(Shitty Xmas Present | Art by Sam Yang)

Old Man Winter’s Bauble Friends

A little known fact about Oldhim is that he actually nurses sick baubles back to health again. He does this by bringing them home and feeding them the tears of people who are bad at drafting Flesh and Blood. When they’ve reached a point where he feels that they can survive in the wild, he releases them into unsuspecting UPF players’ decks to spread the joy.

For some reason though, they never seem to share his affinity for the little guys.

How We Got Here

Every year in December my local community hosts a meme month. In meme month we all agree to bring decks designed to do goofy things. Some favorites in the past have been Swordswoman Azalea, Petting Zoo (No Sandikai Dromai), and Merchant Potion OTK. This year we added UPF to the formats for December, alongside Blitz. This deck is the result of me realizing I could play Shitty Xmas Present and wondering exactly how I could maximize the number of times I get to play it in a game.

The interesting thing about this list is that it’s almost all generics. This actually makes it able to be almost any hero you would want it to be. It started as a Viserai deck, and that’s how it was played at the event. After that, I theory-crafted with a Briar list. But in the end, I decided that Oldhim has the highest potential if I want to bring this strategy to a normal UPF game.

Bauble Oldhim

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Hero (1) 1 Oldhim Weapons (1) 1 Winter’s Wail Equipment (6) 1 Civic Duty 1 Crown of Seeds 1 Civic Guide 1 Winter’s Wail 1 Bastion of Duty 1 Civic Steps Main (40) 1 Gorganian Tome 2 Cadaverous Contraband Red 2 Coax a Commotion 2 Fate Foreseen Red 2 Give and Take 2 Lead the Charge Red 2 Oasis Respite Red 1 Reinforce the Line Red 2 Sink Below Red 2 Strategic Planning Red 2 Cadaverous Contraband Yellow 2 Remembrance 2 Shitty Xmas Present 2 Strategic Planning Yellow 2 Cadaverous Contraband Blue 2 Chivalry 2 Macho Grande Blue 2 Never Yield 2 Sift Blue 2 This Round’s on Me 2 Tome of Harvests Inventory (6) 1 Arcane Lantern 1 Rampart of the Ram’s Head 1 Heart of Ice 1 Nullrune Gloves 2 Sigil of Solace Red

So, Why Should I Play This Deck?

This deck is for one thing and one thing only: it’s just a fun pile. It’s been optimized to do something that doesn’t win the game. Though, if you like to have fun and maybe annoy your friends a little, this is a great way to do it.

Anatomy of the Deck

The Baublemania

The main card for the Bauble core is Shitty Xmas Present. The problem is that we only have access to two of them. To alleviate this, the deck is playing a ton of recursion. One of the strongest pieces for this is Cadaverous Contraband, which lets us put the present back on top of the deck if it hits. The easiest way to do this is to make a deal with a person that if they let it hit, you’ll give the Bauble to the other player you can target. This form of bargaining will be important to succeed with this deck.

The next powerful recursive piece is probably my favorite. Give and Take can let you recur multiple cards if you know when to play it. Look for the neighbor that’s complaining that their hand doesn’t do anything and see if you can make a deal with them to get a multi-block. Moving on from that, we also have a red and yellow Strategic Planning. These are great for recurring most things in the deck. I usually use the reds to grab copies of Contraband and the yellows for Give and Take. While it might be tempting to shuffle the presents back into deck, we have enough things that put them back on top that it’s typically worth trying to keep them in the grave for as long as you can.

Gee Bill, How Come Your Mom Lets You Have Two Baubles?

Another card to mention is Lead the Charge. If you find one of these you can give Xmas Present go again. This is particularly entertaining when you find yourself with two copies of Present in hand to double-bauble people. They can also enable other strong plays because extra action points are at a low in this deck.

Filtering the Pile

The deck is built around two cards in 40. That means we want to be able to see a lot of our deck quickly. To help with that, we’re playing a handful of cards to filter, the first of which is Sift. This card is great – it blocks three, it’s blue, and it can help dig. Another standout for this category is Tome of Harvests. For the low price of cycling your arsenal, this card lets you see three more cards.

Speaking of cycling arsenals, one of the big reasons that this is an Oldhim deck is that it has the ability to run Crown of Seeds. Digging one card deeper than most decks each turn makes this deck much faster than most at finding the cards it wants. A lesser but still relevant contribution to the filterers is Sink Below. This card stands out as a great block, but it also gets one card deeper into the pile.

Card Draw and General UPF Fun

UPF comes with a short list of cards that are more fun in the format. On the top of that list is Gorganian Tome. When you play the game with multiple people, this card can get into the realm of drawing three or more cards for zero resources. The next staple is This Round’s on Me. Drawing cards is fun – it can be a bargaining chip, and making attacks a little smaller is always good. This Round actually ends up being one of my recursion targets when I really want the table to like me.

The last of the general UPF cards included here is Coax a Commotion. I mostly just think this card is fun, and you always have to include some cards for fun in UPF.

Making Friends

Getting Cracked Baubles put in your deck is annoying. Because of this, you need ways to make friends. This is another reason Oldhim ended up being the hero for this deck, because he borrows most of Brevant‘s equip suite and can leverage it to make some friends.

Copying more of Brevant’s homework, there are two copies of Chivalry in the pile to help any opponent that you might want on your side. The same idea is there when looking at Oasis Respite and Reinforce the Line. These two cards’ instant speed and wording allow you to use them to help out your allies.

The Inventory

Most of the inventory cards in this list are in case you see someone playing Kano. Getting dunked by Wizards for not bringing Arcane Barrier is annoying. The Sigil of Solaces are for if you feel like the table might not want to be friends, in which case you can swap them in and play with a little more life.

Rampart of the Ram’s Head is mostly there because I’ve played Oldhim for a long time and don’t like to build him without it. It also comes in handy when there are no friends to be had, or if you suspect a Pistol Mech at the table.

The Wrap Up

While this may not be the most competitive UPF deck, I think it’s one of the most fun. So, give it a try, and hopefully your friends aren’t too annoyed with their presents.

Further Reading:

Ultimate Pit Fight – Multiplayer Flesh and Blood

Multiplayer Card Design in Flesh and Blood

Oldhim Deckbuilding for Commoner

Jo O'Brien

Jo (they/them) is an avid Flesh and Blood player, judge and, writer. They are one of the blitz specialists here at FABREC. Jo has played a lot of classes and heroes but, they have an affinity for two heroes in particular, Dash and Valda. When not playing FaB, Jo is typically filling their free time playing guitar, playing Apex Legends, or building their next Rube Goldberg machine of a deck.