Another day, another pod. Once again, this pod had no deck escape without a loss, and there were some really close games. There were quite a few Dragon sightings tonight, and these decks were around the same power level. None of these decks are favorites to make a deep run into the rest of the tournament, but the games had some solid Keyforge action.

Watch Keyforge Tournament of Champions Pod 22! from tabletoproyale on www.twitch.tv

Deck Lists
Morphopodes Einstein-Wren, Companion
Curator Halpaeril Boomdalf
Bronze, Denhofn’s Servant
Yoren L. Yemeon, the Most Recent

Link to the Round 1 spreadsheet

Match Results

Game 1 – Morphopodes vs Boomdalf

One Sentence Summary: Each deck tried to forge the final key for about 3 turns in a row before someone finally blinked.

Card of the Match: Dimension Door
This is a Logos version of Bait and Switch in the best case scenario, but it usually doesn’t happen that way. This game, the Dimension Door played a huge role.

Notable Event: Boomdalf jumped ahead to an early lead and forged two keys before Morphopodes could react.

Winner: Morphopodes
3 Keys to 2

Game 2 – Bronze vs Yoren

OSS: Yoren lost this game despite having Kelifi Dragon on the table for multiple turns.

COTM: Kelifi Dragon
I’m highlighting this card since it is a fun card, despite not winning this game. Kelifi Dragon is hard to get onto the field, but if it survives for any length of time will just take over the game. Just look at how sweet this dragon is. Reaping with the dragon is enough to kill most creatures while generating 2 aember.

NE: Bronze won this game despite being terribly far behind on board. The Shadows cards generated a lot of aember, and Miasma was played at a pivotal moment later in the game.

Winner: Bronze
3 Keys to 2

Game 3 – Morphopodes vs Bronze

OSS: Bronze completely shut out Morphopodes and didn’t care that Morpho had captured any aember during the game.

COTM: Ghostly Hand
Ghostly Hand did not even use its text box in this game, but playing three copies of it will generate a key for you. This card is analogous to Dust Pixie: there is some upside to generate more , but most of the time 2 aember is all you want from the card.

NE: Noddy the Thief picked up a Mantle of the Zealot and got busy before a Niffle Ape had words with him.

Winner: Bronze
3 Keys to 0

Game 4 – Boomdalf vs Yoren

OSS: Yoren used a disgusting Library Access turn to kill a board full of creatures, stop a key from being forged and then set up the win.

COTM: Three Fates
This was Phase Shifted during the Library Access turn to kill two Trolls and a Yxilx Dominator, 25 points worth of power. This card is an incredible catch-up card.

NE: Yoren played Kelifi Dragon and Boomdalf immediately responded by using Orbital Bombardment and Mass Abduction to deal with the Dragon, a Troll and Valdr.

Winner: Yoren
3 Keys to 1

Game 5 – Yoren vs Morphopodes

OSS: Yoren took over the board, and kept murdering creatures for fun and profit.

COTM: Tolas
Yoren was in a dominating board position, and Tolas let the fight for board control turn into an aember generation. Tolas combos well with Three Fates.

NE: A Bouncing Deathquark combined with Tolas to put the game out of reach at the end. The only key that Morphopodes was able to forge was the one that was gifted on the last turn.

Winner: Yoren
3 Keys to 1

Game 6 – Bronze vs Boomdalf

OSS: A contingent of Brobnarians took up residence on the board and made themselves at home.

COTM: Troll
Trolls didn’t win the match by themselves, but Trolls killed Krumps, who could have made the fight for board control difficult. The Trolls just hung around afterwards to help with aember generation.

NE: Boomdalf activated Brobnar creatures about 3 turns in a row.

Winner: Boomdalf
3 Keys to 1

Final Results

Bronze, Denhofn’s Servant – *Advancing*
Bronze is home to a gross Shadows portion. The creatures are serviceable, but the actions here are just plain rude. This deck needed the Coward’s End to fight out of the hole it found itself in the last game of the night, so board control is never certain with this deck. Fortunately, it almost doesn’t need a board presence due to the amount of aember generation at its disposal. There is the potential for a huge spike in aember with two Loot the Bodies and Coward’s End. There are some cards here that the opponent has to play around to avoid getting blown out: Doorstep to Heaven, Too Much to Protect and Bait and Switch. Mack the Knife and Mantle of the Zealot give some cross-house capabilities to the deck, and Commander Remiel, Sergeant Zakiel and Relentless Assault also help with this. This deck isn’t unfair, but it certainly can do unfair things from time to time. This is a solid deck that might be able to advance through Round 2.

Yoren L. Yemeon, the Most Recent – *Advancing*
This deck has a lot of powerful cards that can generate a lot of chains. There were not many games where this deck didn’t have chains for several turns. Yoren is a little light on creatures, but the two copies of Arise! can allow this deck to get the most use out of them. This deck really wishes it had a Mother or two to help offset the chains, but Library Access can do absurd things in this deck. The Brobnar is solid and this deck played the Kelifi Dragon fairly consistently. The Dis here can punish the opponent’s hand, and a spot of artifact disruption is always welcome. Tolas won one game for this deck, since it is pretty efficient at killing creatures in a variety of creative ways. Skippy Timehog is a card that can ruin plans, and this deck can pull it back several times in a game.

Curator Halpaeril Boomdalf – *Eliminated*
Boomdalf has an intangible quality to it that makes it difficult for it to win games. The aember generation in this deck is very poor, as there are only five cards that have an aember bonus for playing them. This deck has TWENTY-FOUR creatures, meaning that it can endlessly march soldiers to their death. Neither Key Charge or Key Abduction actually forged a key for this deck, and that is probably due to the low aember bonus counts. The creature quality in this deck is a little bizarre, since there are several creatures that I would consider very good. Dominators can protect the Witch of the Eyes, and Trolls kill 95% of creatures in the game. The biggest detraction for this deck is the dearth of cross-house synergies. This deck lacks ways to utilize resources on the board when activating other houses. This deck plays a very fair game in that regard, and it suffers for that. I’m sure this deck has good match-ups, but I’m not positive what they look like.

Morphopodes Einstein-Wren, Companion – *Eliminated*
There are a lot of disappointing cards and half-formed combos in this deck. Hayyel the Merchant and Veylan Analyst only have three artifacts to work with. The two Troop Calls have two Niffle Apes to work with and no Full Moon or Hunting Witch. The game this deck won could have been considered a fluke since it managed to draw Dimension Door after reshuffling the deck. There is not a lot of aember control, and Nepenthe Seed would have to be heavily relied on to grab the Dimension Door to keep this deck from losing. Foggify is an important card, since this is one of the most populated Logos decks that we’ve seen on stream. This deck doesn’t fight for the board very well, and really needs Halacor or some of the larger Sanctum creatures to have an advantage. Cleansing wave isn’t at its strongest in this deck, but it can always be good for some aember generation. Definitely a weak deck, but one that can steal a game here or there.

Known Errors: Chains, as always, were forgotten and then corrected.

Meta Info: Justin and Nathan split the games, but going second won 5 times tonight. Everything is tied:

Justin: 66 Wins
Nathan: 66 Wins

First: 66 Wins
Second: 66 Wins