Jekyll2019-08-26T19:45:34+00:00http://libraryofbabble.oobik.com/feed.xmlLibrary of BabbleWelcome to the Keyforge blog where I write about everything and anything in this amazing game by Fantasy Flight Games!Understanding Keyforge: Deck Archetypes2019-08-24T16:18:00+00:002019-08-24T16:18:00+00:00http://libraryofbabble.oobik.com/keyforge/analysis/2019/08/24/Keyforge-Archetypes<p>Last week on the Keyforge discord channel I eneded up in a long discussion with another member of the community about racing decks. I realized that I haven’t seen anyone try to classify each deck archetype in Keyforge, so I thought I would give it a shot here. This is completely subjective and entirely my opinion, which may be wrong. I hope some people will at least find it useful to have a basic understanding of what people mean when they refer to these archetypes at the LGS. I have also included a short blurb at the bottom of each archetype where I give my opinion as to what sort of general matchups that archetype has against others.</p>
<h2 id="control">Control</h2>
<p>When playing a control deck, your goal is to slow your opponent down while you have a way of accumulating increasing value until there comes a point where your accumulated value greatly exceeds whatever they are trying to do. I refer to these accumulated value cards as scaling cards. Artifacts and creatures in Keyforge fit into this category because the longer they stay alive the more you will be able to reap or activate them.</p>
<p>Shards decks are some of the most archetypal control win condition cards. With one shard in play, each activation is either on par with that of another artifact or below. With each subsequent shard, the shards gain power until they are generating amazing value on each activation. In a shard deck, the longer you drag the game out for the more likely you are to hit your three shards. You’re much more likely to win if you can activate each shard 4 times for the triple shard bonus.</p>
<p>This is what a shard-based control deck might look like:
<img src="/Images/ClassicControl.png" alt="Control deck" /></p>
<p>This deck has removal to slow the opponent in the form of Coward’s End and Oubliette, aember control from Little Niff and Burn the Stockpile, and scaling win conditions in the form of the shards, Titan Librarian, and the double Subtle Maul.</p>
<p>Under the umbrella of control, there are two main sub-archetypes: board control and aember control.</p>
<h2 id="board-control">Board Control</h2>
<p>Board control decks rely on using fighting and reaping to get ahead. A board control deck denies its opponent resources and slows the game down through fighting, and generates large amounts of aember consistently once it has established a very large and intimidating board.</p>
<p>In board control decks the scaling win conditions are usually creatures with powerful passive or reap abilities that can be activated multiple times without threat due to the constant fighting presence of other creatures, or through the protection of creatures like Shadow Self or large taunt units. Creature based combos are also quite reliable in board control decks because the chances of the combo pieces dying is much lower. The Ganger Chieftain/Drummernaut combo and the double Grey Rider combo both are much more consistent in board control decks.</p>
<p>This deck is an example of what a board control deck looks like:
<img src="/Images/BoardControl.png" alt="Board Control" /></p>
<p>This deck has a whopping 21 creatures, using the brute force of these bodies to muscle the opponent out of the game. In this deck the scaling win conditions are double Commander Remiel, the Succubus and the Tocsin as they all generate a ton of value as the game goes on. Guardian Demon and Cleansing Wave are also great in this deck due to the constant fighting, generating even more value from your board.</p>
<h4 id="matchups">Matchups:</h4>
<p>VS. Aember control</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aember control decks have a hard time dealing with board control decks because most board control decks don’t generate much aember for the aember control decks to steal or destroy. By the time the board control deck has established a proper setup, the deck can reap consistently for 6 or more aember a turn, generating too much aember for the aember control deck to deal with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Rush</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Rush decks annihilate board control decks because there are so many incidental cards that mess with creatures in Shadows and so many strong boardwipes in other houses. Rush decks are too fast for board control decks to deal with. By the time a board control deck gains a large enough board to start reaping, most rush decks have already won or are halfway to their third key.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Tempo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tempo decks are usually quite hard to pilot and require the player to know when to switch from more of a rush style to more of a midrange style. A properly piloted tempo deck should be able to wipe the floor with a board control deck if it gets to go first and establish a board before the board control deck, but similar to midrange the matchup does come down to the decks and the players.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Combo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Board control decks will have to race against combo decks and hope that the opponent does not draw the combo before they can establish a huge board. Board control decks will usually beat creature based combo decks but struggle against the more action-oriented combo decks. Like with tempo and midrange though, it does come down to the individual deck and the secondary and tertiary archetypes present.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="aember-control">Aember Control</h2>
<p>Aember control decks mess with the opponent’s aember more than the board, preferring to rely on stealing away aember to win or slowing the opponent down enough with aember destruction to win through a combo or recurring value through artifacts like Subtle Maul or the shards.</p>
<p>Here is an example of a aember control deck:
<img src="/Images/AemberControl.png" alt="Aember Control" /></p>
<p>This deck wins through messing with the opponents aember through Bait and Switch, Charette, and Faygin/Urchin shenanigans, hoping to burst a ton of aember in one turn with a Hunting Witch/Full Moon combo from Untamed, or through the double Carlo Phantom stealing aember over time.</p>
<h4 id="matchups-1">Matchups:</h4>
