FORMATS

🔥 ARCHON

✅ OFFICIAL FORMAT

There is no constructed (i.e. deck building) in KeyForge but this format comes closest to scratching that itch. Think friday night magic "standard". Does competitive play wet your whistle? Then this is the format for you.

• Each player brings a deck to use at the event
• You get to see your opponents deck list pre-game
• Best-Of-One (generally)
• 35 min rounds
• Chainbound (generally)

KeyForge decks can be complex to pilot. This has been the most enjoyable format for me allowing the most practice and agency in gameplay.

Because of the lack of deck-building and the scarcity/opinionated-ness around what makes a strong deck or player...some players may actually gravitate towards other formats like reversal or adaptive or even sealed playing to the game's spirit of working with whatever tools are in front of you.

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🧠 ADAPTIVE

✅ OFFICIAL FORMAT

Best of 3 format iteration with chain bidding based on outcomes.

Each player brings an archon or sealed deck and plays normally in a best of 3.

For the second game, each player swaps decks with his or her opponent and plays using his or her opponent’s deck.

If the third game occurs, players bid chains to use the deck which won both of the previous games.

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TRIAD

✅ OFFICIAL FORMAT

Pick 3 decks to use throughout the tournament.

Each round, each player chooses one of their opponent’s decks to “bench,” making that deck unusable for that match. Each round consists of a normal best-of-three match.

When a player wins a game, they must switch to their other deck for the rest of the match.

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ADAPTIVE-SHORT

❌ UNOFFICIAL FORMAT

The exact same concept as ADAPTIVE but compressed to 1 game for time and competition. A Fun exercise in both deck-list evaluation and chain bidding.

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🙃 REVERSAL

✅ OFFICIAL FORMAT

Bring your worst deck and your opponent must play it against you.

This is an official format but is not supported in OP or in the GEM software.

The vast majority of decks from the KeyForge Algorithm are midrange. Finding a "bad" KeyForge deck puts an alternate lens on an otherwise familiar race to the top.

Here are some cards useful to the REVERSAL format!

Considerations for Reversal:

• ✅ Too many sweepers
• ❌ Answers
• ❌ Key Cheats. e.g. Do not bring a deck with Key of Darkness to a reversal tournament even if it is a objectively bad card for example.

One awesome benefit of a reversal tournament is the ability to pilot 3+ decks in 1 tournament. For more information on reversal see JANK.

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ARCHETYPES

A recurring strategy with many possible variations. What does it want do? Fight? Steal? Combo? Control?

CONTROL

Control the Game. Disrupt the tempo.

Dis, Unfathomable, and Mars are 3 of the most control-centric houses.

One of the most delightful design decisions in KeyForge is that the most distruptive, nasty, evil, murderous faction with disruptive demons was given a 🎀 pink 🎀 border.

Here are some example CONTROL cards:

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COMBOS

Put the cards together and win! These decks focus on 2-3 card combos or clear synergies for a win condition.

Here is a cool Magic the Gathing mono black combo circa 2019.

The idea is that you play out the Demon KICKED and then activate level 3 of the warlock class on the same turn resulting in an instant win.

It requires 14 mana but to execute. It is an instant win if the player can somehow pull it off, these combos are frequently referred to as One Turn Kill (OTK) combos.

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Here is another Magic the Gathering combo.

Since faceless haven can be all creature types..the combo here is to put the artifact's loyalty counter on the faceless haven and never turn it into a creature.

This creates a soft-lock scenario where your opponent cannot win and you cannot lose if they do not have land destruction.

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Here are some of the most powerful combo ENABLERS in keyforge (not the actual combo piece). Extremely powerful setup, recursion, and closer cards that support this play-style.

Orb of Wonder is a very cool card. Something that would be very busted in another game with deckbuilding.

See COMBOS for more KeyForge combos!

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RUSH

Sonic the hedgehog. Superman. A Speeding Bullet. Ferrari. These decks floor it and don't look back. This an interesting strategy for a number of reasons:

• ✅ Make all other strategies irrelevant by simply being faster
• ✅ Keycheats like KeyCharge and Chota scoot around steal and capture threats from your opponent
• ✅ Requires less cognitive lift at a tournament (compared to a more board or trick heavy deck.)
• ✅ Wins faster! More time to recover between matches/games

Here are some example RUSH cards:

RUSH or speed decks are a good style of play for a new player:

• ✅ Easier to find/purchase on secondary market
• ✅ Can frequently brute force victories and forge keys via cheating so the opponent cannot respond with Amber Control

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MID-RANGE

A solid performer. It may not be top tier but is still competitive enough for archon solo or best of three.

