Discuss.

Ok, ok, I won't leave it at that. I was going to wait a bit to see more cards and play/watch more games, but, I think it's fine to kick off the "What's the best House?" debate a little early.

I'm not going to bore everyone with a house rundown. There are going to be plenty of blogs, videos, articles, etc. that will do that, and ultimately me doing one would just be a breakdown with my bias opinion. I already know what that is, and nobody should really care what I think, so it's complete waste of time for everyone. You're welcome. Let's hurry up and get to the part where we all argue and call each other names.

Why Logos is the "best" house:

So far in the previews, I have yet to see a card from Logos that could be called game breaking, broken, or whatever term you want to use for a card that can shape/warp the environment. So how is it possible that this house could be considered the "best?" The short answer is Archive. Archiving cards looks to be one of the few ways to gain card advantage in this game. Anyone with any sort of card game experience has likely heard that "card advantage wins games" as some point in their lifetime. If this is your first card game, and you never heard that before, I hope your time underneath that rock you've been living under was enjoyable. While more cards might not actually win you the game, it certainly increases your chances of winning. While Logos doesn't have cards like, 4H, Bait and Switch, etc. it does have good number of cards that archive cards.

It's important to note that Logos is best utilized as a support house. From what has been spoiled so far, they lack any really strong creatures to help you maintain any sort of board control. Ideally, you want to spend you turns calling Logos to help shape your hand for future turns and establish your Archive. Then, when you've got the cards in your hand and Archive to go off, you make a big play that would otherwise be difficult or even impossible to pull off with just the normal cards in your hand. So you're probably wondering, "why didn't you just say you think Logos is the best support house?" They very well may be, however there appear to be other houses with creature removal, hand disruption, house specific counters, and those types of cards are generally considered support cards. So the debate on what house has the best support cards is more open for debate depending on what you define as support. Logos would easily be at or near the top if Archiving is classified that way, but, I think it's more than that.

If you were to do a list of each house's strengths, themes, or focus, you would likely identify Logos as the "hand advantage house." It doesn't have the flash of a house with a big creature or a card that creates a huge swing in aember totals or board state..............but it has the cards to get you to the cards you really need, quicker and with greater consistency. Ultimately that is what will bring you the most success. You can't win if you never see your best cards.

So now comes the fun part. Tell me how wrong I am and why. Or you can hop aboard the Logos Fanwagon and help me crush anyone that would dare besmirch the good name of House Logos. Either way, keep it civil and constructive. Let's have some fun

Garfield mentioned that Logos was somewhat inspired by Rick and Morty, so I think it’s the best house because you can imagine Justin Roiland yelling the name of every card you play.

That should definitely be part of the app when it launches.

1 hour ago, timhodge said:

Garfield mentioned that Logos was somewhat inspired by Rick and Morty, so I think it’s the best house because you can imagine Justin Roiland yelling the name of every card you play.

That should definitely be part of the app when it launches.

PICKLE RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!!!

I am not sure logos is the best, but as you've said it does seem to be a supportive house. Logos seems to rely on another house in the deck to be a strong performer and assist in giving them a better turn with archive. Why I like Logos is that is the house seems to move through the deck much quicker and archiving cards you plan to use in a big turn with a certain house could lead to huge plays imo. The other house I really like thus far is Mars, they have some sick cards and among the houses they do seem to be more varied in what they can do. It is hard for me to pick between whether I like Logos or Mars better. There aren't any houses that I do not like, the closest to that would be Brobnar and that is only because they are a little less flashy and not as fun (to me) than the others, but combined with two other houses that is not a big deal and I won't mind having them in my decks.

You would think that Garfield learned from giving blue card draw...

1 hour ago, Ignithas said:

You would think that Garfield learned from giving blue card draw...

Or black... Necropotence, anyone?

But I think in this game having a house with card draw might not be such a big deal as in magic. In magic you normally draw 1 card/turn. While in Keyforge you draw up to your hand size.

1 hour ago, Robin Graves said:

Or black... Necropotence, anyone?

But I think in this game having a house with card draw might not be such a big deal as in magic. In magic you normally draw 1 card/turn. While in Keyforge you draw up to your hand size.

You're also limited to the cards you get in your deck. You can't stack your deck for a super-draw.

5 hours ago, Robin Graves said:

Or black... Necropotence, anyone?

But I think in this game having a house with card draw might not be such a big deal as in magic. In magic you normally draw 1 card/turn. While in Keyforge you draw up to your hand size.