<p>VS. Board Control</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aember control decks have a hard time dealing with board control decks because most board control decks don’t generate much aember for the aember control decks to steal or destroy. By the time the board control deck has established a proper setup, the deck can reap consistently for 6 or more aember a turn, generating too much aember for the aember control deck to deal with.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Rush</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aember control decks will eat rush decks for breakfast. Aember control decks inherently counter what rush decks are trying to do, especially in a steal heavy aember control deck. The only way a rush deck can beat a aember control deck is if the rush deck has heavy aember control itself or has a combo element and can win through something like a Key Charge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Tempo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Another skill based matchup. Tempo players absolutely must establish board early and fight to keep board control, hoping to force the aember control player to call houses at innoportune times to steal or remove aember. Tempo decks can take this matchup down but aember control is favored here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Combo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aember control decks have a hard time playing against combos that forge keys as part of the combo, but don’t have as much of an issue with creature based combos. Deck dependent as the combo player must judge when it is safe to go off and the aember control player must judge when they should be afraid of a combo turn, but overall I would bet that combo decks win this matchup more often than not.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="rush">Rush</h2>
<p>Rush decks are the aggro decks of Keyforge. The goal is to pressure the opponent with tons of raw aember generation. A rush deck must have enough expected aember to forge all three keys without having to reap once with creatures. Rush decks play differently from the other archetypes because all the effects of your cards are almost secondary to the aember itself. You go fast, make aember, and brute force your way through to victory. A good rush deck can make around 3 aember a turn with relative consistency, pressuring the opponent to make suboptimal plays to stop you.</p>
<p>This is an example of a rush deck:
<img src="/Images/Rush.png" alt="Rush" /></p>
<p>This deck has triple Virtuous Works, probably the strongest card in the game for aember generation. Speed Sigil is perfect for this deck as it helps turn all of your creatures into raw aember pips and this deck can slow your opponent down a little with Blinding Light and Nature’s Call while pumping out the massive 30.5 expected aember.</p>
<h4 id="matchups-2">Matchups:</h4>
<p>VS. Aember Control</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Aember control decks will eat rush decks for breakfast. Aember control decks inherently counter what rush decks are trying to do, especially in a steal heavy aember control deck. The only way a rush deck can beat a aember control deck is if the rush deck has heavy aember control itself or has a combo element and can win through something like a Key Charge.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Board Control</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Rush decks annihilate board control decks because there are so many incidental cards that mess with creatures in Shadows and so many strong boardwipes in other houses. Rush decks are too fast for board control decks to deal with. By the time a board control deck gains a large enough board to start reaping, most rush decks have already won or are halfway to their third key.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Tempo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tempo decks will usually beat rush decks because while they are just slightly slower than rush decks, the additional threat of creatures and other strong interactions gives Tempo decks a leg up if they can make the game last an extra turn or two longer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Combo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Rush decks will usually be able to go faster than combo decks, but there is always a chance for the combo deck to get lucky and draw into the combo. Creature based combos are usually stronger against rush decks because it is easier to maintain board control to fully execute them.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="midrange">Midrange</h2>
<p>Midrange decks want to hit a balance between rush decks and control decks. A good midrange deck can go over a rush deck with control cards and establish value plays, while against a slower deck will power out aember and win before the opponents engines go online. Midrange decks want a mix of everything, and most Keyforge decks will fall solidly in this category.</p>
<p>This is an example of a midrange deck:
<img src="/Images/Midrange.png" alt="Midrange" /></p>
<p>This deck has a balance of removal, powerful scaling cards, aember control and aember generation to play a wide variety of playstyles and play to the weaknesses of the opponent. If you can protect the Shaffles this deck will beat the rush decks, and if you reap early and go for aember generation you have a good chance of beating a board control deck.</p>
<h4 id="matchups-3">Matchups</h4>
<p>Midrange decks don’t have any distinct matchups because they are a balance of all the archetypes. Each matchup will be based off the individualities of the list, strengths of the player, and the heart of the cards.</p>
<h2 id="tempo">Tempo</h2>
<p>Tempo is a harder archetype to define because even in other games like MTG it is hard to find a concise, agreed upon definition. I think of the tempo archetype as a deck style that generates a source of pressure early, protects that pressure, and powers out burst in the endgame to win. If a tempo deck gets ahead early they can abuse that advantage and rip the opponent apart. If they get shut down at the beginning of the game, however, the deck usually has a motley crew of suboptimal cards without enough raw aember to win. I love playing tempo decks because they can be very skill intensive while retaining that optimized and fast feel of rush decks.</p>
<p>This is my favorite tempo deck:
<img src="/Images/Tempo.png" alt="Tempo" /></p>
<p>The deck can cycle quickly with the Yurk cards, can mess with the opponent through double Tezmal and the double Zysysyx Shockworm, and after reaping in the early game can win through the 19 expected aember.</p>
<h4 id="matchups-4">Matchups</h4>
