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Post by Plum on Aug 10, 2018 13:15:02 GMT 1
www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/keyforge/So, back in the day, when Richard Garfield created MTG he envisioned that people would buy some base cards and a whole bunch of boosters, then create whatever deck they could and run with that deck, warts and all. What actually happened was people netdecked and bought exactly the cards they wanted, resulting in a bunch of 'solved' decks. His latest card game is KeyForge and is designed to bring back that feeling of putting together a hodge-podge set of cards and figuring out how to wring as much strategy as possible from them. When you buy a KeyForge deck (around the $10 mark I think), you get a randomised deck of 36 (?) cards, belonging to three of the seven factions in the game. Those are your cards. You can't add to the deck, remove anything, or modify it in any way. That's your deck and it's unique - no-one else will have that specific combination of cards. You have to learn it inside out and figure out how to tease every drop of power from it. Or just buy another whole deck and try again. Each deck has a 2d barcode that can be scanned to see the contents, so tournament organisers will know whether your deck is legal or not. The randomisation process is supposedly slightly skewed to give you reasonable synergies and a fairly balanced deck overall, but if any one deck bucks the trend and proves overpowered, it could potentially be handicapped or even banned from tournament play. You MTG vets might be wondering how this differs from a sealed tournament where you open up a bunch of boosters and try to make a deck from the contents aaaand I'm not entirely sure that it does by much. But it formalises everything and should give a smoother power curve since the randomisation algorithm aims to create decks of a similar power. Super interesting idea. Has anyone else been following it? There's a $40 starter set that comes with two starter decks (full decks but with known cards that are used to learn the game), two 'real' decks, plus all the tokens and stuff needed to play. Or you can just buy a single $10 deck and make the counters yourself.
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Post by lemmingrad on Aug 10, 2018 22:55:57 GMT 1
Well, now that you’re eyeing it, I might keep an eye on it as well. Didn’t really know what to think of it until your explanation.
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Post by Bomber678 on Aug 11, 2018 6:44:34 GMT 1
It's magic where I don't have to build a deck and I don't have to invest crazy amounts of money?
You know what, I think I'm down.
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Post by Star Slayer on Aug 11, 2018 11:16:42 GMT 1
In the "remnants of the FantasyStrikeForums" Discord, the reaction to this game was very negative. Mostly due to: Or just buy another whole deck and try again. If you approch this game from a competitive / play-to-win angle, this model must be the most egregious unPerfect / pay-to-win model ever conceived. Some were joking that Sirlin would quite both game design and society if Keyforge ever became a significant success.
If tournaments are only played with decks bought at the site and never with decks brought from home, it would be indeed similar to sealed deck and not a pay-to-win problem. You could still play the new deck at home and $10 is much cheaper than the usual $25 for an MtG sealed event. Though with the latter, you can use the cards you get elsewhere.
In a casual environment, nobody would (or at least should) buy a hundred decks until they get one with a +2% higher win chance than usual. Maybe this game could indeed fulfill Richard Garfield's dream of having a casual card game where each player buys half a dozen packs and plays with their own unique deck at the kitchen table.
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Post by Plum on Aug 12, 2018 0:27:38 GMT 1
Anyone that treats the game like a lottery and keeps buying tickets in the hopes of scoring a winning deck is going to be very disappointed (and very poor). And if someone does find a one in a million perfect deck (which they shouldn't as the decks aren't truly randomised), then after crushing their first couple of tournaments they'll find the deck forcibly retired, putting them back at square one I'm not entirely sure this game is aimed at the Sirlin's of the world but that's ok
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Post by lemmingrad on Dec 10, 2018 4:30:25 GMT 1
So, my cousin got into it. He likes what he sees so far. I asked him his opinion compared to Sealed.
Basically, he goes, it has the potential to set up a tournament quite easily. It won’t have the highs that Sealed can become, but it’s also less likely to have the bads of say being screwed into 3 colours.
