Keyforge: Top 5 Star Alliance Reprints from Dark Tidings

Ok, rounding the final turn of my look at the Top 5 Reprints from Dark Tidings. If you need (as I am sure you do as the hierarchy of needs according to Maslow goes physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and finally small Keyforge content creator articles written badly), check out the previous Houses, Logos, Sanctum, Saurian, and Shadows. Today we are looking at Star Alliance. Below is the list of all the reprints we are getting along with card number and rarity.

Z-Force Agent 14 - 252 - R

Z-Particle Tracker - 253 - Fixed with Z-Force Agent 14

Z-Ray Blaster - 254 - Fixed with Z-Force Agent 14

Z-Wave Emitter - 255 - Fixed with Z-Force Agent 14

Book of IeQ - 257 - R

Captain Val Jericho - 258 - R

Commander Dhrxgar - 260 - R

Crash Muldoon - 261 - R

Doctor Driscoll - 263 - R

Encounter Suit - 264 - R

Forging an Alliance - 266 - R

General Order 24 - 267 - R

Matter Maker - 269 - R

Plasma Nozzle - 270 - R

United Action - 273 - R

Away Team - 275 - U

CXO Taber - 278 - U

Force Field - 279 - U

Lay of the Land - 280 - U

Mutagenesis Researcher - 281 - U

Stunner - 285 - U

Universal Translator - 288 - U

Xenotraining - 289 - U

Lieutenant Khrkhar - 295 - C

Light of the Archons - 297 - C

Sci. Officer Qincan - 301 - C

Zap - 305 - C

Star Alliance has some really good reprints in Dark Tidings. They aren't all game breaking or combo monsters, but most of them are very solid. I actually had a really hard time narrowing down my top 5. A ton of cards vied for the #5 spot. I feel pretty good about the top 4, but the 5th could be any number of the reprints.  

#5 Crash Muldoon

As I said above, any number of reprints could have gone into this slot. I could have had a tie between the bonus amber upgrades, which are all great (especially Light of the Archons). I could have had some of the other creatures that allow for cross House shenanigans. I decided on Crash Muldoon, simply because he allows for instant access to other creatures on your turn. This can be a lifesaver when you need to do stuff from both houses, such as capturing from Sanctum (to prevent a key), but also play a bunch of Star Alliance to empty your hand, or whatever. There are tons of applications and combos for Crash to exploit and use, and this set looks like it has those in spades.

#4 Matter Maker

This is a little more reliant on deck composition, but having Matter Maker around can make the speed of your deck so nice. You can filter through your deck at blistering speeds if you have this out with a lot of upgrades. Every House in this set has at least 1 upgrade in it, so it's possible to be utilized by everyone. But if you have tons of Star Alliance upgrades, this is the perfect tool for you. This makes an already fast House even faster.

#3 Captain Val Jericho

Oh captain, my captain! My personal favorite of the leaders in Keyforge. Some say Zenz is better, but I always found Jericho to be more consistent. It is pretty easy to get her ability to work every turn just from careful creature placement. She is hard to get rid of with decent power and armor as well. She is the prime and leading example of Star Alliance speed and out-of-active-House playing. You can more easily empty your hand, play crazy combos, go through your deck, and get yourself out of sticky 2/2/2 hand situations better with this card. Look for her making a difference in every deck she is in.

#2 Lay of the Land

Who doesn't love this card? There is no way this is a bad card to get. It is both fun and competitive. The ability to scry (sorry MTG haters), is hugely important in any card game, and this is better than most. Not only do you get to look at the cards, you get to rearrange the order, and then draw a card on top of it! Plus, it gives you an amber bonus to boot (it would still be amazing even without it). I love this card (I only wish there were more enhancers in the set so I could get copies of it with more bonus icons). This is an awesome card to get in any deck, and in a combo heavy set, it will be invaluable. 

#1 Book of IeQ

This is one of those cards that you can really abuse if you have the right pieces. There are a number of cards in this set that allow you to filter your deck in a way to know what card is next, with the best being in Star Alliance! Playing Lay of the Land to set up a double House turn really is a beautiful feeling. Plus, you can always give it a try even if you don't know 100% what card is next, just make sure you are done with Star Alliance first. I can't tell you how many times this has allowed me to basically take two turns in a row. With the amount of card draw in this set, I expect this card will be even more amazing. I can't wait to crack this open alongside Logos and Untamed for card draw, amber generation, and key cheating!

Honorable Mention - Mutagenesis Researcher

I wanted to mention this card, just because it is my biggest gripe about the newest set: There aren't enough of these kinds of cards in the set. The bonus icon enhancers are the best thing to come to Keyforge. Nothing encapsulates the unique deck selling point like what we got in MM. This little innovation truly can make decks unique in no other way we have seen so far. I know they develop sets in advance, and they tried to add a couple of these cards to the set because of the popularity, but it's not nearly enough. I really hope they realize how awesome the bonus icons are, and they add more to each set going forward. Until then, cards like Mutagenesis Researcher will hold a special place in my heart. Not necessarily because it's an amazingly competitive card necessarily, but because of what it gives Keyforge as a unique game.

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So there we have it, my top 5 Star Alliance Reprints from Dark Tidings. I am very curious to hear of people's opinions of this House. I am very excited to see what they can do in this set. They seem quite good and have a lot of really fun combos to try. Do you agree with my list? Any changes? Criticisms? Interpretive dances? Please let me know. Thank you for reading and happy gaming!