<p>VS. Tempo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Another skill based matchup. Tempo players absolutely must establish board early and fight to keep board control, hoping to force the aember control player to call houses at innoportune times to steal or remove aember. Tempo decks can take this matchup down but aember control is favored here.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Board Control</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tempo decks are usually quite hard to pilot and require the player to know when to switch from more of a rush style to more of a midrange style. A properly piloted tempo deck should be able to wipe the floor with a board control deck if it gets to go first and establish a board before the board control deck, but similar to midrange the matchup does come down to the decks and the players.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Tempo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Tempo decks will usually beat rush decks because while they are just slightly slower than rush decks, the additional threat of creatures and other strong interactions gives Tempo decks a leg up if they can make the game last an extra turn or two longer.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>VS. Combo</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Similar to rush vs. combo, tempo decks are favored because they can go faster than the opponent. Creature based combo decks are usually weaker against tempo decks though because tempo decks can usually play for board somewhat, while more impactful combos are very strong against tempo because there is a higher chance of drawing the combo.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2 id="combo">Combo</h2>
<p>I covered combo decks in a previous article, and if you would like to hear more about combo decks I recommend you check that article out, as I wont go into them in detail <a href="/posts/2019-08-07-Combo-Decks.md">here</a>.</p>
<hr />
<p>No deck in Keyforge will be one specific archetype, and most of them will have aspects of each thrown in. One of the best parts about this game is that each deck is completely unique and will always respond differently to different opponents because each opponent will also always have a mix of archetypes. Boot up https://www.thecrucible.online/ and play some Keyforge to figure out where your deck fits and what matchups are good for your deck!</p>Last week on the Keyforge discord channel I eneded up in a long discussion with another member of the community about racing decks. I realized that I haven’t seen anyone try to classify each deck archetype in Keyforge, so I thought I would give it a shot here. This is completely subjective and entirely my opinion, which may be wrong. I hope some people will at least find it useful to have a basic understanding of what people mean when they refer to these archetypes at the LGS. I have also included a short blurb at the bottom of each archetype where I give my opinion as to what sort of general matchups that archetype has against others.Understanding Keyforge: How to use AERC2019-08-14T13:34:00+00:002019-08-14T13:34:00+00:00http://libraryofbabble.oobik.com/keyforge/analysis/2019/08/14/How-To-Use-AERC<h3 id="aerc">AERC</h3>
<p>AERC is the best system for measuring the raw statistics of your deck. There are currently 6 different measurements that factor into an AERC rating:</p>
<ol>
<li>Aember control</li>
<li>Expected aember</li>
<li>Artifact control</li>
<li>Creature control</li>
<li>Deck Manipulation</li>
<li>Expected power</li>
</ol>
<p>AERC does a good job of getting a relative benchmark strength for your deck, but it is by no means an infallible system. Each rating is based off an opinion on a card, which will inevitably lead to inconsistencies and ratings that are impossible to standardize for each deck.</p>
<p>The problem with AERC lies in the fact that /u/coraythan on reddit took the time to log each value, adding the inherent bias of the creator. In Keyforge it is very hard to create a power measurement for cards because each deck is so unique. This means that in one deck a <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/274-miasma">Miasma</a> may be just a raw aember with some delay potential, but in another deck with 2x <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/231-doorstep-to-heaven">Doorstep to Heaven</a> it may be worth much more in terms of setting up aember control.</p>
<p><img src="/Images/AERCart2.png" alt="This deck does have Miasma but it's nowhere to be found on the aember control section of the AERC breakdown" /></p>
<p>This deck does have <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/274-miasma">Miasma</a> but it’s nowhere to be found on the aember control section of the AERC breakdown, even though it can set up extremely strong aember control turns with <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/298-too-much-to-protect">Too Much to Protect</a></p>
<p>Another factor that makes AERC hard to measure is that there is never a meta where everyone is playing with exactly the same deck. Almost every single card in the game has some niche use, so in some matchups your <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/50-take-that-smartypants">Take that, Smartypants</a> will be worth simply an aember and in other matchups it will be gamebreaking. Unless FFG seriously messes up, targeted hate cards like <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/50-take-that-smartypants">Take that, Smartypants</a> will be very hit or miss, polarizing the ratings on the card and the AERC of the deck.</p>
<p>Let’s take a look at <strong>B. Holt, Scudiera di Lucebrillante</strong>, one of the top rated decks listed on decksofkeyforge.com</p>
<p><img src="/Images/AERCart1.png" alt="B. Holt, Scudiera di Lucebrillante" /></p>
<p>This deck has a completely nuts AERC score of 74, with the bulk the AERC coming from the expected aember, aember control and deck manipulation. A pretty bonkers deck, as far as the AERC goes, but it runs into some of the problems I outlined earlier.</p>
<p><a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/281-relentless-whispers">Relentless Whispers</a> is listed in this deck with a 0.5 creature control value, a 2 for expected aember, and a 1 for aember control. <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/281-relentless-whispers">Relentless Whispers</a> adds a total of 3.5 AERC to the deck. <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/281-relentless-whispers">Relentless Whispers</a> is a good card, but it’s not that good. It is only possible to get that value if you finish off a creature with the two damage. Otherwise the card only provides 1 aember and the 2 damage ping. If you’re playing against a deck with heavy Sanctum units you may not hit the final two damage with <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/281-relentless-whispers">Relentless Whispers</a> once, knocking your effective AERC score from a 74 to 70 (subtracting 1 expected aember and 1 aember control for each copy of <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/281-relentless-whispers">Relentless Whispers</a>).</p>
