We’ve finished our first pod! We want to thank everyone who stopped by the stream. The games were a blast and we had a lot of fun that hopefully translated into entertainment for the viewers. We missed a couple of rules during the games, and those have been noted below. We have a few known technical issues, and we have a few solutions to implement for our next stream. Our goal is to improve each time we stream, so we appreciate the early support. 

Our overarching goal with this format is track a lot of data for future use. Obviously, the sample size in the first few pods will be small and so it won’t be terribly informative. Ideally, the data will tell a more complete picture when we get further along.

For those that missed it, check out the VOD:
Watch Keyforge Tournament of Champions Round 1 from tabletoproyale on www.twitch.tv

We wanted to represent each house at least once in our debut. A horseman deck was included, since the apocalyptic quartet have received a lot of hype early. These decks are light on board wipes and removal in general, so a lot of our games boiled down to complicated board states. 

Here are the first four decks with links to the Master Vault:
Punctually Wary Sablique
Lawwarper, the Crude Museum Privateer
The Innkeeper that Entwines Coalitions
Constant Philazag, The Resourceful Elder

Game Reports

Game 1 – Sablique vs Lawwarper

Start Time: 3:04

The Four Horsemen make their stream debut in a less than spectacular fashion. Lawwarper tried to battled for board supremacy, but spent much of the game outclassed. Sablique’s Teliga was not answered immediately and put the creature based Lawwarper on the back foot. The Horseman Of Pestilence set up a big Cleansing Wave for Sablique, that put the game far out of reach.

Winner: Sablique
3 Keys to 1

Game 2 – Innkeeper vs Philazag

Start Time: 24:14

Philazag jumped ahead to an early lead, and was looking to create an efficient board state on the backs of some powerful Logos interactions. Innkeeper, caught back up by wiping the board with The Spirit’s Way, but was unable to stop the first key from being forged. Innkeeper then took over the board with several stout Sanctum creatures. An Arise! from Philazag repopulated the board with Logos creatures over two turns, but Innkeeper was able to forge a key in the interim. Innkeeper deployed two of the deck’s three Dodgers, which set up a situation for Innkeeper to fight with them using Commander Remiel. This allowed Innkeeper to control the flow of aember to Philazag for most of the remainder of the game. A late game Tendrils of Pain cleaned the board up, but Philazag was too far behind to catch up.

Winner: Innkeeper

3 Keys to 1

Game 3 – Sablique vs Innkeeper

Start Time: 57:30

Once again, Innkeeper found itself in a hole to start the game. Sablique was able to forge a key early, but Innkeeper’s Screechbomb put the breaks on progress to a second key. Innkeeper started to take control of the board, and a Longfused Mines threatened to keep control of the board. Sablique’s Muramook stalled Innkeeper from forging a key for a turn. 

Sablique managed to mostly survive the Mines and started to slowly crawl ahead on the aember. Innkeeper did forge a key, but Sablique responded by gaining 5 aember. Innkeeper pulled off one of the most disgusting turns of the night. Stealing all five of the aember Sablique was stockpiling with a combination of One Last Job and Nerve Blasts and immediately threatening to forge another key. This proved to be too much of a hurdle for Sablique to overcome, and Innkeeper won shortly after.

Winner: Innkeeper
3 Keys to 1

Game 4 – Lawwarper vs Philazag

Start Time: 1:22:44

The game started with Lawwarper playing some of the Horsemen, and creating a modest board. Philazag did generate aember through some card plays to threaten a key, but Lawwarper used Sequis to keep Philazag off 6. Lawwarper responded with threatening a key, that Philazag’s Shooler prevented on the following turn. Shooler was part of a massive Dis turn set up by some earlier archiving. Arise! capped off the turn by putting 5 Logos creatures into Philazag’s hand. 

The board state shifted over the next few turns, and both decks forged a key and generated a handful of aember. Both Decks traded keys and creatures again. Slowly, both decks reached a point where they threatened each other to complete a key. Philazag bought a turn with the Lash of Broken Dreams and that proved to be the difference in the game.

Winner: Philazag
3 Keys to 2

Game 5 – Sablique vs Philazag

Start Time: 1:54:55

Sablique charged ahead with an early lead and a large board. Philazag responded with a Collar of Subordination on Teliga, who was then protected by a Yxilx Dominator equipped with Flame-Wreathed. Both decks jockeyed for position, and the board state grew quite large and complicated. 

