The World is Watching Osaka

We are about to witness the culmination of the 2024 Organized Play experience… The World Championship in Osaka. Not only is the competition at its peak, but this is also the cementation of Japan as a hub for Flesh and Blood‘s worldwide tournament scene. The excitement is through the roof in anticipation of the exquisite promos, breakout Japanese players, and wild takes on, yes, the ever-evolving Rosetta metagame. 

And evolve it will. For the first time before a Tier 4, we are facing a singular deck being injected into the competition. This is a wildly different pattern than a new set’s release or a banlist to stymie the power or a format, but it’s something we are going to have to get used to with the release cadence of Armory Decks. 

Dash I/O‘s new support, however, is not to discredit the rest of what we can garner about the format. So while we let these short weeks play out to color what Dash I/O will do, let’s review what we know about all the Tier 2 and 3 played in the Rosetta Limited and Constructed formats so far.

Rosetta Limited

We’ve seen four major events to lead us into the ever-so-critical six rounds of draft at Worlds. Things kicked off with Calling: Tampa, which saw a Top 8 Draft that featured an even split of Earth and Lightning, but with three Runeblades and one Wizard on each side. This may have been influenced by how comfortable players had gotten with Runeblades across the Sealed portion of the event, where Florian and Aurora were standouts, but nevertheless, Lucas Oswald, one of the three Florians, took down the whole event.

As we saw pre-releases roll around the following week, community sentiment was similar to what we’d seen so far: Florian was overperforming. Draft queues started firing online, teams began discussing their thoughts on the format, and sure enough, what he heard was absolute praise for Rosetta Limited. No, it was not perceived to be a Florian-dominated format as more exploration uncovered. 

Sure enough, the next Calling in Sydney gave us a perfect Top 8 with two of each hero represented and then one of each hero advancing to Top 4. Despite the diversity, Florian took his second crown this time in the hands of Calling: Queenstown winner Darryn Ying. Surprisingly, his deck had more yellows than it did reds or blues, so there is something fundamentally strong about Florian that is overcoming low-powered cards. 

At this point, the narrative was shifting. So much of Limited testing is siloed, so when the community simply doesn’t see other heroes succeeding at large, the doubt is obvious. With the impending ProQuest: London season, players wanted surefire plans of attack for draft, and at this point, Florian was decidedly more successful. There was one more event, however, to break the curse, and lo and behold, Simon Nielsen did it, taking down Battle Hardened: Lyon on Aurora. 

The story here is wild, with a Top 8 of three Oscilio, two Aurora, and two Florian. What would have looked on the outside as a Florian win hands-down with only two Earth heroes in the pod at all, Simon answered with a resounding win on the Lightning Runeblade instead. Hope for Team Lightning remained, and as the ProQuest season started, results seemed to come through quite evenly. 

On that first ProQuest weekend, we were also graced with one last limited event, Battle Hardened: Washington D.C. The Top 8 remained hopeful with two Aurora, one Oscilio, two Florian, and three Verdance. With Earth over-drafted, surely we’d see another Lightning hero win, but, nay, Mara Faris took it down on Florian‘s triple crown victory. 

So, there it is. The tournament results say Team Earth is on top with Florian, and yet the community discourse doesn’t seem to receive it as a negative. I, for one, am hopeful of Team Lightning’s untapped potential coming through at Worlds, and, in a way, it has left quite the storyline to unfold with both Wizard and Lightning heroes needing to prove their worth. Oscilio gamers rise up!

Classic Constructed

Rosetta landed in the midst of massive change. The “Book Bannings” had already shaken up the metagame, so players were anticipating the arrival of a product that would set the new power level. However, Rosetta ended up somewhere between Heavy Hitters and Part the Mistveil. The new arrivals were the only legal Elemental heroes, so their support was siloed while the other Runeblades and Wizards had their support skyrocket. Other factors like Count Your Blessings and the fall of Zen made the metagame a complete… Enigma.

