I'm enjoying the game but currently limiting my expenditures. Why?

Where is this game going? What sort of release schedule will we have? Will there be online play? When will the upgrades of "coming soon" come to the app for us to judge our decks "properly?"

This is just the starting list of questions. I'd like to know more before I spend a great deal more....

... how would anyone know this?

We all have the same access to FFG as you, the game just came out, they aren't announcing the next expansion before this one has even had time to breathe. The app will be upgraded when they get to it. You can play on-line here https://www.thecrucible.online/ but not officially.

This is no time for rational decission making.

Throw money at it quick!

Seriously though, it's a valid concern and I think you are smart not to just jump off the deep end. Garfield wanted to capture that nostalgic feel from the early days of magic and I can tell you Keyforge certainly feels as addictive as magic did when it first came out.

I am starting to see some clear separation in decks that have competitive potential and some that don't, do I'm not as optimistic as I once was that Keyforge will have a low entry cost for competitive play.

It's still a very cheap game to play casually and has tons of mass appeal. Online play and a fully functioning app would be nice, but, FFG is not known for having all the wrinkles ironed out at release.

I think some caution is a good thing. Get a few decks. Don't open them. Make proxies of them to play with. See if you can identify any that stand out as a better than the rest. Then hold onto it for competitive play, or sell it and recoup your investment then just try to get a few balanced decks for casual play.

Or just enjoy discovering and playing new decks and combo’s and don’t worry about what will be. I’m having a blast with this game and that’s the deciding factor on how much I will spend. Regardless of what this game or the app will look like.

42 minutes ago, Bolfry said:

I'd like to know more before I spend a great deal more....

Then don’t. If you’re happy with what you’ve got then stop there.

People play games for different reasons. So the answers to these questions may be more or less important to you. I bought four KeyForge decks. Three of them feel playable but unlikely to be competetive. One feels a bit nasty for anyone not prepared for a couple of the card combinations but also probably not likely to win a tournament. But the game is fun. I’m happy to just play it. I will likely buy a few more decks here and there to see what they are like because why not? I’m not really concerned with the value of my investment over time and whether I will be rewarded with tournament success.

As far as long term competetive play and the cost to buy in I do think it will clearly never achieve an even playing field regardless of investment level. If they are aggressive with chains (which people will howl about) it will encourage the kind of hoarding @Ishi Tonu is hinting at where people buy a bunch of decks, analyze them without opening them and hold onto the “good ones” to win a tournament then dump them as soon as they get chained. If there’s anything the CCG world has taught me it’s that there is always some maniac willing to spend way more than you to win a free alt art card and a box of expansions at a tournament (seriously, the guy in last place is the one that needs all those cards...).

Where I think KeyForge will really shine is in sealed deck formats. This will be inherently unfair (like any sealed deck where you get random cards) but the design of KeyForge means all the decks will be playable and the tournament should tend to reward people who have played with a variety of KeyForge decks and strategies and can correctly identify and implement the best strategy for their new deck. If they keep the buy in for a sealed deck tournament at $10-15 and you walk away with a new $10 deck that sounds like a fun afternoon to me. And again, you should expect st least some amount of competetive consistency from players who know and understand the game and all the cards.

I will be interested to see what happens as the release new cards and factions. Whether this will come all at once (KeyForge Season 2) or if they just start sneaking new cards into the decks. Similarly I see plenty of potential for new factions down the line. But again, this is all gravy. So far, the game seems like a fun thing to play - certainly more fun to my mind than spending $1000 on random card packs then breaking down and purchasing $1000 of individual cards to netdeck and then going to a local tournament to get stomped by guys who have spent $10,000 over 20 years to netdeck the most unfun decks imaginable that warp and pervert the game to the edge of insanity. (Maybe I have some baggage here)

There is inofficiall online play, hoppfully this can expand though I far prefer irl play.

It's addictive and the sealed or more than one deck play formats with random decks means that there is no stale meta and the do well with what you got is the way to play (in theory).

Throwing tons of money will eventually give you som great decks, but when chains are added you still gonna need to adapt.

However we will get another 350 cards in some kind of new set with a prerealese at gencon next year (educated Guess). How they will integrate new and old cards, i don't know.

One thing I would like to know is how often will new supplements come out. Will it be annual, twice a year, or as fast as FFG can pump it out?

I am hoping that the release is quarterly. This gives competitive players enough time to evaluate new cards and for new players to get into a game that isn't completely overwhelming. I am hoping that all new decks are a solid mix of older and newer cards. It does seem like their is an infinite space for new factions as that is the entire point of the Crucible. I'm also hoping for factionless cards—up to say 4 per deck, reducing faction cards to 11—which would have lower powered abilities, but could allow for really interesting game play.

If they wanted to do small expansions, they could create a new house with 50 new cards, then made it so that every deck from that set contains 2 core houses plus the new house.

I wouldn't mind 7 new houses in set 2 and then smash the cards from set 1 and 2 together for set 3.