Keyforge: Differences when you get the same Houses

Keyforge has been released, the dawn of discovery is here! I have been looking forward to this for a while. I was very glad to get my starter and 4 additional decks, and although 3 of the 6 unique decks I got had the same exact 3 houses, they were at least ones that I like. But this is the perfect opportunity to look at the variance of decks that have the same houses. How similar are they? It's bound to happen to all of us if we collect Keyforge. It was one of my worries getting in to the game, so let's dive in! I'm going to post the deck contents, and then look at some stats. I will look at the number of creatures/actions/artifacts/upgrades in the deck, the amount of raw amber (the automatic amber you get when you play a card), and then a short summary of how the deck works.

My first deck is Victoria "Countess Hulker" Mundy

Creatures: 11
Actions: 20
Artifacts: 5
Upgrades: 0
Raw Amber: 12

Analysis. So this deck is Action heavy. With 3 Gateway to Dis, Key to Dis, and a number of other actions, we have some serious board sweeping power and removal. It feels like a control deck. The Raw Amber count is a little misleading since if I just play Treasure Map on a turn, it guarantees me +3 more Amber. There are also several cards that allow me to steal Amber when played, and a few that capture them. It looks like controlling the board and stealing are going to be my win conditions. Shadows has several ways of stealing Amber alongside one of my favorite cards in Bait and Switch. I can take away a key with Key Hammer, slow down my opponent with Miasma, and of course draw tons of cards with Library Access in Logos. It feels like a very solid deck and I did win my one game I have played with it so far 3-0.


My second deck is She who Reads about Hedonism

Creatures: 11
Actions: 12
Artifacts: 11
Upgrades: 2
Raw Amber: 10

This deck feels like an Artifact deck to me, although actually looking at the numbers it is pretty even. It was a very slow moving deck, but once I got going, I was unstoppable. In my game my opponent got 2 keys before I got any. However, I was able to survive, put out a bunch of artifacts, and then I was able to eliminate any board presence from my opponent, slow down their production while increasing my own, and eventually come out on top. For my playstyle, unless I really got good with the deck, I am sure we would go to time in a tournament. It just takes a long time to play in order to win. The Bad Penny/Seeker Needle combo worked very well at the end of the game, and Key Hammer was crucial in slowing down my opponent in the early game. I also feel like this deck would be a little swingy due to how few duplicates there are in the deck.


My third deck is Second R. Kominajila

Creatures: 22
Actions: 9
Artifacts: 4
Upgrades: 1
Raw Amber: 10

This deck felt kind of generic. It has a massive amount of creatures, or double the previous two anyway. It feels a little disjointed, with few combos and obvious ways to win. With so many creatures, it comes down to having a large board presence, and reaping/killing with it until you win. It has the potential to become really good, but it does suffer from strong board houses like Sanctum, as well as board clears. In my opinion this is the weakest deck, but that could just be because of my playstyle. I did lose with it, although it only lost 3-2. It jumped to a good lead, but couldn't do anything once my opponent had a good Sanctum presence on the board.




So let's look at these decks: Comparing the simple stats I actually have a lot of variety right off the bat, which is pretty cool. My first deck is mainly actions, the second deck is evenly split between creatures/actions/artifacts although it plays like an artifact heavy deck, and my third has mainly creatures that swarm the board. Upgrades are minimal and the raw amber is very similar in all three decks. After playing with all three, I mainly want to play some more. I am extremely happy that each deck plays differently though. If there can be this variety within decks that have the same houses, how different will other houses be? That is exciting for the game.

This was hardly a controlled experiment mind you, as I played these decks against different decks each time, and against some different people. I did find out some of my personal preferences when it comes to playing, so that was very nice, and that is the best advice I can give when it comes to this game. If you want to know if you have a good deck, try it out. I do think there are some ways you can tell a "good" deck from a "bad" deck, but it is much harder to figure out. I think somewhere it is in the amount of Amber you can generate/deny your opponent, and how easily your deck can adapt to changes, but that will be hard to quantify.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this article. Which deck is your favorite? Currently, mine is the first one, Victoria, but we will see after some more games. Happy gaming!