Flesh & Blood is a trading card game published by Legend Story Studios (LSS), an independent design studio based in Auckland, New Zealand.
History
Prior to first booster set release
Flesh and Blood began development seven years before its official release, well before the studio was officially founded or the game had a name. In December 2018, when the game was officially announced for the first time, Legend Story Studios was a team of six operating out of a studio apartment. On August 31, 2019, 120 players gathered for the Ira World Premiere event at a game store in Auckland, New Zealand. The event was played with Ira Welcome Decks. The Ira Welcome Deck was specifically designed to be a new player's first play experience and continues to be used in game stores to teach new players the basics of Flesh & Blood.
First booster set release
On October 11, 2019, Legend Story Studios released the first expansion set of Flesh & Blood, Welcome to Rathe, in stores across the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Welcome to Rathe was distributed direct from the studio to local game stores, with a team that, at the time, consisted of just seven employees. Taking place on 27 October, The Calling: Auckland was the first premier event in Flesh and Blood history.
2020 and COVID-19
As the release date for Flesh & Blood's second expansion set, Arcane Rising, approached, the studio's home country of New Zealand officially went into lockdown due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. LSS navigated the first year of the pandemic by:
Publishing an open letter to the FAB community, openly sharing their plans for the future. Re-writing their Organized Play policies to support players playing from home and over webcam Fast-tracking the introduction of Play Anywhere!, allowing players to play games at home with the official FAB tournament software GEM. Creating Skirmish, a new tournament series designed to provide players with a meaningful and accessible step up from weekly Armory Events in geographies where in-person play was allowed. Two full Skirmish seasons were completely enabled through webcam play, with LSS shipping out prizes all over the world from their studio in Auckland.
Crucible of War was officially released on 28 August, accompanied by the announcement of Welcome to Rathe and Arcane Rising Unlimited. As the player base was beginning to rapidly grow, the Alpha and First Edition boxes that had been widely available for almost a year were suddenly selling out, and Unlimited would allow more people to obtain the sets for months to come.
In October 2020, LSS announced European and Canadian distribution
20 October 2020: LSS announced an official content partnership with Trading Card Game website ChannelFireball.com.
28 October 2020: LSS announced Flesh and Blood would be available on TCGplayer.com, a marketplace for TCG sealed product and single cards.
2021 and beyond
6 July 2021: LSS announced FAB is sold in games stores in over 30 countries, and that the manufacturing of the product would expand to be printed in three countries: Japan, Belgium, United States.
3 August 2021: LSS announced plans for the 2022 competitive season, including US$1,000,000 in prize support.
10 August 2021: LSS announced distribution in South East Asia.
20 August 2021: LSS announced the 2,000th store signing up to stock FAB and summarised the impact the pandemic had on their game and business.
November 2021: LSS announced that Everfest will be the world's first full production trading card game product with fully recyclable paper booster wrappers.
December 2021: National Champions crowned in 24 different countries during National Championships season.
12 April 2022: LSS announced "FAB2.0", sharing plans to retire 1st edition, print cards in localized languages (French, German, Italian, and Spanish) and emphasising non-competitive play formats.
20 June 2022: LSS announced dates and distribution partners for European Language products.
21 July 2022: LSS announced a partnership with Premier Card Grading (PCG), ensuring the authenticity of Flesh and Blood's prize cards. All Gold Cold Foil prize cards from that day forward would be PCG raw grade authenticated 9 or better. Calling champion prize cards and Pro Tour champion prize cards will be fully graded and slabbed at PCG 9.5 or better.
12 September 2022: LSS announced Flesh and Blood distribution to Brazil.
22 September 2022: James White applied to the US Patent Office as inventor of an apparatus and method of playing a card game.