In May 2020, during the first lockdown, I started a KeyForge Experiment, where I was going to play online with every KeyForge deck I own in a solo elimination tournament of my own creation to discover which was the greatest deck of them all. And after weeks of getting my arse kicked online I was down to just two decks pretty quickly, but the constant losing ground me down and I just gave up on the idea by June 2020. But after 22 months, in May 2022, I picked it up again, played the games and drafted this post. And now, as I just noticed this post in the drafts folder and decided to publish it, after a mere nearly 28 months …
I’M BACK BABY!
Yes, a relatively small, low effort project has been saved from being yet another relatively small, low effort unfinished project. Of course, in that time KeyForge as a competitive card game kind of died thanks to the pandemic but has recently been taken over by a new publisher and has started making some noise again, so it feels like a good time to welcome…
THE GRAND LOCKDOWN KEYFORGE EXPERIMENT GRAND FINAL
Think of it like Euro 2020 or the Olympics – delayed but everyone is still using the 2020 date as if it didn’t happen. Don’t worry about it. And we’re not even in lockdown anymore in the UK – we’re all going to freeze or starve to death over this winter instead! Or get nuked if we make it through it though the winter. None of this matters! But this project has been finished and saved from the fate of a thousand other unfinished endeavours and that is what is important.
With only two decks left, I decided to adopt a penalty shoot out style format. Hey, it’s my experiment, I can do what I want! So both decks got 5 games to get as many wins as they can, and the deck with the most wins is the overall winner! In the event of a tie after 5 rounds (most likely 0 wins each), it would go to sudden death. So let’s meet the finalists.
Tsukace of the Mayor’s Catacombs
H. Kudravi, Regicadia’s Stately Scrivener
Take a look through the cards on those links if you are interested. Or don’t, it doesn’t bother me.
And now – onto the results!
Round 1
Tsukace went up against a Mass Mutation deck that played Too Much Too Protect and then double Fertility Chant in the next round, a complete thrashing at 1-3. H. Kudravi on the other hand got an even bigger thrashing from another Mass Mutation deck, 0-3.
Tsukace of the Mayor’s Catacombs: 0
H. Kudravi, Regicadia’s Stately Scrivener: 0
Round 2
Tsukace really needed to bring out General Order 24 to kill off a strong line of World’s Collide creatures, but it never arrived and it was a 1-3 loss. Meanwhile, H. Kudravi beat an Age of Ascension plague rat deck 3-1.
Tsukace of the Mayor’s Catacombs: 0
H. Kudravi, Regicadia’s Stately Scrivener: 1
Round 3
Tsukace had a very close game with a lot of back and forth on the final key but lost to a Mass Mutation deck 2-3. Meanwhile, H. Kudravi lost 1-3 to a World’s Collide deck that generated 34 amber!
Tsukace of the Mayor’s Catacombs: 0
H. Kudravi, Regicadia’s Stately Scrivener: 1
Round 4
Tsukace suffered another 1-3 thrashing from a Mass Mutation deck. H. Kudravi had a slow start against a Call of the Archons deck but then got control of the board and won 3-2!
Tsukace of the Mayor’s Catacombs: 0
H. Kudravi, Regicadia’s Stately Scrivener: 2
Round 5
With Tsukace of the Mayor’s Catacombs unable to win the shootout I was thankfully spared from losing two more games, so there was no Round 5. Hooray!
Final Score
Tsukace of the Mayor’s Catacombs: 0
H. Kudravi, Regicadia’s Stately Scrivener: 2
H. Kudravi, Regicadia’s Stately Scrivener wins the dubious honour of being the best KeyForge deck I owned at the start of this experiment!
Of course, since June 2020 I have accumulated another 4 million decks. It’s tempting to try this all over again with the new decks, but I’m not sure I can go through the misery of endlessly losing all over again…
Christmas Sandwich Reviews 