While it is true that card draw isn't as strong in Keyforge, because you can only play one house at a time, archiving cards is way better than card draw, because you not only get rid of a card you don't want at that moment (+1 card), you even get it back if you need it. So it is pretty much +1 card every turn until you play the card, or would have discarded it without the archive ability and then again +1 when you play it. And if you would have discarded it and then use it, the card draw is even from a known house, which is worth much more than a random card.

4 hours ago, Xelto said:

You're also limited to the cards you get in your deck. You can't stack your deck for a super-draw.

But, that's what Archive effectively does. Archiving is both a really flexible tutor and/or filter effect.

Ideally you want to archive a card that goes along with whatever house you want to combo off with, but, you don't have all the pieces yet. So I call house Logos, play Labwork, or even better Sloppy Labwork, to archive something that I want to use later. Then I play whatever other Logos cards I can for that turn. At minimum I am getting to see two more cards, to get me closer to my big play. Even if I Archive a card that isn't part of whatever combo I am working towards, it's still getting me closer to what I want, faster than a player that isn't archiving cards because they have to have two cards of the same house they call in order to replicate the same effect that archiving produces. When I do draw the other pieces to my combo, I pull the cards back from Archive and go off. It's absolutely "stacking" the deck so to speak.

I could even just Archive cards that are garbage and let them rot to thin my deck by reshuffling faster and faster, to a point where I could cycle through the same set of strong cards repeatedly. It's a long game plan, but, in the right deck it's a very real possibility.

Worst case scenario, Archive is the best form of card filtering available in the game. At it's best it's also tutoring a card to be used later for your deck's big combo.

Ok Archiving is very good.

Dis is still best house, tough, because of demons

9 minutes ago, Robin Graves said:

Dis is still best house, tough, because of demons

Mars is the best house, because you have an excuse to make cheesy 50's B-movie sounds.

Shadow is the best house because it plays towards the objective of the game. As good as card draw is in a card game you dont win if you dont play towards the objective of the game and in this case getting aember forging keys and preventing your opponent from doing the same is the objective of the game and Shadow does that with a bunch of steal effects and a bunch of play effects. Logos is great, but archive a bunch of cards pull off the turn of the century and end up with like 12 aember just to have Shadow screw you with either bait and switch or too much to protect followed by one of their creatures with a play steal effect resulting in them getting a key next turn and you getting squat.

I know it seems intuitive that "playing towards the objective" makes a house better, but it doesn't really work that way. The question is how quickly it plays towards the objective and how other houses provide counterplay. A house that simply collects one amber per card plays towards the objective, but would be beat by a house that just has 1-power creatures that capture on reaping (and capturing isn't even "playing towards the objective"!).

Shadow is the house where it's _easiest to see_ how to play towards the objective and _hardest to see_ how to counterplay against. But we are in extremely early phases of learning about how to play this game! Very likely, there is much more to discover, and in the end for all we know Shadow will come to be thought of as the _weakest_ house! (MtG has many examples of cards that were thought to be very overpowered early on, but which later were found to be not particularly special.)

I think Shadow makes a good case because stealing is somewhat of a "feel bad" mechanic. Those types of mechanics always feel strong. I do all the work, then my opponent just hits me with B&S and turns the game in their favor. Swingy plays like that can be a big blow to an unprepared player. However, stealing can be played around, to some extent, and you can see that design paid attention by making cards that allow players to forge keys outside of the Forging phase to circumvent stealing.

To be fair, they also made a card that messes with people's archives..... It just happens to be a Logos card, so I'm still claiming Logos as top House.

Nice try Shadow, maybe next time.

On 8/17/2018 at 3:25 PM, Robin Graves said:

Ok Archiving is very good.

Dis is still best house, tough, because of demons

Isn’t there a demon (pit lord or something like that) which forces you to pick Dis if he’s in play? I recall one of the videos I saw resulted in a player getting stun locked because they couldn’t cycle any cards (their hand was full of non Dis cards) and the opponent had a combo that returned to his hand to re-stun the guy every turn.

I suppose there are bound to be a few deck matchups with the potential to go totally sideways if a player isn’t careful.

6 hours ago, Derrault said:

Isn’t there a demon (pit lord or something like that) which forces you to pick Dis if he’s in play? I recall one of the videos I saw resulted in a player getting stun locked because they couldn’t cycle any cards (their hand was full of non Dis cards) and the opponent had a combo that returned to his hand to re-stun the guy every turn.

I suppose there are bound to be a few deck matchups with the potential to go totally sideways if a player isn’t careful.