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Post by Plum on Dec 10, 2018 13:56:51 GMT 1
Yeah so far all five of the decks I've played have had built in synergies and combos. The algorithm they use is supposedly tilted towards combos and shouldn't give dead cards and that lines up with what I've seen. Sealed tournaments should be pretty balanced as a result The main thing to remember is that board control and dominating the playfield is just a means to an end - building amber and forging keys is the win condition. I lost to my boyfriends hyper aggressive red-black deck with board wipes and hasty monsters and I just couldn't figure out how I could possibly keep any creatures on the board. In the second game I realised that I didn't have to - for all his kill potential, he wasn't generating much amber and I just let him have the board. I threw out some powerful reap creatures to force him to waste his house calls on board play, while I just had a steady trickle of amber from card play and stealing. It was still a super close game since he was reaping a bunch with spare creatures, but some crucial steals and stalls meant that he was always a turn behind. Really hammered home the variable playstyles and that some decks just don't care about holding a line
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Post by Zejety on Dec 11, 2018 15:45:20 GMT 1
Hmm, maybe I should give this another chance. You make it sound interesting.
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Post by Plum on Dec 11, 2018 16:25:20 GMT 1
Hmm, maybe I should give this another chance. You make it sound interesting. It's a lot lighter than something like MTG or L5R, but it still has plenty of interesting decisions and a super low bar to get into it. A starter set is maybe £30 and includes all the component pieces, two 'starter' decks and two complete full decks. Even the starter decks are full decks but they contain a set list of cards that include keyword descriptions on the cards themselves to make it easier to learn the game Definitely worth picking it up and giving it a try, even if you don't decide to go any further with it
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Post by lemmingrad on Dec 12, 2018 14:56:09 GMT 1
And you don’t even need to pay for a starter, you can just buy decks, figure out what you wanna use for tokens and read the manual online. My cousin did this route.
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Post by Plum on Dec 12, 2018 17:10:39 GMT 1
Oh yeah, absolutely The only reason the starter decks are particularly useful is that the keywords are all written out in full so that you don't have to check the manually constantly while learning the game. If that's not something you particularly care about then yeah, you could skip it entirely. Since it also comes with two full decks though, it means that all the starter stuff only costs maybe £15 itself
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Post by Zejety on Jan 29, 2019 13:28:33 GMT 1
We've bought into the game at work. Took one of the "real" decks off the guy who bought the core set and also ordered one extra. I think the game is generally okay at the price point it is placed at. It's kind of a shame that the designers flat out accepted the existence of good and bad decks (by admission of the handicap rules) but I suppose it can be part of the experience for people. Anyway, I've played the first game with my new deck today and that one sticks out to me as the least mindless one I've played so far. Its Mars cards revolve around having Mars cards in your hand, so you must find a decent balance of playing them and keeping some. The few Logos archive cards help manage card draw by allowing you to draw anyway. The Brobnar part has and a bunch of gain-amber-for-fighting cards to set it up. Fun! If more decks are like that, I revise my opinion of the game being on auto pilot.
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Post by Plum on Jan 29, 2019 22:48:47 GMT 1
Ooh nice! Yes, I think it's accepted that it's not pitched at the hardcore market. But it is fun and quick to play, and opening a new deck is fun We've got some awesome brobnar combo decks but shadows and dis are far and away my favourites (though I still don't have a single mars deck!)
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Post by Zejety on Feb 11, 2019 17:55:04 GMT 1
{Spoiler}
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Post by Plum on Feb 12, 2019 11:45:54 GMT 1
Ohh that's really nice! You've become a foamcore wizard!
I've not had a chance to play much in the way of board or card games in the last month sadly so my KeyForge decks are sitting idle (along with my L5R Crabs and my boardgames). The few bits of gaming that I've managed to make time for are RPG related (2x D&D campaigns and 1x L5R campaign)
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