KeyForge organized play is here, with two Vault Tour tournaments in the books. This marks a pivotal moment in the story of KeyForge as we move from speculation to evaluation.

For the first time, we have major tournament results to look at to answer questions we have always had about the game. Some of these questions are specific and practical: What cards, houses, and strategies are strong? Other questions are squishy and sweeping: Is KeyForge living up to the aspirational mission of creating a more equitable competitive landscape? How do we, as a community, want to play this game?

While a single tournament result will not answer any of these questions fully, it is an important guidepost to where this game is heading. That’s why, instead of the traditional weekly tips article about a specific tactical aspect of the game, this article examines broader strategy. I analyze the Vault Tour results from a treetop view, draw conclusions about the games early metagame, and explore how we can use this information to our advantage.

Basics

The metagame is a concept that could probably generate enough content for an article series in and of itself (hopefully it will as KeyForge organized play continues to get off the ground.) It’s not very helpful to define metagame in vague, general terms, i.e the metagame means the game outside of the game.

Instead, for the purpose of this article, here’s what you need to know. When people say metagame in reference to KeyForge or other collectible card games (CCG), they are generally talking about pre-knowledge of the kind of decks people are likely to play at any given tournament.

This knowledge can be leveraged for competitive advantage by predicting the types of decks you may play against and then choosing the deck that is best positioned to fight in the predicted tournament field. It is important to note that this may not be your best deck overall and the correct metagame deck choice will vary from tournament to tournament. Finally, it is important to note that the metagame is always shifting, and it is possible to predict these trends.

Here’s a short example that illustrates these concepts at the local level. Imagine that Jane, a local player at your store, wins several tournaments in a row with the same deck that focuses on controlling the board with big Brobnar creatures. Over time, we might expect players at that store to start playing decks that feature more cards that remove big creatures from the board. While I expect this adaptation would be a successful strategy for winning a tournament at Jane’s store. That deck would a terrible choice to play at a tournament at the other shop in town, where Bill has been cleaning up with a low creature count racing style deck.

So now that you know what a metagame is, let’s explore the Vault Tour results, which has the potential to influence deck choice at card shops all over the world.

Vault Tour Metagame Analysis

Two vault tour attempts have taken place. One was an archon event, meaning players brought their own decks to the tournament. The other was sealed, where players opened three random decks and chose one to play in the tournaments. This analysis was conducted by examining the decks that made the top 16 at both events. These decks were identified as the 32 decks with power level five or higher in the master vault. However, there is no way to quickly identify which deck came from which event, without spending a couple hours searching through vods of the event, which still would not yield the entire list.

The reality is that the archon format at Vault Tour Eindhoven tells us more about the state of the meta, and, I assume, featured stronger decks overall. Nevertheless, evaluating the results of two events with well over one hundred entrants gives us important sights into the state of the game.

After exploring these 32 decks, one takeaway stands above the rest: Shadows is king.

People have debated the best house since the beginning of KeyForge. Shadows has always been right at the top. However, at this point, saying shadows is the best house is understating the situation. Of the 32 decks in the top 16 of each Vault Tour, a whopping 28 featured Shadows. That is 88% of decks that reached the top 16 across both tournaments. Dis, featured in 17 decks, was second most represented as 53% of the top 16 field — a far cry from Shadows’ mark. No other house broke 50%. There were 14 Untamed (44%), 12 Logos (38%), 10 Sanctum (31%), 10 Mars (31%), and 5 Brobnar (16%) appearances to round out the rest of the field in the top 16s.

These numbers don’t simply reflect one house edging out the others. It reflects shadows oppressing the other houses by wide margins. That is to say, if you aren’t playing Shadows yourself, then you are, most likely, losing to it.

There is at least one alternative possible explanation for Shadows disproportionate representation at the top of these two tournaments. That explanation is confirmation bias. Because players believe Shadows is the best house, they are more likely to bring a Shadows deck to a Vault Tour or select a Shadow deck to play if available in their sealed pool. More players playing Shadows, makes it more likely that Shadows decks make the top 16.

Unfortunately, there is no data available on the percentage of houses that made up the entire field at the Vault Tour. It’s possible that 88% of the players across both Vault Tours chose to play Shadow decks. It is possible that so many players played Shadows, that Shadows even underperformed expectations.