<p>AERC also gives <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/92-pit-demon">Pit Demon</a> a 1 for aember control and <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/64-shooler">Shooler</a> a 0.5. That may be accurate for more board heavy decks, but in this deck I would argue that because of the low number of creatures and the weak creature power values <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/64-shooler">Shooler</a> will be stealing an aember more consistently than <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/92-pit-demon">Pit Demon</a>.</p>
<p>Looking at the winrates of both <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/64-shooler">Shooler</a> and <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/92-pit-demon">Pit Demon</a>, I see that <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/92-pit-demon">Pit Demon</a> has a winrate of 53.9% while <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/64-shooler">Shooler</a> has a winrate of 54.5%. This would indicate that <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/2-aoa/cards/64-shooler">Shooler</a> steals aember more consistently than <a href="https://keyforge-compendium.com/sets/1-cota/cards/92-pit-demon">Pit Demon</a> because they are both from the same house, have the same power, and have the same rarity, with the only difference in the two cards being their steal effects.</p>
<p>AERC is a great tool and it is important to know how to use it properly. AERC can be used to great effect for at a glance analysis or when flipping through decksofkeyforge waiting for the bus, but it can also give a false sense of security. It can be easy to just look at the stats for a deck and assume it is strong because it has a high AERC or SAS rating, second guessing any of your other evaluations. Sometimes players get so comfortable with the rating systems that they forgo evaluating the deck themselves at all until they play it at a chainbound event.</p>
<p>Especially when buying decks on the secondary market, please playtest them first and make sure they are what you expect. If you are buying a fun Heart of the Forest deck because you don’t have a deck with the card, it probably won’t matter so much if the deck isn’t great. If you’re dropping $500 for a vault tour level deck because you saw that shiny 68 AERC value, playtest before you buy. The crucible online is a free resource where you can practice any deck even if you don’t own it in person so you might as well use it. The deck you’re buying could have gotten lucky and done well at a vault tour, or it could have been piloted by an amazing player like Dunkoro. That doesn’t necessarily make the deck worth the price tag.</p>
<p>As always, if you have a comment please leave it on the reddit post <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/KeyforgeGame/comments/cr0h6u/understanding_keyforge_how_to_use_aerc/">here</a> or message me on Twitter. If you want me to cover a specific topic, just let me know!</p>AERCHouse Analysis: Why is Shadows good?2019-08-09T19:13:00+00:002019-08-09T19:13:00+00:00http://libraryofbabble.oobik.com/keyforge/analysis/2019/08/09/Shadows<p>Ah Shadows. The best and the worst of Keyforge balled up into one rootin’, tootin’, stealin’ and lootin’ house of fun.</p>
<p>This house has dominated the top levels of Keyforge, appearing in the very strongest of decks as the house with the highest winrate. Shadows’ dominance was established quite early on into the game, usually only beaten out by the Library Access Nepenthe Seed combo. With the errata of Bait and Switch, it was thought that Shadows might lose traction as a competitive house, but that wasn’t really the case. Age of Ascension was thought to have fixed many of the house’s problems. I think that FFG didn’t go far enough to deal with Shadows because they were afraid of touching the house’s key mechanic: Steal.</p>
<p>Steal is extremely strong as a mechanic. The ability to control your opponent’s aember while simultaneously gaining one allows you to catapult yourself ahead in the game while keeping your opponent behind. In most other houses, FFG would only print one or two cards that either give you 2 aember or make your opponent lose two aember. In Shadows, there are multiple cards that steal an aember and give an additional effect. Stealing 1 aember is always going to be a net 2 aember swing, but these additional effects can be extremely impactful too. The problem with steal in Shadows is that there are so many steal cards and they are all strong.</p>
<p>In Untamed you have Hunting Witch and you have Dust Pixie, both of which can gain large amounts of aember and are of the common rarity. Dust Pixie is designed to be a “chase” card, a card that is a staple of Untamed’s competitive decks. Hunting Witch is similar, but requires more set up and can be more easily interacted with, making it fun for your opponent to play against because you can do something about it before it gets too out of hand. In Sanctum there is Virtuous Works and Glorious Few. Again, both of these cards are capable of extreme aember generation but are limited in the fact that they are both uncommon and come from a house with very little support for the burst aember generation playstyle. Glorious Few even has anti-synergy with the house and can be anticipated easily if you know your opponent’s list. In Call of the Archons Shadows you have a total of 8 cards at the common rarity that steal aember and have additional effects. This is in a house that synergises with steal and aember generation already. It’s not just the steal, it’s the fact that if you try to play around the stealing you just get punished from a different card in the same house. Try to go above 7 aember to forge your key because you know they have 3 Nerve Blasts? Get hit by Too much to Protect. Try to take a turn to build up your board to try to out reap your opponent’s aember generation and steal? Get hit by Lights Out or Poison Wave, both of which give your opponent aember while setting you even further behind.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I think steal is a very important part of Keyforge. I think that it becomes a problem when you have little to no counterplay. How do I stop my opponent from stealing 3 aember with triple Urchin? I can’t. And aside from a few corner case combos, no other house will give that kind of power to a freshly opened sealed deck. I can’t stop my opponent from playing a Carlo Phantom and then dropping both their Evasion Sigil and their Speed Sigil, or playing all three of their Routine Jobs in a single turn, taking me from check to 0 aember. The actions are so difficult to play against because there’s no setup. It’s this non interactive playstyle that is so strong.</p>
