FAB CALLING: BIRMINGHAM

As England prepared for its first ever Flesh and Blood Calling tournament, we followed the action to find out who would be crowned the first UK Champion

Written by Matthew Vernall

Ahush falls over the hall. At the North side of the NEC Birmingham, 426 players are waiting for the judges to commence the timer, with one person sitting on the sidelines with their round one bye.

The timer starts and there is a cascading sound of card shuffling that heralds the start of the tournament to determine the UK’s first ever Flesh and Blood Calling Champion.

Flesh and Blood has always been designed with competitive play in mind. Created by New Zealander James White, this was always planned to be collectable card game that tested players to prove their cardplaying prowess. Whilst an unfortunately timed release led to a bumpy start for their competitive scene (the game’s second set released on March 27th 2020), as the world has now properly opened up again Legend Story Studios has rolled out a series of tournaments across the world, culminating later this year in Barcelona at the World Championships.

Entry for that tournament is available to the highest placed players at Birmingham, in addition to the cash prize of $5000 (a little under £4000) to first place, with anyone ranked 32nd or higher still earning at least $250.

With the chance to make history, earn their place at the World Championship and serious cash prizes on the line, you could feel the buzzing energy emenating from the hall, as players prepared for the battles ahead over the two-day event.

Congratulations to Jodie Dorling for their winning costume of Ira performing the action “Whirling Mist Blossom”.

For those who weren’t ready to answer the call (or who had been unsuccessful and dropped out from the tournament early) there was still plenty to do. Artists Othon Nikolaidis and Tomasz Jedruszek were in attendance, signing cards and selling art prints of their most well-known illustrations from the game, Saturday saw the cosplay contest with the winner an exclusive version of the hero ‘Taylor,’ a card only available through participating in officialFAB cosplay events. There was also a wide variety of stall vendors buying and trading cards with players eager to complete their dream decks or looking to offload their collections to raise funds for side events.

With a full timetable running alongside the main event of the weekend, players could experience other popular formats at a competitive level, from special sealed events like Shapeshifter (where class and talent doesn’t need to match your hero, leading to all sorts of wild card combinations) to other popular constructed formats like Commoner (played using only common or token rarity cards) and Ultimate Pit Fight (a fan made multiplayer format where players can only interact with opponents on their immediate left or right, whittling away until one hero is left standing.)