FAB 101: Arcane Rising Classes

Welcome back to this series providing an overview of the classes in Flesh and Blood! This article will cover the Arcane Rising classes — let’s get into it! Note that these classes often have somewhat more “advanced” mechanics compared to the original group — if you’re just starting to learn the game, it might be better to start with one of the initial four instead.

That said, these characters have some cool mechanics of their own, and maybe one of them will strike your fancy!

Dash (Mechanologist)

Mechanologist is a class that can use items to build up a persistent board state. While most classes do not play “permanent” effects and even most aura cards go away after a turn or two, Mechanologist can assemble items that potentially stick around for a long time — some for the entire game! However, unlike most other cards items cannot block — this means they are risky to run too many of, as a hand full of items might leave you in a very vulnerable place.

The Mechanologist class mechanic is Boost, which allows you to exile the top card of your deck when playing certain cards — if the exiled card is a Mechanologist card, the card you just played gains go again! This means a Mechanologist deck can potentially be very aggressive if built with lots of Mechanologist cards, using repeated boosts to overwhelm the opponent. However, neutral cards can be a major liability in such a deck, and boosting can make you run out of cards faster as well…

Azalea (Ranger)

Ranger uses a bow and arrow to set up powerful attacks against the opponent. Unlike other weapons, Ranger’s bows cannot attack on their own — instead, they have effects that are used to place cards into your arsenal. Arrows are represented by attack cards that can only be played from arsenal but feature unusually powerful effects. Ranger also has access to traps — defense reactions that can penalize the opponent further if they don’t spend more energy to avoid them, but can only be played from arsenal. Overall, Ranger is a little complex or “fiddly”, but when everything gets set up right your arrows can do some major damage!

The Ranger class mechanic is Reload, which allows you to place a card in arsenal in addition to their other effects of certain cards. This helps you fire arrows more consistently, as well as allowing you to potentially set up traps during your opponent’s turn!

(Author’s note: As of this writing, Ranger is currently considered significantly weaker than the other classes in the game. I would not recommend starting with Ranger unless you fancy a challenge!)

Viserai (Runeblade)

Runeblade attacks with a mix of physical and arcane damage, using Runechant tokens to bolster physical attacks with added “ping damage” for one arcane each. While this arcane damage can be blocked for one resource per by anyone who equips an item with Arcane Barrier 1, the mixed damage types can make Runeblade attacks harder to defend against — blocking is already complicated, and only gets more so when you’re dealing with attacks that deal multiple types of damage that have to be blocked separately.

The Runeblade class mechanic is Runechant tokens, which can be built up over time and then deal 1 arcane damage each before your next physical attack. While you must use all your Runechant tokens at once (they aren’t optional), you can alter your attack and non-attack action pattern to either build up lots of Runechants for a huge blast or use smaller amounts more frequently. Several Runeblade cards are also weak for their price initially, but are discounted by the number of Runechant tokens you have out and can potentially become very efficient indeed.

Kano (Wizard)

Wizard is a class that focuses on arcane damage, often to the exclusion of all else! Many Wizard decks don’t do physical damage at all, instead using arcane damage to make it harder for opponents to defend. While one can equip Arcane Barrier items for protection against Wizard, most decks will be less able to block arcane than physical damage, since blocking arcane involves pitching rather than using the normal block value and most decks have an average block value significantly higher than their average pitch value. However, the only current Wizard hero starts with significantly less health than other characters, so some opponents may choose to simply try to “race” the Wizard rather than pitching much for Arcane Barrier.

The Wizard class mechanic is playing at instant speed. While some instants exist in other classes, Wizard has far more than others and can even play normal actions at instant speed via certain effects. This means Wizard can threaten to kill you on your own turn with instant-speed arcane damage! I’ve had multiple games against Wizard that led to a situation where I thought “well, one of us is going to die this turn — the only question is who!” One Wizard tactic is to wait for the opponent to have played several cards, then attack with instant-speed arcane damage before they can draw up new cards that could potentially be used on defense.

There you have it! If you want to see the original classes again, check out my previous article — and stay tuned for another article which will cover the “special case” classes of Shapeshifter and Merchant! (Those classes are not designed for standard constructed play, so they’re a bit of a different thing…)

(Flesh and Blood and its card art is © Legend Story Studios.)