Gencon '19 Vault Tour Top 16 Report W/ 67 SAS Rated Deck

I'm finally home after a very fun, and very long, Keyforge-filled Gencon 2019. First of all, congratulations to the eventual Vault Tour Sealed winner, Devin Chiriboga from Team Reapout! Awesome job! Now, I wanted to reflect on my Vault Tour experience, just like I did for Origins. My top 16 finish in this, as well as going 4-2 in the following Archon format VT, was enough to catapult me into #21 on the Vault Tour Leaderboard. That means...something hopefully, lol. We don't know the exact details yet. Go Team Fuzzy Gruens! And even though I only managed to make it to the top 16 (out of an original 250 I believe?) in day 2 of the Sealed event, I did it with a deck that I'm pretty sure is the overall worst rated deck to ever get that far. I'm not saying this to brag (okay, maybe a little, lol), but I wanted to show people that just because you have a poorly rated deck, does not mean it cannot win, or that you shouldn't bother trying to play in a competitive environment, especially when that environment is Sealed Keyforge. First of all, let me show you the screenshot of my day 2, top 16 VT deck, from the Rankey App, which nicely showcases its own rating system, as well as the popular SAS and AERC scores:

Just look at that hot mess, lol. You are reading that correctly, that is a 9.9 out of 100 for Rankey. That is a 67 SAS, which is normally reserved for the bargain bin, with most competitive decks, even in a sealed tournament, at least in the mid-70s, with winners in the 80-90s typically. Then you have an AERC rating of 41, where most competitive decks are in the 50s-60s. So you can see that on paper (or in this case on-app), this deck is well below what is considered to be a competitive score. To give you another way of looking at it, here are the SAS scores of the decks that made it to the top 8 of the event (As of this writing, only 7 have been entered into the Keyforge Vault):

#1: Maxima, Hunter of the Eloquent Strand 80
#2: Beaker Harker 79
#3 Hon T. Roogquimp, the Fourth 86
#4 The Mister of Burnminster 82
#5 The Ruffian that Antagonizes The Chosen 81
#6 Peacock, the Moneylender of Darklande 83
#7 Charbos, the Racer of Deer 90

Yeesh. But before we delve deeper into this deck, let's start at the beginning of the tournament.

This would be my second Vault Tour, and second attempt at the Sealed event. I felt a lot of pressure to do well, considering my very lucky success at getting Top 4 at Origins. As usual though, I try to go into it not expecting much. After all, there is a lot of luck in regards to what decks you get, what matchups you get, and then during play what draws you get. Representing Pittsburgh, PA, from my local store Mr. Nice Guy Games, and our loosely organized team name of Team Fuzzy Gruens, I wanted to try and at least win as much as I lost. Just like last time, there were a few things I look for in a deck when preparing for Sealed:

1. Look for Shadows and Dis  - These two are still the best Houses in AoA in my opinion. I believe I listed Dis at the top at Origins, but after playing at many local sealed events, I have been convinced that Shadows is once again on top, with Dis close behind. That Amber stealing and control, mixed with plenty of other really solid creatures, artifacts, and actions...These Houses can do it all.
2. Amber Control/Generation -  No matter what Houses you get, a main thing to look for is Amber generation and Amber control. That has consistently been the line between good Keyforge decks and bad ones, at least in my experience. It also is the most logical and easy way to win. If you can generate more Amber than your opponent, you will probably win. If you can control the Amber your opponent has, they cannot win. And you can achieve both with steal, so look for that.
3. Creature Count - A solid way of generating Amber in AoA is with a ton of creatures. There are so many little combos that creatures can pull off, as well as the obvious thing that if you have a ton of creatures on the board, that means you can probably Reap with them for a ton of Amber. Also, board wipes are few and far between in this set, so a large board can be hard to deal with. This is probably the best counter to Shadows that AoA has. Their steal may not mean as much if you can get a board with 6+ creatures on it, constantly Reaping. Also, you can control your opponent's creatures better when you have more. But with Sealed AoA especially, I have found that you can win plenty of games by just flooding the board with creatures, and trying to rush to the win before your opponent can gain control of the board.
4. Board Wipes - With creature count being very important, it becomes paramount to have an out in case your opponent floods the board. Enter the board wipe. AoA doesn't have a lot of good choices, with the most consistent being Brobnar having Coward's End, and Dis having Key to Dis and Unlocked Gateway. But I am always looking to see what I can use to clear the board if I have to.
5. Raw Amber - A good way of generating tons of Amber, and a way to consistently outrace your opponent, is to simply gain free Amber when you play your cards. When you have less than 10, you better have a decent creature count, but with greater than 15, you can start to maybe sacrifice that creature count in favor of racing with actions.

That being said, I did not feel confident upon seeing my 3 decks, lol:

Sov Grillaek Pagano

Ok, so the House combination isn't awful, but I am definitely concerned about Amber control. 14 creatures is on the low side, although 17 raw Amber is nice. I am not seeing any great board wipes with Piranha Monkeys taking the lead. Dharna is a nice combo to go with the Monkeys, and Mimicry can do some shenanigans (although I prefer that card in an Archon deck). The 3 Song of Springs and Soldiers to Flowers feel pretty lame considering there are only 3 Untamed creatures, especially when one of them is a Grovekeeper (who is better if he stays out a while). We do have a key cheat in Key Charge though, so that's good. The Sanctum in this deck is severely lacking in creatures as well. One Stood Against Many is a great card, but with only Sir Marrows as a feasible target in the whole deck, I am left underwhelmed. There are some good cards in here, but it's missing the creatures it needs, as well as Amber control that I fear is desperately needed. The Logos is ok, and it even sports a decent amount of creatures, but I don't like the 3 Titan Librarians. Without decent card draw, TL can be risky since you don't archive a card until AFTER you refill your hand, which means with multiples you are starting off with fewer cards. I could attempt with this deck and try to just win with that raw Amber, but without Amber control, consistent board wipes, or a large amount of creatures, I'm pretty positive I would be steamrolled by most other decks. I later checked the rankings of this deck and it was 71 SAS/47.5 AERC/29 Rankey, which was ranked my best by far, which is pretty sad, lol.

Magnusson of Warringey

This feels very similar to the above deck in terms of House combination, but I do tend to like Brobnar more than Sanctum in AoA, so let's see what we got. 7 raw Amber is pretty low, but 20 creatures is very decent. This has a number of ways of clearing the board, including my AoA favorite, Coward's End, the garbage Save the Pack (which is almost always bad unless you have other cards to combo with it), Bouncing Deathquark (which is awesome with a high creature count), and Standardized Testing. This also sports Mimicry, Tremor (which I love), and a couple of Regrowths to help with all of those creatures. Rustgnawer can be used against artifacts, and it also has 2 King of the Crags, which sounds pretty ridiculous against opposing Brobnar decks. The Curator with no artifacts makes me think the algorithm for that card is a little off. All in all, this is sounding like an ok deck. The biggest red flag though is Amber control. I think I am seeing 0 Amber control of any kind? That is not good at all. If my opponent is any good at all, they will quickly see based off my House combination that only Brobnar has the ability to control Amber. But alas, this deck doesn't even have that, and so I have absolutely nothing to slow my opponent down. In my experience, unless I draw all creatures, and my opponent doesn't, as well as them not having steal, I will lose most games. This rated at 67 SAS/45.5 AERC/15 Rankey.

