Meta level 0 is the foundation which the rest of the meta is built upon. Because chain bound events are starting, and players have experience, I decided that I wanted to think more about this. I am looking at the meta from the perspective of large tournaments.

Rarity Modifying the Meta: Because this game has no deck building or side board, card rarity is going to have more of an effect on the meta than other games. In magic, you will almost never see meh cards, but in Keyforge you will very much expect to see these, with the more common meh cards being more present than rare meh cards. This means that decks that can be countered by 2 or 3 common cards are going to be worse than decks that are countered by 4 or 5 rares, which isn't really something you see in other games. You are also less likely to see complex combos, especially if those combos are dependent on rare cards.

List of set themes that will affect the meta:

Lack of Mass Artifact Removal

Abundance of Mass Creature Removal - Has a common version in almost every house

Lack of Forced Discarding that targets a card - Cards in hands are mostly safe

Lack of Counter to Archiving - Only 1 card I can think of

Ability to Forge Keys through Card Effects

List of meta defining cards and combos. A card is meta defining if it changes the way you play when playing against it before it has even been played, or if it causes you to not to bring a deck because it has no answer to it. This is different from being good, though you should expect some overlap. If a combo is extremely rare, it will not be listed. The rule of thumb here is if you think you can find it on ebay on a regular basis.

Loot the Bodies & Mass Removal - 2 common cards/effects that punish mass creature decks

Restringuntus

Library Access & Nepenthe Seed

Deep Probe

Soul Snatcher

Double Horsemen (This is less common than I thought, it shouldn't be on this list)

Bait and Switch

Ghostly Hand

Too Much to Protect

Customs Office

Lifeweb

I think this is a wrong approach.

Every deck has a strategy to gain aember and slow down opponent aember gain methods. Every house of a deck should be more or less capable of this tactic, maybe goin more on the generation and less on the slowing.

When you play a deck, you should know really good the main strategy to gain aember, and the methods of that deck to slow the oppnent. Now, when you start to play, you should see how the enemy deck can slow you down and how they could gain aember. If you see that some particular card is really strong because they have other cards to accompany them, you should focus on how you can prevent that, and if you can't, how you can win before they have the chance to play.

This game require flexible thinking and good understanding of the 36 cards at your disposal, nontheless you have to be good at analyzing the opponent's deck.

My examination was very much deck focused and not player focused, which is what I think you are trying to say. I don't think your wrong about what a player should be doing before the start of each game, but my examination was intended to provide information you might need before you even see your first opponent.

For example, I think the existence of Restringuntus is going to force you to bring a deck that has some form of creature removal in at least 2 of your houses that isn't dependent on board state. You could try to win before it gets a chance to be played, but then you're just betting on the order both of your decks were shuffled.

As a second example, the power level of several of the artifacts makes me think you are going to either need a deck that is very specialized in racing to victory, or you will need artifact removal.

I like the post. I think you are missing a category that will define the meta - Cards which break the house rule. It's the biggest restriction in the game and breaking it in the right way is devastating.