(Melody, Sing-along | Art by Andy Aslamov)

Greetings and salutations once again, my fabulous FAB folk! I’m Donnie K., aka some random #FABDad, and today you’ve clicked on something new that I’ll be doing for FABREC!

In this series, I’m looking at the different young heroes available to play in Flesh and Blood‘s Ultimate Pit Fight format (UPF) and how I would build those heroes to play in a game with my friends around the table! (Pun definitely intended.) Without further ado, let’s get started with our first hero: Melody, Sing-along!

Melody- The New Bard in Town!

With the hype surrounding the recently released Round the Table product, I want to offer my thoughts and suggestions on how to upgrade the Melody, Sing-along preconstructed deck first. Melody is the hero from this product that I’m most excited to tweak for my own enjoyment, and it seems a lot of other players out there feel the same. For reference, this is the deck list as it comes originally from the packaging:

" Melody Deck from Round the Table"

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Hero (1) 1 Melody, Sing-along Weapons (1) 1 Jinglewood, Smash Hit Equipment (4) 1 Heart-throb 1 Fiddle-dee 1 Nom de Plume 1 Quickstep Main (40) 2 Coax a Commotion red 2 Crowd Control red 2 Final Act 2 Interlude red 2 Life of the Party red 2 Sigil of Solace red 2 Crowd Control yellow 2 Encore 2 Interlude yellow 2 Crazy Brew blue 2 Crowd Control blue 1 Energy Potion blue 1 Healing Potion blue 2 Interlude blue 1 Potion of Strength blue 2 Song of Jack-be-Quick 2 Song of Sweet Nectar 2 Song of the Rosen Matador 2 Song of the Shining Knight 2 Song of the Wandering Mind 2 Song of Yesteryears 1 Timesnap Potion blue

There’s a lot to be said about just leaving your Melody precon deck as is, of course; the decks in Round the Table are very well-balanced to play against each other, after all. But Melody is the hero that’s likely to be my main choice any time I sit down to play UPF.

With that in mind, a few cuts are needed to make room for the things that I want to add in.

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What Changes Are We Making to the Equipment?

For the sake of enjoyment, I’ll most often be playing with the equipment included in Melody’s precon. Part of the fun for me is the flavor of what I’m doing with my deck, especially in a casual format. I want to feel like I’m a bard, singing for my supper while dodging whatever might be thrown at me from a hostile crowd.

Although the precon gear is perfectly suited for what Melody wants to do most of the time, if you do want to add armor points to protect yourself in case of emergency, there are a few good generic options available.

Arcanite Skullcap is an all-star in UPF since you’ll almost always have less life than one of the other three players in the game. As long as one other player has more life than you, Skullcap has its effect turned on, providing you with up to three points of physical block value and Arcane Barrier 3.

Since most multiplayer games tend to go longer, Fyendal’s Spring Tunic can provide you with several resources and a point of block in a critical moment as well. I’m going to include these two in my sideboard, but if they aren’t an option for you, the Ironhide and Nullrune cycles of equipment can serve as a source of solid block value instead.

What Are We Cutting from the Main Deck?

The way the Melody precon is designed, and the way I intend to play the deck, is in a “group hug” style. There are a lot of mind games and politicking that goes on in multiplayer card games, and group hug is the playstyle for people that want to make sure everyone else is having the best game they can. While they do though, they’re also subtly setting themselves up for a big finish when they’ve been ignored and have outlasted all but one or two of the other players. This means that we try to provide everyone else in the game with valuable things that help their game plan, so they’ll hopefully leave us alone long enough for us to set up for the Final Act.

The first things that are on my chopping block are in the item suite. Melody wants to play defensively and act innocent for a while and, although the potions in the deck are less likely to draw aggro from our opponents, I think there are better uses of our slots. Specifically, we’ll be switching some of the potions out for cards that block. I like the one of Timesnap Potion and the Energy Potion as setup for the final turn where we’re going to try to win, but Crazy Brew, Healing Potion, and Potion of Strength don’t make the cut for me. Since Crazy Brew is going out, I’m going to cut the two Life of the Party along with it.

What Are We Adding to the Deck?

First off, I know not everyone is going to have access to the content creator promo, Good Deeds Don’t Go Unnoticed. Fortunately for me though, I have two that I can use thanks to meeting several creators at Pro Tour: Baltimore who were giving them out. (Go to the big events if you’re able. They’re worth it on so many levels.)

Good Deeds does almost everything we want in a UPF card. It blocks for three, provides two resources if we need it to, and makes everyone else at the table feel good about leaving us alone. What I’ll often do is ask the turn player what benefit they want at the beginning of their turn whenever Good Deeds is on the board. It’s hard to justify attacking the person who gives you exactly what you asked for, after all. (There’s an alternative in the sideboard section if you don’t have it though.)

