Ratings Scale:

5 – All-star. You’ll never be sad to open a deck with this. This card is good without any support.

4- Good/Great. Works in the vast majority of decks, provides good value and requires low support.

3- Okay. This card provides either low value or inconsistent high value. They need support but their high swings are important

2-Situational. This card requires a lot of setup, requires specific things to fire that are unlikely, or just isn’t very good.

1-Trash/Dead card. Also a 5 star card in Reversal.

*Note I am not reviewing reprinted cards

Set your phasers to fun! This is the House I am personally most excited about as their core mechanics seem very strong to me. Will they usher in a new age of peace , prosperity and cooperation in the Crucible? Let’s find out!

Armsmaster Molina:

4

Hazardous 3 is very good it makes your low strength creatures very difficult to fight and if you manage to stick a ward on him and he becomes quite difficult to deal with.

Chief Engineer Walls:

2

Slight cross synergy with Logos as a couple of their creatures are robots (though most are cyborgs). I think Wall’s is one of the less valuable members of the Star Alliance Crew as even though he has a play he often does nothing when he comes in to play.

Cloaking Dongle:

4

This is a really annoying upgrade when so many of the SA creatures are fairly high value and reasonably high strengths. Even though I don’t always love upgrades this ones pretty good.

Com. Officer Kirby:

5

He’s a repeatable 3 strength helper bot. That’s nutso. Ya he can only play actions, artifacts, and upgrades but that isn’t much of a downside.

Commander Chan:

3

Works best on an established and house varied board. You need some creatures out of other houses to make full use of him. On top of all the other house cheating effects in Star Alliance his ability can get pretty kooky.

Explo-rover:

2

Sometimes you’ll stick him on something that really cares about having skirmish like a Groke and get a nice little benefit. A lot of times he’s just another body. The creatures that can be played as upgrades are pretty nice cause they all are pretty flexible.

First Officer Frane:

3

It’s pretty nice that you can capture onto ANY creature and not just Frane. There’s just decent value here. 1 capture any time you call SA is great ability to have on a 4 strength body.

Lieutenant Khrkhar:

5

Just a hard to deal with taunt with 5 strength. There’s a lot of things you want to protect in Star Alliance so this guy actually ends up being very impactful.

Light of the Archons:

3.5

It’s hard to argue with this card. I’m not usually a huge fan of upgrades but one of my favorites is Shoulder Armor. Light of the Archons like Shoulder Armor is really good at turning your low strength creature with high value ability into something much more difficult to deal with.

Medic Ingram:

4

The healing probably isn’t nearly as impactful as the ward will be but the healing definitely can still be relevant.

Red Alert:

5

Red Alert punishes your opponent for doing the things they need to in order to win the game. By removing threats on your side of the board or playing threats of their own they simply feed Red Alert. Chainless board clears can’t be ignored and though there are stipulations on how much damage it does. Red Alert only hits the enemies side of the board so even if it only fires for 1-2 difference it can be pretty valuable.

Sci. Officer Quincan:

4

Very decent when drawn early but late game this ability will often but no always be worthless. Qincan’s value depends much upon how much overlap there is between you and your opponent’s houses. He can get very tricky for an opponent without artifacts if your deck can keep removing creatures on your opponents side of the board.

Sensor Chief Garcia:

4

Amber control! Hooray! +2 to key cost is nothing to scoff at. One of the biggest concerns with SA will be dealing with big amber bursts and Sensor Chief helps out immensely in that regard.

Stealth Mode:

5

Scrambler storm the card so nice they printed it twice. Anything that dictates what your opponent can or can’t do is very powerful. Stealth Mode can be a really great way to sneak out a key that your opponent would normally be able to block.

Zap:

3

In a perfect world Zap deals 6 damage. There extremely niche situations like when someone has played experimental therapy or auto-legionary where it can deal 9. Most of the time it deals 2-3 which is just fine.