Pitlord/Pitdemon I don't remember puts a restriction on yourself to only be able to activate Dis aslong as he's on the board. (Restringuntus?) another Dis creature can block an opponents house from being activated aslong as he's on the board. Lot's of fun stuff in that Dis pile. I also like the demon that restricts the opponent to only play two cards a turn aslong as he's out.

When the conversation is about a card game, then every card that has a Draw mechanic, is good. So Logos are good indeed

6 hours ago, Grutter said:

When the conversation is about a card game, then every card that has a Draw mechanic, is good. So Logos are good indeed

When you refill your hand upto the max allowed every turn this isn’t necessarily true for that particular game.

11 minutes ago, Palpster said:

When you refill your hand upto the max allowed every turn this isn’t necessarily true for that particular game.

When you can Archive a card, or cards, for use at a later time and create card advantage, it essentially does the same thing as drawing extra cards.

19 minutes ago, Ishi Tonu said:

When you can Archive a card, or cards, for use at a later time and create card advantage, it essentially does the same thing as drawing extra cards.

On the surface Logos appears to be a jack of all trades/master of none house that is best used supporting the other houses in your deck. It’s got some good creatures, a bit of control, and some draw/archive effects. Is there anything it does significantly better than every other house? However, I agree that Logos is the best house for the following reasons.

1. It grants you the ability to sculpt future turns. The archive ability and card draw allow you to get through your deck faster and find the cards you need more quickly.

2. A side affect of sculpting your future turns is frequently playing more cards than would normally be feasible. Many times you will only get the bonus aember from playing a card, but that still advances you towards victory.

3. While not the best at any one method of disrupting your opponent, it has a hodgepodge of ways to slow your opponent down including Capture, Steal, creature control, and artifact control.

My first impression is that KeyForge is a game of tempo. Other factions may have flashier ways of controlling the games tempo, but none of them are equipped as well as Logos for manipulating tempo. In fact if I had to pick a theme for Logos it would be tempo control and that is what I think it does better than other houses. Playing more cards forcing your opponent to keep pace and disrupting your opponent’s plans all while sculpting your future devastating turns makes makes Logos the house of tempo control in a game won by controlling the tempo.

1 hour ago, Ishi Tonu said:

When you can Archive a card, or cards, for use at a later time and create card advantage, it essentially does the same thing as drawing extra cards.

I agree thart archiving can be quite good, my response was to draw being always good, which isn’t true necessarily. When you play three Logos cards to draw three Mars cards, that effectively does nothing since you would have drawn those anyway at the end of your turn

And you'd be correct if Archiving was just a cantrip effect, but, it's not. Its more than that.

Playing a Logos card that Archives 1 card will get you two cards back when you draw up as well as having the Archived card to call back up in a later turn, which is when you get the hand advantage.

Logos has card draw too. Some of it is bonkers and some is mediocre. However, Archiving is their strength, as they simply have more of it than any other house. Its what puts them ahead of everyone else, IMO. Not just draw, because cantripping alone is not as strong in this game as it is in others.

Archiving is nice. But I've seen Logos do more vanilla card draw than archiving, which, as has been mentioned, often doesn't do anything for you.

The downside to Logos is that their creatures are fragile. Brobnar and Sanctum roll them over, and get board dominance easily.

1 hour ago, Xelto said:

Archiving is nice. But I've seen Logos do more vanilla card draw than archiving, which, as has been mentioned, often doesn't do anything for you.

The downside to Logos is that their creatures are fragile. Brobnar and Sanctum roll them over, and get board dominance easily.

Fair point. If you don't get the Archiving cards from Logos, you end up with cards that are generally worse than average. But, the same could be said of any house. You could just as easily end up with 1 of the 4 horsemen out of Scanctum and a bunch of Brobnar scrubs. Not every Shadows deck will have Bait and Switch.

When I am evaluating strengths of houses, I have to take into consideration what each house has, when at their best. Logos at it's best, has more cards with the strongest mechanic in the game.

To your point, it's not lost on me that Logos has some serious weaknesses outside of Archiving. As with all decks it will be the synergies of all three houses that determines the overall strength of a deck. I'll gladly take Logos as one of my three houses on every deck I get, with hopes that I would hit enough Archiving to make the deck run better than it would without it. I just can't say the same for the rest of the houses. With enough Archiving, I can filter out the garbage and focus on the good cards in my deck, no matter how few they may be.

So Logos is best because of this:

(from the richard Garfield interview)

FFG: Which House do you identify with the most?

RG: Probably Logos. I like mad scientists and wacky game effects. However, I have a real soft spot for Mars—not because I identify with it, but because I think it has a fun and distinct character, doing weird things like archiving an opponent’s creatures or causing them to steal from themselves.