<p>If your opponent plays a Ronnie Wristclocks, you get hit by the steal, and it sucks. You get set back 1 or 2 aember, which as an action would already be insane, but then you also have to deal with this 2 power creature that is just going to sit there and reap if you don’t kill it. Against Shadows you somehow have to hold board control(having to use your creatures as removal instead of reaping), generate twice as much aember as your opponent, and play around cards like Bait and Switch and Too much to Protect.</p>
<p>All this is just made worse by the fact that FFG has statted many of the creatures in other houses that generate very strong passive bonuses at 1-3 power, perfectly in range for almost all of Shadows’ removal. Nice Duskwitch you got there, I guess I’ll play Nerve Blast. Oh dang, you played double Mindwarper? I guess I’ll just play this Poison Wave. Double Succubus? Good thing I have an Urchin (that just has to have elusive) to use for my Pawn Sacrifice.</p>
<p>Now how do you combat Shadows? How do you win through this glut of powerful cards that mess with your aember? Well, you either have to steal your aember back, slow the game down enough so you can reap for more than double the aember they steal consistently, use key cheats like Key Charge or Chota Hazri to power out aember before your opponent can touch it, or combo off in some way to generate huge bursts of value when your opponent is out of Shadows cards. It definitely is possible to play around Shadows, but it can be extremely painful and kind of a crapshoot sometimes, especially when your opponent’s other houses are also strong.</p>
<p>I actually do love playing Shadows. It is extremely satisfying to pull off a double Magda the Rat turn just to sacrifice them after I’ve forged my key. It is just so frustrating to have so many fun strategies and deck archetypes invalidated or suppressed by the power of Shadows as a house. I would love to be able to play a board control deck without knowing that most Shadows/Dis decks are just going to beat mine not because I misplayed or made any mistakes but simply because their common cards are so much better on average than mine. Steal is good for the game, but not in the concentration and power that is available currently.</p>
<p>I would just love steal to be balanced more along the lines of cards like Stealer of Souls, Ritual of Balance, or Cutthroat Research, and give us more tools to combat steal in Worlds Collide.</p>
<p>If you have any suggestions for me or want to get me to write on a specific topic, let me know on twitter or in the reddit comments and I’ll get back to you! I just set up this new blog site with Jekyll and Github servers, so I plan on changing the theme around a bit and modifying the page a little more once I have more time. I’m also trying to set up a program that will display the card image once you mouse over it, but that feature is probably a week or so away. I’ll also be posting these articles to reddit, so if you want to comment I encourage you to do so <a href="https://old.reddit.com/r/KeyforgeGame/comments/coky8c/library_of_babble_blog_why_is_shadows_good/">here</a></p>Ah Shadows. The best and the worst of Keyforge balled up into one rootin’, tootin’, stealin’ and lootin’ house of fun.Understanding Keyforge: Combo Decks2019-08-07T12:40:00+00:002019-08-07T12:40:00+00:00http://libraryofbabble.oobik.com/keyforge/analysis/2019/08/07/Combo-Decks<p>Combo decks in Keyforge have historically been extremely strong and demanded the highest prices on the secondary market, with some combo decks selling for thousands on decksofkeyforge.com or the Keyforge buy/sell Facebook group (I think the deck that won the most recent vault tour was bought for $15k, but I may be mistaken). Combo decks are volatile and extremely strong with the right hand, able to forge multiple keys on the spot or burst crazy aember from seemingly nowhere.</p>
<p>Combo decks are very tricky to pilot. The player must balance the combo and the chances of drawing into the combo versus playing other cards and just moving through their deck. Is it worth effectively chaining yourself in order to find the other combo piece? Can you guarantee that your combo will actually make a significant impact in the game even if you do end up getting the right cards? All these questions are important to answer when looking at combo decks and how to evaluate them.</p>
<p>Lets say you’re trying to combo off with Battle Fleet into Key Abduction, a classic and strong combo that works by drawing a ton of cards off Battle Fleet and then instantly forging a key for a heavily reduced cost with Key Abduction. When playing this deck you must ask yourself a few questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>How much value am I giving up while looking for the other combo piece?</li>
<li>How impactful will this combo be even if I do hit the right cards?</li>
<li>If I am searching for the combo does my opponent notice? Can they punish me for doing so in any way?</li>
</ul>
<p>When looking at the value you are losing by looking for that other combo piece it is important to look at the state of the board, the state of your deck, and what kind of deck you are playing. In the case of the Battle Fleet combo, if you have Battle Fleet and 4 other Mars cards it’s usually not worth saving those cards for the combo turn. It can seem super frustrating to call Mars with a Key Abduction and 3 creatures only to draw into the Battle Fleet at the end of your turn, but you must keep it in context. If you have a hand of 6 cards and 4 of them are from Mars, that means you will only be able to draw a maximum of two cards per turn if you’re lucky by calling the other houses. Even if your Battle Fleet is 4 cards from the top of your deck, it would have taken 3 whole turns to play the combo if you saved your Mars cards, effectively chaining you for 4 cards over 3 turns. A whole key forged can look alluring, but it is almost never worth giving your opponent 3 turns to do whatever they want.</p>
