Hey all,

I just wanted to start a quick discussion about a single card in which you think consistently pop up in winning decks, and be the 'deciding factor' in the win. I play a lot of games a week (50-60 between online and in person - yes i work on a computer with multiple screens).

I have a few fun decks, but I have one deck that wins 80-90% of its games. My deck is a high cycle, aember control deck - with a kicker of Brobnar with 3 Krumps and 2 Angers. If you'd like to see that deck - here:

https://www.keyforgegame.com/deck-details/436bf260-8ed9-4b15-b105-d58cf993b67d

Below are the cards that I consistently see in every loss I am handed. Which are the cards you struggle versus?

Key Charge - This card, when paired with the correct deck, seems to be a killer. When my deck is up 10 amber to 0, with both of us having 2 keys forged and the opponent somehow wins....GRRR
Lash of Broken Dreams - When a good Dis deck has this card, paired with 'pull all creatures of one house out of the discard pile'. I struggle and end up losing with 8 ember.

Bait and Switch - This card doesn't need an explanation - it's a card that should read 'swing a game, even if you're getting your butt whipped

PS - I purposely left out the Library Access deck in your hand combo - because it's broken and I'm convinced that will somehow be taken care of in the future.

I imagine those cards would be annoying against your deck. With all your AEmber denial, Key Charge takes it away before you can steal it. And with only 12 creatures and a lot of AEmber-producing actions, being delayed by a Lash of Dis and getting hit by a Bait & Switch would hurt, since you have so few sources for renewable AEmber generation.

If you asked me 3 weeks ago, I would have said Effervescent Principle, no doubts. Best play is to use it when you have 1 or less AEmber (usually right after you forge a Key) and the opponent is about to forge a key, knocking 3-5 AEmber from their pool and putting them back a turn, for the price of 1 chain. Having had 20+ EPs played against me (and played by me), I think it's a good safeguard for the format. It discourages "greedy" turns, where an opponent attempts to use the lack of "instant" effects in the game to just power out an absurd amount of AEmber.

Ask me today? A close choice between 3 Untamed creatures: Hunting Witch, Telga, and Witch of the Eye. The first two have abilities that work every single turn, and allow players to forge keys without every choosing Untamed again. And the WotE does some silly looping combos.

Everything that stuns creatures from multiple houses (i.e. quake). Bait and switch obviously. Cards that clog your hand with cards from multiple houses.

Anything that triggers an actual lockout. For one or more turns.

Everything else is more or less fair game.

So basically restringuntus which I'm shocked No one has mentioned yet.

48 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

Anything that triggers an actual lockout. For one or more turns.

Everything else is more or less fair game.

So basically restringuntus which I'm shocked No one has mentioned yet.

Because Resringuntus is easy as **** to kill and also requires Control the Weak, which is only a one shot deal, to also be in your deck.

And the only way to get a permanent lock out is to hope your opponents deck has Pitlord, but each player sees each others deck list before the match. So they know to hold Pitlord until they really need it.

There is always the possibility of not having direct damage in your hand. The one and only time i played against Restringuntus the game was a real nailbiter since it took me 3 turns to clear and my hand was clogging up with cards i wasn't allowed to play. Great game though

I think Biomatrix Backup “may” be the most annoying card.

(See what I did there? I’m way too proud of that)

Key Charge/Chota Hazri. That is the card I lose to the most. It is so annoying they made sure it is available twice (sometimes in the same deck with hunting witch, nature's call, and dust pixie...just, here: https://keyforge-compendium.com/decks/85ecc73b-26a6-45c8-8bf5-8592d571c711 )

I think any card can be annoying, depending on your deck. I have a Dis deck with two copies of Control the Weak. With some lucky card draws and then having to shuffle my discard pile to make a deck again, I was able to play Control the Weak four turns in a row, effectively granting me five uninterrupted turns. I got lucky the firs time and picked a house he had no cards for. I just picked that same house the next three times. I'm sure my opponent thinks Control the Weak is super broke.