Quixo the “Adventurer” picked up a Brain Stem Antenna, courtesy of the Martians. This allowed for a huge swing in card advantage where Quixo was able to do a lot of damage and draw a lot of cards at the same time. A Bouncing Deathquark evened the board out, but Philazag was better positioned to recover. Sablique managed to forge the second key while ol’ Phil only had one. 

In the game’s third act, Philazag took control of the game with a huge board position. Sablique kept finding ways to threaten to forge a key, however, Philizag kept finding ways to thwart those plans. After taking a strangle hold on the board and on aember, Philazag was able to mount a comeback victory.

Winner: Philazag
3 keys to 2

Game 6 – Lawwarper vs Innkeeper

Start Time: 2:39:39

This match started on a level playing field for about three turns before Innkeeper took control. Innkeeper kept the gas pedal down for the rest of the match. The shadows portion of the deck didn’t allow Lawwarper to forge any keys. The beefy Sanctum side of the deck arrived late in the game, and created an insurmountable board position. Lawwarper ended the game with a measly two aember.

Winner: Innkeeper
3 Keys to 0(!)

Final Results

Innkeeper: 3 – 0 *Advancing*
This deck spent a couple games slightly behind, but proved to have a powerful mid-game. It won all three of its games in a convincing fashion. The Shadows portion of this deck is extremely powerful, and three Dodgers make it so this deck doesn’t get pushed around as much as other Shadow’s creatures. The vast majority of the shadows cards steal aember, which make it really hard for the opponent to generate more aember than the deck can steal. The Brobnar in this deck does a good job of not getting in the way of the Shadows, and Brothers in Arms offers a great way to get your Dodgers to fight out of turn. The Sanctum in this deck gives you multiple ways to avoid getting behind, with cards like Doorstop to Heaven and The Spirit’s Way.

Philazag: 2 – 1 *Advancing*
The Dis portion of the deck offers a heavy amount of disruption, while the Logos makes the deck very efficient. There are multiple ways to archive, which allows the deck to set up several big turns. Game 5 displayed the Mars cards in all of their synergistic glory. Yxili Marauder and Ether Spider don’t get much better than what was displayed there. The backbone of the deck is the large number of artifacts which provide a lot of utility regardless of the house named. 

Sablique: 1 – 2 *Eliminated*
This deck was never out of the games it played, but it really wanted a board clear beyond Bouncing Deathspark and Save the Pack. It’s creatures aren’t quite big enough to take control of the board in all situations. This deck has some powerful cards, but its missing some utility to assemble them. The Untamed portion of this deck seems good on paper, but disappointed in the game. This deck came up short when it mattered, which made it’s losses disappointing.

Lawwarper: 0 – 3 *Relegated to WOTW*
Horseman haters look no further than this deck. They’re cool and splashy, but they won’t win you the game alone. The Untamed portion of the deck offers ways to replay the horsemen, but that didn’t prove to be enough. This deck’s aember generation is disappointing to say the least. The Mars in this deck is very disappointing, and cards like Swap Widget and EMP Blast don’t synergize with each other. If this deck could pick the order of the cards it drew, it might be able to win a game.

If you watch one Game: Game 5 – Sablique vs Philazag
If you only watch one more: Game 2 – Innkeeper vs Philazag

Known Errors: Snudge was used incorrectly a few times by me (Nathan). I mistakenly thought Snudge’s ability was a Play/Reap ability and not a Fight/Reap. I did call myself out later for it, and it might have affected the outcome of the game. As for Wild Wormhole in game 5, it is our current understanding that it won’t cause a player to reshuffle their discard pile if there are no cards in their draw deck. Justin did do this in Game 5, but the game was won even without the additional card. Personally, I have missed Chains quite a few times in recent games. I missed them at least once in Game 3 and we did our best to restore the board state before. I’m thinking of storing the Chain Tracker on top of the draw deck from now on to help reinforce their prominence.

Legacy Info: This section will be where we keep meta info. Justin and I are commited to a large number of games, and so we are going to keep track of the overall win-loss record between us to keep the rivalry sharp, 

If you’ve taken the time to read all of this, I thank you and hope you will check out the results for round 2.