<p>The next thing to look at is the impact of your combo. Before the Library Access Nepenthe Seed combo was nerfed, the right deck could forge 3 keys in a single turn to win the game if they got that combo off. This combo was so powerful it was worth taking multiple turns off or doing absolutely nothing for the majority of the game because as long as your opponent didn’t win before you drew the right cards they had no chance. The current combos are much weaker. Key Abduction usually requires some aember, a large board, setup cards and/or large archives to forge a key. The Ganger Chieftain Drummernaut combo requires your opponent to have an empty board and only nets you 6 aember, not a fully forged key. Understanding how your deck can reach the requirements to each combo and how quickly they can do so is vital to playing your combo deck well. And knowing when to just play the cards to get them out of your hand is important, too. Especially with players new to combo decks, players tend to really fall hard to sunk cost fallacies when playing combo decks. Too often I see people hold combo cards for a turn too long when they should have really just got that house out of their hand. The next turn you then feel that you have to save the combo cards because you already gave up so much to save them the turn before. Players will sometimes waste 3 or 4 turns chaining themselves trying to get a combo that wouldn’t actually be that impactful. Getting your Ganger Chieftain Drummernaut combo out after waiting 5 turns isn’t going to win you many games.</p>
<p>If you know that your combo is coming up soon or that you will soon be able to combo off, you have to be extremely aware of your opponents decklist and what they can do to stop you or punish you. If your opponent has 10 creatures in play before the first key and you want to combo off with Key Abduction, you’re probably going to lose unless you get a boardwipe quickly as your opponent can just reap for faster and more consistent aember. Looking for cards like Too Much to Protect and Interdimensional Graft in your opponent’s deck is vital to success for many combos. You never want to Hecatomb to sacrifice your own board only to have your 15 aember cut down to 5 from a Doorstep to Heaven.</p>
<p>If you have been trying to set up a specific combo, your opponent may catch on. If you are trying to set up a big Key Abduction turn, they may save a Restringuntus to lock you out of your Mars house when you have 5 Mars cards in hand. Even something as small as your opponent going for a play that develops their board more may be devastating if you are taking a turn or two off to set up a big Key Abduction turn.</p>
<p>Lastly, I want to say that there are some situations where you just have to play for the combo and hope your opponent doesn’t have the cards to counter you. A huge part of playing combo decks is knowing when you can do what, and sometimes you just have to roll the dice and hope to get there.</p>
<p>I hope you all enjoyed the article! I am quite close to finishing the website I’m building so I’m planning on migrating all my existing articles and any future articles onto that blog. I’ll be posting the new blog on Reddit, Twitter, possibly Facebook and various Discord servers, so stay tuned!</p>Combo decks in Keyforge have historically been extremely strong and demanded the highest prices on the secondary market, with some combo decks selling for thousands on decksofkeyforge.com or the Keyforge buy/sell Facebook group (I think the deck that won the most recent vault tour was bought for $15k, but I may be mistaken). Combo decks are volatile and extremely strong with the right hand, able to forge multiple keys on the spot or burst crazy aember from seemingly nowhere.Understanding Keyforge: Stages of the game and pressure2019-08-02T17:10:00+00:002019-08-02T17:10:00+00:00http://libraryofbabble.oobik.com/keyforge/analysis/2019/08/02/Stages-of-the-game<p>In Magic The Gathering there are 3 main different deck archetypes: control, aggro, and midrange. Each of these archetypes represent a different play pattern and each excel at a different point in the game. An aggro deck wants to win as fast as possible, usually sacrificing its own resources to deal those final points of damage. A control deck wants to stall the game out as long as possible, winning through a battle of attrition and just by locking out your opponent or grinding them to a pulp. A midrange deck wants to control the early game and then go for a strong midgame, carrying that lead through to the end.</p>
<p>These archetypes are also present in Keyforge, but instead of deck archetypes they represent different stages of the game or playstyles shown in the different houses.</p>
<p>Call of the Archons Untamed, for example, is a great example of an aggro house in Keyforge. The best Untamed decks wanted to generate aember as quickly as possible with cards like Hunting Witch, accelerating your keys with Key Charge or Chota Hazri. With this house, it was often the correct play to reap with your creatures in the lategame regardless of boardstate because with a good Untamed deck you were always able to generate a ton of aember and then key charge your way to a win.</p>
<p>Sanctum is a perfect example of a midrange house. This house has strong, resilient creatures without much in the way of aember control or speedy aember generation, rather relying on their difficult to remove boardstates and ability to slow down their opponent just enough with cards like Barrister Joya or Raiding Knight to get the reap engine rolling away to victory.</p>
<p>Finally, Dis is a quintessential control house. This house makes your opponent want to flip the table while you cackle behind your double Tezmal with glee, activating your Lash of Broken Dreams every turn. Cards like Hand of Dis, Gateway to Dis, Poltergeist, Succubus and Restringuntus are all great control cards that pay you off for using them at the right moment and, in the case of the creatures, can single-handedly steal a game when gone unanswered.</p>
<p>Just because you have a good aggro Untamed house does not mean you should always play the house in the same way, however. If you land an early Duskwitch, it may be more valuable to try for a more midrange playsyle in order to dominate the board and get rid of any threats to your Duskwitch. If you try to play Duskwitch in a very aggresive way you will get less value from your Duskwitch overall because while you are busy reaping instead of clearing your opponents board, they are simply throwing two creatures at your Duskwitch to kill it, whereas if you kept it alive you could have gotten much more value from the card in most cases. This would make Duskwitch a great midgame card. If you are ahead on board your opponent must scramble to kill it immediately, costing them resources that usually could have been more efficiently spent elsewhere. If you are behind while playing Duskwitch your opponent may waste time fighting it, potentially allowing you to claw back board control or just distracting them from generating aember. Unfortunately Duskwitch is easily removed due to its measly 1 power, balancing its extremely strong effect.</p>