CALV-1N:

3

Aw he’s so cute. He’s especially good I think if you have a ready Star Alliance creature and can immediately get one use off of the draw. One million bonus points if that creature is Navigator Ali

CXO Taber:

4

A repeatable house cheat effect is very strong. I wonder at some point if they had this one as a play/fight/reap effect and it was too strong. Your opponent has to respect this one or you can gain a lot of advantage.

Force Field:

3

Warding is pretty strong so this upgrade is definitely decent. If you happen to have something ready and can immediately ward it all the better.

Helmsman Spears:

4

The effect is definitely a 5 in terms of power but she will likely be a high priority target in most instances. When Helmsman lives the cycle she provides is extremely valuable.

Information Officer Gray:

5

I think the cost of having to reveal the card is extremely minimal. Getting to archive a card from hand every time you call Star Alliance is a big deal. I think Gray will be an MVP in almost any Star Alliance lineup for the utility he provides.

Lay of the Land:

4

Are you in a strong position? Lay of the land helps you maintain your advantage. Are you digging for an answer? Lay of the land helps you find it quicker. I think often this just reads as ” draw and play a Star Alliance card.” If you have Book of IEQ this card is especially good.

Navigator Ali:

3

I like Ali a fair amount. He’s not outright busted and being able to get an idea of what your next turn looks like can be really helpful. There’s some good combo potential with sticking anything that lets him draw a card onto him or Book of IEQ.

Nurse Soto:

2

Healing 3 in general probably just wont be that helpful. In some of the other houses he would be a three or partnered with Brobnar or Saurian he probably gets a little bit better.

Quadracorder:

4

The rating on this one is slightly tentative. The way this card is worded has led me to believe that this upgrade can be placed an opponent’s creature. Also after the somone from the Sanctumonious discord has pointed me to a whole thread on Reddit where this is discussed if you’re interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/KeyforgeGame/comments/cm2dwg/fun_fact_quadracorder_works_even_better_on_your/

If Quadracorder can be placed on opponents creatures its very good and if they end up giving it an errata so that you can’t its more like a 3.

Quintrino Flux:

3.5

Always removes at least one thing on your opponent side and a lot of flexibility for you in deciding which creature to hit on your side. Sometimes you choose the least important one from your board and other times you’ll choose the strength most damaging to your opponents side of the board.

Sci. Officer Morpheus:

5

So within Star Alliance I counted 8 play effects on creatures so its reasonable you’ll have in house cards to immediately combo with him. The 1 armor on Morpheus is actually fairly significant as there’s quite a bit of ping damage that hits at the 2 mark.

Stunner:

3

The reap part of this upgrade in particular is probably the good part. I think the times where you’ll stick this on something that wants to fight is probably rare. If the creature with this sticks around it can become quite problematic. In some cases puts a sort of pseudo-taunt onto whatever creature you upgrade.

Tactical Officer Moon:

4

There are quite a few cards which care about positioning in World’s Collide. So you either get to really mess with your opponents battle-line or probably the more niche option is beneficially arrange yours. I think Moon is especially good if you have Captain Val Jericho or really any leader in your deck.

Transporter Platform:

3

This artifact is surprisingly good. When I first saw it I was a little bit underwhelmed but there really are a lot of good play effects in WC and getting to replay your Ronnie Wristclocks or Chief Information Officer Gray is good value.

Universal Translator:

2

It’s good when you have an established board but requires a bit of setup to get full value of it’s ability. Sometimes it will be insane but I think most of the time it will fall a bit short.

Xenotraining:

3

On average this is probably just terms of redress sometimes its worse and sometimes better.

Aembertracker:

2

On the one hand there are a fair amount of creatures that capture or exalt in this set. On the other hand 2 damage even ignoring armor isn’t likely to kill any of those creatures. Aembertracker gets a bit better in multiples but probably not much.

Book of IEQ:

3

The general consensus on this card is that if you hit a Star Alliance card you skip your draw cards step due to your turn ending before proceeding to that step. Even with that caveat its probably not difficult to find a space where losing your draw step isn’t that big a deal. This payoff for it firing is high and if you have Lay of the Land or Navigator Ali this cards a slam dunk.

