As the newest article says, 6 of the 8 finalists of the vault tour were running Bait and Switch. So I figured it would be appropriate to have a discussion about how to counter Bait and Switch. The below sentences are phrased like facts, but they are very much person believes, so feel free to argue about them.

All decks can attempt to manage their amber through play style. If you ensure that bait and switch can never steal 3+ amber, then you are probably going to be in good shape. 3+ stealing occurs if you have 5 more amber than your opponent or greater. Stealing 2 is still a good trade for your opponent, but keeping yourself with 2 amber of your opponent is often handicapping you more than it is worth.

Cards that counter:

Key Charge (Forging Keys Early reduces valid times to play Bait and Switch)

Chota Hazri

Key of Darkness

Restringuntus (Prevents opponent from being able to play Bait and Switch for at least 1 turn)

Control the Weak

Scrambler Storm

Pocket Universe (Reduces amber available to be stolen)

Safe Place

Iron Obelisk (Increasing opposing key costs increases the amber your opponent has on average, and that reduces valid periods to play Bait and Switch)

Lash of Broken Dreams

Grabber Jammer

Jammer Pack

Murmook

Miasma

Deep Probe (Looking at your opponents hand at the start of a turn can tell you if Bait and Switch is even a concern this turn)

Psychic Bug

Imperial Traitor

Card that make it worse:

Capturing

Ether Spider in Particular

The Sting

Yeah... they really should have put a chain or two on bait & switch. (really a few things in shadows seem a bit unbalanced)

You left off Vaultkeeper.

@Simplegarak Bait and Switch is a necessary deterrent to the decks that can generate crazy amounts of aember. I can only think of a few other, Doorstep to Heaven, Too Much to Protect, and Interdimensional Graft

General musings on the topic. You have to be able to interact with your opponent’s aember and ability to forge keys. If you can’t they just need to be able generate 18 aember quicker than you can. If they can stop you from forging they don’t even have to be faster.

You don’t have to use Shadows to slow your opponent down, it’s just the easy button. Aember control and key denial are primary strategies of house Shadow. If you have Shadows in your deck for aember control it allows for a wide range strategies in your other houses. Where as if your aember control is coming from other houses more limited choices you need specific suites of cards to get the job done. There are still quite a few options, it’s just harder to put it all together than simply choosing Shadows as one of your houses.

In summary, you don’t need Shadows to control your opponents aember. It’s just easier to check that box and move on to the rest of what you want in your deck if you go the Shadows route.

2 hours ago, Starbane said:

@Simplegarak Bait and Switch is a necessary deterrent to the decks that can generate crazy amounts of aember. I can only think of a few other, Doorstep to Heaven, Too Much to Protect, and Interdimensional Graft

I get that, the problem is that it's also incredibly good for playing on the turn you've forged a key and your opponent is about to. You've dropped to 0, even if they're sitting at 6 the one card puts you halfway towards getting your next key. It's good for catch up AND for snowballing your opponent. A chain or two on the card would leave it playable in a desperate situation while making it less appealing in a "win-more" situation.

(Or even worse... a player has had an ether spider blocking them all game - they finally kill it to get all that aember they've been denied... and opponent bait & switches next turn - yes I feel dirty for doing that a few times myself)

Bait and switch is a bit more flexible than too much to protect

One of the real counters is to have steal on your side as well, like a pair of "routine job"s. When i know the opponent has a B&S, I always try to keep a few cards to steal back a bit of aember of to increase the cost of the opponent's key.

On 3/28/2019 at 3:33 PM, Revert said:

Ether Spider in Particular

I really used to like Ether Spider. But the prevalence of Shadows in general and Bait and Switch in particular makes it so not viable. Also hate it in sealed play when you can't know if your Shadow opponent has B&S or not.

