It's funny, I always have a good look through the used decks at our FLGS. They're generally picked over and don't appear to be much good. However, I found one with a Restringuntus. It doesn't have much in the way of protection for it, but what it does have is 21 creatures and many annoying constant abilities. The problem opponents run into is even their board wipes seldom slow it down much, and it has the ability to cycle so quickly. It's funny that this was a trash deck for someone who probably never even played it.

I do think people tend to underestimate decks that don't fit their ideal deck types—known combos and synergies.

My son's also has a deck that's now 11-1; it won our last FnKF. It has a ton of artifacts and creatures, but very little about it stands out. I was able to defeat it with this trash deck, but I'm still playtesting to see how well it does against a wide range of decks. The thing that stands out to others is the Bad Penny and 3 Seeker Needles. Other then that, the deck list looks very unassuming. So, they're looking to respond to the Bad Penny, but the Martians and Brobnar are huge threats, even if they don't look like much at a glance.

I'm just wondering how many of you have favorite decks that were other people's trash or decks that is much more than the sums of its cards?

I went to a pick your poison tournament (bring 2 decks and your opponent decides which one you play) I brought my best deck that looks really scary cause it had great cards and synergies that were easy to see, and then brought my best deck that looks way less scary but is still very good and almost everyone picked the second deck so I always picked my opponents deck that deck #2 would have an easier time with. Ended up playing 75% of my matches with deck #2 and it did great.

I always try to play at least 2-3 ganes with a new deck before deciding if I like it or not. Ended up getting really surprised with a deck with 3 full moons and 2 untamed creatures that had no phase shifts and it did surprisingly better than I thought it would.

The first deck I got during the pre-release I thought was absolute garbage, but after opening another 5 decks (one of which is straight bananas), I have actually come around to believing it is my second strongest deck. There are three Nocturnal Maneuvers so it is also very difficult for me to not start humming "Night Moves".

My son though his first deck was trash. It got beat in the first round of the pre-release, and I beat it three times before he started to learn how to play the deck. Then he started winning 75% of the games we played with those two decks.

Mine was easier to pilot, his was more nuanced. That's something that many players are going to neglect.

I love all my decks I've just not played all of them yet.

I have several ones I like for various reasons:

The one with Brobnar/Untamned/Sanctum: One of two house combinations I wanted to get, it has lots of creatures and I won a game by healing creatures.

The one with Mars/Shadows/Logos: The other one of the desired house combinations. This one has a Maveric Gateway to Dis in Logos. The look on my oponent's face...

The one with 7 artifacts and Oath of poverty: I swear sometimes it's like you get a theme deck. Sadly it's a bit to low on creatures.

The one that's super reactionary: Whatever your opponent throws at you, you can deal with it. It's just that you spend a lot of time nursing the cards in your hand, doing nothing, waiting for the right time to play your stuff.

The one that will capture, steal and blow away all your aember: Played against a similar deck. That game took a while.

The decks that have 3 of the same creature: One with 3 Titan Mechanics- Yeah that's not that good. The one with 3 Niffle apes and their queen. The one with 3 Silvertooth (silverteeth?)Play and reap. I'm easily satisfied like that.

And the one with 3 Snufflegators, because my regular oponent thinks Skirmish is the most OP ability in the game for some reason. Okay, they did wipe out all of his Knights in one turn, but that was just one game...

My best deck is both undefeated and doesn't look very very broken just by looking at the deck list. It doesn't even score supre highly on the ADHD numbers.... Go figure.

This is one of the things I like most about keyforge: learning to use what you got, figuring out the nuances of your decks synergies. I bought 2 decks the day this game came out, Professor J. Chronocode (Brobnar, Dis, Mars) and Heroine of Bloodworld (Sanctum, Dis, Logos). I quickly understood how to play the Professor deck since it plays close to my style in MTG, Aristrocratic Aggro. Aristrocrat is a strategy in MTG that involves killing your own creatures for benefits, it is the only deck out of my 14 decks that plays this way and can force your opponents into some silly predicaments.

My other deck Heroine of Bloodworld plays more like a control deck with the lowest creature count out of my decks, 11 but it has so much control that any long game inevitably goes to Heroine. Both these decks don't look that powerful but both are so sneaky at doing what they need compared to my powerhouse, The Apprentice who shrouds weaponry (Brobnar, Untamed, Sanctum), at 24 creatures and 14 doubles that deck is pure aggro and the strategy is simple: crushing board presence. What makes it quite interesting is that that deck also has subtle strategies that at first are not noticed like using Cannon on my own creatures to than use Cowards end and not lose that creature because it is now damaged but it is not flexible like the aforementioned 2 decks.

When I taught my buddy to play, he bought some decks we did a draft, we each chose a deck and opened them. The first one he immediately opened was like my Heroine deck which he won with. So he opened the second deck and lost to the deck I drafted, my coolest deck, Dagen, Autoputer Inventor LOL. Dagen is a very combo-centric deck that wins by making a lot of amber in a turn, does not have big creatures and does not want to fight things, usually; all in all a very take me out of my comfort zone of play style deck which equaled out to a awesome deck. I have to use chains on that deck when I play now haha.

I think that is what I love most about this game: learning the nuances of your deck, knowing that that combination of cards is uniquely your own and that your mission if you choose to accept it is to learn how to best play your deck* Cue Mission Impossible music 😁

P.S. I pity the player that gets a Maverick Pitlord and has no Dis