Chancellor Oglestar Browning

Ok my last choice. Did I really not get a single option with Shadows or Dis?! My two favorite Houses (and the 2 best in my opinion), and I get nothing. I am thinking I will not last long in this Vault Tour. 9 raw Amber isn't the worst choice I have, but it isn't great. 22 creatures is very nice though. The first thing I see is a very decent Mars component. 9 creatures in Mars, including 2 Fixfingers and a Dominator for protection. I love the Proliferator, and if the Harvesters can get going or stay alive, they can give tons of Amber. The Resonator is amazing for Amber control, and Hypnotic Command can both control Amber and help generate Amber for me. The Amber Conduction Unit can also help in slowing down opponent's reaping. The Sanctum side is also not bad in terms of board control. 2 Lions and an Abond can help everyone. The Bordans can control Amber in a pinch if they can survive. I also really like Haedroth's Wall, as it will always help someone on the board. On the Untamed side I see a Key Charge and a Chota, which I always like to see for closing out matches. A Fuzzy Gruen is a welcome sight, especially since our team from Pittsburgh has been called the Fuzzy Gruens. In terms of board wipes I am only seeing Save the Pack with no help from cards like They're Everywhere. That will be an issue. I have no stealing, so I will have to depend on my creatures for Amber generation. Also without stealing, I don't have a ton of Amber control. Well, I have very little on-play Amber control, which is what is needed. I think I only have the Resonator and Hypnotic Command as on-play Amber control in case I do not have a board set up? Yeesh.

Ok, so I don't really like my choices. I am missing some of the best stuff I feel like most competitive decks have (no Shadows or Dis). Also, I feel like I am severely lacking in on-play Amber control and Amber generation. I have some consistent board wiping in Magnusson, but that completely lacks Amber control, which I feel is a death sentence. Sov has some raw Amber, but without creatures or crazy tricks, I'm afraid I will lose to anyone with a board. Also, all this Sanctum and no Aubade and the Grim?! That guy is a common and probably the best Sanctum card in the set. I suppose I have to go with the Chancellor. Right now I am feeling a little let down. This is a Vault Tour, and a sealed event, and I feel like my only real chance at succeeding (since I never favor myself in Archon due to not having great decks). But without Shadows or Dis, I really don't feel like I have a chance.

I was also a little sour at the way we began the tournament. We started out by being given 3 unopened decks, a slip of paper, and a baggie. We were told to leave the registration table, write down the archons on the slip of paper, and then return with it all in the baggie. These baggies would then be distributed at the start of the tournament at random. But what was stopping someone from opening their packs, seeing a really good deck, or at least one that could fetch a lot of money like a double Timetraveller, and then keeping it for themselves and replacing it with a crappy unscanned deck (like from the deck vending machine that was right there?)? Nothing was stopping them. There was nothing there to prevent it. I hope people wouldn't do that, but honestly the integrity of the tournament was completely brought into question with this decision. I told some of the upper-ups about this after the tournament, and they agreed with me. So hopefully this won't happen again, but nonetheless it was in the back of my mind.

Despite me not expecting to do well at the tournament, I was going to approach it like I always do: with the attempt to just go out, try my best, and to have fun. I knew I would get at least 30 shards for participating, and with such a large number of creatures in my deck, I figured I could maybe get a few wins against opponents that couldn't deal with them. I was going to use the AOAOAOA (Age Old Age of Ascension Organized Approach - bit of a stretch) I had no expectations of making day 2 (dramatic foreshadowing), but I wanted to at least try and get an even record. So I sleeved my deck, and was set to go.

 

My first match was against a young man from Brazil. He said English was not his primary language, and he apologized in advance for any barriers, but honestly he spoke quite well, and I don't think we had any issues understanding each other. In fact, I understood him better than a lot of Pittsburgh natives, or Yinzers, as they are called (for fun, look up a Pittsburghese accent). But anyway, I started out strong in Mars, and got my Invasion Portal out. Little did I know how important that card would be in my games. Pretty much every turn I stayed with Mars. I don't typically like to do that, since there is no cycle that way, but with Invasion Portal, there kind of was. And besides, if your opponent cannot address the 6+ creatures out there, you will just keep reaping for the win. Also, with my deck, I would just be playing more creatures in other houses, so it's not like I am missing some great action cards or anything. I forged my keys fairly quickly, and when my opponent threatened, I managed to pull out the Resonator. He eventually did forge a key at 10 cost, and threatened to forge a second, but by that time I easily had enough to forge my third. The only delay was that my opponent had Shadows, and so he would steal from me and slow me down, but I felt pretty dominant the whole time. 1-0

I really need to take better notes for my games, because the next two games were a blur. I know I won my second game very quickly, with me just flooding the board with creatures and controlling enough with the few cards I had. I believe I did forge my third key using either Chota or Key Charge, but it was mainly Mars, with a little support with Sanctum, that won that game. My third game was against a guy who had just learned about the game a few months prior, but who had never played in a tournament before. His deck had Brobnar in it, which scared me. Luckily though, I did what I always did and flooded the board. It got dicey a few times with those big Brobnar creatures, especially with him having a Drummernaut out there, but I managed to use my Sanctum to good effect. I believe Lord Golgotha with Smite and Shield of Justice helped clear out the board to give me the advantage at one point (A Lion might have also been present). After the game, I found out that his Grump Buggy and Burn the Stockpile were at the bottom of his deck. That would have made a big difference. I definitely would have been slowed down. And although I can get some decent sized creatures out there to slow him down too, it might have been the deciding factor in his favor. Luckily for me, the draws were on my side. 3-0.

So I figured I would soon be up against some really good decks, and this next one was no joke. I was playing Sydnie Steele, whom I met at Origins, who also made it to Day 2 of that sealed event. She was very friendly and bubbly, and also very good at Keyforge. I knew this would be a tough match, but at least I knew my opponent would be very nice either way. Our game was super close. She jumped into the lead early on, but I managed to scrape back, even when she wiped the board. I just kept on trying to flood the board and cause her to waste time to kill my creatures. Eventually we both had 2 keys and were in that Keyforge game state of constantly taking each other out of check. It could have gone both ways, but I eventually won out. Sydnie did not draw very well in the game. We played another friendly game, where she jumped ahead 2 keys to none very quickly, but I managed to get real lucky with my Resonator and Hypnotic Command I believe. Sydnie was gracious as always. I felt a little bad, as I felt that her deck was better than mine, but perhaps she just kept having some bad draws. 4-0

 

My friend, Pritika Dasgupta, a fellow Fuzzy Gruen, was also doing very well in the tournament. She and I were both 4-0. We both kept hoping we would not be matched up together but we knew it was a possibility. Unfortunately, we had to play each other. Luckily, we knew that we at least wouldn't eliminate each other from making Day 2, although we would be making it harder for the other. On another plus side, was that whoever won was guaranteed to get to day 2. I believe she ran Shadows/Logos/Mars. She started out extremely fast, generating 6 amber on her second turn. I think I had to use Maruck the Marked with a Smite just to capture an amber to slow her down. We kept going back and forth. I believe she forged first, then I tied it, then she got her second before I got mine, but I could be wrong on that timing. It was by far the closest match I had so far in the tournament. I don't recall whether it was a Key Charge, or just massive amounts of Amber that won me the game, but I knew that if it went on for another turn, she would have won. As gracious in victory as in defeat, Pritika was a great sport. She gave me my win to guarantee my entry into day 2. I really hoped that I didn't screw her over but she ended up losing her last match as well, leaving her at 4-2. I believe she was 4-2 at Origins as well. Solid turnout both times. Team Fuzzy Gruens is represented well. :) 5-0

