An update aimed at helping new players get into KeyStone is coming on July 12th! It will include:

1) An all-new Tutorial/Practice mode! Boot up a game in this mode and you’ll find yourself in a short tutorial that introduces you to the rules of KeyStone. After you beat the tutorial, the mode will be identical to playing Arranged Teams mode 1v1 vs. an AI opponent.

2) Each of your first 15 games will give a new player bonus of 100 credits, on top of the normal 40 or 60! New players will be able to open 6 Core packs after their first game and 1-2 Core packs after their next 15 games, for a total somewhere between 26 and 29 Core packs over their first 15 games. For players who’ve already played some or all of these first 15 games, the bonus will be applied retroactively, which means veteran players have 1500 credits coming their way!

Why These Particular Changes?

These changes are aimed at addressing a few different issues. Some have been around since the beginning of KeyStone and some are getting worse as more and more sets get released.

The first issue is that Ranked 3v3 is a bad way to learn KeyStone.

With 6 players all slinging around different cards from different sets it’s nearly impossible for a new player to figure out who is playing what, or which cards are doing what. There is just simply too much happening for it to be a good learning environment.

Another issue with Ranked 3v3 is skill mismatch… new players are almost always the weakest player on their teams. Some people have suggested trying to address this by making better starter decks, but I don’t think that would even solve the problem. Competitive decks involve synergies, combos, or counters that a new player won’t know how to use properly; they’ll likely end up being the weakest anyway. It’s better that the starter deck focuses first and foremost on being a fun and easy way to learn KeyStone’s fundamentals.

The last issue with Ranked 3v3 is that a lot of experienced players really enjoy going for huge combos and powerful late game units. This makes 3v3 games a bit longer, so players end up earning credits pretty slowly.

Steering new players towards a mode that focuses on 1v1 games vs. an AI will address all of these issues:

It’s much easier to keep track of what your cards are doing when you have no teammates and just one opponent. AI opponents are pretty dumb, so there is less of a skill mismatch. 1v1 games are much shorter than 3v3 games, so new players will earn credits much more quickly.

The last thing I want to note about the new mode, is that although “1v1 vs. an AI” has been available for a while now (through Arranged Teams), giving this experience its own dedicated mode is important. I’ve talked to lots of new players who didn’t realize they could play vs. an AI until I told them. A lot of those players stopped playing Ranked 3v3 for a little while once they found out, and focused on learning and earning through AI games.

The other big issue for new players is how daunting it is becoming to catch up as more and more sets come out.

If I remember correctly, I increased the starting credits from 300 to 500 when one of the expansions came out to help address this issue. I considered continuing with this approach, giving more and more starting credits as more and more sets came out, but I realized this has its own issues.

People can only take in so much new information at a time. If you introduce a card game to someone by throwing 30 packs at them, they’re not going to understand or appreciate the new cards the same way as if they are introduced a bit more slowly.

But there is still a serious problem if new players can’t get credits fast enough to get started. The new player bonus addresses the problem without the downsides of starting with too many packs.

I hope this update will make KeyStone better for new players than it’s ever been. If you have questions or thoughts, feel free to share in the comments below!