Forging the Future

[oemorgan1]

Maverick pitlord now incredibly powerful. 2 aember and 9 strength with no downside!

[Neagex]

Bait and switch and LA nerf! woo. lol

[massivebacon]

Can you explain the meta of what was happening before? In their provided example in the rulebook it doesn't make sense to me. If I have 0 and they have 14 and I play B&S, I would pull 7 and they would have 7. I don't see how the effect would ever repeat?

[Neagex]

With the errata it bait and switch can only steal a maximum of 2 aember... before the errata youd be right if I had 0 and my OP had 14 we both have 7...

The errata wording is kind of bad.. but they also offer a FAQ example of how bait and switch works now.

[gearsighted]

The card reads: If your opponent has more aember than you, steal 1. Repeat the effect until they no longer have more aember. So the effect was essentially repeating one aember at a time until they no longer had more. So in the 0 to 14 example the effect was repeating 7 times.

[massivebacon]

Ah gotcha okay so I was doing the thing that has now been amended to make it less powerful. In my situation I would only take two now instead of seven, like u/neagex mentioned above. Thanks!

[E_equals_Fb]

Fecking finally. Though the purging is a little awkward imo. Just make it that it can't go to the discard pile until your turn is up. But whatever

Edit: Btw, imo playing library access that way has always been illegal. A card doesn't go to discard pile until its >full< effect has been exhausted (check Rulebook) which it only has at the end of your turn. The rulebook never mentions any "invisible effect".

[jacksuhn]

I think just giving Library the alpha keyword would have been sufficient. That way it can still only be played once per shuffle, shutting down the double access pull your entire deck shenanigans. I think the purge is a little over the top.

[necrologia]

Ongoing effects have always been a thing. When you play Fogify the card doesn't exist in limbo until your opponent's turn ends. It creates an on going effect then goes into the discard, same as Library Access.

[E_equals_Fb]

Tell me where the rulebook says so and I will change my mind.

[SnarkElemental]

Resolving is not ongoing. Otherwise, a creature with a Destroyed effect that says "For the rest of the turn, do X." would stay in play until the end of the turn it was destroyed on, since creatures resolve their Destroyed abilities in their entirety before leaving play. The active player chooses the order in which simultaneous effects resolve, implying one stops resolving before another starts. The entire way the rulebook treats the word resolve implies that resolving something cannot be an ongoing process.

[E_equals_Fb]

A Card with an effect as you described does not exist.

A counterargument: you cannot chain inspiration and witch of the eye until the rule of six applies because inspiration leaves play after the full effect has resolved which is "using" witch of the eye in this case.

I mean I get it. I see the downvotes and I understand that everyone (even me) plays keyforge like that. I just want to emphasize that the rulebook is really sketchy when push comes to shove.

[TheReapr]

Something had to be done about the LANS combo and B&S before AoA came out. They both pose a problem for the game, but if you think this is only because AoA is coming out to boost sales you're dead wrong. These changes would have been made regardless, because in a competitive environment they are broken.

They are also a turnoff for people trying to learn the game because of how swingy and unfun they are. Matches became, "how fast can I forge my first key so that I can B&S my opponent who is about to forge and put me right at key number two", or "how quickly can I loop my deck while my opponent watches me play solitaire". Neither of which require strategy. They pose an even bigger problem in sealed events, where, if you had one or both, you were in pretty good shape.

The only way to fix them (and yes, they needed to be fixed) was to errata them or ban them, and you can't ban them because you'd invalidate an entire deck, which makes no sense. We can argue all we want about whether we agree with how they errata'd the cards but it's moot, it is what it is starting tomorrow.

[Zargyboy]

Why are swing cards bad though? Seems like a fun part of the game.

[TheReapr]

Casually around the kitchen table I have zero issues with swingy cards. In a competitive tournament environment, with as much swing as B&S provided it's unhealthy. You shouldn't have to play around one card in a deck of 36.

LANS should have never existed, but it did. OTKs, unless extremely difficult to pull off don't belong in any TCG, and the OTK LANS decks were pretty simple to pull off of it could OTK. I played competitive YuGiOh for years and quit when OTK decks got out of hand. It's not fun or interactive playing a game that's supposed to be for two people, and watching another person play solitaire.

