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Understanding Keyforge: Combo decks

Combo decks in Keyforge have historically been extremely strong and demanded the highest prices on the secondary market, with some combo decks selling for thousands on decksofkeyforge.com or the Keyforge buy/sell Facebook group (I think the deck that won the most recent vault tour was bought for $15k, but I may be mistaken). Combo decks are volatile and extremely strong with the right hand, able to forge multiple keys on the spot or burst crazy aember from seemingly nowhere. Combo decks are very tricky to pilot. The player must balance the combo and the chances of drawing into the combo versus playing other cards and just moving through their deck. Is it worth effectively chaining yourself in order to find the other combo piece? Can you guarantee that your combo will actually make a significant impact in the game even if you do end up getting the right cards? All these questions are important to answer when looking at combo decks and how to evaluate them. Lets say you're trying...
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Understanding Keyforge: Stages of the game and pressure

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In Magic The Gathering there are 3 main different deck archetypes: control, aggro, and midrange. Each of these archetypes represent a different play pattern and each excel at a different point in the game. An aggro deck wants to win as fast as possible, usually sacrificing its own resources to deal those final points of damage. A control deck wants to stall the game out as long as possible, winning through a battle of attrition and just by locking out your opponent or grinding them to a pulp. A midrange deck wants to control the early game and then go for a strong midgame, carrying that lead through to the end. These archetypes are also present in Keyforge, but instead of deck archetypes they represent different stages of the game or playstyles shown in the different houses. Call of the Archons Untamed, for example, is a great example of an aggro house in Keyforge. The best Untamed decks wanted to generate aember as quickly as possible with cards like Hunting Witch , accelerating y...
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Understanding Keyforge: A look at Timetraveller

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On my bus ride to work, I love to listen to Keyforge podcasts. There are many awesome people producing great content for the Keyforge community, like the Sanctimonius crew, the Help from Future Self pod, the Keyfort pod, and many others, but almost none of them have homogenized ratings for cards or decided-upon lines of play. I love this aspect of the game, and I think this constant discussion and discovery is part of what makes Keyforge fun and interesting, but I want to try and take a slightly more analytical approach to evaluating cards and boardstates in the game of Keyforge. Coming from a game such as MTG or Pokemon, Keyforge seems relatively easy to grasp. Cards are fluid and easy to replace, and there is no set cost for most actions. There is no concept of "energy" or "mana", but where Keyforge lacks in explicit costs it makes up for in the hidden costs. With this article, I'll be starting a series of (hopefully) weekly articles discussing different...
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