 

Well, I could relax a little bit in my last match, knowing that I was guaranteed to make it Day 2. I knew I still wanted to win, because I wanted a first round bye if possible, but I wasn't going to kill myself trying to play. I was asked again to play on stream (I was also asked in the 3rd round, but declined), and this time I accepted. And thus started the curse, lol. I was playing Nathan Starwalte on the livestream (around the 1:10:00 mark). It was an embarrassing game, lol. I'm not sure if I just misplayed, or it was a horrible match. It was probably a wonderful mixture, lol. Well, I know one combo that spelled doom for me: Key to Dis and Lifeward. What a great combo, and so good against my deck, lol. And then he got the combo again after using it. Maybe my misplay was not shuffling his deck enough, lol. His deck was definitely better than mine though. I should have discarded Save the Pack way earlier than I did, that was a dead card for too long. I always misplay that dumb card. But anyway, I finished the day at 5-1, ranked #10 going into Day 2.

I got there early to make sure I wasn't late (Day 1 starting 2 1/2 hours late thanks to computer glitches. yay). I managed to notice Josh Massey and Alex Watkins sneakily playing a friendly game with some new decks from the next expansion, Worlds Collide. I took as many pictures as I could and shared them to Facebook that evening. Side note: I can't wait for it, everything looks awesome. Another article spoiling the new cards will be coming hopefully soon. But back to the Vault Tour, I found out I was not ranked high enough to get a first round bye. I was matched up against Erich Taylor of Team SAS. Erich informed me of his curse of making it to Day 2 and then losing in his first match, a curse I would have been happy to oblige, although I doubted winning with my deck still. He had Mars/Sanctum/Shadows. I was really scared about the Sanctum and Shadows because if he had big and strong Sanctum creatures I would have trouble, and Shadows could steal everything I had with me not being able to reciprocate. I started out flooding the board like I usually want to do, but Erich played Scowly Caper on me.

 

This was a great play by him, and it was something that would hound me almost the whole game. I have no direct removal, so unless he destroys it himself, or he plays something with Hazardous, that Scowly Caper will just keep killing my line. I think I probably played my best game of the tournament this game though. I had a lot of decisions to make. I knew I had to keep playing creatures each turn, in order to stay ahead of Scowly Caper's removal, or else I would never be able to play anything. There were times I played a Lion next to him, and with the help of Haedroth's Wall, I was swinging in with 6-power with skirmish creature every turn, to help clear my opponent's board. At one point Erich did have someone with hazardous out, but Scowly was actually too powerful to be killed by it, lol. I rapidly played some more cards to try and stay ahead of Scowly, but then Erich played Mars Needs Amber and Phloxem Spike on me after making sure everyone was wounded.

 

It was quite a dramatic turn around, and although Erich wasn't sure of the play, I think it was the right call at the time. He almost came back, but I managed to flood the board once again with Mars creatures and managed to gain enough Amber to stay away from his stealing Shadows. Rob's Gaming Table streamed the game. Check it out, here, because it was a pretty exciting game. 6-1.

I made it to the Top 16! Nobody was more surprised than I. I was riding this high when they asked if I wanted to be on stream and I unfortunately said yes. Being on Livestream (we start around the 1:17:00 mark) puts undo stress on me, plus there is the curse, lol. But actually, it would not have mattered anyway, because both my opponent and his deck were much better than myself and mine. Jason Scarrow from Team Reapout had Shadows/Dis/Sanctum, which was probably my worst kind of matchup. He was able to flood the board just as well, if not more, than I. He had some really strong creatures which included Aubade the Grim, 3 copies of Abond the Armosmith, and Charette. He also had 3 Exhumes and 3 Miasmas, lol. It was a crazy deck.

 

He just kept playing so many strong creatures, and I was just trying to stay alive and stop him from forging keys. I could not even trade with his. I made him wipe the board when I finally got ahead, and managed to grow another big board, but he just kept racing. At the end I needed Invasion Portal to get my Resonator to stop him, but I didn't draw it. I don't think it would have mattered though, as he just would have destroyed it and reaped the next turn. His deck was considerably better than mine I'd say. I don't think I would beat his deck even 1/10 of the time. But oh well. Thus ended my run. I ended the tournament at 6-2 in 13th place. It was enough to earn me a ton of shards, as well as push my silly deck to power 5, which is hilarious. The earned VT shards also pushed me to #21 on the VT leaderboard, which is pretty cool. I wonder how I would do if I ever got a Sealed deck with a SAS rating above 80 (my Origins top 4 was 76 SAS)? I'd probably lose faster or something, lol.

Side note: I also played in the Archon tournament. I managed to go 4-2, which was just shy of making it to day 2. My highlights were a loss to Kyle Coons who went 9-1 and finished in 3rd in the tournament, as well as giving Colby Gerrish his only loss of Day 1 (he went on finish 7-2 in 8th place). My teammates Pritika Dasgupta and Bill McIntyre also went 4-2, so it was a really great showing for Team Fuzzy Gruens! As a team, we have 2 Day 2 appearances (top 4 at Origins Sealed, and top 16 at Gencon Sealed), and between our members I think we have a collective record of 49-23 at the Vault Tours at Origins and Gencon (7 team members), which I think is amazing!

Going back to this Sealed VT, that is how I got a 67 SAS/41 AERC/9 Rankey deck to the top 16 at a Vault Tour. I still don't think my deck is good. It has way too many flaws for it to be competitive, especially in Archon. But this tournament goes to show there is something to be said for a high creature count. I don't think our current ranking metrics really account for that very well yet. I suppose in an Archon format, most decks run some board wipes, so it really hurts high creature decks. But still. With a high creature count, you can in theory win every game, just because of how the reaping mechanics work. I definitely got some good draws and good matchups that really helped me advance, but I think I probably miscalculated how good having all those creatures really was. So yeah, don't give up, and don't think you can't compete just because you don't have an amazing deck. I still love Sealed the most for Keyforge, and I can't wait to see what the new set brings. If you made it this far, thanks so much for reading, I hope it was entertaining, and as always, happy gaming!

Q&A with Denver Vault Tour 2nd Place Brooks Clark!

Hello fellow Keyforge fans! Keyforgians? Keyforgeites? Or is a group of us just called a Keychain? Whatever you want to be called, welcome to another Vault Tour Q&A! This time I am joined by Brooks Clark, who just finished 2nd in the Denver, CO Vault Tour, although it was his deck that went 3-0 in the finals (more on that later). But anyway, I hope you enjoy this kind of stuff, I know I do. So let's get to it!

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First of all, congratulations on finishing 2nd place at the Denver, CO Vault Tour! That's awesome! And although I'm sure it is a little bitter sweet, you must be pleased with how your deck performed considering it went 3-0 in the final match, since you won the first game with it, and then your opponent piloted your deck in the final 2 games. How do you feel?

