Spun off from another thread, I think it's time we discussed how valuable card-draw effects are in Keyforge. Obviously, card advantage is an important part of these kinds of games (using one card to destroy 2+ cards), but players' access to cards is different in Keyforge.

No matter how many cards you do or do not play, your hand refreshes to 6 (or less, depending on Chains) at the end of each turn. Because most draw effects happen on your turn, any card drawing isn't a strict 'advantage' (getting cards where you wouldn't get them), you're just getting your cards early. And because you can ordinarily only play cards from one House at a time (and decks are evenly split between 3 Houses), the chances that the new card is playable on the same turn is 1 in 3. If you can play a card on the same turn, you'll draw an extra card to replace it at the end of the turn, which would strictly count as 'advantage'.

That's not to say I think Doc Bookton is a bad card. I just think Archiving cards (like with Ganymede Archivist) is a better pathway to card advantage than straight up drawing. What are your thoughts?

Pretty much that. Drawing through your deck is very important, so in that sense maximizing card draw is a core skill of the game. This naturally makes archiving a powerful mechanic since it both increases 'natural' card draw and extends your hand. In-turn card draw just does the latter unreliably. It doesn't damage your natural card draw, though, so it still is a strict upside. And obviously there are some times your hand will be extended so much that it is better than archiving by a lot (notably LA-combo times).

My favourite card is Sloppy Labwork because of these mechanics. Crazy how fast you can chew your deck with it!

Timely draw is important. If ice managed to play out a few cards from house 1 and 2 and then have a card or cards that facilitate draw within house 3, you increase your chances of a big turn with that house.

I'm these instances draw can be as strong as archive.

If I just run out the card draw at the start of the game then it's likely not going to do much for me.

They feel a bit even to me, though I really like archive more than draw. Draw is extremely important in certain deck archetypes (LA combo, obviously) but it's also generally helpful in any archetype. Mid-range and control heavy decks like both archive and draw, I'd think. Heavy creature decks might like archive a bit more, as you don't want to over-commit but you also need to be able to keep answers available.

Archive is a bit more counterable with several cards affecting it though.

My strongest deck has a lot of draw (2 babil, a mother and several other draw cards but no Library access) and it generally allows me to have more actions in a turn than the opponent and have a better control of the board (both by flooding it with creatures and having my actions that clear it)

It also helps me thin out the deck so that I can get the discarded cards back in hand faster and build strong hands to chain some combos

On ‎1‎/‎26‎/‎2019 at 8:36 AM, Ishi Tonu said:

Timely draw is important. If ice managed to play out a few cards from house 1 and 2 and then have a card or cards that facilitate draw within house 3, you increase your chances of a big turn with that house.

I'm these instances draw can be as strong as archive.

Yeah, card-drawing engines are really great 1st-player-1st-turn plays. Having a Library of Babble or Doc Bookton in play when you start Library Access can sometimes help you get past that non-Logos clump and get your combo engine revvin'. In general, activating a LoB 5-7 times a game is going to give you a major advantage.

I don't think direct card draw (like doc book ton) is very powerful in this game at all. Especially given the 1 in 3 chance you mention.

I think this differs strongly the other valuable things you can do with draw effects.

Mother is great, because it gives you more options consistently.

Archiving allows you to intentionally stack a house, or save powerful but situational cards (bait & switch, keycharge, etc.)

I think the biggest value of a lot of the draw mechanics is filtering/cycling. With logos, you might play 8 cards and have virtually nothing happen. But now your deck has 8 less logos cards in it and is way more likely to give you 4+ of a house in hand.

Given all the different kinds of draw mechanics in this game, and the difficulty in calculating card advantage, it feels much less straightforward to value than other games.

Card draw is less important in this game than in some other games for two main reasons:

1. You will be refilling to your hand size at the end of the turn anyway.
2. The card you draw now will not usually be playable now , so it matters less when you get it.

On the other hand, it does have some important benefits:

1. If you can play it now, you have it available and speed through your deck faster when that happens.
2. It gives you another piece of information about what is left in your deck. If you draw the Bait and Switch, you know it was on the top of your deck and gives you the rest of this turn to set up your hand to maximize its use. If you hadn't drawn it, you won't know until the end of the turn, giving you slightly less chance to prepare for its use.

Another thought (as mentioned by Deuzerre above): Card draw effects seem less susceptible to sabotage by your opponent. Sure, cards that prevent you from playing actions or using creatures can delay mass drawing by a turn (or more if a draw-card creature gets eliminated), but that's an annoyance compared to someone using Dysania and destroying your plans for an epic turn....

A counterpoint, of course, is that Dysania is rare.

Cards that target the hand are more common than cards that target the archives but they are also usually more limited. Archive disruption removes the entire archive (as far as I've seen) while hand discard targets mostly one card a time, or a specific subset of cards (like all creatures of a chosen house). Additionally, the act of drawing more cards protects those cards from discard, as the odds of the card you don't want to lose go down with each additional card. But Dysania is also rare and seems to only show up at most twice in a deck. And then there are the other types of effects mentioned, like not being allowed to play actions or creatures for a turn.

For me, archive seems more useful in most decks but I'll admit it is the more dangerous play. That said, in many formats, you will know how many copies of Dysania your opponent has and can work to play around it, either by pulling from your archives more often so that Dysania never seems a very strong value or sending less important cards there so that you don't lose important cards that way.

Dysania is the only card. It's not just rare, it's limited to a single in a deck. (Where did you see 2 of them? Are you sure it wasn't recursed? There are zero registered on compendium with more than 1) I'm not sure if it's effect is strong enough to cause people to seek it out often for their competitive decks, especially as archive so far seems to be underused most of the time. I would give the edge to archiving over archive disruption.

Card draw is only 1/3 as effective as it could be - so I think if you can get your draw at 3 then it is very powerful. Two library of babbles and a doc bookton probably means you can call logos with only a couple cards in hand and rely on getting a better play out of it. And if you have library access and phase shift, ANY card draw is going to help your chances of finding a good card to shift. Even without shift, more chance for better LA turns is nice.

A single draw effect is pretty underwhelming, but it can come in handy. Archive is usually better though. Archiving a single card is as good as having a mother, if you aren't concerned with your archive's makeup. But you do need to think about how you actually want to use that archive, and when you are planning to draw it. If I'm not archiving something that I want to hold, and just using it for draw, I will usually try to archive something from the house I plan to play on the next turn, to boost chances of making that play better.

26 minutes ago, saluk64007 said:

Dysania is the only card. It's not just rare, it's limited to a single in a deck. (Where did you see 2 of them? Are you sure it wasn't recursed? There are zero registered on compendium with more than 1)

I see 248 when I set the filter on Keyforge Compendium to >1.

Here's one of them in the Vault: https://www.keyforgegame.com/deck-details/39885230-c60d-4f7f-943c-834504ef454e

1 minute ago, CaptainIxidor said:

I see 248 when I set the filter on Keyforge Compendium to >1.

Here's one of them in the Vault: https://www.keyforgegame.com/deck-details/39885230-c60d-4f7f-943c-834504ef454e

Hmm, I don't know what happened with my search but I'm getting the same thing now. Thanks.