This Round’s on Me is an auto-include, since it’s a blue pitch block three card with a great text box. It does double duty when you play it, as it not only provides everyone an extra card to use, but also gives opponents a solid reason to aim their attacks elsewhere until your next turn. We want both copies we’re allowed to use.

Finally, Warmonger’s Diplomacy is the other card I’m going to add to the main deck as a two-of. The power of this card has been proven repeatedly in Classic Constructed recently, and in UPF it can give everyone a little breathing room. At its worst, it’s a blue pitch/block three, so that’s already an upgrade over what the potions we cut would have provided.

What About Sideboard Options?

The rules update received with the Banned and Suspended announcement on Sept. 19, 2023 made it so Blitz, Commoner, and UPF all share the same deck size/building rules. We now have 52 total cards we can include in our UPF decks, including a 40-card minimum main deck and up to twelve slots to use for our sideboard, weapon, and equipment suite. Since I’ll be using seven slots for equipment, (the five Bard pieces, Arcanite Skullcap, and Fyendal’s Spring Tunic,) that leaves five slots we can fill with other things.

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Two copies of Oasis Respite is an obvious choice for the deck. It can provide you with a large chunk of damage prevention or it can turn you into some other player’s best friend when you save them from a lethal attack. (For your eventual benefit, of course.) Political plus sides and solid defense? Yes please.

I probably would’ve never looked at Enchanting Melody outside of the context of the new Bard. The fact that it wasn’t included in the original precon feels like a missed opportunity from Legend Story Studios. The flavor is so perfectly on point I want to try to find a spot for it main deck, but everything I want to cut is already gone. If you don’t have access to Good Deeds Don’t Go Unnoticed, this would be a fine replacement card that you can get cheaply. Two red copies going in.

The last slot is a bit of a throw-in. The Bard card pool is slim right now since Melody is the first of her class that is officially legal to play. With that in mind, you could put just about anything into the last slot and it would be fine. I’m going to be using a single blue Unmovable in my board since there are a lot of Guardian players in my locals.

The Final List

The list below is what I’m playing any time I sit down with Melody. I’m going for a blend of optimal and enjoyable, and I think cutting the potions for the majestics will make for a more solid defense and better overall experience. (Here’s a link to the list on Fabrary.net if you want to save it for yourself for later.)

" Melody at Full Potential"

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Hero (1) 1 Melody, Sing-along Weapons (1) 1 Jinglewood, Smash Hit Equipment (6) 1 Arcanite Skullcap 1 Fiddle-dee 1 Fyendal’s Spring Tunic 1 Heart-throb 1 Nom de Plume 1 Quickstep Main (45) 2 Coax a Commotion red 2 Crowd Control red 2 Enchanting Melody red 2 Final Act 2 Interlude red 2 Oasis Respite red 2 Sigil of Solace red 1 Unmovable red 2 Crowd Control yellow 2 Encore 2 Good Deeds Don’t Go Unnoticed 2 Interlude yellow 2 Crowd Control blue 1 Energy Potion blue 2 Interlude blue 2 Song of Jack-be-Quick 2 Song of Sweet Nectar 2 Song of the Rosen Matador 2 Song of the Shining Knight 2 Song of the Wandering Mind 2 Song of Yesteryears 2 This Round’s on Me blue 1 Timesnap Potion blue 2 Warmonger’s Diplomacy blue

Do you agree with the changes I made to the list? Do you have access to Good Deeds promos? If so, what’s the story of how you got them? What’s your favorite hero to play in UPF right now? You can let me know in the comments section, or by looking me up on Discord or Twitter with the handle @Dracohominis87. If you want to hear me gush over Melody any time UPF comes up on my new podcast, check out Siblings in Cardboard – A Flesh and Blood Podcast, where two of my friends and I go over all the latest game news and gossip every week!

Donnie K.

Donnie is an enthusiastic nerd and family man who grew up playing TCGs, starting when Pokemon cards were the hottest thing on the playground. After playing Yu-gi-oh and then Magic the Gathering for years, he found Flesh and Blood in December of '22, sold all of his other pretty cardboard rectangles, and dived into FAB head first where he discovered a deep love for go-wide strategies involving the use of Ninja cards. Be Like Water is his current favorite card, because he gets to do a terrible Bruce Lee impression every time it's played. (Much to the annoyance of his brother who hears it a lot.) Donnie has been married to his lovely wife since Halloween 2008 and has two beautiful daughters that he couldn't be more proud of.