The community waited with bated breath to see the first CC event unfold at Battle Hardened: Sydney… And absolutely no one foresaw what unfolded before us. The 70-player Battle Hardened culminated in a Top 8 of two Aurora, two Kano, one Florian, one Enigma, one Kayo, and, believe it or not, one Katsu. Remember, this is directly off the back of Bonds of Ancestry and Art of War banned for Katsu and Tome of Aetherwind and Tome of Fyendal banned for Kano. The audience cheered on Katsu, but it ultimately fell to one of the Kanos.

The Kanos blasted their way into meeting in the finals in an exact 80-card mirror with their deck built to abuse Aether Wildfire and Open the Flood Gates. With some impressive plays showcasing even the new fabled Will of Arcana, it was Steven Young who took it down, but rather than cheers, the player base was in uproar. They clamored to call Kano busted. They begged for Count Your Blessings bans. They ultimately needed to just chill out.

Funny enough, even though Sydney was marketed as the first Rosetta CC event, on that same weekend there was a ProQuest+ at Blood on the Bayou in Texas. We were graced by community coverage that brought us a Top 8 of two Enigma, two Kayo, one Riptide, one Florian, one Aurora, and one Verdance. Verdance met Aurora in the finals, and Michael Ramsey ended up taking it down for Team Lightning. While it didn’t have the widest impact on the community narrative, it proved Rosetta heroes were worth their mettle even on day zero.

Then we approached our first CC Calling in Lyon, but it didn’t stand alone on the weekend. Battle Hardened: Tokyo and Battle Hardened: Milwaukee were also there to give us a glimpse of the developing CC metagame. In Lyon, over 470 players gave rise to the Top 8 of four Enigma, one Prism, one Azalea, one Verdance, and one Aurora. This was a complete 180 from what we’d seen prior, but it was more in line with what the podcasters and tier-listers had been claiming. With the sheer size of the event, Enigma proved to be the most successful hands-down, even taking the event in the hands of Pablo Pintor.

At Battle Hardened: Tokyo, the 140-player event turned out a Top 8 of four Florian, two Enigma, one Aurora, and one Vynnset. Runeblades were out for vengeance, but it was another Enigma who took it down. Across the pond at Battle Hardened: Milwaukee, we saw something even more diverse. Out of 120 players, the Top 8 ended up being two Verdance, two Viserai, one Aurora, one Enigma, one Nuu, and, unbelievably, one Boltyn. You’d think Enigma had this one, but nay, it was a Viserai that took it down in the hands of Nick Gabler. What was even more wild was that the decklist featured zero copies of Mauvrion Skies!

Lastly, we got a ProQuest+ in D.C. that featured two Enigma, two Aurora, one Dash I/O, one Viserai, one Levia, and one Dorinthea. An Enigma and Aurora faced down in the finals, and where you’d expect an aggro deck to take down an Illusionist, the inverse happened with Michael Feng winning on Enigma. Those two heroes are deservedly at the top, with the highest wins throughout these first weeks of ProQuest: London events, too.

At this point, there are trends in the meta that make sense. Kano still needs to be respected. Runeblades got obvious support in all flavors. Enigma has a great matchup spread especially for long events. Count Your Blessings is not the top of the meta. But the question remains with how much this will change with Armory Deck: Dash I/O. I would look to the above as affirmations about what exists in the format regardless of her introduction, there is just now the stipulation of needing to know how you face Dash: disrupt, fatigue, or out damage. 

If I had to guess, I think Florian and Viserai can easily pivot to fatigue her. Kano and Enigma will generally lose to her. Victor and Nuu will rise up to disrupt her. Aurora and Kayo will attempt to race her. But the perfect Dash I/O pilot will answer questions as much as she asks them of the entire metagame. I am eager to watch it unfold as I bring y’all the World coverage in just a week!

*Players are getting their fill of the Dash I/O format this past weekend, but we unfortunately do not have the data yet to color this article. I highly recommend checking the Metagame Minute articles on the main site for your fill on all things ProQuest: London.

Ethan Van Sant

Ethan ‘Man Sant’ Van Sant is known for his commitment to Levia and his coverage of FaB events as Savage Feats. He has a light background with Yugioh and Pokemon, but Flesh and Blood is the first TCG that has fully consumed him… As willed by Blasmophet.