Flavor physics is a useful tool in constraining new physics and guiding model building.  We formalize an intuitive basis-independent description of flavor constraints in the quark sector, and use it to learn about the flavor nature of new physics at the LHC. First, we focus on a two generations case, and suggest a simple geometric picture as an interpretation of flavor analyses. Then we consider bottom and top decay processes, where a dramatic improvement in the measurements is expected at the LHC. We apply this analysis to impose bounds on models which include flavor alignment.