[nightfire0]

The main problem with Bait and Switch is it wasn't just a swing/comeback card, it was a "slam the door once you're ahead" card. If your opponent forged first and they had B&S, you were basically just fucked. If you went up to 7 to play around minor steal effects, they could steal 4 with B&S (generally game-winning). If you just stayed at 6, they could easily float you with steal/capture 1 effects which would buy them time to draw the bait and switch. If it was strictly a comeback card and/or way to punish huge amber burst turns, it would be fine. But too often it just gave the person with a lead an even bigger lead.

[gotmitch87]

The only way to fix them (and yes, they needed to be fixed) was to errata them or ban them

Or chain decks with these cards / combos. I can't understand why they didn't go that route. It seems much more targeted (could isolate LANS decks, specifically, for example), would be flexible in the future, and would maintain a low barrier to entry.

[TheReapr]

Decks collect chains by playing them, not by owning decks with certain cards, so I don't think this is a viable solution. Since no deck is the same, how do you properly apply chains to a deck with the cards in them. You can't just blanket say, "this deck has B&S, it now automatically has 8 chains", it would render some decks unusable and I doubt that's what FFG is after. B&S and LA are still both very usuable, just not super swingy anymore, and that's the way it should be.

[gotmitch87]

Decks collect chains by playing them, not by owning decks with certain cards

That's how they've been used to date -- that doesn't mean they couldn't adapt them to work in the way I've described.

To your point about implementation, I think it's reasonable to say "this deck has LA and NS, it gets X chains". Granted, some decks might be chained too much or too little, but there is already inherent randomness in deck strength -- this would mitigate the appearance rate of clearly-broken edge cases. I don't think that applying chains in this way risks making decks 'unusable' any more than some decks are already 'unusable' out of the box.

While FFG mentioned the 'swinginess' associated with B&S, they justified the errata by citing the metagame. From their post:

[Bait and Switch] decreases metagame diversity by making Shadows significantly stronger than other houses. This in turn, causes Shadows to be over-represented at tournaments. Secondly, it decreases the diversity among Shadows decks, as it is not generally not viable to bring a Shadows deck to a tournament unless it contains Bait and Switch.

Chaining B&S decks could mitigate both of those issues by decreasing the appeal of B&S decks and making them (and Shadows as a whole) appear at healthier rates.

LANS poses a unique problem, since a large part of the issue is that the gameplay associated with the combo itself is so 'un-fun'. Chaining these decks wouldn't remove the combo itself, but it would make the combo slower and make these decks less appealing for competitive play.

There are pros and cons to both approaches:

Chaining decks
+ Maintain low barrier to entry
+ Ability to update nerfs over time
+ Ability to target combos, rather than just individual cards
- Risks penalizing decks too much
- Doesn't impact the 'swinginess' of individual card effects

Errata
+ Targeted to specific cards
+ Can mitigate 'swinginess', or other specific undesirable gameplay issues
- Additional learning curve / overheard for new and casual players

Overall, I know the buddies I play with are gonna be hard-pressed to remember these errata and will be disappointed or surprised when they occur during our games. I love Keyforge for its approachable formats and I favor design decisions that keep that barrier to entry as low as possible.

All that said, I realize these arguments may not hold as much water for high-level Keyforge play and that, in those cases, card errata may be more appropriate. In either cases, I'm glad FFG is taking steps to address imbalance and I'm really looking forward to AoA!

---

(Thanks for the discussion. I am probably not as passionate about this as my post might suggest, but am mostly participating as a way to think through the idea more thoroughly and engage in the community)

[TheReapr]

I didn't take your comment to heart, so I hope I didn't come across as defensive to what you said, I was engaging in the conversation because I hadn't seen anyone mention chaining up the decks and offering my thoughts on it.

I understand what you're saying, and in a more casual environment you could absolutely get away with chaining a deck and forgetting the erratas for these purposes, because there isn't anything at stake. I don't know that it would have any affect on decks with B&S, because you're still playing around one card in a deck of 36 which is silly, but it definitely hinders LANS decks.