Captain Val Jericho:

5

High on the list for best turn 1 plays in the game. Val must be removed by your opponent because if she is not killed quickly you can gain an immense card advantage.

Crash Muldoon:

4

I like that crash doesn’t have a condition for entering ready. Even if you can’t make use of his action he’s an extra reap. Most of the time the action is pretty meh but there will be times it’s insane.

Disruption Field:

3

I think this one is slightly worse than Quadrocorder because it doesn’t do anything the turn it comes out really. Like Quadro you put Disruption Field on an enemy creature but don’t count on them putting any counters on it. There’s value in that though because it turns into essentially a copy of Earthbind in that it’s going to make your opponent have to think twice about using the card it’s attached to.

Doctor Driscoll:

3

I almost wish they hadn’t limited the amount of damage that could be healed by Driscoll would have made the card a bit more spicy. Still Driscoll provides decent value if there are some damaged creatures on the board.

Encounter Suit:

3.5

Encounter suit is really good if your opponents only option is action based removal especially if they want to use a board wipe. It can create really awkward sequencing for your opponent and requires very little from you.

Forging An Alliance:

3

*I consider the amber bonus as a -1 to key cost for the calculations for this card.

It gives you an amber which actually helps a bit. At 5 houses represented this is Key Charge which is just fine. Mostly I think you’re going to be forging with 4-5 houses represented which makes the cost 8 or 9 That is do-able but probably a little difficult to be reliable though Star Alliance does seem to have decent amber burst potential.

Galactic Census:

3

Most of the time this gains 2, sometimes it gains 3 and once in a blue moon it will gain 4. There isn’t nearly as much printed amber in this set as COTA so you’re probably mostly happy to see Galactic Census in a deck.

General Order 24:

2

If you’re ahead on board this is probably a discard. If you’re behind this card becomes decently powerful. I like it because it causes each player to make an interesting choice of whether to not play any creatures to get General Order 24 to destroy itself.

Operations Officer Yshi:

4

Yshi has super taunt in that in addition to having taunt they are granting a very good ability to their neighbors. There’s a fair amount of low strength creatures you’ll want to protect in Star Alliance so I think Yshi will always be welcome on any crew.

Peace Accord:

1

There are a lot of ways your opponent can punish you for playing this card. If they manage to forge the can pop Peace accord and just lose nothing. I think somewhat more troubling than that is they can play one or several high value creatures and force you into a position where you have to break Peace Accord. There might be an action heavy deck that really likes this card but for the most part it’s not very good.

Plasma Nozzle:

3

I like that this gives a ‘Before Fight’ it means you can even stick it on something small and you might be able to get it to trigger several times by killing the thing before your low strength creature actually has to finish the fight.

Psionic Officer Lang:

1

I have to imagine there’s going to be precious few moments where your opponent is going to reap over just removing Lang and then reaping.

Quixxle Stone:

2

I want to remind everyone with this rating that this is just how good this card is without support. Star Alliance lineups tend to be creature heavy from what I’ve seen so far. 10 of the 16 commons are creatures, 3 are upgrades, and 3 are actions so its relatively unlikely to get an action heavy SA lineup. That said I really believe this card will create some high level competitive decks that are relatively low on creatures. Playing Quixxle Stone changes the game so vastly it’s a card that cant be ignored. If your lineup relies heavily on creatures you will almost always have to discard this.

Special Agent “Fingers”

2

Unfortunately Special Agent never lives long enough to go heisting.

Tachyon Pulse:

4

There’s a lot of powerful artifacts and anything that outright destroys them is pretty good. The second half of the text will almost never be relevant but that’s okay.

Techivore Pulpate:

4

I like that Techivore sort of works like a lockout in some situations. You want to go ‘Dis’ to keep me off check…okay you’ll have to give up your Lash of Broken Dreams.

Uncharted Lands:

3

If your opponent doesn’t have Star Alliance this cards amazing and makes all your SA creatures very threatening. I think it’s likely SA will be a heavy feature of the WC meta though and in the case this card becomes quite a bit worse.

