This past weekend, we helped run the biggest unofficial Edison event yet at LDS Las Vegas. 348 players, more than any of us expected for a niche retro format.

Today we’re going over decks. Why you should play a deck that’s getting nerfed in Flesh and Blood, and trying to settle a debate on which Vayu deck is better in Edison format.

Let’s get into it.

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Oscilio is getting hit this month. Manten details why you should be investing the time on it anyways.

By Cody “Manten” Williams · ChallengerTCG

Oscilio is the best deck in the game right now, and everyone already knows it is getting nerfed. You should play it anyway. I’d go even further: if you care about improving as a Flesh and Blood player, you should make time to play Oscilio before the May 28th ban list takes effect.

LSS did something unusual this season by giving players advance notice of the upcoming ban list. Oscilio is being directly targeted, most notably losing Volzar, along with other important pieces. That change may completely redefine how the hero functions, and it is unclear whether Oscilio will remain competitive after the new set and ban list arrive.

Most players see a nerf coming and immediately abandon ship. I think you should do the opposite.

One of the most interesting things about Oscilio is that it sits at the intersection of two different eras of Flesh and Blood design.

Old school FAB often put a lot of a hero’s power into “start in play” pieces, setup turns, and finding the right moment to explode. The power was not always about maximizing value every single turn. Sometimes, it was about building toward the turn that ended the game.

That style is a big part of what older players mean when they say they miss “old FAB.”

New school FAB, on the other hand, tends to place more power into the direct value of each turn. It also often asks players to “unlock” stronger effects by meeting specific conditions first. Cards like Felling of the Crown are a good example: the card becomes much stronger once you satisfy the earth requirements in graveyard and banish.

Oscilio somehow does both.

The deck has strong turn-by-turn value through cards like:

It can play one-card hands, two-card hands, three-card hands, and full hands while still generating meaningful value. That flexibility matters a lot, especially in games where every hand cycle counts.

The deck can set up, take risks, absorb pressure, and then threaten massive 40+ damage turns when the window opens. That tension between consistent value and explosive payoff is what gives Oscilio such a high skill ceiling.

Sometimes your top 20 cards are just better than your opponent’s top 20, and you win quickly. Other times, the game becomes a long, grindy puzzle where every block, arsenal, pitch decision, and setup turn matters.

Oscilio gives players a real opportunity to practice both modern efficiency and older-style combo discipline in the same deck.

There is another practical reason to play Oscilio right now: Omens is coming.

The new set releases only two weeks before Nationals, which means players will have a very short window to learn both a new draft format and a new constructed format.

Any experience you can get with the talent, play patterns, and decision-making structure of the upcoming set could matter. Oscilio gives you reps with lightning gameplay before everyone is forced to learn under pressure.

When the format changes quickly, prior experience compounds.

Combo decks have existed in Flesh and Blood before. There are Saber-style decks that can deal huge bursts of damage, and there have always been strategies that threaten absurd turns under the right conditions.

But there are not many combo decks that are also genuinely good. Oscilio is one of them.

You owe it to yourself to deal 40+ damage with an Oscilio combo before the deck changes. Do it in paper if you can. It feels completely different from clicking through the lines on Talishar. There is something special about picking up and playing the same card six times in one chain.

Beyond the power level, the reps, and the format prep, Oscilio is just enjoyable to play.

Setting up Sigil of Brilliance, using the blast combo to draw cards, leveraging the hero ability to find better options, and navigating the decision trees all feel rewarding. When the deck comes together, it feels like poetry.

That is the real reason to play it before it changes.
Not just because it is strong.
Not just because it is useful practice.
Because decks like this are memorable.

Play Oscilio while you still can. Get the reps. Flex the skill. Deal the 40 damage. Then, years from now, when you are the FAB boomer talking about the “good old days,” you can tell everyone about the time you killed people with Gone in a Flash before they took it away.

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Eric Shen made the finals of San Jose's Edison event with Vayu Turbo but lost to its newer cousin, Nitro Vayu. Here's his case for why Turbo is still the better deck.

By Eric Shen

Nitro Vayu took over the Retro Reborn Circuit (RRC) in San Jose and won a 200+ player Edison event on April 11th. The finals of the tournament were between Nitro Vayu piloted by Dirk Wagner and Vayu Turbo by Eric Shen (me).

Ultimately, Dirk won the whole tournament with Nitro and took home a SJC Dark End Dragon. Nitro debuted at RBET Chicago 2025 and has had few results since then until now. Which leads us to the question: which is better?

If you're unfamiliar with what these two decks are, let's look at the lists that played in the finals.

The main difference between the two decks is that:

On paper, one might think the Nitro deck is more consistent. Maxing out on the warriors while playing more draw cards to see powerful one-ofs such as Dark Armed Dragon, Burial from a Different Dimension, and Return From the Different Dimension seems very appealing. However, it's not without any downsides.

The HRC engine provides Vayu Turbo with a built-in way of dealing with problematic cards while Nitro relies on Icarus Attack as its main way of card removal. Cards such as Consecrated Light, Stardust Dragon, Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer, Vanity’s Fiend, and monsters that simply have big attack stats must be dealt with via trap cards. This can cause the game to slow down and give your opponent a chance to turn the tables. Not to mention any deck that runs Royal Decree can shut off almost half the cards in the Nitro list.

But the more important contribution that no one talks about is the HRC engine has one card starters. You can simply set a Hamster or Ryko turn 1 and potentially get your engine going. Turbo also plays Caius The Shadow Monarch and Gale the Whirlwind. This allows a strong turn 1 Armageddon Knight to send Necro Gardna to the graveyard, while Nitro does not get that privilege.

The upside of not playing the HRC engine is that Nitro Vayu is almost completely unaffected by Deck Devastation Virus. The only real targets are the 3 Armageddon Knights. Hitting Vayu, Plaguespreader, or Necro doesn’t do much besides preventing Grepher effect.

On the other hand, Nitro Vayu plays more draw cards in order to see their Grepher plays and string consecutive Armageddon Knights more consistently. By thinning the deck, drawing more cards, and being rid of random milling, they will see their power cards more often.

The gameplan for Nitro Vayu is very strong but also very linear. In the current tournament meta, Nitro has slightly better matchups into Vayu and Frogs than Vayu Turbo but sacrifices a lot against other matchups. The deck has a harder time against Blackwings, Gladiator Beasts and Lightsworn decks compared to regular Vayu Turbo.

If the current Nitro list becomes more popular, people can expose the lack of Bottomless Trap Hole and lean heavier into the problematic cards that give Nitro a hard time.

So which is better? Vayu Turbo is the better deck overall, but the gap is MUCH smaller than people think. The HRC engine fixes a lot of the problems the standalone Vayu engine has and can randomly just “win the game” if it mills well. Furthermore, both decks are very hard to play but Vayu Turbo also has more leeway if it mills well that day. 

Nitro is definitely here to stay and just like every new emerging Edison deck, the meta and player base will adapt. The meta cycle in Edison will continue to rotate and side choices will be even tighter. But that's what makes Edison so fun! It's awesome to see that the Edison metagame is still evolving almost 3 years after the Edison revival at the Ultimate Time Wizard Nationals 2023.

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