Thank you, you said it right it's very bitter sweet. I feel great that I have a good deck and that I piloted it well all weekend, but looking back I wish i'd have just opened on my deck at 1 chain or went ahead and just bid the 2nd chain.

The format for the Vault Tour was Archon Survival, which meant every player brought 3 decks, and they played one until it lost, and then moved onto the next one. There were 131 players, with only 45 making it to Day 2 in single-game matches. In Day 2 it was single game elimination until the finals, which were Adaptive, which means that you play with your deck, then with your opponent's, and then if the same deck won both games, you bid for who gets it (which is what happened). What were your thoughts about the meta going into this tournament? Were you surprised at some of the decks you faced? How would you define the meta in Keyforge, currently?

So going into the event I was a little concerned that I would have to concede a possible game or 2 if I started out well, as my goal was to get Bombfoot, the Aeronaut of the Pike into day 2 and it was my 3rd deck. As a competitive minded individual I don't ever wanna concede a game and didn't like that the format leads to just giving away games. I think playing survival until 1 person is standing is left with less then 3 losses is the best way to do it but the game is still young and everyone is learning what works and doesn't. 

 

As far as a meta game goes I was anticipating around 5%-10% OTK (One Turn Kill) or LANS (Library Access, Nepenthe Seed) variants, about 30% rush and 30% control amber decks. Then I expected the rest of the field to be fairly random as that's what the game promotes with the uniqueness of the decks. I never faced OTK all weekend, so that was a bit surprising, but there was a lot of hate out there for that strategy in particular, which probably helped counter it. One of my reapout.com teammates, Jean Claude, got beat in the top 4 with his OTK, which is a really solid deck even when not comboing. 

Speaking to the current state of the meta game, I'd say it's fairly open. If you like a deck and have played it a lot, you give yourself an advantage in this game. Find the strategy that you like and learn it inside out.
What 3 decks did you bring? What deck(s) got you to Day 2? Did you feel that your finals deck was your strongest? If you had your druthers, would you have picked a different deck out of your original 3 to play in Day 2?

Teacher Ascari was the deck I chose to start with. Its quick amber with no real cares for the board state. I started 3-1. My deck out preformed my expectations. I was hoping for a 1-1 or 2-1 start from this deck.

The Mantle that Digs up the Imp was my 2nd deck, and I picked this deck because it's very solid. It has a great game plan vs OTK, and going into the event there was a lot of talk about SAS and other teams putting their best deck in the 2nd slot so I wanted a deck that had enough artifact hate to make them win a fair Library Access turn and not a double broken one that wins the game on the spot. The deck won its 1 clean up game to get me to the 4-1 on the day, which was my goal, so I conceded round 6 to get to my 3rd deck which I've considered my best deck for months. I have won both the Tuesday and Friday online events with the deck and have well over 500 reps with just this one deck that I have owned it since November.

Bombfoot, the Aeronaut of the Pike was my 3rd deck, and I knew going into the event that it was my best deck and my main goal was to just make day 2 with Bombfoot, and I liked my odds from there. So no, I'd have picked Bombfoot 100 times outta 100 times even without hindsight.

You got to play the founder of the SAS rating system for Keyforge. Your finals deck has a lovely 99 SAS rating itself. How much power do you give to these various rating systems. Are there ones you prefer? Ones that you use? How influential are they when it comes to picking a deck you want to play in a competitive environment?

Yeah that's definitely an honor to play someone who has inspired and influenced the Keyforge community as much as he has. As for my deck being a 99 SAS, I have owned it since November, which I believe predates SAS, but the ADHD scores were a thing at the time and I was just picking up decks that had an excellent A, C and E scores and consistency over .2 as with my early testing that's what was performing the best. The Teacher Ascari deck I also picked up early when SAS was starting, but I didn't quite understand how it was being ranked and I already had a bead on what traits I was looking for with the other rating system. So now, I rate those 2 decks and one is a 64 and one is a 99. Obviously, the 99 plays way better, but the 64 got its fair share of wins too. 

 

When I was scouring Miles Agag deck doc off the Facebook buy/sell/trade group, I found The Mantle that Digs up the Imp. By then I'd gotten familiar with both rating systems, and the main thing I take away from the SAS is AERC scores, and I mentioned this on the stream yesterday when I sat down during one of the rounds to chat Keyforge. I prefer decks with a 2 on the R score, but beware not all 2s are created the same, so make sure the artifact control is not Customs Office. Because while it slows the opponents down, we want things more like Nexus, Remote Access, Poltergeist or obviously Snudge as he's an all-star. In a Vault Tour setting I am definitely interested in how my decks rate out and where the power of those decks lie, when I chainbound I'm a lot less constrained and I'll bring just about any deck that I'm having fun playing, but to me both sites have their merits and are good for the game, and those of us that are obsessed with numbers and statistics like myself enjoy them a lot.

All of us fans were very glad to see a non-LANS combo deck, or a double Timetraveler deck, not win in a Vault Tour. And although your deck on paper seems very good in terms of the rating systems, while glancing at it, it does not seem to have anything extraordinary in it. There aren't outside key forging capabilities, no huge combos, no heavy creature control nor number of creatures. Why do you think the deck performed so well?


Few reasons: #1 the worst card in the deck is Full Moon, and when I say this to people their eyes get wide with all kinds of question marks in them. But between it and Bait and Switch, I discard those 2 cards the most. Sure, sometimes Full Moon comboed with my Hunting Witch can get me 3 to 7 amber on a turn, it doesn't happen often. So with that said, the deck just has very little fat and just about every card or creature does something meaningful at almost every point in the game. 

#2 I'd say that it's because it's well-rounded: It doesn't focus on 1 particular thing, it has enough artifact control to deal with OTK, it has enough amber production to put pressure on your opponent early, enough steal in the late game to make them not want to over commit and can either control the board or stick a strong board presences with something like Succubus or Shaffles next to a Shadow Self. 

Lastly, #3 Control the Weak is one of my favorite cards in the game to play with at high levels of play, because most of the time your opponent will play at a higher level on average, so it's a bit easier to get a read. In my top 8 match on turn 1 on the play, I played Control the Weak, named Logos, my opponent had no Logos, so next turn I played Succubus, Shooler and Control the Weak on logos again. My next turn was reap, reap, Mind Barb, Lifeward. It was really unfair.

There was a lot of talk about teams in this Vault Tour, with several members of various teams advancing far into the tournament, including yourself. What does a team mean/look like in Keyforge, what kinds of advantages do they give, and can you talk about your team and what that means to you?

Yeah with Vault Tour Denver we are now seeing this teams thing develop, I believe the top 8 had 3 teams represented. reapout.com had 3 top 8, SAS had 2 top 8, and Bouncing Deathquark had 1 so 6 of the top 8 competitors were team guys, and all 4 of the top 4 were on teams. I think there is some advantage to being on a team (ie moral support between rounds, strategic convos before/after events, and sometimes between rounds, and mostly being able to network hotels, flights, rental cars and other expensive associated with traveling across the country with people we have built relationships with).

My personal team is reapout.com, and while we haven't fully launched our site yet, we hope to soon, as the game could use some content on a weekly or possibly daily basis.