To totally step in with little knowledge, but are these genuine counters to Bait and Switch, or simply mitigating measures? All of them seem to be tactics that would be good even in a environment without B&S, but the overall strategy kind of just comes out as "it's going to happen no matter what so try to minimize your loss and your opponent's gain". That seems to me like a less than satisfying counter and more an admission the card by it's very existence completely warps the game state.

18 hours ago, Adam Moore said:

To totally step in with little knowledge, but are these genuine counters to Bait and Switch, or simply mitigating measures? All of them seem to be tactics that would be good even in a environment without B&S, but the overall strategy kind of just comes out as "it's going to happen no matter what so try to minimize your loss and your opponent's gain". That seems to me like a less than satisfying counter and more an admission the card by it's very existence completely warps the game state.

Yeah, it's mostly an admission you have to play around it.

Though few things are as satisfying as playing " shatter storm " or " eff principle " a turn after your opponent B&S and stole most of your aember. I call it the "steal of me and I'm burning it all down" maneuver.

19 hours ago, Adam Moore said:

To totally step in with little knowledge, but are these genuine counters to Bait and Switch, or simply mitigating measures? All of them seem to be tactics that would be good even in a environment without B&S, but the overall strategy kind of just comes out as "it's going to happen no matter what so try to minimize your loss and your opponent's gain". That seems to me like a less than satisfying counter and more an admission the card by it's very existence completely warps the game state.

I am not sure what you are defining as genuine counters in reference to this game. All action card effects happen instantly, and there is no way to interrupt that effect during your opponent's turn. This is the standard in keyforge, Bait and Switch just fails to be an exception. Bait and Switch actually has an abnormally high number of soft counters. The only counter to Scrambler Storm is to not have actions in your hand, and because you randomly draw cards, this isn't exactly something you can choose to do.

2 hours ago, Revert said:

I am not sure what you are defining as genuine counters in reference to this game. All action card effects happen instantly, and there is no way to interrupt that effect during your opponent's turn. This is the standard in keyforge, Bait and Switch just fails to be an exception. Bait and Switch actually has an abnormally high number of soft counters. The only counter to Scrambler Storm is to not have actions in your hand, and because you randomly draw cards, this isn't exactly something you can choose to do.

Maybe they mean something like Vaultkeeper who just flat out says: No stealing.

On 3/29/2019 at 9:20 AM, Simplegarak said:

Yeah... they really should have put a chain or two on bait & switch. (really a few things in shadows seem a bit unbalanced)

They already have a deck chaining system in place. Chaining individual cards, in a game that relies on synergy, before it even plays a game is probably not a good idea.

On 5/1/2019 at 10:50 PM, Adam Moore said:

To totally step in with little knowledge, but are these genuine counters to Bait and Switch, or simply mitigating measures? All of them seem to be tactics that would be good even in a environment without B&S, but the overall strategy kind of just comes out as "it's going to happen no matter what so try to minimize your loss and your opponent's gain". That seems to me like a less than satisfying counter and more an admission the card by it's very existence completely warps the game state.

True counters?
Increases to the cost of forging keys for the opponent so they have to stack more and have less opportunity to steal with B&S
To ahve "in round" key forging (chota, key charge, epic quest, ...)
To have artefacts that store Aember
To stack so much aember that it doesn't prevent you from forging next turn
Using actions that prevent enemy actions next turn (like dephasing I think it's the name, a Logos card)
having something like shatter storm ready next turn whenever you have a lot of aember in your hands

All of these are OK, but I find the best is just to ignore it and just spam aember as much as possible to make the opponent waste it early, then you're OK.

On 5/2/2019 at 5:59 PM, msieder said:

They already have a deck chaining system in place. Chaining individual cards, in a game that relies on synergy, before it even plays a game is probably not a good idea.

Yeah...

However would they deal...

with individual cards...

having chains?

On 5/4/2019 at 5:51 AM, Deuzerre said:

Using actions that prevent enemy actions next turn (like dephasing I think it's the name, a Logos card)

It's scrambler storm.