In Call of the Archons, "Library Access" and "Bait and Switch" were incredibly powerful cards before they were errata'd. However, they were commons. This made it really easy to get new players a decently good starting deck. This aspect of very powerful common cards should have been carried over to AOA. These new powerful common cards should have definitely been placed in different houses in the new set, to help spread out the love to other houses.

Instead, FFG decided to errata the old cards and completely get rid of powerful common cards. This completely changed the dynamic and discouraged new players, because the ability of them to get a good starting deck fell off a cliff. Unable to compete with people who managed to find the rare "good" AOA decks, the new players stopped wanting to play, and stopped wanting to try the game.

You dun goofed, FFG. Please bring back extremely powerful common cards to the game. They make it so new/casual players don't get completely stomped every single time.

Extremely good common cards have always been better in the hands of experienced players, so this rant makes zero sense to me.

Are you arguing that AoA decks are too weak? Organize sealed AoA events and your playing field will be level.

Are you arguing experienced players are stomping new players? Get in contact with them and ask them if they will help set up learn-to-play events.

Plenty of options better than: print more overpowered common cards.

New players getting wrecked by people with crazy powerful commons stopped a bunch of people from playing. I think you have it backwards.

2 hours ago, SupaGerm said:

New players getting wrecked by people with crazy powerful commons stopped a bunch of people from playing. I think you have it backwards.

Nope, I have it correct. Now experienced people with crazy powerful rares provide no chance for new players with the low hanging decks they are most likely to get. At least new players had a chance when it was easy to get really good common cards in their deck. Maybe your experience differs, but that's how it turned out at the game shop I go to. Interest in Keyforge has waned to zero.

*guy has great op deck*

*op deck gets nerfed*

"everyone hates this at my lfgs"

8 hours ago, Takeshi7 said:

Nope, I have it correct. Now experienced people with crazy powerful rares provide no chance for new players with the low hanging decks they are most likely to get. At least new players had a chance when it was easy to get really good common cards in their deck. Maybe your experience differs, but that's how it turned out at the game shop I go to. Interest in Keyforge has waned to zero.

You think that "low" decks with powerfull commons are better (or equal) to a "strong" deck with powerfull rares and powerfull commons? Really?

This change did affect good decks the same way. Decks with strong rares and these commons were way stronger before the change.
And in the end it is not the rares. This is why i like in Keyforge. It is a combination of the cards. It does not help, when your deck has 8 powerfull rares that just do not work together this well.

15 hours ago, Takeshi7 said:

Nope, I have it correct. Now experienced people with crazy powerful rares provide no chance for new players with the low hanging decks they are most likely to get. At least new players had a chance when it was easy to get really good common cards in their deck. Maybe your experience differs, but that's how it turned out at the game shop I go to. Interest in Keyforge has waned to zero.

Unfun players wreck a community. If veteran players only play their power decks against new players, it's the veterans that are problem, not the decks.

If you're talking chainbound archon tournaments, new players shouldn't complain. I get the sense you're talking about casual play here, though.

If bullies drive out new players, they have no one to blame but themselves.

9 hours ago, Tokra said:

You think that "low" decks with powerfull commons are better (or equal) to a "strong" deck with powerfull rares and powerfull commons? Really?

It's not that "low" decks with powerful commons are better or equal to a "strong" deck with powerful rares and powerful commons.

It's that now it is much more difficult and much less likely for a "low" deck to stand a chance against a "strong" deck. It's much less fun when the new players get discouraged by repeatedly losing.
At least before a new player could use a "low" deck with powerful commons and have a much better chance of winning if they got the right draw.

18 hours ago, Poposhka said:

*guy has great op deck*

*op deck gets nerfed*

"everyone hates this at my lfgs"

The people with great op decks don't hate it. It's the people without great op decks who hate it, because now they get stomped by the people who have the op decks. At least with powerful common cards they stood a chance.

Your point would probably be better made if you provided more concrete examples.

As I've pointed out before, one of my worst decks ever was my first horseman deck which had a mars house in it that actively worked against the rest of the deck.

Conversely, I recently swept a tournament with this deck I pulled on premiere day:

https://www.keyforgegame.com/deck-details/6a202462-9f70-4247-8826-33669b94ba5e

As you can see, it's mostly commons itself. What seems to throw people off is that the cards in AoA are not obviously powerful at first glance but piece together real well. For example, Drummernaut & Ganger Chieftan are both commons.