These are Casey Wyzlic words, but he's hit the nail on the head so I'm just gonna repeat them here:

"We are a small team of like minded people from many backgrounds. Our Ethos is to have fun, help each other out, and to promote the game we love so much. All of us play this game as a hobby and are here for the friendships, competition, and camaraderie that it brings. I'd like to say that I am a very good judge of character and am proud to call everyone on the team a friend.

With that being said, the members have talked me into making Reapout much bigger than I intended. We have streamers, writers, and competitive people who want to bring us and the community closer together. In the coming weeks we intend to launch a fan site that will include videos, articles, and a place to talk about Keyforge. We hope to have you all there.

Being on a team is just about working together, backing each other up, and making each other better. We had 4 people in the top 16 and had to take one of us out as we got matched up against each other. The game was played and fought well. I think at that point we were all amazed at how far we had come. Top 8 pitted us against 3 worthy foes and we went down to 2 members in the top 4. What a day! All of us actually played the decks we came with after going back and forth on who would play what, which i think has something to say about us.

Team SAS is a great group of people who are also like minded. We look forward to challenging each other, working together, and bringing all of us together as one. I've always said from the beginning that there is no competition in Keyforge between the players and stores because the decks are the ones doing the talking. Anyone can pull the double time traveler-horseman-OTK at your local sealed tournament with 4 entries (which we did).

Team Reapout is closed at the moment with three open invites for Jay Schelke, Rachael Trimble, and J Brian Andersen. Anyone I've personally met is invited to hit me up also. Future people will be decided on personal interactions with team members or long standing community members..... But from anyone that have met any of us at the Vaut Tours, I am postitive there is nothing negative to say. We look forward to meeting new people at the coming tours. Open your vaults and REAPOUT!"

What got you started in Keyforge? What attracted you to it in the first place, and what has kept you interested?

So I have played Magic the Gathering going on 20 years. I have played some on the Pro Tour and done fine at Grand Prix, but never really had the time to commit to professional MTG, as it requires you to be completely meta game efficient day in and day out since people can change their deck lists at a large event. Literally 3 to 5 cards can make a huge difference in how your deck functions the day of an event in the meta. 

I found this game in late October/ early November, when a bunch of people were casually playing at the local gaming store I play at, and I inquired about it and did some research after hearing that no 2 decks were ever the same. My mathematical mind got to thinking; how is this even possible, and I searched the web all night for as much information as I could til like 3 AM, lol (as most of us do when we become obsessed with something). So I bought my first deck and took it to the shop the next week. I had bought an opened one off someone on Ebay as it had Witch of the Wilds and at the time I was looking for cards that broke the rules of the game. 

 

So me and my buddy sit down for our first game, both with long-time MTG backgrounds, and our first game takes at least an hour, probably closer to 2 hours. Not because we were playing slow, but because neither of us understood reaping could be better then fighting, and we both just took turns with our Brobnar decks clearing the board. We shuffled our decks back at least 3 times each before the game finished. I lost, as my opponent had been playing since launch, so he knew a bit more then me, but this was enough to fuel my fire for Keyforge. Ever since then I have just been captivated by the people who play the game, their kindness, and the game itself for multiple reasons: uniqueness of decks, easy cheap entry, and that while the meta game can shift, my deck will never rotate.

How many decks do you own?

I have a sealed box and 2 loose decks that I'm saving for nostalgia opens in 5 to 10 years, 4 decks that I consider reversals, and 13 decks that i would consider for Archon events. I have sold off the rest as I personally like to keep my collection tight and easily manageable.

What is your process when it comes to choosing a competitive deck?

Play it ALOT!!! Know what your deck does inside and out, when it turns the corner, and when it's right to discard cards. Know when to mulligan. The more you play with your deck, the better you're gonna be with it. I have well over 150 games in with each of the 3 decks I brought, but with Bombfoot and Teacher I have well over 300. I haven't played Mantle as much as I haven't owned it as long.

What is your favorite House? What is your favorite House Combination in a deck?

Aww man, this is hard for me as I just love the whole game. Even trying to pick 5 of the 7 play mats for my winnings at the prize wall was hard, lol. But if I have to choose then Shadows is my favorite. I looove the flavor text on Too Much to Protect "not taking it would be the real crime".

My favorite House Combination is Shadows, Dis, and then any of the other 5.

What is your favorite card?

Tough call. There's a lot of cards at the top of my list, but I'm gonna say Mack the Knife if I gotta pick just 1.

What is the most powerful card in the game?

The most powerful single card in the game in the hands of the right people is Control the Weak. If you watch the finals rerun you can see my opponent use it effectively against me. (watch it here 5:21:20)

What is your favorite card combo or interaction in the game?

Lash of Broken Dreams/Too Much to Protect.

What is your best tip for players who want to play competitively?

Practice. Practice  a lot. Get games in where you can. It's very important to know your game plan and what your deck's strengths and weaknesses are.


The new set, Age of Ascension, comes out in roughly 1 month (see the spoiled cards so far here), what are your thoughts about it so far? Do you like the new keywords? Any patterns or major meta changes you predict? 

I'm really digging what's been spoiled so far: the art, flavor, complexity, and competitiveness look like they should be on par with everything we love from Call of the Archons. Alpha/Omega are great as they allow you to push a single card a bit more then you could without those (I'm looking at you Library Access :)). There are not enough cards for me really to anywhere close-to-accurate predict upcoming meta shifts, but I do believe it will have some impact on it.

What is your favorite card from the new set so far? 

Binding Irons is my favorite so far. Succubus rarely sticks around to reap and succubus is one of the top cards from Call of the Archons.

What is next for you?

I most likely won't be in Atlanta or Columbus as my lady and I have our first child due in just under 4 weeks, but I'm hoping to make Indy (Gencon). I'll definitely be continuing to play Keyforge and writing articles and doing content for reapout.com when we have it fully functional, and I'll definitely be at large events going forward in 2020.

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Well, congrats to the baby-on-the-way! I'm sure that won't affect your Keyforge hobby at all ;). I can't really recommend you naming the child Snudge or Hebe the Huge, but whatever you come up will be fine substitutes I'm sure. Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to fans, and helping to keep up content for this awesome game. I hope you readers enjoyed this as well. And as always, happy gaming!

Q&A with Vault Tour Winner Rachael Trimble!

Rachael Trimble, the recent Eindhoven Vault Tour Winner, graciously agreed to conduct a Q&A session with me for this blog, for which I am eternally grateful. I hope you share my excitement, interest, and thanks for her time in sharing with the great Keyforge community. Let's get started!

First of all, congratulations on your victory! The first Vault Tour winner for Keyforge! That is an amazing accomplishment, having to compete alongside 50+ people to make it to day 2, and then to win it all in what I am sure was a very competitive environment. We, the people, were wondering if we could pick your brain (and learn all your secrets and weaknesses), and see what led you to this high mark. Thanks for sharing with me and the world!

So, how long have you been playing Keyforge, and what about the game first got you interested, and what has kept you interested so far? 

I have been playing KeyForge since release, I was lucky enough to actually be able to attend the pre release event which took place in London. The big thing for me about the game which got me interested is the uniqueness of it, I love that I don’t have to build a deck alongside every deck being unique meaning every game is unique. For me this keeps the game fresh constantly as I never know what might happen in my next game.