United Action:

1

Occasionally this will be amazing and you’ll take a tempo turn where you play out your entire hand. A lot of the times you’ll get a couple extra cards out at the cost of not using your SA creatures which tend to accomplish the same house cheating this card does.

We Can All Win:

3

I like this so much more than Quiet Anvil. I actually appreciate that it only lasts one turn which means if my opponent must have a key cheat to take advantage of the effect. If they don’t it’s pure upside for me. Either I forge a cheap key or they are likely forced to take a turn they didn’t plan on keeping me off check.

Blaster Procedural:

3

Overall the blasters are pretty good. Each officer from the Star Alliance crew can also randomly generate one of their ‘blasters’. Each Blaster has a fight/reap ‘deal 2 damage to a creature’ or fight/reap attach their namesake and activate a special effect. Attaching them to their Officer is definitely where they shine and if you have multiple copies of the same officer things can get a bit silly as you move the blaster back and forth activating it’s effect each time. For the record this is what the procedural cards design should be like in my opinion. These cards are really interesting to me. How good the Blaster is varies a lot depending on which one you get and how many copies of the named Officer you get.

For this one I am going to have to review each of the procedural cards because each one has a slightly different effect. The ratings below reflect how good each of the blasters is in relation to each other. Overall I rate their power level is a 3 for the reason’s discussed above.

Molina’s Blaster:

2

Deal 3 damage is not insignificant but way less impactful than some of the other blasters. The plus side with all the blasters is you get the officer they are associated with in their deck. It’s also the only blaster that is a common and not a special so it will show up more often.

Chan’s Blaster:

3

Chan’s blaster lets you double up his ability on the turn it’s attached. If it also readied the creature I would like it alot more. Like Chan himself it’s pretty useless if you don’t have a bit of house variety on the board.

Frane’s Blaster:

4

If you manage to move 1-2 amber off your Frane with this I would call that a huge success. Turns Frane into a Reap steal 1 which is not too shabby.

Garcia’s Blaster:

3

Just a straight steal 1 if you manage to get it attached which is very good but it requires multiple copies of Garcia to be anything too spicy. With multiple copies I like this one more than Frane’s.

Ingram’s Blaster:

1

I don’t think the payoff is there on this one. Full healing a creature is not that valuable a lot of the time. If this came attached with some kind of amber bonus in the vein of Healing Blast I would really like it. Though I will say I’m quite happy to get Medic Ingram.

Khrkhar’s Blaster:

3

The reason you want Khrkhar is to protect your creatures and his blaster allows him to do that even better. Still it only lets you ward Khrkhar so the focus is a little more narrow.

Kirby’s Blaster:

5

Even one attachment of this is very valuable. Multiple copies of Kirby is amazing in its own right but this gets very good very quickly if you have this blaster on top of the multiple copies.

Qincan’s Blaster:

5

Getting to remove a creature from play entirely is really good. Zookeeper is an amazing card for good reason. Sometimes you use this to archive a play effect you want to do over again so there’s some flexibility here.

Wall’s Blaster:

2

I feel like the majority of the time this is going to be Stun 1 creature which is fine but not nearly as impactful as some of the other blaster effects plus Wall’s is definitely one of the worst Officers to get.

Final Rating:

5

Star Alliance is positioned very well in many aspects. The first is that they are a house designed around being synergistic with other houses. Through combination of house cheating / archiving / and protection effects they support many decks game plan without getting in the way of what the other Houses in your deck want to do.

The second thing they do well is both amber generation and amber control. They have two very decent amber control creatures at the common level like Sensor Chief Garcia and First Officer Frane. They have powerful actions like Stealth Mode and Red Alert. Almost all of their commons are powerful or high value which just means there’s going to be alot of powerful Star Alliance lineups opened.

The future looks bright indeed for the Grand Star Alliance.

Look out for the final House review article where Proclomation 346E delves deep into the jungles of the Crucible to seek out the elusive Untamed.