There was definitely a big swing in power level from CotA to AoA. I was personally expecting a slow and gradually decline, but they really veered hard into nerfing the most powerful effects from the first set.

That being said, I do enjoy the AoA decks more than the CotA. They're more interesting to me, whereas the CotA decks are stronger if you know how to play them right.

AoA require thinking, CotA require spamming your hand and discard cards which you can't use well.

AoA is much more compley and more punishing/rewarding on mistakes or good plays; CotA is very easy to push, you just have to luck out on the nut draw, which is much more braindead.

I prefer a lot more AoA and would like that FFG decide to put a ban on old CotA decks. A rotation is much needed on this game, otherwise new decks will have much more less value than old OP decks than cota (5 Dust Pixie and Key Charge, everyone, or others bull).

It's not card design, and it's not the power level of cards dispersed in the rarity. The simple truth for my area is that the local scene died out because the community (FLGS, players) moved on to other things. People didn't come to weekly chainbound events so my FLGS scheduled other things that did bring people in. We didn't fight that because, well, we were busy with those other things. Those of us still active in Keyforge play are playing it at home, on break at work, getting plenty of games in and having a blast with it.

AoA set is just fine. There are several cards in the common rarity for each house that I absolutely love. Sure AoA decks are very different from COTA but I think when it comes to games actually being played player skill is under-valued when it should be judged right up there alongside the deck and what cards you have. For the most part the player that knows their deck better will be the one to win. The cards matter but not as much as the knowledge of how/when to play them.

My 2 cents.

Call of the Archons came out I was in 200%, got decks for all my friends and bought a deck or two each week trying to get a deck with specific cards or duplicates to trade for them.

Age of Ascension came out and I was in maybe 80%. It was hard to get into any kind of organized play as most of the stores in my area would get 4-6 players. As @TheSpitfired said, this leads stores to focus on other games. I bought a box at release and a couple decks here or there.

The new set is announced and I might by the collector's box, but I am going to try and trade CoA/AoA for these instead to try and even out the amounts I have of each. Since there is no Sanctum/Mars, these should help even things out as it is also difficult to find regular CoA on sale anymore around me.

When chainbound tournaments came out, I got a few of my decks up a couple power levels, hoping to have them ready for when the bigger tournaments would be announced that you needed to have "X power level" to play in. I brought my friends and we enjoyed playing with about 20+ people at an event. They announced Vault Tours, but those are few and far between. Store Championships and Prime Championships were announced, but most of our LGS were not even notified these were going to happen and it was too late to register for the upcoming season by the time FFG even put the article out about them.

AoA hasn't killed Keyforge at your local game shop, this burden is clearly on the end of FFG for how they handle their games in general. They hype it up before it comes out (and boy howdy do they know how to do this part right), then the first month or so they send kits out to stores to run events. After that is when things start to get bad. Stores will get additional kits infrequently, which can then cause them to either run less events or split up the prize kits over multiple events (I have seen stores give out one metal key for a night instead of a full set to the winner).

For Keyforge they made a whole new reporting system and there was difficulties with getting stores to adopt this program or they had difficulties with cameras and people not being able to set up master vault accounts properly. When the formats were announced, one of them was for a best of three and that goes a little over two hours per round (I still have not seen a store try to run one of these). Most places are sealed (to help get rid of product that is sitting on the shelves still) or best of 1 Archon for Chainbound. This has been it for the past year, so a new format (let alone a multiplayer variant that isn't house rules) could help breathe some life into the scene again until stores can start advertising/registering for next seasons Store Championships.

Keyforge is a great game, with all the changes that have happened from CoA to AoA, it definitely felt like CoA was a Beta and they are finally understanding what should be and shouldn't be in a set. There are still things that haven't even been explained (what do keys get you in the Master Vault App? There was a mention of them possibly being used to enter higher ranking tournaments.) FFG has a great game here and it would be a shame to watch it go the way of Star Wars, Game of Thrones, and L5R.

16 hours ago, KandyKidZero said:

AoA hasn't killed Keyforge at your local game shop, this burden is clearly on the end of FFG for how they handle their games in general. They hype it up before it comes out (and boy howdy do they know how to do this part right), then the first month or so they send kits out to stores to run events. After that is when things start to get bad. Stores will get additional kits infrequently, which can then cause them to either run less events or split up the prize kits over multiple events (I have seen stores give out one metal key for a night instead of a full set to the winner).

