player, there is a bit more nuance to "playing multiple decks" in flesh and blood. Do you want to build one, two or three classes? I would say that it's quite rare for people to like more than three classes. If you try fab on talishar for about six months to get an idea of what you like completely for free, you could just pick the class you want to buy into. Buying into a class and make something absolutely top tier after you deck built and tried on talishar is about 450 euros on average (200 to 700). Buying into new classes are usually cheaper after the first, like 200 euros, but it's very unlikely you will do it cause you will be actually probably stuck in the class you like and deckbuilding in that class is virtually free after the initial investment. Acquiring new staples and spicy pieces that you are actually using in the classes you run is about 150 euros a year if you want to stay updated on the best cards. Fab is a hyper consistent game that rewards hero mastery more than anything else, so sticking to a budget build for 6 months could give you more success than running all the staples. In magic if you want to try different deck archetypes in your favorite color you have to acquire a higher variety of much more expensive cards, and playing decks that play completely different is much more expensive (although it's true, the mana base in non rotating formats is a long term investment, but you could argue that a good mana base in modern for a two color deck is a much bigger investment than buying into a class)
"it can go toe to toe with Zen for damage" is such a lie! Zen can push 30-40 damage turns, Kano can push 300-400 damage turns.
Kano lowkey BDIF
For any players looking to get in to this game, this is standard FaB Cult hivemind coping. "This game isnt expensive" or "you dont need all these expensive cards." FaB is so outrageously expensive, the new players run away when they see the price of generic staples, which is close to $1000. Budget in this game is $500... outside of the 2 decks you showed that not everyone wants to play. Why cant FaB players call out the issue? Instead we get these $250 "budget" lists when realistically there are cards in this game that are not AA that cost $300: Eye, Heart, and Shard. Individual pieces of Equipment costs +$100...
If you are using eye, heart, sharp as examples to add to your argument then you are new and actually do not understand what those cards are or how to play the game.
As someone who got into this game in the past few weeks - £10 for a Blitz deck, a friendly person on the UK Discord sent me a couple of kg of the basic cards so I have options for cost of postage. My hero, two sets of 3 hero action cards and a special hero equipment which puts me into a respectable deck to learn with that’s avoiding pricey stuff - £30. With the postage for the donation and the blitz deck, I’m about £45 into this game and reckon I could play a solid six months at local Armories to get some reps in without needing anything more.
Sure, I’d do better with 3 Command and Conquers and a Spring Tunic, but the difference that gives when I’m learning the game and the meta is so marginal it’s daft to throw money at.
@birdsflapatnighttogether2304 No, you are just proving my arguments, "you don't need x card." It's the shear denial from this community that is so wild to me. I have 5 decks put together currently. You must be confused that someone who actually plays the game could ever have anything negative to say about it.
Which generic staples are you including in that 1k figure? Crown, Tunic, C&Cx3, and E.Strikex3 are around $510. $570 if you choose Balance over Crown. Art of War and anything beyond it is fairly hero specific.
@ravenousbabble the same list that FaBRec uses for generic staples:
Fyendals: $100
Crown of Prov: $80
Balance: $130
3x Warmongers: $195
3x c&c: $250
3x E.Strike: $90
3x Art of War: $105
So what's that $950 before taxes, shipping, and handling? Not counting the cheapo Staples like Sinks and such. And also not counting class specifics like Phantasmals, Creepers etc.
i assume the cost of almost all decks being bumped up right now is because of Worlds coming up?? lol
Great video
A very important PSA: Price on FaBrary means next to nothing. *Not all cards are going to have price there.* That might skew the price way too much to the ground and give a false impression of the deck being cheap. Always check the Pricing tab
I checked the pricing tab on all of these via TCGplayer
Maybe Living Legend should apply to all cards.
No
Dude skipped Pokémon when top decks are like $140 and a nationals tournament has like 3000 people
Prices are kept artificially high by gluttonous basement dwelling card flippers who by up the stock and hold piles of cards hostage to an arbitrarily high price
This certainly was the case in FaB a few years ago (And was absolutely a very real problem). But thankfully, LSS has taken a lot of action to quell this kind of behavior in regards to most of the playable tournament staples thanks to pack restructuring and well needed reprints. We've been seeing a steady decline in the average price of most of the high dollar staples, and most of the crypto-bros who tried to horde FaB staples have bailed out at this point. There's still more work to be done to ensure accessibility for everyone, but LSS is definitely taking the right steps so far.
TCGs are pay to win so no, this isnt any different