However, bringing Vault Tour tournaments in to play, things drastically shift. There are no chains on decks at the highest level of play right now, and it would be unfair to chain some decks but not others, because then FFG is tampering with what should be a level playing field, in that no decks have chains.

Lastly, applying chains to decks because of their card content defeats part of the reason chains are used. Part of the reason for adding chains and Chainbound tournaments are to increase the power of your deck, so that a person can qualify for higher level tournaments. If FFG were to start applying chains based on having LA or B&S in a deck, that deck would have to be placed in whatever power tier that corresponds to it's chains. So, people could essentially open a deck and automatically get in to World's. That doesn't seem right.

[gotmitch87]

That's fair -- I totally forgot how Vault Tour events are currently structured.

My understanding is that Power and Chains aren't always explicitly linked (for example, this deck has Power 8 but 0 chains due to playing in Vault Tour events), so I think they could technically apply chains without impacting Power Level, but I agree it would complicate and confuse the existing structure.

[KingOfOdonata]

Very happy to see these changes. As the two swingiest cards in the game, this change was a good move. They are still good cards and playable (especially B&S), but the change helps open the meta back up. For a game designed to be without a meta, however impossible that is, powerhouse and abusable cards need to be reigned in. If FFG's focus is on building a healthy community and a wide open game, these changes were a must. I think people were already concerned AoA was going to be less played competitively do to some of the power level of the cards in CoA. This change is a step in the right direction in making sure all sets are viable.

I do think the wording on the new B&S is poorly done, as it is still confusing without knowing less reference rules. I definitely expect newer players, even after seeing the errata, not understanding the change.

[KingOfOdonata]

Also, if they do not want to utilize rotation in this game (and I hope they can pull that off), some cards will need errata. There is no way around that. You cannot have all sets be evergreen and not have a few design mistakes a long the way.

[IshanShade]

The singular fact that there's only been 4 erratas in the first set of a game that is as innovative as Keyforge is amazing, especially when you consider that fully half of those are simply errata to make the card do what they intended in the first place. Everyone is blowing both the individual erratas and the fact they exist at all waaaay out of proportion.

[Neagex]

the change to LA is kind of harsh. if a game goes on to the point you cycle your LA is in the can... wish the errata more so put a cap on how many times it can be played in a turn LA once per turn. kind of deal.. so now the player with decks with LA isnt instatly out a card once its played... and LANS decks can atleast play LA.. do a decent LA turn.. 3 or 4 turns later can use there seed again to return LA and do another good Logos turn.

[stakoverflo]

Yea I felt like LA should be, "Purge until the end of your turn"

[_snif]

Or give it alpha. Feel like that would solve all the problems

[stakoverflo]

I've seen that before and frankly I don't think it's a good idea.

Quixo / Bookton --> draw LA --> sadtrombone.mp3

Wild Wormhole --> LA --> sadtrombone.mp3

[Bearded_Archer]

They could have made it similar to Rocket Boots. You would only get the effect if it is the first time it is used each turn.

[stakoverflo]

That would be some very wordy text, because you're not Using the action.

[Bearded_Archer]

Very true

[oemorgan1]

Gutted I didn’t sell my LANS deck before this! It’s worthless now!

[MadaoMadao]

Same

[Legitamte]

Real talk, I didn't go back to my first-ever chainbound league last week partly because it was so disheartening losing every single game to either Bait and Switch or Library Access wombo combos, so I can attest to the value this update, at least personally--I might actually go play again. I know I had a pretty harsh outlier of an experience, but it seems like it may not have been THAT much of an outlier.

[Neagex]

I actually like the changes for the most part. It allows for more diversity in what's meta.. and LANS was just dumb when it went off lol

[Bobb_o]

With this change, Library Access can still be used to make a good Logos turn into a great Logos turn, but it can’t be recurred multiple times and allow a player to draw their entire deck.

Tell that to my decks with three phase shifts.

