Benji has been one of my favorite Blitz heroes for a long time, and this is probably my favorite Blitz deck. He has one of the coolest text boxes in the game and a real drawback by having 17 life. The lil guy really asks you to be creative when building his deck. This particular deck came out of me realizing that Benji can force damage on the opponent late game to win his aggro matchups.

So, what happens if we tried that pattern for the whole game? Turns out, you get a pretty solid deck that takes people by surprise. Most opponents aren’t expecting to see a Benji player playing like a turtle.

Benji’s Game Plan

This list is looking to block out as much as it reasonably can while plinking the opponent down slowly but surely. It supplements this game plan with a bunch of life gain cards. So much life gain that the deck can have an extra 20 life if it gets the chance to gain all of the life in the deck. There’s also a pile of defensive options, including defense reactions, block cards, and cards that block three.

The deck looks to send its weapons to plink at the opponent and then follow up with one of three options. Your last move each turn will either gain life, send an unblockable attack, or arsenal a card you can use from arsenal defensively.

The Decklist

The deck looks a bit like this as of MST.

What if I lived? Benji

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Hero (1) 1 Benji, The Piercing Wind Weapons (2) 2 Harmonized Kodachi Equipment (4) 1 Flick Knives 1 Fyendal’s Spring Tunic 1 Ironhide Legs 1 Mask of Momentum Main (40) 2 Fate Foreseen red 2 Flic Flak red 2 Healing Balm red 2 Sigil of Solace red 2 Sink Below red 2 Sun Kiss red 2 Vipox red 2 Ride the Tailwind yellow 2 Spring Tidings 2 Tiger Eye Reflex yellow 2 Wander With Purpose 2 Biting Breeze blue 2 Crane Dance blue 2 Find Center 2 Fluster Fist blue 2 Hundred Winds blue 2 Life for a Life blue 2 Soulbead Strike blue 2 Stab Wound blue 2 Winds of Eternity Inventory (6) 2 Oasis Respite red 1 Dishonor 1 Nullrune Gloves 1 Nullrune Robe 1 Tide Flippers

Key Cards for Benji

Ironhide Legs and Tunic

This boot is your opponent’s first hint that something is way different about your deck. When you reveal this it can confuse the crap out of the player sitting across from you. It also gets the most questions when I show anyone this list. The full intent of Ironhide Legs and Fyendal’s Spring Tunic is to get to turn three and then use Tunic to pay for the Legs. It blocks better than a lot of the other options for Benji. When in a pinch, Tunic also provides a resource to power the occasional thing.

Flick Knives and Stab Wound

This combo can win games suddenly on the spot. If the opponent uses their equips in the early or late game, swinging both daggers into a Stab Wound with Flick Knives support can deal six damage out the blue. Flick Knives also removes the opponent’s ability to try to stabilize at one life for a turn. Denying your opponent an extra turn is big.

The Arsenal Friends

There are a bunch of defensive pieces in this pile to keep it alive with its 17 life. These include the usual ones in the form of Sink Below, Fate Foreseen, and Flic Flak. It gets interesting when you notice that the deck is playing Tiger Eye Reflex. This card is functionally a defense reaction but can block Command and Conquer. The tiger can be helpful when you have a Benji buff or if you need an attack to activate Flick Knives.

The Life Gain

As mentioned earlier, this is a life gain deck. It comes with a potent arsenal sporting six cards to gain three life and two copies of Life for a Life to try to get the opponent to pick between giving you equipment or life. These are what make the strategy viable into wide decks. They can also be helpful into Wizard if you get the chance to play a few before they have a kill lined up.

Vipox

Vipox is one of the win conditions in the deck. It hits for five damage on average because of Benji’s textbox. This card is cool, but it’s just a damage machine.

The Main Combo that Matters

The Hundred Winds combo is in the deck slightly and is the only one that usually gets combo chained. Having the line in blue makes it pretty easy to line up late game to threaten putting a card back into deck. Hundred Winds is also the only target that you usually grab with Wander with Purpose

The Inventory

The Inventory is almost completely for Wizard. Arcane Barrier 3 is helpful for a deck that’s so blue. Oasis Respite is a silver bullet for big damage arcane decks and the copy of Dishonor is a blue zero cost two attack card that blocks three. It’s just brought in to have more blues into Wizard or more three blocks into decks that will fatigue themselves (mainly Dash).

Plinking to Victory with Benji

Overall this deck is a lot of fun and can take down an Armory or two. As a Skirmish choice you’ll find that it has some rough matchups into Rhinar, Guardian, and fatigue decks. This is actually a really well positioned deck into a meta with a lot of wide aggro decks. This list’s main appeal is fun. Go hit some Armories and confuse your opponents by taking the game long with the 17 health Ninja.

Further Reading:

What to Expect at a Flesh and Blood Skirmish

The Blitz Format is Great, and You Should Be Playing It!

Taking the Tempo in Flesh and Blood

Jo O'Brien

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