For me, it's stacked Sanctum cards where you can generate a ton of Armor. My opponent had on of the 6 power/2 armor knights with the upgrade that gives +1 armor and taunt, surrounded on both sides by a Bulwark. You end up with a ton of Armor (2 base + 1 for the upgrade + 2 for Bulwark1 + 2 for Bulwark2) and taunt, so the opponent can't attack the Bulwarks to erode the armor. If you don't have a board wipe or return to hand sort of card available, that's almost impossible to deal with. Those Knights can also attack with impunity with high armor almost making them into Skirmish creatures. I spent something like 6-7 turns not really being able to do anything. It was probably the least fun I've had playing Keyforge because I wasn't really playing.

I dislike any deck that embraces the non-interactive style of play this game can have at times.

Aember acceleration into cards that forge outside of the forges step, lock out decks, and infinite combo decks and the cards that facilitate them are the most annoying for me.

9 hours ago, Hyperjayman said:

Because Resringuntus is easy as **** to kill and also requires Control the Weak, which is only a one shot deal, to also be in your deck.

And the only way to get a permanent lock out is to hope your opponents deck has Pitlord, but each player sees each others deck list before the match. So they know to hold Pitlord until they really need it.

Play Restringuntus (call Dis on my opponent) plus play other Dis cards, draw into a hand of all Dis. My opponents hand is all Dis except Wild Wormhole. They play Wild Wormhole as it's their only playable card, their own copy of Restringuntus enters play, they call Dis, draw another Dis card. Neither player can play any cards or activate any creatures, game crashes, fun times for everyone...

32 minutes ago, dperello said:

Play Restringuntus (call Dis on my opponent) plus play other Dis cards, draw into a hand of all Dis. My opponents hand is all Dis except Wild Wormhole. They play Wild Wormhole as it's their only playable card, their own copy of Restringuntus enters play, they call Dis, draw another Dis card. Neither player can play any cards or activate any creatures, game crashes, fun times for everyone...

Well, if one of them was behind on tiebreakers, now would be a good time to use that Key to Dis 😁

16 hours ago, TheSpitfired said:

I think Biomatrix Backup “may” be the most annoying card. 

On MY turn it isnt!

On 12/13/2018 at 9:42 AM, Hyperjayman said:

Because Resringuntus is easy as **** to kill and also requires Control the Weak, which is only a one shot deal, to also be in your deck.

And the only way to get a permanent lock out is to hope your opponents deck has Pitlord, but each player sees each others deck list before the match. So they know to hold Pitlord until they really need it.

You need direct damage or a creature of a non locked house in play to kill it straight off.

Alright I might be bitter about the restringuntus mav witch of the eye control the weak combo I saw that one time. Ugh.

How about most annoying combos? I was beat in a tournament by a Full Moon + Hunting Witch combo (along with another 3 creatures played that turn). That happened in early-mid game, I had no keys yet, and there was no way for me to recover. It's not the first time I've heard that combo being problematic either.

51 minutes ago, TheRealGadianton said:

How about most annoying combos? I was beat in a tournament by a Full Moon + Hunting Witch combo (along with another 3 creatures played that turn). That happened in early-mid game, I had no keys yet, and there was no way for me to recover. It's not the first time I've heard that combo being problematic either.

Combos are my issue with the game. Granted it's a small issue because I'm mostly approaching the game from a casual perspective, but, my inner competitor is a little miffed by decks that have combos that end games quickly or lock someone out.

Because this game is essentially a race, anything that prevents someone else from playing their turn or just goes off without the other person getting a chance to respond it's just a feel bad for one person. Decks that do this are not casual in their nature and it's somewhat off-putting to play a casual game vs a competitive deck.