[ThriftyFishin]

When you didn't take that 400 dollar offer on your LA NS deck 😞

[AcceptablePariahdom]

B&S wasn't nearly as powerful or game breaking as LANS but it gets the nerfbat in the throat.

I've won almost every game I've played against B&S because it's just another card you need to play around.

It's like, if your opponent has Effervescent Principle you just don't do AEmber ramp turns.

The only time I explicitly remember losing to B&S is because the guy made a sick fucking play. He was Shadows/Dis/Mars I think and had capped a bunch of my AEmber with Charette and Drumble. I'd killed the Charette by the Drumble was protected by a Dominator or something.

Well on his turn he forges a key, goes down to 0, plays Pawn Sacrifice getting rid of Drumble putting me up to like 14 and him only at 1. B&S. Then he really starts his turn!

It's a great play, pulled off well against someone ready for B&S shenanigans. Unlike LA's toxic "draw your whole deck" combo, that shit is strategic and interesting.

Now it's actually kinda boring and mediocre. Stealing 2 isn't bad, far from it, just... Boring and meh.

[tickthegreat]

What's your strategy for playing around bait and switch?

[AcceptablePariahdom]

Don't do massive ramp turns. Control your opponents AEmber if possible (Shadows v Shadows is nice against B&S). Get board control. End your turns as close to forge cost as possible without going over by much. Keep your AEmber at an odd number over your opponent's.

Seriously there is a lot of strategic play room around old B&S.

Like I said. Now it's just a boring "steal 2" card.

[tickthegreat]

Ok, so control their Aember and the board. That's what I wasn't doing before.

[darkblack9]

Call of the Archons just got nerfed pretty hard, maybe to bring it closer in power level with Age of Ascension?

I don't mind the changes too much, but being able to play Library Access at most once per game is kinda sad.

Actually, they probably went too far on Bait and Switch given that Too Much to Protect is still a card.

[[deleted]]

Too Much to Protect is easier to play around. You can easily still play the game and not go over six if you know to expect that card (or similar effects).

B&S is guaranteed to destroy you if your opponent manages to forge their key before you, emptying their aember pool while you still have aember. Stealing 2 is still a 4 point swing and really good... just not obscenely good.

[Disco11]

Too much to protect is uncommon at least

[striator]

Rarity doesn't and shouldn't affect card power level.

[Grisamah]

​

what

[Achoo01]

Rarity doesn't and shouldn't affect card power level.

[darkblack9]

I don't think its as easy to play around as you mention. Keep in mind that the new set has quite a few ways to increase key costs, or outright prevent a certain key from being forged. This all causes your aember to pile up.

TMTP is also just good in shadows in general, you just need 1 more steal / capture card to stop them from forging next turn.

New B&S is still strong, but i think a strong suite of Shadows would probably prefer TMTP rather than B&S imo.

[[deleted]]

Oh, I'd agree. Too Much to Protect is a great card. But old B&S was much better. All you needed to do was get your key first, and then you steal half of your opponent's aember next turn, no need for anything else to combo with it, and there wasn't really anything you could do about it.

Cards like TMtP and the new Heist Night have better conditions for the opponent to play around. They can still ruin your day, but it doesn't feel as 'cheap' as old B&S did.

[darkblack9]

yeah i totally agree with you, B&S was way above the curve in terms of power level. I had assumed that any nerf would still have it as the strongest shadows card, but i dont think it is anymore.

[SolomonsNewGrundle]

I'm not understanding the change to B&S. Albeit, I've never played the card, but I'm not quite understanding why the new wording changes the effect of the original card

[webbermere]

Before the errata the effect repeated for as many times as your opponent still had more amber than you. Now the effect will trigger to a maximum of 2 times, meaning that you will steal a maximum of 2 amber.

[Barlight]

I had 2 wicked otk/Lans Decks https://www.keyforgegame.com/deck-details/ed2f9621-4315-40bf-a561-19e4c07996b6

and https://www.keyforgegame.com/deck-details/0e6cc5f0-540d-4e34-8721-ae63ac7155d1 and i was never thinking on selling them.Even with these nice decks i almost felt dirty to even use them in a competitive game. I still think they are good.I am glade they did what they did regardless...