<p>Early game it is most important to establish a board presence, especially in AoA. If you can drop 2 or 3 beefy Brobnar creatures it is much easier to use those units to fight later on, knocking down your opponent while leaving you with the most powerful board. The faster you get out your units the more options you have later in the game. If you have 5 units and your opponent has 3 you have a wider range of options to fight. You can assign damage more accurately and more efficiently, deciding which creatures live and die, snowballing your lead on the board. Raw aember does not matter nearly as much at this stage in the game because the expected value of creatures just goes up and up the longer they stay in play. If you are able to reap with a creature 5 times over the course of a game, then that one play has netted you more than almost any other single card in the game. If you manage to use your Lollop the Titanic to kill 3 enemy creatures you effectively played a card that read “Destroy 3 enemy creatures over the course of a few turns”. Comparing that value to that of, say, Hand of Dis (which can be considered a relatively strong card) seems almost laughable. During the early stages of the game it is most important to play as many cards as possible, and choosing to play the most possible cards in every turn is usually a stronger choice.</p>
<p>Midgame opens up a couple of new options. I like to think of the midgame as the point in time where it is apparent which player is controlling the board. Once one player has clear unit control, the other player must choose between racing aember or fighting to reclaim board from a disadvantageous position. Knowing both your deck and your opponents is extremely important for this stage of the game because this is where you have to figure out your win conditions. You want to be able to balance your pure acceleration (raw aember and aember generation) with expected aember over the course of the game (reaping and playing for more value over the immediate gain) so that when you get to the late game you aren’t so far behind your opponent in raw aember that you can never win, but you also have enough actualized resources that you can make that final burst in the late game. The midgame can be summed up in one phrase: playing to win versus playing not to lose.</p>
<p>I classify late game as the point in the game where a player is probably going to win the game in the next 3 turns. Late game is where you must extract as much value as possible from your available resources in a very short time. You have to be able to use all the resources you have saved up through the course of the midgame to do two simple things:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Win</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Stop your opponent from winning</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>It looks really obvious but it can be difficult to play disciplined lines lategame. You may have to call a house and only play 1 of the 3 cards in your hand from that house. Your evaluation of win condition from the midgame should come in to play here. What cards explicitly stop your opponent from winning and help you win? Swindle becomes an absolute powerhouse at this stage of the game because the difference between steraling aember to go from 3 to 6 on your last key is way more important than on your first key. Whenever you get to enough aember to forge, your opponent MUST answer you. If you can get to enough aember to forge, you should. Nothing else matters as much as that aember at this point in the game.</p>
<p>This Monday I was watching a player at my LGS’s chainbound event. This was a heavy approximation of his board and hand below.</p>
<p>Both players were at 4 aember and 2 keys.</p>
<p><img src="/Images/UmbraExample.png" alt="Boardstate" /></p>
<p>This player is one of the strongest players at our LGS events and is heavily involved with the community, and here he opted to call Sanctum and establish his board. If this was the board position at the first key, calling Sanctum is 100% the correct play, but at this stage in the game he definitely should have called Shadows. Calling Shadows checks both of the two boxes for endgame play: it stops your opponent from winning (with the steal from the Umbras) and would put him at enough aember to forge a key. Even good players make these kinds of mistakes, and identifying these weaknesses in your play can give you that extra 5% edge that you need to become more competitive.</p>
<p>From this position the Lash of Broken Dreams may deter you from going for the aember-heavy play with Shadows, but there are still a couple of factors that make Sanctum much weaker. Firstly, the Sanctum creatures have almost zero expected value. The game most likely wont last long enough to reap with them once, and even if you did, you are only playing 4 Sanctum creatures, giving you a 4 aember reap once you get around to it. Calling Shadows gives you a 5 aember swing immediately if you factor in the steal. Secondly, calling Shadows forces your opponent to call Dis just to use their Lash of Broken Dreams. If they have have any cards in Logos or Untamed or any other big plays from either of those houses they are probably out of luck, unless they can either win on the spot with a Key Charge or somehow get you off your 7 aember. By calling Shadows you also get a free Restringuntus effect. Attacking with the Umbras also allows you to kill their Yurk, the only Shadows creature they could get value out of, essentially robbing them of another aember given that they are extremely likely to call Dis.</p>
<p>This play is also based off knowledge of the decks that are being played. I know that both decks were AoA sealed decks. As a set, AoA has much worse steal and aember control that CotA, especially in Logos and Untamed. Maybe if aember counts were lower at this point in the game it would have been better to call Sanctum. If both players were at 2 keys 0 aember then it would have actually probably been better to call Sanctum and use the house to establish a stronger board presence.</p>
<p>Knowing when to transition from the different stages of the game is extremely difficult and takes lots of practice, but once it is mastered it becomes much easier to win games that seemed unwinnable or to completely crush your opponents from seemingly even positions because you have managed your resources better and maximized the value from different effects and plays through different parts of the game.</p>In Magic The Gathering there are 3 main different deck archetypes: control, aggro, and midrange. Each of these archetypes represent a different play pattern and each excel at a different point in the game. An aggro deck wants to win as fast as possible, usually sacrificing its own resources to deal those final points of damage. A control deck wants to stall the game out as long as possible, winning through a battle of attrition and just by locking out your opponent or grinding them to a pulp. A midrange deck wants to control the early game and then go for a strong midgame, carrying that lead through to the end.Understanding Keyforge: A look at Timetravller2019-07-22T19:27:00+00:002019-07-22T19:27:00+00:00http://libraryofbabble.oobik.com/keyforge/analysis/2019/07/22/A-look-at-Timetraveller<p>On my bus ride to work, I love to listen to Keyforge podcasts. There are many awesome people producing great content for the Keyforge community, like the Sanctimonius crew, the Help from Future Self pod, the Keyfort pod, and many others, but almost none of them have homogenized ratings for cards or decided-upon lines of play. I love this aspect of the game, and I think this constant discussion and discovery is part of what makes Keyforge fun and interesting, but I want to try and take a slightly more analytical approach to evaluating cards and boardstates in the game of Keyforge.</p>
