Our 11th pod couldn’t not have been more different from the 10th pod. This was one of our fastest nights, and the decks played tonight almost seemed to be from a different game. There were not a lot of control cards played tonight and so a lot of games ended up being straight-forward races. This just goes to show how much diversity of play there is in KeyForge.

Watch Keyforge Tournament of Champions Pod 11 from tabletoproyale on www.twitch.tv

Deck lists:

Locksmith Olivia Razorblade

Corbin, Disk Mayor

“Archon” Parsons, Wall Borrower

Alarmed Charlatan of the Zoo

Game Results

Game 1 – Olivia vs Corbin

One Sentence Summary: Olivia generated some aember and Corbin did nothing to stop her.

Card of the Match: A Fair Game

This card isn’t actually fair at all. This is a really cool card, and pretty skill testing.

Notable Event: Bigtwig was killed before it could combo with Inka the Spider and Inspiration.

Winner: Olivia

3 Keys to 0

Game 2 – Parsons vs Charlatan

OSS: Parsons jumped to an early lead, but the Charlatan

COTM: Unguarded Camp

This card stopped Parsons from winning the game on a turn where it generated 8 aember.

NE: The last three turns of this game had a crazy sequence of events. Parsons had ten aember and captured two. Charlatan played Blood Money, reaped with two creatures, played Relentless Assault, killed the creature and reaped some more. Unguarded Camp captured SEVEN aember and Charlatan ended the turn with 13 aember. Parsons had a Bait and Switch, but that was not enough.

Winner: Charlatan

3 Keys to 2

Game 3 – Olivia vs Parsons

OSS: Aember flew around the board at whiplash speeds, but Parsons emerged the victor.

COTM: Deipno Spymaster

The Spy dominated the early turns of this game and probably did irreparable harm to Olivia. By the time it was killed, it had generated a lot of advantage.

NE: This game did feature the dreaded Bait and Switch while your opponent has an Ether Spider in play. What happens here is that aember is taken from the opponent and is captured on the Ether Spider. Bait and Switch checks again, and keeps stealing.

Winner: Parsons

3 Keys to 2

Game 4 – Corbin vs Charlatan

OSS: Corbin didn’t go down without a fight and even got to melt a Time Traveller before losing the game.

COTM: Reverse Time

In the first couple of turns of this game, Charlatan played Help from Future Self to play Time Traveller and then played Reverse Time so that the only card in the deck was Help from Future Self. This set up future turns, as befitting travelling through time.

NE: On the final turn, Charlatan said “check” with two Titan Mechanics and 6 aember and made sure that no events could be played during the turn.

Winner: Charlatan

3 Keys to 2

Game 5 – Olivia vs Charlatan

OSS: Charlatan overpowered Olivia with a full board.

COTM: Scrambler Storm

This made sure that there were very few possible outs on the last turn.

NE: This is our first asterisk match. After review, Justin forgot to clean up his aember from the previous game. We think he probably would have won anyway, but we might replay this game to maintain integrity of the tournament.

Winner:Charlatan*

3 Keys to 2

Game 6 – Corbin vs Parsons

OSS: Parsons showed Corbin how to win games by affecting the opponent’s aember pool.

COTM: Relentless Whispers

Shadows having access to this and Nerve Blast doesn’t quite feel fair sometimes. There are probably decks out there that have three of each of these and the people who have to play against it are probably really mad.

NE: There was a turn where Corbin could have killed Deipno Spymaster and didn’t that probably lost the game. Since Corbin is not a deck that does a good job of interacting with the opponent’s aember, it seemed correct at the time to use a BigTwig to keep it tied up instead of killing it. However, after a few turns, it became pretty obvious that this was probably a mistake.

Winner: Parsons

3 Keys to 1

Final Results

Alarmed Charlatan of the Zoo – *Advancing*

This deck functions in non-linear fashion that makes it unique among the decks we’ve played on stream. It is weak to purge effects, but those might be able to be played around. This deck has multiple ways to mill itself, and multiple ways to shuffle the discard pile back in. World Tree lets you put the best creature on top of your deck, so there is a bonus to milling yourself. There is a good degree of synergy between the Untamed and Brobnar sections in this deck. Both are really good at fighting for control of the board and Vigor has plenty of targets to heal. The creatures in this deck are just really big. The Brobnar here is really good at generating aember, between the Blood Money and Loot the Bodies. Titan Mechanic was clutch in this deck, since you can speed out some aember and generate fast keys. The deck was light on aember control, but had just enough to keep it from losing games. I can’t wait to play this deck again.

“Archon” Parsons, Wall Borrower – *Advancing*

This deck has a lot of aember control and generation, which is usually a recipe for success. This deck is better at dealing with small creatures, and struggles to kill the larger creatures. This deck is very well positioned to make use of its Speed Sigil, and has a solid package of utility artifacts. The Oath of Poverty can be played strategically for a massive aember gain. This deck is a little light on creatures, so the Cooperative Hunting doesn’t always feel great. This deck was very disruptive, with Bait and Switch, Sequis, Francus, Take Hostage and Terms of Redress. One problem is the low number of Sanctum creatures and the lack of taunt. A solid deck that is capable of powerful, if a little inconsistent things.

Locksmith Olivia Razorblade – *Eliminated*

With two Miasmas, Drumble, Ether Spider and a Key Hammer, this deck can do a lot to keep your opponent from winning. This deck struggles with aember generation outside of A Fair Game and getting Dust Imps killed. It doesn’t compete for the board in a strong way, outside some select Mars cards. Certainly not the worst deck that we’ve played, but not a strong deck either. I’m sure there are some good matchups for this deck, but I do feel like there are a lot of bad matchups.

Corbin, Disk Mayor – *Relegated to WoTW*

Here’s a potential Worst of the Worst favorite to lose it all right here. There is nothing this deck can do at even an average level. If I head to a reversal tournament, this deck will be my candidate. Round Table and two knights? Fertility Chant and no way to stop your opponent from forging? Save the Pack and Cleansing waves with no way to damage multiple creatures? Check, check and check. There are a number of exciting cards in this deck, and there is plenty of interaction but, there is one big problem. This deck does not touch the opponents aember pool at all. Only Mimicry could possibly do that, and that would rely on the opponent playing a card that could help you more than them. The best feature of this deck is its ability to use creatures cross-house with Ulyq Megamouth, Commander Remiel and three Inspirations.



Known Errors: Dextre can be easy to forget to put on top of your deck after he is destroyed. Customs Office is easy to forget about since it just sits in play plassively. Staunch Knight is also easy to mess up by putting creatures so that he is not on the flank anymore. Justin did start one game with some extra aember, this probably did not change the outcome of the game, but it is relevant. We might play a make-up game for this.

Meta Info: Justin and Nathan are still tied at 33 wins apiece. There was more separation from going first and second. First now sits at 29 wins and going second has won 37 times. I will comment and say that I think the better deck will win regardless of the first/second split, but that only matters if the disparity in power level of the decks is moderate to high. I’m not sure what the spread is on decks that are close in power level.