The Vault Tour event you played and won was in Eindhoven, Netherlands, and the format was Archon, which was that every player brought a single deck they owned, and had to win in single matches, with 6-0 and 5-1 players making it to day 2. What made you choose your deck? (You can find Raechel's deck here: The Captain of Barrackslaunch) 

 

I don’t own a lot of decks, maybe around 12 at moment. Out of all these decks there is 2 that I liked, one of which was the TT (Timetraveller) and the other having 4 heavy mars taunt alongside Ether Spider and lots of little annoying creatures like Shaffles and Ember Imp etc. So for me it had to be one of these 2 decks. The heavy taunt Mars deck mainly focuses on delaying your opponent enough to try and let you get ahead. There isn’t a lot of amber on the cards so it mainly comes down to the creatures. The weakness of this deck is that if you have ways to take down my taunt either by a creature with poison or board wipes etc then it can struggle to keep up in amber. The other deck I liked was the double Timetraveller. This deck has several loses in OP events, it has no board wipes, and if someone can get out 4+ creatures of 1 house and just reap for 4-6 amber per turn then I can sometimes struggle to keep up as it ends up a race. I had tested them both online against people and in events. I took more of a liking to the double Timetraveller as it has a lot of raw amber on the cards (17) before I take into account any amber I steal from Bait and Switch, Relentless Whispers etc and with Help From Future Self shuffling my discard back into my deck it means those raw amber cards stick around. So I choose this deck and just hoped I could race my way to 3 keys in each match before my opponents. 

As a follow up to the previous question: Even though you won the tournament, what would you change in your deck if you could? 

The main thing I would change would be a board wipe. I think apart from Tunk all my creatures are 4 power and under so they die off pretty easily. This means the opponent can normally control the board and I don’t really have many ways to stop them, especially if it’s Sanctum creatures as most of them have shields so my 2 damage cards don’t get me far. If I was able to have a board wipe card it would allow me to hopefully not let my opponent get too many creatures down.

There has been a lot of talk regarding deck ratings in Keyforge, which I feel is very natural considering our competitive nature. But I was wondering, what are your thoughts regarding them? Do you value them? Which ones are your favorite? Or, what do you look for in a competitive deck? 

When it comes to deck rating I have never actually looked up any ratings for my decks. I have a friend who does and sometimes he tells me what rating my deck has got but for me personally I like to just play the deck myself and get a feel for how good it is. I do understand peoples need for wanting to rate decks, I have heard the SAS system and AERC is decent. However alongside that, my opponent in the final had a mid 70s SAS rating deck which would mean some would look at that and say it’s not tournament worthy, but in reality it competed against people’s best deck and managed only 1 loss all the way to the final so I would take any deck rating with a pinch of salt. I personally for now won’t bother with them as I don’t want a score pushing me away from a deck especially considering what I just mentioned about a mid 70s deck competing in the final of a vault tour.

 

The only other points I would add is that I managed to win with my deck by not only having some luck on the day but also playing my deck a lot and knowing what it can do. Sometimes I had to kill my own creatures to get that steal affect from Relentless Whispers, knowing what cards are left to play or little triggers in your deck can go a long way. I have The Sting in my deck and it helps when paired with Key Abduction. Don’t focus on scores and things and just focus on playing a deck and seeing what it can do. No deck is going to win every game so don’t be afraid of losing as non of us want a deck to win every game. We want decks to have a weakness so everyone has a chance.

People have made several comments as to the dominance of the Shadows House when it comes to competitive Keyforge. Shadows was also by far the most represented in the top decks. Why do you think this is? Do you think this is an anomaly, or will this be the norm in competitive Keyforge, at least until the second set is released? 

I think it’s fair to say Shadows is one of the best houses. With so many amber control cards within it, it helps you control your opponents amber which is always needed. In other houses you do get some amber control cards but Shadows has a larger amount which means more chance of seeing a few amber control in decks. For example in the final my opponents deck had no steal or capture in his Untamed, his Logos had 2 creatures which capture 1 when played and 2 creatures which steal one after a fight. All his other steal was in Shadows, so for me I knew if I kept gaining amber he would have to always pick Shadows to disrupt it and if he didn’t it meant he was only going to steal or capture maybe 1-2 amber. I mean I do think every house has some cool amber control cards, I love Screechbomb and Burn the Stockpile in Brobnar. Going forward if they don’t give other houses more amber control then people will default to Shadows houses in order to get that bit more amber control. If you don’t have amber control in your deck then it does mean you might need a fast gaining amber deck and just race for the win. In saying that the winner of the sealed Seattle Vault Tour had no Shadows in his deck and although it was sealed each player was given 3 decks which means there was hundreds of decks opened and his non-Shadows deck went on to win.

Despite Shadows being very popular, do you think there was a good representation of the other houses, at least in Day 1? What was the meta as far as you could tell? Were there any surprises? (I, for example, was surprised at all the Mars, as well as the lack of automatic key forging in most of the top decks) 

In my first 4 games I played Sanctum which for me is normally my weakness due to shields and not being able to control them. I played a mix of decks though including Horsemen and Timetraveller. I didn’t notice much of a meta day 1 as each time I played someone new it was a very different deck compared to the last. Even going forward into day 2, although Sanctum and Brobnar wasn’t hugely represented. I don’t think there was a common trend of cards in decks if you take away the Shadows. I mean you might have a great Shadows house but one house doesn’t win you the game. I was glad to see Mars doing so well considering some of the hate it had got. I personally like Mars and think there are some cool combos you can do with them. I was kind of surprised I didn’t come across any Dust Pixie with Key Charge and Nature's Call etc as out of turn forging. I thought would be a game changer but I don’t recall any opponent forging a key out of turn.

What are your thoughts as to the complaints that Keyforge may become pay-to-win, with the richest people having the "best" decks, and therefore having a significant advantage over the average player? 

I think in all games there is going to be an aspect of paying for good decks or cards and possibly having an advantage. I mean at the start, people where pulling Horsemen decks and then going online to sell them. The online market is filled with decks. When it comes to pay to win though I do think it’s hard to ever know if the deck you buy will actually go on to win anything good. I mean people might have not liked my desk due to it having Mars and no board wipes. People may have avoided the deck Rene had, who I played in the final due to its SAS rating. People do have the opportunity to go on Facebook, eBay, online retailers etc and view a vast amount of decks but asking someone to then choose one that’s going to take down a vault tour is a hard choice. I mean with every deck being unique how do you know the next deck you open it’s going to be that winning vault tour deck? Since every deck is unique and decks themselves aren’t hugely expensive I do think people will always continue to buy sealed and hope for a good deck. I mean my deck was purchased from my local gaming store and not online.

Do you favor Archon or Sealed events for Keyforge? 

I like both, sealed gives everyone a fair chance at winning but archon lets you test your best deck against other good decks so I think they both have a good side to them depending on what you are looking for. I do like to enter a sealed event at least once a month though alongside other events such as survival and adaptive. It’s nice to have a mix.

What is your favorite House? 

 

I would say Mars due to their combos like Blypyp with Key Abduction, John Smyth with Invasion Portal. I mean most of the Mars creatures are annoying which also makes them fun to play.
What is your favorite card? 