I think the best thing to do is for everyone to have an honest internal discussion, being as fair and objective as possible, about how you want to play and what type of play is best for your regular playgroup. If you want to play casually, set aside the decks you feel are the most competitive and only play them in competitive settings. you don't want a strong deck ruining a playgroup because it always wins.

If you want to play competitively, get familiar with the problematic cards and combos so you can quickly identify them when you get your 2 mins to review your opponent's decklist. Your deck might not be well equipped to handle them, but, at least you can go into the game knowing what to expect and attempt to give yourself the best shot at winning. If you get nailed by a card or combo, at least you knew it was coming and hopefully this lessens the blow of a feel bad loss, knowing that the deck should be getting chains.

I think a lot of the complaints about problem cards and combos can be solved by how well the chain system ends up working. Until chains start really getting explored in great depth then you'll have some decks running rampant. If you're playing casually, then it's best to avoid them altogether. If you your playing competitively, then you'll just have to cope until the chain system gets going.

For casual play, I don't have any real complaints or issues with any specific card or combo. If some try-hard wants to show up with a bonkers deck, I can choose not to play them, or break out one of my more competitive decks to try to keep it fair, or just choose not to care and play whatever, to challenge myself. If I loose then so what? It's a game. As long as the person I'm playing against it not a complete jerk, it's likely going to be a fun experience. As with most games, when the lines between casual an competitive get blurred is when I see most of the problems occur.

10 hours ago, TheRealGadianton said:

How about most annoying combos? I was beat in a tournament by a Full Moon + Hunting Witch combo (along with another 3 creatures played that turn). That happened in early-mid game, I had no keys yet, and there was no way for me to recover. It's not the first time I've heard that combo being problematic either.

Nature's Call on your own creatures really helps this combo too. Throw in a Hunting Witch and Flaxia, and Untamed can combo out insanely easily.

Condolence cards. Those are awful. Who wants constant paper reminders of when your Mom died?

Nothing specifically anoying for me, or it would have to be 1st turn Mushroom man. It just irks me for some reason.

I've lost too many games the turn before I would win them due to Key Charge that I've got this "check the decklist to see if you've got it" twitch now.

Key Charge feels unfair because there's almost nothing you can do to stop it.

Sneklifter can be pretty annoying

I think Nimquid the Fair is annoying in any deck that has a lot of aember generation. You can win the board against it and be about to turn things around and then BOOM all of your board but 1 is wiped.

The most annoying cards are usually the ones you like best when YOU play them.

On 12/13/2018 at 12:17 PM, Palpster said:

Well, if one of them was behind on tiebreakers, now would be a good time to use that Key to Dis 😁

I know this is old, but I've had a couple of people refer to different posts of mine both here and on BGG about tiebreakers, as though that solved any issues with Restringuntus. The only problem with this is there are no tiebreaker rules in the rulebook, or at least none I can see. I know official tournament rules documentation refers to tiebreakers when a game goes to time, but the actual rulebook for the game doesn't mention anything about tiebreakers that I can see. If it's there can someone point it out to me. Referring to rules that don't actually exists to solve a game crashing issue seems... incorrect and unhelpful, to me.

On 12/27/2018 at 1:14 PM, dperello said:

I know this is old, but I've had a couple of people refer to different posts of mine both here and on BGG about tiebreakers, as though that solved any issues with Restringuntus. The only problem with this is there are no tiebreaker rules in the rulebook, or at least none I can see. I know official tournament rules documentation refers to tiebreakers when a game goes to time, but the actual rulebook for the game doesn't mention anything about tiebreakers that I can see. If it's there can someone point it out to me. Referring to rules that don't actually exists to solve a game crashing issue seems... incorrect and unhelpful, to me.

It's most likely referring to the tournament game tiebreaker. If I'm marshaling an event, I would use the Magic rule and declare the game a draw, pretend it didn't happen, and restart it. Now, if someone objected to that, I would offer them a chance to play something that would allow the game to proceed forward, and failing that, enforce the ruling of a draw.