The majority of Keyforge decks are in this middling area.

A skilled player could go 4-0 with this type of deck in a sealed or casual environment.

MID-RANGE is a deck archetype more suited for experienced players:

• ✅ Answers
• ✅ Consistency
• ❌ Less possibility to high-roll

A good example midrange deck would be a Brobnar / Shadows / Untamed deck from set 1 aka Call of the Archons (CotA) with an equal focus on Fighting, Stealing, and Rushing.

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STEAL

Just....strait up...STEAL. Thievery. Crime. Shadows.

The footprint of this affect that plays to the win condition is still felt although the strength of shadows and stealing has diminished a bit since the Call of the Archons set.

Here are some quintessential STEAL cards:

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TEACHING

KeyForge is a dense, caloric, cheeseburger of a game.

This is easy to forget after a player starts to scratch the beginning of what is possible.

Teaching decks are example decks you could give a new player to pilot or battle against during a teaching game. The best example of this (sorta) is the initial 2 decks that came in the set 1 starter.

Ideally:

• ❌ No archiving
• ❌ No Chains (unless they are on a more experienced player)
• ❌ No Key Cheats
• ❌ No cards that say "at current cost"
• ✅ A Focus on fun over knowledge ramp.

The first game of keyforge with a new player is not the time to suss out the difference between capture and steal. Or for that matter start accumulating some mental math with Tolas triggers.

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PURGE

Magic the Gathering players might know this powerful mechanic as Exile.

Purging existed since Call of the Archons (set 1), however it was not until World's Collide (Set 3) that the archetype came to a zenith with INFURNACE.

Quintessential cards with purging effects:

Cards like E’e on the Fringes let you banish any underperforming DIS cards from your hand.

Why would a player purge their own cards?

There is no mill-ing out in Keyforge. A strategy exists where targeting yourself makes your deck more efficient (i.e. cycling back around to better cards or answers faster).

Thin-ing your deck with cards like Buzzle changes how a deck is re-evaluated e.g. if it has less useful or helpful cards.

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EASTER EGGS

Insider references and world-building. Subtext hidden in art, themes, and flavor text of cards.

This is not unlike comic book or novel story-telling (think 70s X-Men Chris Claremont storylines. years long.) with open plot threads and long-form story telling through character developement.

Here is an example from Magic the Gathering: Eaten alive shows how the Champion of the Parish met his end and transformed into a zombie. It tells a story but also acts as a love letter to the original Champion of the Parish card (which saw a lot of play during the 2011 Innistrad block).

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DOC BOOKTON

Doc Bookton (set 1) is repairing helper bot (from set 2 Age of Ascension).

“See, Momo? I told you it wouldn’t take long.” – Doc Bookton

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WORLD'S COLLIDE HINTS

Here are some the example cards from Call of the Archons (Set 1) and Age of Ascension (Set 2) that made reference to the upcoming Dinosaur and Science Fiction factions in World's Collide (Set 3).

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DARK TIDINGS HINTS

Here are some the example cards from Call of the Archons (Set 1) and Age of Ascension (Set 2) that made reference to the upcoming Nautical-themed Dark Tidings set (Set 5)

“Thou shalt wear pants.”

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MUTANTS

There were a handful of critters with the `mutant` trait in the early sets long before Mass Mutation (Set 4) was released.

Here you can see Neutron Shark in all its glory next to its children's coloring book cousin.

Other notable mutants include Smoko and Dysania.

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DR ESCOTERA

Dr. Escotera (set 1 - Call of the Archons) was holding the "dark Amber" that became the macguffin in Mass Mutation (Set 4).

“Interesting reaction, but what does it mean?”

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CEMENT SHOES

The faerie in master plan returns in Dark Tidings of course! Here is an example of the shadows card Cement Shoes (set 5 Dark Tidings) with dust pixie soon to be sleeping with the fishes.

It has been said that KeyForge sets were developed 1-2 years in advance. This made inside references like this possible.

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FULL CIRCLE

Oddly, while keyforge experienced a hiatus (RIP) on official communications and organized play (starting around 2020), Magic the gathering started come out with cards and mechanics similar(or at least reminiscent) to keyforge.

The Daytime/Night mechanics introduced in the 2021 Innistrad sets felt very familiar to the tide mechanics in Dark Tidings. Both sort of quirky and tug-of-war-like in execution.

KeyForge had a Floomf card before magic the Gathering. They are both beloved.

One of most powerful cards in Magic the Gathering's Arena client is Key to the Archive. It's an artifact (of course) that drafts a powerful spell from the card's spellbook in a heartstone-like effect.

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