100% this. A game can be great, but if the promotion and Organized Play is not there, it might sink into oblivion.

I tried to find tournaments in my area. No way to find anything. And if you find something, it is well hidden and not local at one site. There is no place to go and find some information.
And this is really sad. This game has potential. And the online decks and level of the decks could make something really great. But without a good up to date site or interface it will go down unnoticed.

The Keyforge app has an event locator, it works pretty decently, but stores do have to announce their events there. I’m not a store owner so I don’t know how easy or complicated this is, but it seems to me FFG have a fine system in place to show us where and when we can play Keyforge. If your local stores aren’t using it, why not? Have you asked them?

1 hour ago, Palpster said:

The Keyforge app has an event locator, it works pretty decently, but stores do have to announce their events there. I’m not a store owner so I don’t know how easy or complicated this is, but it seems to me FFG have a fine system in place to show us where and when we can play Keyforge. If your local stores aren’t using it, why not? Have you asked them?

Only on the app? I use the Master Vault website most of the time. Never installed the app so far.
But on the website are only store locations, or locations where a tournaments were held (in the past). This is not really helping.

And there are several reasons why our stores do not have anything:

- Germany (different OP team/site)
- Only one store in the near area (two, when i drive a few hours)
- Store owner is a lazy person (not doing anything for OP at all) and has no room at all in the store, beside one small table.

But i did not find any good forum for information in germany at all (like there are for all other kind of games). There is no site for tournamets (you have to check each store and their schedule).
Their whole OP site (here and on the german site) look like started but not finished and not keept up to date.
It looks like: "we want, but no one is doing it".

Well, here's my opinion I guess.

First, Call of the Archons was simply the first time anyone had access to the game, plus it sold out. Both of those things are going to create greater demand, even for people who will not stick around for later sets. I know this may be offset by the anticipation of more people coming to the game, but the game is still new and working out variance between deck power levels, and some of the decks being so overpowered compared to a standard deck, I personally have seen that drive away players that just simply aren't having fun being destroyed every time they show up.

Second, there is a huge disparity between the players that are going to play casually, and the hardcore, must win with the best deck, players. As organizers of events you have to be able to get these two groups to play well together. You can't convince someone who wants to play casually to spend hundreds of dollars to compete or settle for always losing, and you can't convince the player who wants the highest level of competition to intentionally play poorly, and bring low quality decks. I think making changes to cards like Library Access and Bait and Switch was a total net positive because it leveled the playing field, people who wanted to play competitively still absolutely have the opportunity to do that, their tool bag just simply changed. If the new set came out with a common artifact that stated "Players cannot draw above their hand limit" or "players cannot steal more than 2 aember from a player on any given turn" that would have been a much bigger change, but would have been accepted by the community as a new hurdle for competitive players to overcome. If you really are competitive, look for a new way to break the game, don't complain about the way things were. Games change, adapt.

Lastly and most importantly, PEOPLE DON'T COMMIT. I have seen this in EVERY avenue of my life, from religious organizations, to volunteer work, to parties and events, people do not want to commit to anything regular. Our most committed players still miss on average 1-2 nights a month, and we only meet once a week.

For people complaining about the freebies that FFG does or does not give out, if that's the only reason for playing the game, then the game sucks. People engage in lots of things that they have to pay for with no freebies in the end. If the only reason people play this is to get free stuff, then you're not playing at home, you're not demoing to new players, you're not having fun with friends, you're simply relying on someone to pay you to play. Instead, think of formats that drive players to attend because they enjoy the format not the prizes. I am NOT saying that prize support isn't needed, or that that doesn't impact player base, but again, adapt, overcome, learn how to use the tools you have, not fret about what you don't have. There is plenty of third party support of this game from sleeves, tokens, playmats, etc, have players pay to enter the events and give that stuff out as prizes.

The community at my LGS has actually grown. The beautiful thing about this game is that it costs exactly $10 for someone to be able to participate, so there is every opportunity for the player base to wax and wane. The game isn't going to anywhere but up

On 9/26/2019 at 4:43 AM, OsramTaleka said:

The game isn't going to anywhere but up

Unless FFG takes the game in the worst possible direction and announces a cash prize pro tour.

On 9/27/2019 at 8:14 AM, TheSpitfired said:

Unless FFG takes the game in the worst possible direction and announces a cash prize pro tour.

