Fai, Rising Rebellion

By Brage Sekse Aarset

Table of Contents

Fai is an aggressive Draconic Ninja hero who will send a multitude of attacks ranging from 1 power Phoenix Flames to 6 or higher power finishers such as Lava Burst and Tenacity. He’s usually played as a purely damage focused aggro hero, relying on a very wide combat chain to make defending difficult.

Fai’s gameplan

Fai will try to set things up for big power turns, especially when playing against a Guardian against whom damage compression is a necessity for pushing through enough damage to win.

Fai’s big power turns uses Spreading Flames and one or more copies of Art of the Phoenix: War to make all his attacks hit for a lot of damage. If he has two copies of Loyalty Beyond the Grave in his graveyard and a card in arsenal, he is able to effectively start his turn with a 6 card hand, and adding Mask of the Pouncing Lynx’ on hit to fetch another card means his total damage output for the turn is very, very high.

One sneaky trick to be aware of is that if Fai starts his turn by playing Blaze Headlong, he can play Art of the Phoenix: War in the reaction step to give it +1 and go again.

Playing against Fai

Fai’s damage output is high, but his cards don’t have devastating on hit effects, meaning that you can mostly focus on making sure you are blocking damage efficiently. Rising Resentment is nice to block, as is Mounting Anger, and in some cases you might even see Phoenix Form do its thing, but this is small beans compared to other heroes where blocking the wrong attacks can be a death sentence. There are however, some on hit effects on Fai’s equipment, either Mask of Momentum or Mask of the Pouncing Lynx. Since Fai lacks the ability to keep the hit train going with Flick Knives, Pouncing Lynx is probably a more likely choice when facing a Guardian. Fai will usually be able to get a hit at some point in the combat chain thanks to Phoenix Flames and whatnot, so it’s not really worth fussing too much about it. If the time is right, Fai will choose to break it and retrieve an extra attack. That’s just how it is.

Since you don’t need to save your defense reactions for any particular attack and can more or less just play them any time you see a 4 power attack, you are free to use your arsenal for disruptive attack action cards. Fai will often take off turns to set up his arsenal, during which you should be able to comfortably keep some cards in hand that you can use alongside your arsenal to send disruption. Better still if you have one disruptive card in arsenal and one in hand, so that you can chain two or more disruptive turns in a row.

Spreading Flames and Loyalty Beyond the Grave are very “face up” cards. Once they start their turn with either (or both), you know they are trying to go big that turn. But you should also keep in mind that Art of the Phoenix: War is an instant that can be played during the reaction step.

Useful cards against Fai

Command and Conquer is a lean and clean way to disrupt Fai. He really wants to set up big turns with an arsenal. Slot this baby in your arsenal and wait for him to have arsenal. Then it’s business time.

Fiddler’s Green blocks 1 power Phoenix Flames really well. You can always be sure to get your full value from this card against Fai (unless you die before the combat chain closes, of course).

Crush the Weak is an excellent card against Fai, since nearly all their attack action cards have 3 or less base power. They will either be forced to block it or accept a very mediocre turn. Win win!

Chokeslam is also great, since their power turns rely on effects that buff their attacks, and they have many attack action cards that buff themselves, such as Enflame the Firebrand, Tenacity, Lava Burst, Phoenix Flame and Fire that Burns Within.

Captain of the Guard is a great blue card against Fai, since he really wants to keep the combat chain open. If you have a hand full of attacks and they play Spreading Flames into multiple 4 power attacks, this card can provide up to 6 defensive value. Not bad for a blue!

Battlefront Bastion (blue) is a decent blue into Fai, since it can cleanly block a 2 power attack, which is quite common to see from Fai (they have a number of ways to buff a Phoenix Flame up to 2 power, for example). One thing to be mindful of when defending with this card is that Tiger Stripe Shuko could sabotage its damage prevention effect.