Flesh and Blood playmats under TCG Playmats

This page sits under our TCG Playmats collection and holds playmats for Flesh and Blood, the trading card game from Legend Story Studios of New Zealand. The mats share one build: a micro-woven cloth play surface, a neoprene top layer and a non-slip natural rubber base, 3 mm in total, with double-stitched edges. Artwork is printed in high resolution, fade-resistant and edge to edge, and each mat is made only after it has been ordered.

Two sizes cover the ways the game is played. The single-player mat is 24″ × 14″ (61.5 × 35.5 cm) and holds one hero's side of the arena. The two-player mat is 24″ × 28″ (60 × 70 cm) and puts both heroes on one surface, facing each other across a shared middle. Depending on the design, you can choose a layout with printed zones or the art on its own; the product page tells you which.

A game built around one hero

Flesh and Blood, first released in 2019, gives each player a single hero card that sets their life total and their intellect, the number of cards they draw back up to at the end of their own turn. Around that hero go weapons and up to four pieces of equipment, and most of the game is a back-and-forth of attacks and blocks in which nearly every card can be used in more than one way: played for its effect, pitched for resources or held up to defend.

That makes the table more structured than in most card games. Your hero and equipment stay in fixed places for the whole game, attacks move across the middle, and pitched cards cycle back into the deck every turn. A playmat turns those places into a layout you set up identically every time, which matters in a game where a misplaced card can mean a miscounted resource or a forgotten block.

Equipment around the hero

Equipment fills four slots: head, chest, arms and legs. Each piece is a permanent card with its own ability and, in most cases, a defense value, and many can block an attack, some breaking or wearing down as they do. Weapons sit beside the hero, either one two-handed weapon or two one-handed ones, ready to attack each turn.

A layout many players use sets the equipment as a small cross at one end of the mat: head above chest, arms beside chest, legs below. The hero goes in the middle of the row with a weapon zone on either side. With your equipment laid out like a body, you can read your remaining defenses at a glance, and so can the player across from you, which saves a lot of "what's that?" during a tense turn.

Pitch, resources and the deck

Most Flesh and Blood cards have a color strip at the top: red, yellow or blue. That color shows the card's pitch value, the resources it gives when you pitch it to pay for something else. Red pitches for one, yellow for two and blue for three. Pitched cards go into your pitch zone, and at the end of the turn they return to the bottom of your deck in any order you choose.

Because pitched cards head back into the deck, the pitch zone belongs right next to it, with room to spread several cards so both players can count what was paid. The graveyard sits close by for cards that have resolved, and the banished zone holds cards removed from the game; decks built around the Shadow talent keep a close watch on that last pile. Grouping the four together at one end of the mat keeps every card that leaves your hand within a short reach.

The arsenal

At the end of your turn, if your arsenal is empty, you may put a card from your hand into it face down and keep it for later. A card in the arsenal can be played on a later turn much as if it were in your hand, and some heroes and classes lean on it far more than others, building turns around the card they kept back.

On most layouts the arsenal sits in front of the hero, between the hero and your edge of the table. That keeps the face-down card clearly yours and clearly apart from your equipment, and it gives the opponent a quick way to see whether you are holding something back. On a full-art design, choose a spot for it below the hero and use the same one every game.

The combat chain

When a player attacks, the attack card opens a link on the combat chain. Defending cards from hand or from equipment join that link, and an attack with go again lets the attacker continue and add another link. There is one combat chain, shared by both players, and when it closes, the played and defending cards move off it, most of them to the graveyard.

So the chain needs space between the two heroes. With two single-player mats, players lay the links in the gap between mats or along a long strip at the top edge of a zoned mat, where the two mats meet. On a two-player mat, the line between the halves is the natural place for it, and long chains of go-again attacks can stretch across the middle without spilling onto the table.

Classic Constructed, draft and sealed

Classic Constructed is the game's main constructed format, built around an adult hero with a high life total, and its games can be long, with many turns of pitching, blocking and rebuilding a hand. Limited play, booster draft and sealed, has you build a deck from packs opened at the event, which makes the mat a sorting surface first: spread the pool across the cloth by class and pitch color, then build at the near edge.

In either format, track life with a die or a counter placed beside the hero, where both players can see it. Some equipment picks up counters as it wears down, so leave a little room around each equipment slot. Flesh and Blood cards are the standard 63 × 88 mm and fit standard sleeves, which glide over the cloth when you slide a defending card from your hand onto the chain.