We had 2 new players last week who had bought a deck each at launch that decided to get into organized play because of the announcement. They were NetRunner players who took the announcement as a sign that the game is going to be supported. No one is going to leave the game and stay gone because of a tour that they can totally ignore if they so choose.

On ‎9‎/‎27‎/‎2019 at 11:14 AM, TheSpitfired said:

Unless FFG takes the game in the worst possible direction and announces a cash prize pro tour.

Because that happened to the last 3 game for which they announced a cash prize pro tour?

6 hours ago, HaphazardNinja said:

Because that happened to the last 3 game for which they announced a cash prize pro tour?

What were the last 3 games that FFG did a cash prize pro tour with?

You both missed my point, but to be fair I didn’t communicate it. Yes, this decision will likely drive sales of the game. It will be financially successful because of it. That being said, don’t you dare think it’s going to improve the state of the game. The competitive side of it is going to get downright ugly and this forum will get as hostile as the X-Wing one.

On 10/3/2019 at 3:31 PM, OsramTaleka said:

No one is going to leave the game and stay gone because of a tour that they can totally ignore if they so choose.

I mean, you’re not wrong but I have certainly gone from “mostly casual but will play competitive when my FLGS offers an event” to “100% casual.”

Just means I am no longer the game’s target audience. I can live with that. All the best. Go win the prize. You and HaphazardNinja have my support. NO ONE ELSE.

22 hours ago, TheSpitfired said:

You both missed my point, but to be fair I didn’t communicate it. Yes, this decision will likely drive sales of the game. It will be financially successful because of it. That being said, don’t you dare think it’s going to improve the state of the game. The competitive side of it is going to get downright ugly and this forum will get as hostile as the X-Wing one.

What does X-Wing have to do with this? That game notably doesn't (and I would assume due to licensing never will) have cash prices, so I don't quite see how it relates to your sentiment. I believe unpleasantness happens in online communities whether cash prices are involved or not, and it happens with a higher probability in anything star wars-related. The KeyForge community I've met at the Vault Tour Nürnberg was welcoming and generally pleasant to be around, unlike what I've experienced at X-Wing tournaments (obviously not all of them, but I had a streak of 3 that were unbearable before I quit) with far lower stakes. I don't see that changing any time soon, as people fixated on cash prices surely wouldn't travel for 'casual' events like that. I also don't quite see a large influx of people only in for the money as KeyForge-success is a lot less formulaic than in the big TCGs. Nobody can tell you how to pilot your deck specifically, that's very different from "pick whichever top3 deck suits you the best this season, get all the cards, practice that deck with no end". You'll never know for certain that your deck is the best and that kind of uncertainty can turn away unpleasant people. At least that's what I like to imagine.

It is unfortunate that you have been driven away from organized play in general (as I read it before the VW-announcement?). What are things you would like FFG to do to support your style of engagement with the game better? In my mind the options for FFG to affect the community outside of OP are kind of limited apart from "keep releasing interesting sets", so I'm interested in learning about other ideas.

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

What does X-Wing have to do with this?

I meant in the sense that if you go to the X-Wing forums right here on FFG's website you will find some of the most toxic arguments you've ever seen in your life. Every ship is broken, every ship can be fixed by doing this to it, and everyone who disagrees goes right for the jugular. The Mos Eisley Cantina is safer. Compare that to right here in the Keyforge forums, where in this thread even though you and a few others disagree with me everyone is being respectful and cordial.

1 hour ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

It is unfortunate that you have been driven away from organized play in general (as I read it before the VW-announcement?). What are things you would like FFG to do to support your style of engagement with the game better? In my mind the options for FFG to affect the community outside of OP are kind of limited apart from "keep releasing interesting sets", so I'm interested in learning about other ideas.

You know I've never blamed FFG. To me it was my FLGS, who completely stopped running any Keyforge events after the player base couldn't commit to weekly chain bound events. I still like the game and I'm still satisfied with my investment. If I had to do it again I might cut back on the number of COTA decks but I would still have invested in this game. Let's be honest, I can't not buy at least 2 WC decks when they release. I guess as long as FFG stays on top of providing clarity when confusing interactions rise up I'll be set. Although I must admit I am stubbornly remaining in the "Make Library Access an Alpha" camp. One can dream, right?

So I will take on the Letterkenny stance of "I suppose as long as everyone's having a good time there ain't no reason to be a poopy pants" and cease my complaints. And Osram and Haphazard will have to deal with me altering my deal and offering my support to anyone in this good community that wants it.