Battle Report: AGE LA

Military general, strategist, philosopher, and writer Sun Tzu once wrote “If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.” Last year, I was fortunate enough to finally have multiple breakout performances. I became a three-time Battle Hardened champion, I finally made the Top 4 of a Calling after multiple win-and-in losses, and I became the 2025 AGE LA Player’s Champion. On top of that, the start of this year has not disappointed. I started off 2026 by solidifying my title as LA Player’s Champion; I won the first AGE LA Open of the year. It was all the more affirming because I did this on a hero that I’ve only recently picked up over the last couple weeks. It’s a deck that takes a mixture of old Kano vibes and blends it with a splash of Cindra to make the baddest aggro combo deck in flesh and blood. I present to you the tale of how it all happened:

The Stage

On December 14th, good friend and AGE Pro Team member Chris Iaali won Calling Seattle with Kassai: a midrange warrior that, in my opinion, is a snooze fest to play and/or watch. But the real importance of that day is the announcement of a fresh Banned and Restricted list that was going live the next day that hit 5 different things:

1. Brand with Cinderclaw was banned in all colors
2. Chart the High Seas was banned
3. Orb-Weaver Spinneret blue and yellow was banned
4. Rootbound Carapace was banned in all colors
5. Wrath of Retribution was banned

This impacted the meta of events to follow from many angles. As per the B&R article: “Classic Constructed prior to this Banned and Restricted announcement is in an extremely healthy state. But there are three decks which stand slightly above the rest in terms of metagame representation, but Cindra, Gravy Bones, and Verdance all have acceptable win rates, and none of the three have a metagame share that we would consider out of line.” This was quite an interesting article to read because these were the first non-problematic bans in the game’s history, done because the dev team wanted to spice up the metagame for the people. So where did that put me? After a couple weeks passed, I realized Cindra (the deck I played at Seattle and won the Player’s Championship with) was significantly weaker than it had been and that it was performing the worst out of the decks targeted by the B&R. So I decided to pivot.

My core philosophy in the game of Flesh and Blood is to play a deck I enjoy that is also one of the best decks in the game when I bring it to a tournament. Even so, I do not shy away from controversial meta calls. At Pro Tour London last year, I brought Vynnset and went 1-4 in CC at the Pro Tour, before saving face with a respectable 11-3 for 18th place at the Calling the next couple days. I also brought Slippy to US nationals before the deck was considered good (I had won a modest amount of RTNs that season). My early reps on Slippy gave me the experience to place Top 4 at Calling Singapore. This led me to a deck that I originally put down early into Rosetta–on the grounds that it needed more cards to be printed for it and for the meta to be more favorable–and, surprise surprise, that deck's time to shine is now!

The Deck

Oscilio, Constella Intelligence is quite the wacky deck. It combines the Wizard class with the underprinted (and wonky) talent: Lightning. The main advantage Lightning has on other talents is a smattering of instants that give minimal gains unless they’re paired with specific cards. For example: Blink, on the surface, functionally trades a whole card to get an extra action point. Usually an effect like this is not worth the hassle of having a non-block in the deck, BUT in Oscilio, a deck that is normally gatekept by a lack of action points, Blink can unlock significant combos like: 

-Gone In a Flash, Blink, Gone In a Flash (again), second instant–to deal 8 damage and set up a Lightning Greaves combo on the following turn. 

Oscilio specifically gives these niche instants a home and brings them to life in one of the most fun decks I’ve ever played.

My good friend and local, Greg, is an expert on Oscilio and has even pimped out his entire deck with rainbow and cold foils–many of which are signed by their respective artists. After completing Project: Drip, Greg had a complete copy of the deck in non-foil which he graciously donated directly to me. Lol, thank you Greg. I then sleeved up an early decklist I was testing and drove to my local game store the week before the AGE Open and got clapped up:1-2. Now, you would think this would have a happy build-up story where I battled my way through 2-3 locals winning more each time until I had the reps to master my deck–you’d be wrong. In the weeks leading up to the AGE open my record at locals stood at a combined 4-11! I never won more than one game at an armory. Surely, after getting tossed around at locals, I grinded Talishar and found success after dozens of games! Wrong again. I asked my good friend, testing partner, and co-host of Arsenal Pass Pankaj Bhojwani for some good old reps online where he played favorable matchups for my deck (like Kassai and Fang) and then proceeded to beat me up again and again until I logged off my computer and sat down in the shower wondering where it all went wrong. So Peter, how did you turn it around after getting giga blasted in testing and why did you not switch decks before this event? Well, I am,admittedly, on the losing side of testing a majority of the time. I also did not enjoy playing any other deck in the format. On the other hand, I was completely in love with playing Oscilio and if I did bad on the weekend, I would reluctantly try out Gravy for the next week.