However, I suspect that is not the case. It is more likely that confirmation bias only partially explains the results, if at all. I would speculate (and this is pure speculation) that Shadows was over-represented in both tournament fields and still exceeded expectations.

The Other Houses

If I had to rank the strength of each KeyForge house today, this is my list:

Shadows Logos Dis Untamed Mars Sanctum Brobnar

To be clear, this is in reference to competitive viability of the best load outs from each house, not average power. I have already discussed Shadows, so I’ll briefly touch on the other houses.

Logos

Despite being only the 4th most represented house in the top 16s of the Vault Tours, the representation increased as the rounds progressed. When looking at only the top four decks of each tournament, Logos is represented five times — second behind Shadows’ seven. Moreover, Logos is the only house to be in both champions decks. In fact, Logos is in all four decks that reached the finals. This suggests a couple possibilities.

First, Logos may be significantly more difficult to play, and competitors had a more difficult time making the top 16 with Logos. Only the most skilled players were able to fully utilize the house. The second possibility is that Logos is actually a better house to use against the decks that made the top 16. I haven’t seen this suggested frequently, but it is possible that Logos is the actually the house that matches up best against Shadows, which saturated the field. This is a concept worth exploring further in the future. (If you have thoughts on the best houses for fighting Shadows, let me know in the comments.)

Dis

Dis was the second most represented house, 17 decks, in the top 16 of the Vault Tour events. In four decks, Dis was featured third most often the top four decks from each tournament: four times. Despite a decline in representation percentage from the top 16 field to the top four, the fact that Dis appeared in the more than half the decks that did make the top 16 indicates that the house is on the stronger side of the power curve.

Untamed

One of the questions going into the tournament was, how good is the Library Access, Nepenthe Seed combo (commonly referred to as LANS)? This combo allows a player to draw through their entire deck and, in some cases, forge three keys in a single turn. This combo does appear three times in the top 16’s, including in the second place Eindhoven deck, proving the viability of the strategy. However, it does not appear to be the oppressive force in the metagame that some feared, at least so far.

The other thing I have heard theorized is that Untamed is the best house to use against Shadows. The theory is that cards that allow for cheating a key into play reduces the ability of Shadows to disrupt and steal æmber. Unfortunately, in meta full of Shadows deck, Untamed’s representation in the top 16 (44% of decks) to the top fours (38%) decreased. This indicates that it may not actually be as strong an answer to Shadows as previously thought. Overall, I believed Untamed underperformed expectations. It is possible that Untamed is more poorly situated in the meta than previously thought.

Mars

Perhaps most surprisingly of all, the house that people traditionally thought of as the worst, won the first archon Vault Tour. Not only that, but Mars’ deck representation increased from 31% of the top 16s to 38% of the top fours.

Many people wrote off mars early on because of the propensity to get a mars loadout that simply does not synergize at all. While it may be true that Mars on average is the weakest house, these results are proof positive that good mars decks can compete at the highest level.

Sanctum

Now we have arrived at houses with truly dubious value in the current meta. While Sanctum accounted for 31% top 16s, only one of those decks made it to the top four of their tournament. The good news is that that deck won the sealed event in Seattle, proving it is possible for Sanctum decks to be competitively viable. That said, the things Sanctum excels at, capture, healing, and surviving combat, don’t seem to be particularly good against the decks that are rising to the tops of these tournaments. Perhaps, this will change as new cards are introduced in Age of Ascension.

Brobnar

This is so sad because I love Brobnar, and consistently play Brobnar decks on my channel. Unfortunately, Brobnar represented a paltry 16% of the field in the top 16s and was not represented in either top 4. Everything I said of Sanctum is true of Brobnar, except it appears that Brobnar’s comparative advantage, fighting, is even more poorly positioned than Sanctum’s strengths in the current Meta.

How can this information help us?

First, you should expect to play against mostly Shadows decks in any given archon tournament. Therefore, if you want to win, make sure whatever deck you choose has good tools to fight against this steal heavy house. However, as you know if you have played more than a few games of KeyForge, this is easier said than done. This brings me to my next point.

If you can’t beat them, join them.

Here is my honest best advice about the state of the KeyForge metagame: play a Shadows deck with Bait and Switch. While people disagree about whether Bait and Switch is technically the best card in the game, it is clearly a card you want access to, as shown by its appearance in six of the top eight Vault Tour Decks. That’s pretty insane for a deck limited to a single copy in a deck.

