Flesh and Blood, Tolarian Community College team up for new boxed set

Flesh and Blood, the upstart competitor to Magic: The Gathering, has constructed up loads of steam since its launch in 2019. Primarily performed as a two-player dueling recreation, it has a thriving aggressive scene, with 4,000 shops worldwide serving to promote its organized play program. But till now, the sport hasn’t had an introductory boxed set geared towards extra informal gamers.

Now the New Zealand-based firm has teamed up with Brian “The Professor” Lewis, the trading-card-game guru behind the favored Tolarian Community College YouTube channel, to create Round the Table, a new four-player boxed set accessible on Sept. 29. It contains 4 decks of playing cards constructed round FAB’s present Ultimate Pit Fight multiplayer format. According to writer Legend Story Studios, the sport was constructed particularly with new gamers in thoughts, and contains all new hero characters — together with one primarily based on Lewis himself.

Image: Legend Story Studios

In Flesh and Blood, gamers tackle the function of fantasy warriors engaged in one-on-one enviornment fight. Players use gadgets like weapons and armor, in addition to particular strikes performed from a small hand of playing cards. These strikes type a “combat chain,” the place characters commerce assaults, parries, spells, and different maneuvers to disrupt their opponents, break their guard, and do harm. The first participant to deliver their opponent to zero well being wins. But what actually makes FAB stand aside is its dedication to native recreation shops.

“Flesh and Blood is a true indie game,” Lewis informed Polygon in an interview on Wednesday. “That’s something very rare in [trading card game] spaces. It’s the only major TCG game that I know of that is not owned by a huge corporation like Konami or Hasbro. But rather, it was created by an individual, James White.”

Speaking with Polygon in 2022, White emphasised his personal objectives for the franchise, which concentrate on community-building.

“People typically have work, they have home, and then they have a third place,” White mentioned on the time. “For some people there’s a sports club, or it’s church, or it’s the pub, or maybe it’s like a music club or something like that. But for gamers — for tabletop gamers — traditionally it’s been the local game store.”

“The local game store still played a really important role in my life,” White continued. “It kept me grounded.”

Lewis shares his love of native recreation outlets at a really deep degree.

“Your local game store is the last gathering point,” Lewis mentioned, “where kids and teenagers can go to find a safe environment to engage in activities that involve creativity, strategic planning, mathematics, [and to] make friends. And this is true too for adults. How do you make friends as an adult? […] Game stores are where grownups can make friends like they used to do at school.”

Newbies aren’t the one goal demographic for the sport. Long-time followers of FAB are additionally in for a deal with. In addition to The Professor as a playable hero, Round the Table additionally contains the sport’s first legally playable bard, Melody.

“Her attacks are songs,” Lewis mentioned. “Like any good artist, she doesn’t work for exposure. Every time she plays a song she gets paid and receives coppers.”

Regarding the worth contained in the field, Lewis calls Round the Table his “dream product.” It embody 4 pre-constructed Ultimate Pit Fight blitz decks, which repeatedly promote for $14.99. More than 100 of these playing cards are new to the sport, with a lot of them designed particularly for multiplayer video games. Also bundled inside is a 24-inch high-quality rubber playmat and a thousand-count card storage field, so little or no of the packaging goes to waste.

Round the Table: TCC x LSS might be on sale solely at native recreation shops starting Sept. 29. Fans ought to anticipate finding it for sale at $69.99.