This article was going to be about the tactics of optimizing your battleline against each house, but I decided to save that article for another day. Instead, I’m going to dive into the leading question of the day. What should be done about the Library Access, Nepenthe Seed (LANS) combo, if anything at all. Once again, this edition of KeyForge Tips will be less on tactics and more about strategy. I truly intend to return to the original mission of this article series next week. I just feel that this article is more prescient in light of recent events, and it that I can provide the most value to the KeyForge community by using my, ahem, platform, to provide a more thoughtful discussion of the controversy than you are likely to find in the Facebook comments.

Disclaimer: I do not own a LANS deck. It would be insincere to state that this fact could not have biased my analysis.

Basics

Here’s how LANS works. First, you play Library Access with Nepenthe Seed readied on the board. Then, you sacrifice Nepenthe Seed to return Library Access to your hand. A second Library Access action means you will draw two cards for each card played. The goal from this point is to chain cards together to draw through your deck, reshuffle your discard pile back into your deck, and play a third copy of Library Access. The third play of Library Access should guarantee you the ability to draw your entire deck into your hand.

With your entire deck in hand, some versions of this combo can complete a one turn kill (OTK) by forging three keys in a single turn via Phase Shift plus Key Charge or Key Abduction. Other decks can effectively OTK by locking the opponent out of the game with Phase Shift plus Control the Weak. Others can use Effervescent Principal to keep their opponent on one æmber indefinitely. Regardless of the win condition, drawing your entire deck puts you in a dominant position to win the game.

It should be noted that playing Library Access with a Nepenthe Seed on the board does not guarantee you will be able to draw your entire deck, as it is possible to hit a large enough string of non-logos cards in your deck to cause the combo to fizzle out. However, access to cards like Wild Wormhole and Phase Shift, which give extra card plays and card draw, dramatically increase the odds of completing the combo. It is also important to note that the combo is also possible using Reverse Time, instead of Nepenthe Seed, to recur Library Access. This version of the combo is referred to as LART. (I know, great acronym.)

I briefly mentioned these decks in my previous article, indicating that they appeared to be a viable strategy in the current competitive meta. That turned out to be a bit of foreshadowing. Last weekend, a LANS deck won the Schaumburg Vault Tour in a LANSlide (I’m sorry). In the final round of adaptive play, the LANS deck won all three matches. The LANS combo successfully went off in each game. In the final game, the combo went off on the third turn. Here’s the winning deck: “Gasoline” Maximiliano, Dungeon Keeper.

The Best Laid LANS

After the Vault Tour, social media was buzzing with people disappointed in how the event turned out. The community appears, more or less, split on the subject of LANS.

Many people are advocating to change the way Library Access works when played. Changing the way a card works from the printed text is known as errata. This solution would effectively ban the combo without actually banning any decks. It wouldn’t be the first time Fantasy Flight issued errata for KeyForge. They issued official errata for the card Biomatrix Backup in version 1.2 of the KeyForge rules.

On the other side, people are just as forcefully arguing for maintaining the status quo. They say that there’s nothing to fix. Cards are working as intended, and, even if the LANS combo is a little silly, there are plenty of ways to counter the strategy.

Before I dig into this discussion, I need to address the first problem with LANS — People can’t seem to agree what they are even arguing about. If you have followed the debate online, then it’s common to see the discuss play out like this.

Elaine: “LANS should be banned because it’s non-interactive and boring to play against!”

Jerry: “LANS isn’t even that good of a strategy, you can beat it with artifact destruction.”

Elaine: “I don’t want to sit there for 15 minutes while my opponent plays solitaire.”

Jerry: “But I have beaten plenty of LANS decks. It’s Bait and Switch that’s really overpowered.”

The point I’m trying to make: there are two fundamentally different arguments taking place simultaneously but not actually related to each other.

One is the argument that LANS is so detrimental to overall player enjoyment of competitive KeyForge that it warrants errata. I’ll call this the “Unfun Problem.” The second argument for errata is that LANS decks are so strong that they effectively break the competitive metagame. I’ll call this the “Unfair Problem.”

