I have started another keyforge blog with some general blatherings on what problems it is trying to solve. See if you disagree or think I am talking out of my rear...

https://sardonicrejoinder.blogspot.com/2018/08/why-keyforge.html

Nice blog. I Agree with most of what you wrote, but I think you might underestimate the advantage an experienced card player has over someone entirely new to a game like this, but you are right, these are things that will come to new players with practice, especially when they have a good player explaining them why they do what do they (and in what order, which is often just as important).

I'm also very curious about Organized Play. If indeed there will be people that have the means to purchase and test tons of decks, they will naturally have a better shot at winning tournaments. The easiest answer to this is sealed deck tournaments, where you just pay for a new deck as part of your entry fee into a tournament, but I imagine people really want to play "their" deck as well. So....will wait and see how that shakes out. If the competitive scene isn't to my liking I'll just play this with family and friends or casually at a store, which also seems like a really good way to spend $10 every now and then on a new deck.

I appreciate what you wrote in the blog, I'm in a very similar situation. It looks like KF is tailor-made for people who appreciate the style and depth of MtG and its friends but don't like to invest a lot of time or money in a single game. There are 100s of good games to play and discover, so why stick to only a few?

I think my issue with people who have the means to purchase and test loads of decks is the second bit. For the sake of the argument let us pretend that any provided deck has a power level of between 60% and 40% (if the balance algorythm is worth its salt) and that if you learn an individual deck by practice and play that you can increase that power level by 10%.

Now take player A who buys 3 decks at 30, 40 and 60. She rapidly realises that she has the most success with C and starts practicing with that a lot. Her end deck strength is 70% with the 10% from practice

Now take player B who buys 100 decks at 30,45,33,45,40,33,36,38,39,40,46,34,34,36,67,49,40,45,34,45,42,41 (and on)

you can assume that the worse 10% can be not tested but how will he then work out which of the above is the 'best'. Will he have time to even test 'every' deck and if he does not test every deck adequately then he might miss a 60 thinking it only a 52 when he has found elsewhere a 54. Then he does not get all the practice the other player gets so does not get to add the 10% practice bonus.

I agree that time and player skill will still provide a big advantage just that I dont see even the most time rich of players having the time to to work through all the combinations IF they are money bagging lots of decks.

Finally a lot of good existing tcg players need two different skill sets for a major tourney. They need to beat other elite decks in the top cut but also need to mash their way through the swiss where they will meet all manner of weird stuff. A deck honed to beat the elite might get tripped up by some random unexpected weirdness. That factor is also vastly enhanced here as you wont know what you will be facing (and if you do then something will have failed).

Then end result is that the cream will rise to the top but that the factors generated by player skill are vastly increased over ability to purchase,time and research.

Who knows though. I could be very wrong indeed...

The variance in the cards (what they do, how much gain and risk, combos) appears to be large and strong. As long as a metagame doesn't exist or consists of more than a few OP card combinations, I don't think that the value of any deck will be expressible as a number. The real question is whether player skill is more important than luck of the draw. I'm confident that it is, the designers should know what they are doing.

1 hour ago, Matrim said:

Then end result is that the cream will rise to the top but that the factors generated by player skill are vastly increased over ability to purchase,time and research.

Maybe there is no useful strategy at all, just practice. Player skill could consist of the ability to quickly analyze possible game situations, react accordingly, and take opportunities where they appear. It may not even depend on knowing a deck well, if the opposing deck and move is as important for the next step as the own hand.

11 minutes ago, Canopus said:

Maybe there is no useful strategy at all, just practice. Player skill could consist of the ability to quickly analyze possible game situations, react accordingly, and take opportunities where they appear. It may not even depend on knowing a deck well, if the opposing deck and move is as important for the next step as the own hand.

Knowing your own deck, what it can do and what you shouldn't do will have a pretty big impact on your performance. Take this rather excellent overview of one of the TTS decks for example. There's a lot here most people wouldn't realize without spending time with the deck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK6gjdeoqcA

12 hours ago, Matrim said:

Now take player A who buys 3 decks.... Now take player B who buys 100 decks...

Your idea does point me into a certain train of thought, if I buy 3 decks how long does it take to play enough games with each deck to figure out what is my best deck? Now a player with 100 decks would probably face a mathematical progression of some sort in terms of time and effort to figure out his best deck. For example it may take a player about 3 games sessions to grade 3 decks, and we could call that 9 hours. On the other hand to grade 100 decks it may take 200 sessions because the variation between each deck is minor, that could then be 300-600 hours.

At some point having more decks just means you have more effort to find your good decks, meanwhile a player with few decks has probably mastered the one they liked and bought a few more.

I just think that if player b is willing to spend $1000 in this game to increase their chances of getting a strong deck, they are likely doing so because they have the sort of time to put the decks though proper testing, and/or they have some previous experience with other games that would help them discern the relative deck strengths rather quickly.

Dropping 4 figures on a card game doesn't give me the feeling that player b is looking to just play casually.

Prizes and resale will incentivise the 'more than casual players' to put more money into the game.

I have seen plenty of players in the past (in Magic and Pokemon especially) who were no good as players but were willing to spend huge amounts of money to build the latest and best deck. Then get irritated because they dont win with it because they cannot pilot it properly.

Of the TCG problems someone trying to 'buy' success is possibly, most usually, the least problematic.

Previous experience only matters if you have had previous experience, most TCG/LCG games where you build decks have players looking for good cards and they lump in every good card as they can. That is quite different to the way this game works.

So the question to ask, how do I spot a good deck? Every Destiny commentator had Anikins' Podracer as a bad card , yet the winning deck at GenCon had it. Destiny decks win time and time again with bad cards in the deck that play well in that deck. I think that guy that thinks he has some special sauce that he can wave over 1,000 decks and spot the good ones is probably going to get a few good decks, but I also think that without a deep understanding of the decks he will also pass over many good decks.

As far as buying second hand decks, how do you know the deck I am selling is good?