This pod was played on New Year’s day, and there is no better way to start off the year than playing some Keyforge! The night’s games ended up in a paper-rock-scissors match-up, and no deck escaped this pod undefeated. I’ll be the first to admit that we made a ton of mistakes on this stream, which is something that you would think that we would be better about after 120 games.

Watch Keyforge Tournament of Champions Pod 21 from tabletoproyale on www.twitch.tv

Deck Lists
Underzard Dugan-Nemonius, Arsonist
Lucelle, Center Emperess
Gratuitously Ephemeral Ada
Dahl, the Æmber-holder of Irongere

For anyone who would like to check out current info on the spreadsheet:
Spreadsheet

Match Results

Game 1 – Underzard vs Lucelle

One Sentence Summary: Underzard’s silly Mars turn put Lucelle behind for the whole game.

Card of the Match: Key Abduction
This was the best use of this card that we have seen on stream. It will be hard for Key Abduction to top its performance in this game.

Notable Event: The Key Abduction turn started with three Martians reaping, then Key Abduction being played, and then two Martians coming into play ready, an attack by Mooncurser and aember being stolen. It was sort of like a Martian version of Epic Quest.

Winner: Underzard
3 Keys to 1

Game 2 – Ada vs Dahl

OSS: A really close game was decided by single card.

COTM: Control the Weak
This card was played multiple times during this game, and ultimately won the game.

NE: This was a long game and both decks were very good at controlling the opponent’s aember. There are a number of plays that had long reaching effects, and its tough to say if any one of those swung the game in the long run.

Winner: Ada
3 Keys to 2

Game 3 – Underzard vs Ada

OSS: How do you negotiate with a deck that will blow up its own artifacts?

COTM: Francus
He is Champion Tabris lite, but considering how good Tabris is, being slightly worse than her is not the worst thing. Francus fought on this congested board really well, and captured key aember to keep keys from being forged.

NE: At the end of the game, Ada played Oath of Poverty which generated 5 aember.

Winner: Ada
3 Keys to 1

Game 4 – Lucelle vs Dahl

OSS: Dahl and Lucelle both stole and captured a ton of aember from each other.

COTM: The Sting
This card warped the middle of the game, since Dahl was able to gain a ton of aember from it.

NE: Lucelle did stop Dahl from forging the game winning key for around three turns in a row and was just an aember short of stopping the final key again.

Winner: Dahl
3 Keys to 2

Game 5 – Underzard vs Dahl

OSS: He who controls the aember controls the game.

COTM: Booby Trap
If there was a big swing in this game, it was when Booby Trap killed three creatures. Due to Booby Trap’s restrictions, it can be difficult to use. Here, the card was played for maximum effect.

NE: This game had a lot of interactions, and its tough to say which one ultimately won the game. Mother was left alive for too long, and the Dis creatures caused a lot of problems.

Winner: Dahl
3 Keys to 1

Game 6 – Lucelle vs Ada

OSS: Lucelle defies the odds and wins versus the undefeated deck in the pod.

COTM: Poison Wave
This card cleaned up a messy board before it could get out of hand.

NE: Ada forged an early key off of Oath of Poverty for five. Ada had actually jumped ahead to a two key lead in this game before Lucelle came back and won the game.

Winner: Lucelle
3 Keys to 2

Final Results

Dahl, the Æmber-holder of Irongere – *Advancing*
This deck has a bounty of aember control in it. The Logos in this deck has an uncharacteristically large amount of it at its disposal. The Sting plays an important part, and it combos well with Lash and Too Much to Protect. This deck does struggle to fight for the board, but small creatures are not safe against this deck. There are no board wipes here, but Sneklifter will take problem artifacts. Knowing when to use Lifeward will be difficult, since there is no way to look at the opponent’s hand. I would put this deck in to the upper mid-tier of decks since it plays a solid aember control game.

Gratuitously Ephemeral Ada – *Advancing*
Ada is winning as long as it is playing Control the Weak multiple times in a game. It can control the board in several different ways, and it has the option to wipe it all up if things are coming unglued. Two Witch of the Eyes and Nepenthe Seed give the player several ways to play the best cards over and over. Oath of Poverty gives this deck a way to make big aember gains, but does require a little setup ahead of time. This is a solid deck with some potentially unfair draws.

Underzard Dugan-Nemonius, Arsonist – *Eliminated*
The Mars in this deck is a Battle Fleet away from being degenerate. This deck matches up against other creature decks really well, but tonight we saw it lose to decks with more powerful actions than it. The Shadows in this deck is not cutthroat like other decks, and it is missing some of the cards people fear. Selwyn the Fence is a card that has never found a way to leave a mark on the games we’ve played, and the same is true for Smiling Ruth. There are some cool combos in this deck. Customs Office and Whispering Reliquary will nearly negate your opponent’s ability to play artifacts. Two Key Abductions means that there is a chance that this deck could win out of turn and your opponent will not be able to stop you. This is a cool deck and would be fun to play in casual settings, even if it didn’t set this pod on fire.

Lucelle, Center Emperess – *Eliminated*
Lucelle did not have the powerful answers it needed to advance. This deck does have a solid game plan, and it will just murder creatures that are under a certain size. There was a lot of armor in this pod, so a lot of the damage this deck could do was absorbed. This deck also relied heavily on creatures to produce aember, which is why it always felt as if it was playing from behind. There was never a point in time where this deck had all three Trolls on the table, but I bet this deck would be in better shape if that ever happens. This deck would match up better against non-Sanctum decks, and probably has a really good chance against Shadows-based decks.

Known Errors: The usual errors abound: Mother, Staunch Knight, Chains, etc. There were a couple of times that Bulwark’s armor was missed. Deipno Spymaster is a card whose ability is easy to forget about. Nathan used a Whispering Reliquary out of house in game 5. Nathan also played a Take Hostages as if it were Terms of Redress. These mistakes happened in a game that he lost, so these did not impact the tournament at large.

Meta Info: Another split night. Here are the current totals:

Justin: 63 wins
Nathan: 63 wins

Going First: 65 wins
Going Second: 61 wins