Further, I’m looking to pair the Shadows house with at least one of Logos or Dis, if not both. After that, if I’m not playing Shadows/Dis/Logos, I would prefer to invest in a deck with either Untamed or Mars as the third house as a general rule.

This advice may feel unsatisfying. I’m not saying that no other decks are viable. I’m saying on average, these are the types of decks and houses that seem best positioned to succeed.

Perhaps you just don’t like playing with Shadows or want to invest your time in exploring other strategies to surprise the competition. If that sounds like you, I recommend exploring these decks that did manage to top 16 without Shadows as a starting point:

Perhaps these decks will yield insights for beating Shadows not yet fully understood by myself or the community at large.

That said, at least at present, it seems that path of least resistance to a tournament win is to play a strong Shadows deck of your own.

Conclusion

While it will never be perfect, KeyForge at its best represents a more equitable competitive card game scene than others that exist, where you don’t have to spend hundreds of dollars as a cost of entry to competitive play. So, where does this idealized vision for the $10 to play and compete, collectible deck game land after the first Vault Tour weekend.

It’s funny. My opinion has come full circle since I began writing this article. When I first saw a double Timetraveller, Bait and Switch deck won Eindhoven, I was disappointed. It seemed to indicate that the player’s that have more money and access to decks do have a significant advantage. The second place deck wasn’t much better, featuring the LANS combo plus Bait and Switch.

The first version of this article dove into those decks, and how these decks indicate the rich kid problem is alive and well in KeyForge. Perhaps it’s true.

But, at the end of the day, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that this is a single result. There is a large enough element of luck in KeyForge that the tournament could have easily gone another way. When I look through the rest of the top 32 decks, I see a lot of strong Shadow decks, but decks that are necessarily inaccessible to the average player.

I’ve been paying attention to KeyForge marketplaces this week, both online sites and the buy/sell/trade group on facebook. Decks I perceive to be on relative par with the average top 16 deck typically go for around $50 USD. Some can be had even cheaper if you pick your spot right and avoid the sharks.

That feels like a pretty good place to be.

If anything, I find the dominance of Shadows to be far more problematic. If Shadows continues to dominate the meta, it will relegate countless decks to a “just for fun” category. While it is naive to think that every deck opened will be competitively viable, it would be nice to see more diversity in the decks succeeding in archon tournaments.

The good news is that tools to correct balance issues are available in KeyForge that have never previously existed in CCGs. If Fantasy Flight Games wanted to adjust the balance of the archon tournament meta, it would be as easy as adding a preemptive chain or two to Shadow decks entering a specific Vault Tour tournament. I hope this is a solution that Fantasy Flight’s organized play division will consider if the natural balance does not even out at subsequent Vault Tour events.

But the best news of all for the future of KeyForge organized play is that ultimately the community will decide what kind of game we want KeyForge to be. If we collectively decide that archon is the best way to play and organized play remains popular, then I expect spending several hundreds of dollars for the best deck you can find on the secondary market will become commonplace as future events allow us to better predict the tournament viability of any given deck. Some speculators are betting on this outcome.

While there is nothing inherently wrong with this, it isn’t the only possibility for the future of the game. If we want a more equitable arena for the best players to rise to the top, then we can lean into adaptive and other formats that force players into playing more than one deck throughout a tournament. There are challenges to adaptive and similar formats, but I don’t believe they are beyond our capacity as a community to solve.



(I believe we can overcome our collective fear of someone else to shuffling our cards!)

While speculators and card sellers may be incentivized to push specific formats, it’s important to remember that we can build and support the events we want and play KeyForge the way we want to play it.

There are concerning signs in the results from the first Vault Tours, but nothing that leaning into the flexibility of KeyForge can’t resolve. I for one am extremely excited to see how the meta shifts, and where this game goes next. I hope you stick around and enjoy the ride with us.

So until next time, be creative, have fun, and I’ll see you on the crucible.

Thanks for taking the time to read this article. I’d love to hear any feedback you have. If you found any value in this article, please share it with other KeyForge players you and KeyForge groups.

You can also find me at twitch.tv/jakefryd where I stream KeyForge on The Crucible and talk about KeyForge strategy. I’m also on twitter @jakefryd.