Saturday, January 10th: 4:30am

I groaned very loudly getting out of bed to drive the Vegas Squadron to sunny Los Angeles, California (only a quick 4 hours away) to play a Road to Nationals at Kingslayer Games in Lake Forest. My long time friend from high school, Dalton, found success. He placed top 4 at the RTN and qualified for his first US nationals since starting to play the game. I was deeply proud of him, but also relieved because I’m the guy that swindled him into playing FAB a couple years ago. How did I do? I went 1-3 after winning my first round against Gravy, a favorable matchup, and then losing vs Kayo and the mirror twice in a row. I was relegated to the dropper’s table, but I wasn’t alone. Ironically, Chris Iaali was also a part of Team Down and Out, so (after we went a combined 2-6 together) Chris and I started jamming out some Oscilio vs Vynnset in the back of the store while our friends were winning without us. After watching my friends Top 8 and Top 4,we loaded my car back up and drove across LA to our airbnb–located closer to the AGE Open on Sunday–and ate Five Guys while watching Calling Akihabara coverage and listening to the sweet voice of Mitch Leslie (aka Ubershouts) who is my personal favorite caster in any game. I could listen to him talk about games until he yelled at me to go home…and then listen more. 

The morning of an AGE Open is always fun for me. As someone who doesn’t live in LA but has driven down for all the AGE events for the last 4 years, I always want to support an event series I believe in. I hope AGE grows, so I obviously pull up with my locals, walk through the doors of Top Deck Keep, and immediately start harassing Justin (Founder of AGE) with horrendous questions and my presence. After I checked that off the list, I got to socialize with a lot of the frequent players of the area. It was no small feat because the room was buzzing. This was a historic 86-person AGE event, the biggest Open they have ever put on. 

11:00am - Swiss Rounds

Everyone carefully got to their seats for round one. I pulled my deck out and rolled dice to see who would go first just for our judge to make an announcement that AGE caster Bryce had entered a player incorrectly in GEM and we were getting re-paired: thanks Bryce :). After the re-pair, I sat down with my real Round 1 opponent who let me know that he was on Marlynn. In my view, Marlynn is a lackluster deck and the worst hero out of High Seas, but it can do a significant amount of damage if left unchecked, and has great disruption. Oscilio cannot block well (especially vs overpower) so all the relevant on-hits would connect and force me to show my hand, but I was able to use my rummage hero ability and some clutch Sink Belows to skirt around Marlynn’s disruption. A mini combo later and I had started the day 1-0. 

Round 2, on the other hand, did not go that well for me. I sat down in the backup feature match table against one of my worst matchups (Dash I/O) piloted by Anthony Pham, a formidable opponent and member of the AGE Pro Team. The early game went well; I was able to chip in damage turn 0 and have a decent combo into Mind Warp putting Anthony low, but the Mind Warp drew him into multiple 0-cost boost attacks, allowing him to present lethal against me and force me to block so that I couldn’t do the same against him on my turn. From there, he was able to keep his hand and finish me off without me drawing a Shock to steal the game (1-1). I brushed off my quick loss by joking with my friends and listening to the bad beats tales of others. 

Round 3 I sat down against a Gravy, one of the best decks in the format but a favorable matchup for Oscilio. I lost the die roll, which is decently important for gravy in this matchup because it allows him to develop an ally, but I was able to snipe it with a Shock and put us back on even footing. We battled back and forth but I got hit with a Conqueror of the High Seas that blew up my Gone in a Flash and left me with four instants in hand. Luckily, Oscilio bailed me out with a clutch discard/draws (Flittering Charge and a spell). I quickly took back the tempo and drew into a shock to finish off my opponent in response to his casting Call to the Grave for a Fiddlers (2-1). 

