Greetings and salutations my fabulous FAB folks! Welcome back to another installment of our UPF brew series here on FABREC! As always, I am some random #fabdad also known as Donnie K. (Or @Dracohominis87, depending on where you find me.) I wanted us to look at one of my favorite new heroes from Heavy Hitters this week and see what we could do with them in Flesh and Blood‘s multiplayer format. I don’t know what it is about Betsy, but I love the flavor of this hero. Her story, her style, her mechanics, everything just clicks and screams “FUN” when I look at her. Without further ado, let’s get started!

Betsy for President 2024!

While we do have a Blitz pre-constructed deck we could use as a starting point, I opted not to. I’m sure you could have fun with that list, but my goal is to play Betsy as a political force. Betsy is at the table to, literally, throw her weight around and have your opponents aim their cards elsewhere. It doesn’t matter to us if it’s out of fear of a big bonk coming their way in retribution, or because of the wheeling and dealing we’ll be doing. We want to shake our opponents’ hands with our right while holding our hammer, ready to swing, in our left.

But, which hammer? There are legitimate reasons to run any old bonk stick, and I think it boils down to preference in multiplayer games. I want to pair my weapon with a shield, so we’re going one-handed with this list, and Titan’s Fist is the most consistent option. Most of our deck is going to trigger the plus one, so that’s going to be our starting point.

Getting Dressed for the Party?

Absolutely! Since I started out with a theme in mind on what I want to do during the game, the equipment suite sort of built itself. We’re borrowing heavily from Brevant, Civic Protector‘s pre-constructed deck from Round the Table and wearing four out of five pieces of his gear. Every piece from that set offers a buff we can use to as a bargaining chip in different situations with different opponents, but I don’t think Betsy would be Betsy without her hat.

The Good Time Chapeau is my head piece of choice for this build, based on flavor, not necessarily on being best in slot all the time. (Obviously, feel free to replace it with the last piece from Brevant’s kit for maximum political influence if flavor is less important to you.)

Taking the Stage with Betsy!

Betsy is a performer, and she has a stage to work. I know not everyone will have access to Fable rarity cards and that’s fine, it’s definitely not critical, but I’m including the Deathmatch Arena in the list. I love the mental image of Betsy standing on a pile of corpses, surrounded by blood and sand, campaigning for everyone’s favor. (While wearing Brevant’s shiny armor with a big floppy hat on!) The Arena will open up the whole table to our political machinations and we stand to benefit the most from the chaos.

Speaking of expensive tastes, if ever there was a deck that wanted the UPF holy trinity, this is it. It may seem like I tend to include Warmonger's, Good Deeds, and/or This Round’s on Me in most of my UPF deck lists, but they’re just so good in multiplayer Flesh and Blood. If you don’t have them, don’t sweat it. Just replace them all with a few blues that block for three and preferably have a cost three or greater for the hammer. Easy swap.

Ok, We’re All Decked Out. What’s Next?

“Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” ~Theodore Roosevelt

Alright, now let’s talk about the big stick we’re going to hang over people’s heads: our red cards. Guardians are known for big attacks and Betsy definitely likes going big before she goes home. Bet Big and the wager creating buff cards, Bigger Than Big and Big Bop, are auto-includes at red. We’ll add some traditional Guardian attacks like Crush the Weak and Spinal Crush too, and we definitely want Wage Gold in there.

Earthlore Empowerment also seems like a good threat, but I only want one for now since our other buffs also boost the hammer. Test of Strength and Money Where Ya Mouth Is should round out our red package nicely as potential Gold generators.

And How Are We Going to Pay for All This?

Our yellows won’t pitch particularly well since most of our cards cost three, so we’re restricting them to only four slots. Boulder Drop is going in at both available color slots and the other yellow will be the political gold mine I mentioned above, Good Deeds Don’t Go Unnoticed.

As we all know, Guardians have some of the best blue pitch cards in the game, so I had a hard time narrowing down where I wanted to go with them. Staple cards are staples in their decks for a reason though, so Tear Asunder, Macho Grande, and Crush the Weak were easy. I went with a couple of extra copies of some of our red cards as well, then landed on Concuss as one of our final slots.

Is That All for Betsy?

Not quite. We’ve got to talk about sideboard options! Due to the nature of multiplayer games, the options are nearly infinite. I’m planning on playing Chapeau into most games, but if there’s a Wizard at the table, having a different hat might make our lives a little easier. Arcane damage has to be respected (as people are finding out in Classic Constructed right now), so our first sideboard slot will go towards Arcanite Skullcap.

Emerging Dominance felt like a good addition if the table features a lot of other Guardians, and so does Buckle in the blue slot. Oasis Respite gives us options for saving ourselves or saving others for our eventual benefit, so we’ll put those in too. (Options are good. We like having options.)

Put all of the above together and the final list looks like this:

The List!

" VOTE FOR BETSY!"

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Hero (1) 1 Betsy Weapons (1) 1 Titan’s Fist Equipment (5) 1 Bastion of Duty 1 Civic Duty 1 Civic Guide 1 Civic Steps 1 Good Time Chapeau Main (40) 1 Deathmatch Arena 2 Bet Big 2 Big Bop red 2 Bigger than Big red 2 Crush the Weak red 1 Earthlore Empowerment red 2 Money Where Ya Mouth Is red 2 Spinal Crush red 2 Test of Strength red 2 Wage Gold red 2 Boulder Drop yellow 2 Good Deeds Don’t Go Unnoticed 1 Big Bop blue 1 Bigger Than Big blue 2 Boulder Drop blue 2 Concuss blue 2 Crush the Weak blue 2 Macho Grande blue 2 Money Where Ya Mouth Is blue 2 Tear Asunder 2 This Round’s on Me 2 Warmonger’s Diplomacy blue Sideboard (6) 1 Emerging Dominance red 2 Oasis Respite red 2 Buckle 1 Arcanite Skullcap

Final Thoughts on Betsy in UPF

First off, I’d suggest that you don’t take this list completely seriously. I don’t think this is the 100% optimal way to build this hero, it’s just the way I think is the most fun for my personal UPF playstyle. Like Betsy, I’m here for a good time, not for a long time, so this feels like a fun way to bully…, ahem, introduce politics into your Ultimate Pit Fight night. Even without the expensive pieces, you can build a similar list and do roughly the same things. So put together what you’ve got and use this as a jumping off point for your own Chapeau-loving Guardian brews!

What are your thoughts on Betsy in UPF? Does she get your creative juices flowing? Did you happen to pull a young Betsy marvel and need an excuse to use it? What would you replace the political pieces with in your own list if you needed to?

Finally, if you want to chat hit me up on Discord or Twitter as Dracohominis87 or the comments section of the podcast I’ve been doing with my friends for a while now. (Siblings in Cardboard – A Flesh and Blood Podcast.)

Take care!

Further Reading:

Multiplayer Card Design in Flesh and Blood

Heavy Hitters Blitz Deck Review – Betsy and Victor

Fighting Fatigue in Flesh and Blood

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.