Unfortunately, as in the example above, this distinction is mostly lost in the discussions I’ve seen about the topic online. In the remainder of the article, I’ll isolate and explore both arguments.

The Unfair Problem

This argument makes the case that the LANS decks are just too good, and give these fortunate deck owners an unfair edge over the competition. I’ll say at the onset, this is a really difficult claim to prove at this early point of KeyForge competitive play. For one, there have been only three large scale events. Beyond just the lack of data, however, is the issue that analyzing the little data we have is extremely challenging.

While the Master Vault can give us some information on successful decks at the various Vault Tours, it is really difficult to parse this information into each individual event. As a result, we have to rely on only the top few decks and first-hand accounts to get an idea of the metagame makeup at any given event.

But that isn’t to say we don’t know anything.

Here’s what we do know. In the two Archon Vault Tours to take place so far, a LANS deck has appeared in both finals — finishing first in Schaumburg and second in Eindhoven. On top of these impressive finishes, take a look at the first deck to achieve power level four naturally (without attending a vault tour): Khan “Lampo” Rivero.

Let’s see.

Nepenthe Seed: Check

Library Access: Check

While we don’t know what percentage of the field LANS decks accounted for at either Vault Tour or the decks Khan “Lampo” Rivero had to face on the way to power level 4, there is, at the very least, more data backing up the strength of this strategy than a single win. It’s fair to say that LANS are one of the strongest strategies in the current KeyForge metagame.

However, most people in favor of keeping LANS around don’t contend the strategy isn’t strong. Instead, they argue that the metagame will correct itself. This argument usually goes like this: “If you don’t want to lose to LANS, play artifact destruction in your deck.” I’ve also had people tell me, based on first-hand accounts of the event, that there just wasn’t very much artifact destruction in the decks people played at the Schaumburg Vault Tour.

I’m generally dubious of any anecdotal claim like this. It seems difficult to draw generalizable, accurate information even from good scouting. However, I chose to include it for a couple of reasons. One, the second place deck at the Schaumburg Vault Tour had zero ways to interact with the LANS combo, which certainly contributed to the noninteractive games. Second, valid or not, the claim that the winning deck was a good metagame call, rather than a good all around deck is an argument that merits exploration.

If it’s true that artifact destruction was minimal to nonexistent on day two of the Schaumburg Vault Tour, then it stands to reason that a metagame with more artifact destruction will stop these decks in their tracks. And that brings us all the way back to if you don’t want to lose to LANS, then play more artifact destruction.

But is it really as simple as that argument makes it seem? Let’s ignore the fact that the LART version of the combo doesn’t require any artifacts at all and explore ways to combat LANS.

How to beat LANS

Let’s look at the cards available to fight back against LANS. I’ve separated the cards into three categories.

Cards that reliably stop the combo

Stops Nepenthe Seed from activating indefinitely

Cards that reliably stall the combo

Guarantees stalling the combo for one or two turns

Incidental Hate

These are cards that can stop the combo through random chance, or make the combo harder to pull off. You can’t reliably count on these decks stopping the combo, but they are still good to have in your deck vs. LANS.

While that may seem like a decently sized list, eight cards Call of the Archons that reliably shut down Nepenthe Seed. The rarity on these cards also stands out. Of those eight cards, only Nexus is common. Control the Weak is the only common among the seven cards that can reliably stall the combo, and it only buys a single turn.

Good artifact control is scarce. Tournament fields will be light on artifact control unless players make the intentional choice to seek out these cards.

Whether playing these cards really work to stop LANS, however, is a different question entirely.

Imagine this scenario. You are playing against a LANS deck. You mulligan and draw your lone copy of Poltergeist in your opening hand. Great. You have your answer to their combo. You know you won’t lose to a turn 3 LANS combo. But they don’t play Nepenthe Seed on turn 1, 2, or 3. They don’t play it on turn 4,5,6 either. At this point, you have chained yourself for six draws to protect yourself from a card that may, in fact, be on the bottom of their deck.

You will likely lose that game on pure tempo and card draw alone. Because unlike in other games where combo decks are built to accomplish one goal as efficiently as possible, in KeyForge LANS is just one route to victory. It’s not like there is a drawback to having Library Access and Nepenthe seed in your deck, as they are two of the strongest cards in the game independent of the combo interaction. The best LANS decks and the best LANS players can absolutely win without completing the combo.