Round 4 I sat down with my Rosetta Wizard counterpart: Verdance. It was quite an awkward game where my opponent couldn’t fill up his graveyard with Earth cards because I drew eight arcane spells in the first sixteen cards. I wasn’t able to attack physically if I wanted to, but I started to chip him down little by little. The game came to an end by way of a Lightning Greaves turn with multiple Blasts to Oblivion. Ironically, my opponent died to physical damage alone because I wasn’t able to find a spell (3-1).

I thought I was going to get some time off from Wizard battles but I was thrown into the cauldron again vs another Verdance in Round 5. This game was a close one; I didn’t know who would take it in the end, but a clutch pressure turn into a shock on his turn finished off my opponent, giving me the victory (4-1). 

At the top of Round 6, with 2 rounds to go, it was basically do or die for me. I speculated that (this being a 7 round event) winning this match would lock me for Top 8. I was graced with the familiar setting of the feature match table for this one. I do really enjoy being on feature. The opportunity to watch the games back and learn from my mistakes is huge, and this game proved no exception. My Round 6 game took place against Kayo, Armed and Dangerous, who is quite the predator for Oscilio. I didn’t feel like I was in a great position. Multiple huge attacks from my opponent and a surprising tech card, No Fear, took my life total to critical while keeping him alive. By way of multiple tough decisions and a banger of a game, (that you can watch on AGE’s YouTube channel) I squeaked out the win with another Shock on my opponent’s turn (5-1). After my interview, I relayed the good result to my Vegas friends who groaned off knowing they had to stay a couple more hours after scrubbing the tournament in the early rounds. There was a long car ride back home looming, but that’s when I’m at my best.

To my friends' hilarious dismay, I sat down for my last round and found out that I was not locked for Top 8 and had a chance of finishing 9th if I did not win. All the worse because I had to sit down vs another Kayo A/D. But Oscilio can high roll anyone. I played two Sigils of Brilliance on my opponent’s turn 0 and sent the full combo on my first turn of the game. I was up against AB0, so I then finished my opponent off with some arcane spells and advanced to the Top 8 of the event in 4th place (6-1). 

6:30p - Top 8

I started the tournament off 1-1 and fought back to 6-1, which was great work in itself, but I wasn’t there to just walk away with a Top 8.. After Top 8 photos, I found myself in a crazy good matchup against Kassai (piloted by the boy wonder Colin Eriksen, a member of the AGE Pro Team who I also beat in top 8 of the Players Championship 2 months prior). This game for Colin was…unfortunate. I blasted early, never stopped, and quickly disposed of Colin. On to the semifinals.

I played against a Florian on stream that was flaunting the new aggressive Channel Mount Heroic list, popularized by the current world champion. Brian had a great start and established CMH into multiple attacks. My hands were just humming and I finished him off, punching my ticket to the finals. After cleaning up on stream, I got to watch the other semifinals, which had not finished yet. My Oscilio brother Alex Vore, still rambling, was defeated at the hands of–wait is this right–Vynnset??? Yes, that is correct. 

My opponent in the finals was Ian Hsu. He was trying to start off the year with his first AGE win and he was piloting Vynnset! Now, I’m no stranger to Vynnset. I played a lot of the hero in the past and lost the finals of an open last year to Chris Ialli. In my tenure playing Vynnset, I did not have experience playing the Oscilio matchup, nor had I played the Vynnset matchup as Oscilio, so I was going into the finals blind. I got some quick advice from my friends and teammates. The highlights were that I should use Blast to bounce Runechants and use Electromagnetic Sommersault to blank on-hits. In a super close game where I had to pivot to chipping Ian out late into the game with only arcane spells (so as to avoid Face Purgatory), I finally finished my opponent off with an amp’d shock for the victory at the first AGE Open of the year! Apparently shocking is just how Oscilio gets there.

After winning the Player’s Championship last year, going into this year I have new expectations and I don’t plan on falling short. Vegas currently owns AGE LA and we don’t plan on giving back the title this year. I welcome every challenger whether they’re a fresh face bursting into the scene like Luke Gilmore, or a seasoned titan of the game like Chris Iaali of the AGE Pro Team. Watch all the action live every month on the AGE YouTube channel. I’m calling it now: we’ll be crowning the first back-to-back Player’s Champion this year.