That’s a hard one, I have yet to know all the cards but I did take a liking to John Smyth for a while. However, since learning more cards and also playing with them I think I will have to say Time Traveller as you play the creature, get an amber and draw 2 cards. 3 great things from 1 card is just amazing.

What do you think is the most powerful card in Keyforge, or the card that affects the meta the most? 

 

I did think it would be out of turn forging and I thought Key Charge or Chota Hazri would be in the mix of top decks at the vault tour but that wasn’t the case and those I thought would have been powerful. I still think they are powerful in terms of gaining and forging. But then on the other hand, things such as Too Much to Protect or Bait and Switch, and other cards which control your opponent when they get a lot of amber, are also powerful as you need to be able to stop them or slow them down if they were to gain 8+ amber.

What is the most competitive House, and what is your ideal House combination in a new deck? 

 

I think Untamed as it has a lot of amber gain potential, you have Full Moon, Dust Pixie, Hunting Witch, Nature's Call, Nepenthe Seed, Witch of the Eye, Regrowth and so many other good cards which can gain you a lot of amber. I mean playing down a Hunting Witch and say 2-3 other creatures and then using maybe Witch of the Eye or Nepenthe Seed to get back your Nature's Call to then pick up 3 untamed creatures and playing them again for more amber is pretty cool.

What is your favorite combo or interaction in the game? 

 

I like to ready cards so using John Smyth with an Invasion Portal or Blypyp and Squawker or Soft Landing to be able to bring creatures in ready. I normally find this is an easier combo to pull off rather than holding out for that big Untamed turn with Hunting Witch or Full Moon.

What would be your best tip for new players? 

Play as many games as possible. I think the more you play the more you learn. I learn the cards by seeing them in play and I also get to see how other people play certain cards which could give me ideas for myself. The game is still fresh and there is still new things to find.

Have you pimped out your Keyforge accessories with custom keys, markers, etc? Or do you use starter set tokens? 

I use custom tokens and keys. There is such a wide market out there filled with custom tokens and keys. I mean why use wooden ones from the starter when I can have nice fancy ones. I think the starter set ones are great for starting out but once you get an urge for bling it’s hard to resist. Although now I am trying out some of my vault tour keys and playmats. 

What are you most excited about the new set (Ascension) coming out in a few months? 

I haven’t looked at all the cards but I do like how they are carrying over some but not all cards as this will keep both sets fresh. I did see a card called Flex which allows you to exhaust a ready Brobnar creature and gain amber equal to half its power. There is a new Brobnar creature with 11 power, so this could be a nice combo.
FFG has mentioned that there will be new Houses in the game eventually, any preferences to a new House theme? 

I think maybe a house which could interact with things, maybe do something if you forged a certain color key, or an artifact that lets you play a card from discard if a creature is destroyed, or maybe if one of your creatures die you can choose and destroy an opponent's creature. I like things that maybe trigger off other things to happen. Maybe make them a robot house due to an automatic affect going off once you trigger something.

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer some questions! Happy gaming and any parting words?

Thank you to everyone for your support. I hope to see you at some more vault tours. The community is amazing and it’s such a unique game, let’s just enjoy it. 

I hope you all enjoyed this fun Q&A, I know I did. Make sure to check out Rachael's Game Store for all your gaming needs :)

KeyForge Impressions from Gencon 2018

Hello all, I am back from Gencon 2018. It was a fun time with cosplayers, friends I only knew previously via online, and of course more board games than I can count. One game that particularly caught my eye was Fantasy Flight Game's new game from Richard Garfield, KeyForge: Call of the Archons. The combination of FFG and Richard Garfield is almost always guaranteed to pique my interest, as both are veterans in the gaming industry, with Garfield being most famous for Magic: The Gathering. I got a chance to demo this game and it is easily my most anticipated game I saw at Gencon, and I can't wait to get my hands on it.

I wanted to explain a little bit about what the game is, how it is played, what my experience was playing it, and then talk about my thoughts on the Unique Deck Game archetype.

So first, a little about KeyForge: This is the world's first Unique Deck Game. Every deck available is completely unique (with the exception of 2 of the starting decks, as they are fixed). Every deck stars an Archon, that has a completely unique name, that is never repeated. And each deck is also never repeated. That being said, there are 350 cards in the set split among 7 different houses. Each deck has 12 cards from 3 of the houses, and those cards vary in rarity and quantity. The claim is that there are more than 104,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible decks in this first set alone. That's crazy. Each deck also comes with a decklist and QR code that will be able to be uploaded to the upcoming companion app that will be released alongside the game. This will allow you to track your decks, see other decks, and monitor all sorts of statistical goodness in the world of KeyForge.

How does it play? (Rules)

KeyForge is played over a series of turns, with the goal being to forge your three keys to unlock the Crucible Vaults. The first to three wins. This is what your turn order looks like:

1. Forge a Key
2. Choose a House
3. Play, discard, and use cards of the chosen house
4. Ready Cards
5. Draw Cards

So, in the first step, you can attempt to forge a key. Typically, forging a key requires you to spend 6 Ember (the game's currency), although the cost may vary depending on various card abilities. You can also only forge one key during this step, although it's possible that some card abilities can allow you to forge a key during your turn.

In the second step, you must choose a house to activate. This is where the meat of the game is. You must choose one of the three houses assigned to your Archon, and then you may only activate, play, discard, and use cards from that house during your turn, although this can be done in any order. There are four card types: Action Cards, Artifacts, Creatures, and Upgrades. Cards in KeyForge do not really have a cost attached to them, barring some specific abilities, which means you can in theory play all of a house's cards on a turn all at once. Creatures and Artifacts come into play exhausted, and cannot be used the turn you play them. They have various abilities, and the creatures have a power and armor value, which contribute to how combat works. Action cards get played and then discarded, and Upgrades get played on Creatures in order to give them...well...upgrades. Some cards give you Ember as well as another effect.

When you use a Creature, you may do a number of things: Firstly, you exhaust said Creature, then you choose whether to reap, fight, or trigger an Action ability on the Creature. Reaping means you gain one Ember, and that is the easiest way to gain Ember. You may also fight, where you declare a target Creature for your attack, and both Creatures deal damage equal to their power simultaneously. Damage is applied via tokens and stays from round to round. Defeated Creatures get discarded. A Creature's life is also equal to their power.

The next step has you readying all of your cards, preparing them for the next turn. Then, you draw cards up to your hand limit of 6 (normally). If you ever run out of cards, simply reshuffle your discard pile to create a new deck.

There is also a Chain mechanic. A player may gain Chains through card abilities during the game, usually as a cost to play a powerful card, or a punishment against your opponent. The game comes with a Chain tracker, and the more Chains you gain, the lower your hand size becomes. In my demo, we never gained enough Chains to get past the first tier, so we only ever had our hand size reduced by one card, but if you get 7+ Chains your hand size is -2, 13+ is -3, and 19+ is -4.

And that is generally how the game is played. You can read the rulebook here.


So how does it actually play? (Demo Experience)

I only got to play the demo once, but it was a full game that went back and forth over many turns (I even managed to play through my entire deck and reshuffle), so I feel I got a good look at the game. I apologize for the lack of pictures. I should have taken screenshots of my decklist and the various cards, but I just got caught up in the demo and didn't want to take too much extra time, as there were lots of people trying to demo the game.