So perhaps the answer isn’t just to play a single copy of Poltergeist, but two or three answers. Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to this route as well. Now you can feel more confident cycling through your deck, rather than holding a single answer. Still, the onus is on you to have an answer ready at the right time, which is no guarantee even with three answers. Additionally, you have to keep in mind that it is extremely unlikely that you will face exclusively LANS decks in any given tournament, so now you have dedicated three spots to cards that may just be dead cards in another matchup.

It’s possible that this leads to a rock paper scissors type of metagame where good decks with artifact control beat LANS decks, LANS decks beat racing decks, and racing decks beat good decks with artifact control.

Perhaps it is a good thing that LANS decks appear very well positioned to beat the traditional steal heavy Shadows decks. You don’t have to care about Bait and Switch, Urchin, and the team, when your plan is to make all the æmber you need and win in a single turn.

Shifting Metagame

Because of the nature of KeyForge as a unique deck game, it’s unlikely that LANS will ever be a significant percent of the decks at any tournament. Therefore, it’s hard to justify bringing a deck that is good at fighting these decks at the expense of worse matchups against decks you are far more likely to see.

Perhaps the answer to beating LANS is actually to bring a deck with lots of incidental hate, which are better in a wider variety of matchups, and relatively few direct artifact control cards. Perhaps you are better off just trying to race, and praying their combo is towards the bottom of their deck, or you pressure them into attempting the combo when it’s more likely to fizzle. I certainly don’t know what it is, and I’m sure smarter people than myself are hard at work trying to crack the puzzle.

My point is this. It’s not even clear that simply playing artifact hate really improves your matchup against LANS all that much if at all. It’s far less clear that the metagame will shift to a place with lots of artifact control keeping LANS decks in check. In fact, I’d speculate this is actually pretty unlikely.

Final Thoughts

There’s not enough data to conclusively determine whether LANS decks give players an advantage to the extent that it should be errata’d out of existence. However, LANS decks appear to be one of if not the strongest strategies in the current metagame. Fighting back against LANS is not as straightforward as including a couple artifact control cards in your deck, evening ignoring that the LART version doesn’t require artifacts to go off. I envision, without errata, LANS decks will remain well positioned to succeed in future Vault Tour events. I don’t expect them to appear in every single final. At least, I hope not.

The Unfun Argument

To refresh, this is the argument that the LANS combo should be removed from the game because it is so egregiously bad for player experience. This is always going to be a difficult argument to make because player experience is inherently subjective. When I watch the Vault Tour Schaumburg final, I see a boring, non-interactive version KeyForge. Another person may experience watching the LANS combo play out as thrilling. Neither reaction is objectively more correct than the other.

But, before we throw the whole argument out on subjectivity, I believe there are times in gaming when it is appropriate to ban or errata a card due to negative player experience. For example, when the change dramatically increases the experience of the overwhelming majority of people, then a ban or errata can be an appropriate course of action. This is essentially Utilitarianism from your Philosophy 101 class: We should make decisions that create the most happiness for the largest number of people.

Guided by Utilitarianism, the Unfun Arguments has merit if the case can be made that the combo is sufficiently unfun for the vast majority of players.

Why LANS is Unfun

To be clear, not everyone hates to play against LANS decks. But these are the reasons that a lot of people do.

It creates a degenerate board state.



The LANS combo is extremely degenerate by any reasonable standard. It breaks the norms of KeyForge so egregiously, that you might as well be a different game entirely. The Vault Tour Schaumburg champion used a system of index cards to keep track of how many times he played each card in a turn. This is necessary because the Rule of Six, which states you can’t use a single card more than six times in a single turn.



In the first game, the combo took nine minutes to complete. In the second game, when piloted by the other player, the combo took 15 minutes to complete. In the final game, it took 22 minutes to finish the game from the start of the combo. This time included a ten-minute pause in the game for the judges to make a ruling on several warnings and a game state violation by the LANS player. LANS is Uninteractive.