<p>Coming from a game such as MTG or Pokemon, Keyforge seems relatively easy to grasp. Cards are fluid and easy to replace, and there is no set cost for most actions. There is no concept of “energy” or “mana”, but where Keyforge lacks in explicit costs it makes up for in the hidden costs. With this article, I’ll be starting a series of (hopefully) weekly articles discussing different lines of play, interesting Keyforge cards and how they interact with the game, the system of resources in Keyforge, and other topics on the game coming from the perspective of a former (semi-competitive) TCG player.</p>
<p>In this article I’ll be evaluating Timetraveller, one of the most sought after cards in Keyforge decks. Timetraveller has many different effects, making it difficult to evaluate. Let’s break it down.</p>
<p>When Timetraveller enters play it:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Gives you 1 aember</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Draws 2 cards</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Using an action, Timetraveller can:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Reap for 1 aember</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Fight and kill an enemy creature with 1 health, surviving with 1 health</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Suicide for 2 damage</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Shuffle himself back into your deck</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Worst case scenario Timetraveller gives you an aember and dies to a poison wave or something. The floor is not too low as there is always that aember pip, so Timetraveller is always going to give you something of a bonus when played and is never going to be a dead card.</p>
<p>Keep in mind, in order to use any of the activated abilities on Timetraveller you must wait approximately 3 turns. If you call whatever house you are holding most of to maximize your board development, then Timetraveller must survive for approximately 2 turns after the turn it was played, and with that measly two power that can be a difficult feat. Luckily, there is always Help from Future Self.</p>
<p>Timetraveller also draws 2 cards when it enters play. This may seem strong on the surface (and when I first started the game drawing two cards seemed amazing, at least coming from MTG), but in reality you only have around a 2/3 chance to hit another Logos card. If you don’t hit another Logos card, the cards you just drew are worth nothing (with a few corner case exceptions like helper bot, phase shift and archiving from your hand) because you would have refilled your hand to 6 at the end of your turn either way.</p>
<p><img src="/Images/Timetraveller.png" alt="Timetravller" /></p>
<p>Timetraveller as a card scales depending on the average power of cards in your deck as well as the combo potential in your deck. If you are playing a sealed deck where the average card in your deck is below average, then the cards you draw are probably going to have a smaller impact on the game. If you’re playing a deck that relies on synergy, for example, then maybe the draw effect of Timetraveller will bring you the information you need at a faster time, setting up a stronger combo turn. He also gets stronger the faster you can look through your deck because of his partner card, Help from Future Self, so if you have a bunch of Eyegors in your deck with Timetraveller you can expect to power him out quickly and then also recur him quickly.</p>
<p>Timetraveller is an example of a scaling card, one that gets stronger the longer the game goes on. Early game it is important to develop board and establish control, while late game aember generation becomes more and more important. Timetraveller’s draw effect gives you a higher chance to find your aember generation or aember control later in the game, as the longer the game goes the better most of the silver-bullet type cards in keyforge get. (I am in the middle of writing another article on this, so stay tuned)</p>
<p>Now, Timetraveller on its own would be a decently strong card, but the thing that really pushes it over the top is the card that accompanies it: Help from Future Self</p>
<p><img src="/Images/Help from Future Self.png" alt="Help from Future Self" /></p>
<p>This card is absolutely insane. The fact that it gives one aember on top of the aember from the actual Timetraveller card is completely nuts, but the shuffling effect helps balance out the card a bit. Shuffling your discard pile back into your deck is usually a negative in Keyforge because with a smaller deck it is much easier to predict what your next potential draws are and sculpt your plays around the cards left in your deck, even though this effect only really takes away from the card’s strength at high levels of play. The best part about this card, though, is the fact that it effectively duplicates a very strong card in your deck, giving your deck that much sought-after consistency that can be missing in a game like Keyforge compared to another deckbuilding TCG. Essentially doubling up on this very strong Timetraveller card gives your Logos house less space to roll that sweet, sweet 5th Binate Rupture</p>
<p>Overall, Timetraveller is an awesome card to play and is incredibly flavorful, being a satisfying card to play without being too strong. Having a Timetraveller in your deck makes it more consistent and faster without feeling monotonous or boring when you play the card. Fantasy Flight Games totally nailed that balance of consistency and randomness, creating one of the best cards Keyforge.</p>On my bus ride to work, I love to listen to Keyforge podcasts. There are many awesome people producing great content for the Keyforge community, like the Sanctimonius crew, the Help from Future Self pod, the Keyfort pod, and many others, but almost none of them have homogenized ratings for cards or decided-upon lines of play. I love this aspect of the game, and I think this constant discussion and discovery is part of what makes Keyforge fun and interesting, but I want to try and take a slightly more analytical approach to evaluating cards and boardstates in the game of Keyforge.