The choosing of the House step was very interesting, and it really forced me to make a ton of decisions. For example, I play a bunch of Creatures and Artifacts from the Brobnar House on my first turn. On my next turn, do I activate them and do stuff with them, or should I play cards from the Logos House, of which I have a full hand? Most of the time, it is not that extreme, which makes the decision much harder. Sometimes I chose a House and played/activated only one card from that House. There were a ton of decisions to make. Even just looking at Creatures and what they can do forces many decisions. Do I attack with my Creature and defeat an opponent, even though that doesn't directly fund the winning goal of gaining Ember to forge a key? Or should I just reap and gain Ember, and risk not disrupting my opponent?

The decks we played were also pretty well balanced, although they did play differently, despite us sharing several cards. My Houses were Brobnar, Logos, and Untamed, while my opponent I believe was Mars, Logos, and Shadows. My deck was very controlling and stalling. I had 3 copies of a card that reduced everyone's Ember by half. My Brobnar cards were all very fighty Creatures, with Artifacts and Actions that helped me keep fighting, and even gaining Ember when I fight. Logos had a lot of tricky Creatures that were very weak, but gave me several abilities to use and were very disruptive. Untamed had a couple of very large Creatures, several upgrades to make them even larger, and many Actions that had bounce effects that allowed me to remove opponent's Creatures from play. Overall I think my deck was pretty good. Controlling decks tend to be high caliber, and in an expert's hands I think it could have dominated. That being said, our match was actually very close.

My opponent managed to forge 2/3 keys before I even got one, due to some good Martian Artifacts and Logos Actions. However, I pulled off a 2 key turn after a devastating Brobnar turn: I had two copies of a Brobnar Artifact that when exhausted, gave me an Ember for each Creature defeated during a fight during the turn. I swept the board and gained something like 8-9 Ember. Then, on the following turn I forged a key normally, and then used a Logos (I think) Action card that allowed me to forge another key. It felt epic. The rest of the game, I got into a groove of stalling and delaying my opponent, all the while reaping with extra Creatures and slowly gaining enough Ember to forge my last key. Another key card (that seems ridiculously good), was a Logos card that allowed me to steal Ember until I had more than my opponent. This led to some huge swings. We both had the card in our decks, and if my opponent played it in his turn after my huge Brobnar turn I would have gotten crushed.

The game turns were quick, and there was very little downtime. Most of the time, I barely had enough time to read through my new hand of cards before it was my turn. I got to see my whole deck during play and frequently drew 3 cards a turn. I really liked how fast pace it was. I also really liked how my deck was constructed. Richard Garfield said it is not random, and that there is an algorithm, but how it goes about doing that I have no idea. It seems as though the decks have a theme to them and a strategy in general. As I said, my deck felt very controlling, while my opponent's seemed to be about building a resource engine and compiling massive amounts of Ember. It was a fun matchup. The cards have a ton of cool abilities, and the way you use them will greatly determine how you go about winning. After reading the rulebook, there were tons of abilities that I never saw, but I look forward to what they look like while playing. So overall my experience was very positive, and I yearn to play some more. Also, I personally really like the art style and theme choices. It feels very Smash Up-ey, which is ok in my book. The lighter theme helps with the lighter style of formatting.

Unique Deck Game?

I had many thoughts upon first hearing about this game: How can the decks be unique? How can you prevent cheating? Won't there be random crap decks that have no synergy? This feels so disorganized. How is there prize support? How could there be a genuine competitive scene in a game where you are randomly given your deck? Of course, not all the thoughts were negative: A game that is solely like a booster draft or a limited format, sign me up! No deckbuilding/netbuilding? Countless hours of preparation not needed? Really cheap cost of entry?

A lot of this will remain to be seen once the game is released, but after talking with several of the people running the demos, looking through forums, and reading/listening to Richard Garfield's take on the game, I feel a little more comfortable.

The decks are built using some kind of algorithm, so they are not completely random. You won't have to worry about getting a deck full of Action cards that require a robot with no robots in the deck. Cheating in the game would be very difficult due to the fact that each deck has a decklist, a QR code that backs this up, and every card in each unique deck has a back that has the unique Archon's name printed on it. Now this has a negative side, meaning that if a card gets ruined, that deck is essentially ruined. Sure, maybe you could try and substitute the same card and use opaque sleeves, but that may not be tournament worthy or whatever.

Each deck is only $10. If you want the correct tokens then the starter is $40, but that includes everything you need, 2 static decks, but also 2 random decks. The barrier of entry to this game is very low. Playing an LCG is far more expensive, and even similar formats in Magic are more expensive. This should be a very beginner-friendly game.

The algorithm also takes into consideration card interactions and strategies, so the deck shouldn't be a complete random junkpile, but have some good combos in it automatically. Prize support is a little more iffy, as you can't exactly have promos, but upgraded tokens and playmats are definitely possible. Now will the game be competitive? I dunno. I can't wait for fun tournaments where everyone buys a new deck, cracks it open, and then see who can win. I ideally want to have tournaments at my local gaming store, and at the end of each tournament, they take a picture of the decklist like a team picture, and put the plaque on the wall. Perhaps there could be a mini league where you play the same deck throughout the season, and the decks get rated by the league and handicaps are implemented to make it more equal. The rulebook actually talks at length about this concept with using Chains as the handicap for "better" decks. Using Chains as a bidding option in the beginning, or gradual assigning of Chains when it is obvious a deck is really good.

I really like the concept of the game. I don't play Magic competitively, but I do enjoy playing in Midnight Release Drafting parties and stuff like that. My favorite format for the Epic Card Game is Limited, where you are drafting cards from "packs" and have to make your deck work, even with suboptimal cards. So this game scratches that itch. I appreciate Richard's attempt, even if it doesn't completely pan out. I doubt the competitive Magic players will love this game. At best, it will be a fun distraction, and not considered to be legitimate in terms of competitive play. And that's fine. This game can appeal to other people. Plus, if you really miss deckbuilding, nothing is stopping you and your friends from getting opaque sleeves and deckbuilding to your heart's content.

The upcoming KeyForge App

Richard Garfield has said that he wanted to create a game that had remnants of what Magic used to be. Before the age of the internet, when two Magic players would meet for a game, there were likely cards and decks that a player had never seen. There was an excitement at seeing a new card played against you, or a new strategy, and that excitement has lessened due to the information age we live in today. Richard also mentioned talking about how fun it was to have to use a deck that wasn't optimal, that had some cards that most thought to be weak, and that winning with a deck like that made it so much sweeter. He also loves procedurally generated content, because there is a real sense of ownership and discovery when you know you are the first person to see and use something. Something that the designers may have not even seen. He likens this to the difference between walking in an amusement park and walking in a jungle.

I really like this quote from Richard about this game: "In the amusement park there are experts telling you how to play the game, the safest strategies, what net decks to use. In the jungle you have the tools you have. There is every chance that you are going to be the best in the world at playing your decks – you can’t just look up what the synergies are or the weaknesses; you will only find out by playing. Welcome to the jungle!"

I for one can't wait to get into the jungle. I hope you enjoyed this article. Wait with me until Q4 of this year, and happy gaming!