In KeyForge, there is no way to interact with the opponent on their turn. In Magic: the Gathering, for example, there are instant cards that can be played on the opponent’s turn. This makes pulling off a combo, tense and exciting because there is the possibility that the opponent can interrupt your plans. Even if you don’t have a way to stop your opponent, they still have to sweat it out until the combo succeeds.



The mechanics of KeyForge don’t allow for this tension. When a LANS deck is meticulously cycling their way to your slow death, after the first time through the deck, you are utterly helpless and everyone knows it. Your only choice is to concede or watch them go through the motions. This might not be so bad if it were a quicker process, but we are talking about ten minutes plus of shuffling, drawing, placing tokens on index cards. Counterplay is reduced to a zero-sum game.



We already discussed the options available to fight against this strategy at length. However, this prework doesn’t change the basic math that at the time your opponent has assembled the pieces of their combo, you either have an answer or you don’t. At that point in the game, no prior decisions bear any weight on the ultimate outcome. On a personal note, this is why I found the Schaumburg Vault Tour so disappointing. What should have been a very high-level match of KeyForge was reduced to where Library Access and Nepenthe Seed were shuffled into the deck at the beginning of the game.

The Cost of LANS Errata

The reasons that players find LANS unfun is compelling, but you can’t be Utilitarian without considering the harm done by implementing changes.

Some people enjoy playing against LANS decks. It’s weird but true.

This group would be damaged to some extent by errata removing their ability to enjoy these contest. The group that stands to suffers the most far more harm, however, are the people who own and enjoy playing with LANS decks.

Whether a lucky pull from a sealed product or purchased for a significant amount of money on the secondary market, errata represents a monetary loss for this group on top of enjoyment from playing the deck. This loss will be perceived differently within the group, but it never feels good to lose property value. This occurs in other CCGs in the form of bans, and it can cause people to walk away from the game. Considering this potential for harm, these decisions should never be taken lightly.

Final Thoughts

So you come to the question, does small benefit to a large group outweigh a large loss to a small group. At the end of the day, I think the most important factor to consider is what is likely to grow the game. If players are really being turned off from competitive KeyForge due to the stigma of playing against LANS decks, then that is a serious factor. At the same time, it may be equally important if not more so to keep the players that have already invested in the game happy. Once again, without definitive data one way or the other, reasonable people will disagree.

Conclusion (My Opinion)

If you have read this far, then I hope you will agree, at the very least, that this discussion is much more complex than any oneliner on Reddit or Facebook can convey. (If not, I’m sorry for wasting your time!)

At the end of the day, I can see both sides of the issue. Personally, I’m more sympathetic to the Unfun Argument than I am to the Unfair Argument. I’m curious and excited to see if and how the metagame does adjust to this clearly powerful strategy. On the other hand, I do think the combo is degenerate and unfun to play against for all the reasons listed. I’m just not sure the relatively chance for any individual player to play against a LANS deck at a tournament and have a bad time, which is subjective after all, is cause enough to harm the people who own and play these decks.

Therefore, if I had to choose, I’d keep LANS legal, at least in the short term. I’m not saying LANS isn’t a big deal and it will never be worth an errata. It is possible that we will look back in a couple months after LANS has won another few vault tours, and say, “How the hell did we miss how broken these decks are.” At that point, I would support a ban. I think it’s also possible that this turns out to be much ado about nothing. I don’t expect LANS to go away completely, but it’s possible that the metagame reacts more radically than I expect and top finishes for LANS decks become fewer and far between.

Because I can’t say with any real certainty which way it will go, I think it is too early to ban the combo.

All that said, I’m just one guy who’s opinion should hold no more weight than anyone else who is thinking critically, contributing to a respectful discourse, and wanting, more than anything else, to see KeyForge realize its incredible potential. The only thing I know for certain is I’m sure glad I’m not the one who has to make these decisions.

I‘m a graduate student in St. Louis. I recently paid a small monthly fee to keep ads off of this blog for y’all. If you feel inclined to support this blog, then the best way to do it is to follow my twitch.tv/jakefryd and subscribe. I primarily stream KeyForge on and talk about strategy with viewers. I’m also on twitter @jakefryd. I’d love to hear any feedback or questions about this article.