Yeah, that doesn’t feel particularly controversial. The unique deck idea is interesting, but as with most things, success or failure comes down to execution.
Ooh, I am interested in this. Nice thing is it sounds like you won’t have to worry about deck power inflation either. More money invested gives more decks, but the decks have their set power level.
See, to me, that sounds awful, because it could obsolete your old decks, potentially (not necessarily by any means). If there’s any sort of power creep whatsoever, it will be a mess.
Well, I put my money where my mouth is and pre-ordered a starter set and two extra decks. I imagine this could be good to play with my kid, who likes card games but hates any kind of deckbuilding. The last card game we got into together was Star Wars Destiny, but I couldn’t get him to play anything but the starter lists. Looking forward to short circuiting that issue.
To be clear, I agree with everything you said; I just think “no trading/secondary market” is a lesser concern in the face of “only two other people at my LGS are still playing this after week one.”
Anecdotal, but I’ve never seen anyone play Netrunner, or even express significant interest in playing it, at either of my LGSes in the last three years. Now, I’m sure FFG’s miserable model of “good luck finding older expansions or even the base game” had something to do with that, but as already mentioned, I’m not convinced fixing that would’ve led to weekly tournaments or anything, because so many people are already attached to another more popular game and don’t have money, space, or time to pick up a new one they can’t guarantee other people will be playing. Put another way, there’s a reason my LGS these days has five separate weekly Magic events across at least three separate formats, plus two weekly YGO tournaments, D&D and occasionally W40K groups, and feelers out for local Pokémon players, but doesn’t bother promoting in-store play for anything else outside of very rare community demo events.
That preview sold me on it. I really like the concept and the idea of learning to get the most out of your deck. If this was MtG, I’d obviously miss the deck building. But that’s not what this game is. And I’m quite happy to play card games which aren’t CCGs. Especially with enjoyable mechanics and gameplay. And this one has that according to Tom Vasel.
The unique deck look for each deck is also very neat. The combination of generating unique and visually distinct decks is really interesting and seems well done.
I’m definitely in for a starter pack and a couple of decks.
FYI: Anyone who wants to try out the game, there is a TTS mod available now with a few dozen decks.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1467894341&searchtext=
Seems like all you have to do is remove phrases like “racism” from the name generation algorithm?
The Boy who Basically Headbutts Heaven
Now that’s a deck I can get behind.
I picked up the starter set. The first deck I opened was called “The Pushy Lady” and has a card called “Hysteria” in it… Not the best first impression. But my other one is called " The Acutely Bony King of Nevermore" which I quite like.
I haven’t actually played the game yet, though.
I split a box (12 packs) with a couple of friends.
Nothing too outrageous namewise but our first game was incredibly one-sided. When I forged my third key I think my opponent only had four total aember! At one stage I must have had 14-15 creatures in play (couldn’t fit them all on the mat!) while he never had more than two at any point.
Despite this we both enjoyed ourselves and look forward to a re-match…with a hefty number of chains applied to my deck!
One game is hardly an appropriate sample size to determine whether your deck is that much stronger.
I played several games with starter and the 2 included random decks this weekend and performance in one game was no guarantee about performance in the next. What you draw and when is key.
The game itself is quite enjoyable. I can see myself playing with those decks for quite a while and getting a few more as time goes by for variety.
All in all, Keyforge is likely going to be a fun little (pocketable) game to bring on trips for our family.
True, though it performed in a similar (ie dominant) fashion in the next game too.
We did, however, play another game with two different decks and had a real nailbiter. Both of us had two keys and five aember and it came down to me missing one of my cards with an Omni ability that let my opponent grab the win.
Hoping to get more games in this week using the online implementation, but certainly enjoying what I’ve experienced so far.
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/keyforge/
Game philosophy:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/richard-garfield/keyforge-the-first-udg/1802928009823414/
Pax info:
I wasn’t paying attention and I haven’t had time to sit down and read the complete rules yet, but I guess you sort of need the starter set to play?
I thought you could just pickup individual decks and dive in, so I grabbed two when I saw them at the store last night, but skimming some videos makes it looks like I need a bunch of tokens and trackers and stuff that aren’t in those individual decks.
Correct, though what you need to track things is pretty minimal:
15-20 counters (aember)
6 counters (forged keys)
Some way of tracking damage (I use SW Destiny +1/+3 tokens)
Handful of counters (mark stunned creatures)
A few dice (track chains, increased power on a creature, etc)
I imagine most gamers probably have stuff like this lying around. Certainly I don’t know anyone who bought the starter and they seem to be playing without any issues.
There is no mat in the starter set and the rules can be downloaded online. If you have tokens to use for amber from one of your games and maybe 6 coins to represent the keys, you are good to go. The starter set is not needed at all.
@ledshok is right. A couple of dice in case you have cards that create chains would be useful too.
A coworker tried to buy the game at a local comic shop and was told there was a recall. Apparently a bunch of decks had the same cards. Anyone else hear of this?
He was told they would come back in stock soon. Not sure if this was the starter sets or not