Classes, talents and palettes

Every hero has a class, such as Warrior, Ninja, Guardian, Brute, Wizard, Runeblade, Mechanologist, Ranger or Illusionist, and many also have a talent. The first set, Welcome to Rathe, introduced Dorinthea the Warrior, Katsu the Ninja, Bravo the Guardian and Rhinar the Brute, and later sets added heroes such as Kano the Wizard, Dash the Mechanologist and Azalea the Ranger, along with talents like Light, Shadow, Draconic and the Elemental heroes of Aria.

Talents give you a ready-made palette for a mat. Light suits gold and white, Shadow violet and black, Draconic red flame, and the Elemental heroes pale ice blue, storm yellow or moss and stone. Classes add a mood of their own: steel and banners for a Warrior, misty bamboo and night for a Ninja, firelight and rough hide for a Brute. And the pitch colors themselves, red, yellow and blue, make a bold primary palette for a player who wants the mat to say Flesh and Blood without showing a hero at all.

Placing art around the arena

On a zoned layout, the equipment cross covers one end of the mat, the deck, pitch, graveyard and banished cards cover the other, the hero and weapons fill the middle row, and the combat chain runs along the top. That leaves less open art than in most games, so the design has to work as a frame. Strong color at the edges, a subject large enough to read between slots, and a calm band where the combat chain goes all help.

Between attacks, the combat chain strip is empty, which makes the top of the mat the part of the art you see most. A figure with its head and shoulders in that upper band stays in view through the game; one centered behind the hero card is hidden from the first turn. Without zones you have more freedom, since you set out the arena wherever the picture leaves space.

Armory nights and travel

Flesh and Blood's weekly store events, called Armory, are where most players meet the game, and from there some travel to bigger tournaments. Store tables vary from smooth laminate to rough folding tables, and the rubber base holds the mat still on all of them while the double-stitched edges stand up to weekly packing and unpacking. Most events allow artwork playmats, but check the rules of the event you are entering, since organizers can set their own limits on art and printed zones.

For the trip, roll the mat art side out and carry it in a tube or the long pocket of a backpack beside your deck box and life dice. Never fold it. If it arrives at the table with a slight curl, lay it flat while you set out your equipment and it settles before the first turn.

Two heroes on one mat

The two-player size, 24″ × 28″ (60 × 70 cm), suits Flesh and Blood at home. Each half is as wide and as deep as a single mat, and the shared combat chain has an obvious place along the middle, where attacks and blocks from both sides meet. With one continuous surface, nothing drifts apart when someone leans in to count a pitch zone, and the whole arena rolls away in one piece afterwards.

It is also a good way to teach the game. Lay out a hero for each player, set the equipment in its cross, and walk a new player through a first turn: pitch here, attack there, block from your hand, then refill to your intellect. Seeing both arenas on one mat makes the structure of a turn easy to follow.

Sizes and layouts for Flesh and Blood

The layouts and sizes for each design are listed on its product page. As a guide:

Layout or size	Good for
Single-player, 24″ × 14″ (61.5 × 35.5 cm)	Armory nights, tournaments and travel
Two-player, 24″ × 28″ (60 × 70 cm)	Games and teaching at home, one shared combat chain
With zones	Equipment cross, pitch beside the deck, a fixed arena
Without zones	Full art and setting out the arena by eye

Padrift also prints custom playmats from your own artwork, with zones laid over it or without, if you want a mat for your playgroup or your own drawing of a hero.

Gifts for a Flesh and Blood player

A playmat is a gift a Flesh and Blood player uses every Armory night. If you know their hero's class or talent, pick a palette to match; if you don't, the red, yellow and blue of the pitch strip is a safe theme. A newer player gets the most from a layout with zones, while a seasoned one may prefer full art. Every mat is printed in 1–3 business days and then sent from Turkey, and US orders usually take a further 2–5 business days to arrive.

Cleaning and storing the mat

Brush off dust and crumbs after each session. When the cloth needs a proper wash, do it by hand or in the washing machine on a gentle, cold cycle. Dry the mat flat in the air. Keep bleach and the iron well away from it. Roll it for storage, never fold it, and if it ever holds a curl, leave it lying flat until it relaxes.

A note on names

Padrift is an independent studio. Flesh and Blood and the names of its heroes, classes, talents, sets and events appear on this page only to describe the game our playmats are made for; Padrift is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Legend Story Studios.