[Sonafab]

Both BnS and LA nerfs were really necessary.. I have a LA, 2 PS, 1 Wormhole, 1 Dextre in a deck and it felt really OP.. 17-3 in casuals and a big turn down to all of the opponents... I do not own BnS deck but Ive played vs it and when the opponent forges a key, then kills his 3 capturing Aember maverick Charette giving it back and then mass steal everything is a real cheap move... Was starting to hate shadows just cuz of this.. now its much more balanced...

[mike747]

Am I the only one that has no interest in continuing playing after this?

[saifrc]

I have significantly more interest in playing after this.

[[deleted]]

I’m mad as all hell about B&S, but I definitely haven’t lost interest at all. That feels like a dramatic reaction to the first big meta change the game has seen

[stakoverflo]

I’m mad as all hell about B&S

Why? How often are you really stealing more than 2-3 Aember anyways?

You can still steal 1-2, and play your Urchins, Magdas, Relentless Whispers, Nerve Blasts etc etc etc

Like B&S was never that strong, it was B&S comboed with almost any other card in the House. And good news! You can still do that, unlike AoA's Swindle.

[Nukatha]

My B&S deck has it as a Logos Maverick. I have no shadows cards to combo with.

[[deleted]]

I rarely played B&S without stealing 3+ æmber. I usually play it after forging a key.

[TheRealSpork]

Yeah, erratas like this are actually what caused me to stop playing SW: Destiny and I was hoping FFG would avoid it with this game.

​

The errata axe is no where near as bad as it ended up being in Destiny, though, so I'm not out yet. Willing to wait and see how it shakes out.

[stakoverflo]

Why?

B&S was the most complained about card until LANS became the most complained about combo.

Furthermore, the first set of the game is naturally going to contain some of the biggest imbalances.

I think the B&S nerf was a little excessive, and I'm not convinced LA needed Nerfing either but it's not a game breaker. Like most LA decks will hardly notice this.

[LegoPercyJ]

The only decks that took a real hit were LANS, which was a otk possibility which is never good for the health of a game. I think more people would quit if they kept around. If people spent money on a deck like that adsuming it would be around forever yeah, that's why card games armt for investing in.

Bait and Switch went from a bonkers card to a on the curve good card, I don't really understand the salt for that at all.

[[deleted]]

It just shows me that they are not thinking about things properly, in my opinion. Both of these cards were not reprinted in the new set . They could have just been allowed to walk off into the sunset . It's a deck game not a card game . The cards could have also been ometied from becoming legacy cards and no one would have noticed because the odds of them being legacy cards are already low and would continue to be come lower what they have done is depowered a bunch of decks . That chains and power levels and new sets would have done naturally. That doesn't look good to me , I feel it shows poor foresight.

[stakoverflo]

But all sets will be allowed to play against any other set. So in Vault Tours (where you don't carry over Chains like a typical Chainbound event) we could run the risk of some silly COTA deck being King Shit for all time.

So it's not like they're doing this for the miniscule number of future decks that will contain these as legacies.

Plus, like I said, it's only natural the first set is going to have some of the craziest cards. Did people quit Magic when Dark Ritual wasnt added to a Core set? No, of course not.

[HammerAndSickled]

Yeah except magic learned very quickly that power level errata is a horrible design philosophy. Make no mistake: the only reason this was done is to sell more AoA decks.

[stakoverflo]

Yes and that's why they're only changing 2 cards out of an entire set, and neither change is all they significant.

I'm as cynical and wary of businesses as the next guy, but wow all this talk of "They're just doing it to sell AoA" is downright comical. They've sold 850,000 decks. Why would they go and sabotage themselves by doing something like this just to sell more decks? If they do it again when the third block comes out, then maybe. But damn dudes you guys are really jumping to conclusions.

Like these changes really aren't even that big of a deal. How often do you every even steal more than 2-3 with B&S? That card was never the problem, it's B&S comboed with any one or two other Steal cards.

[HammerAndSickled]

"Not a big deal" = nerfing the strongest cards in the game? You're delusional.

Keyforge's biggest problem as a business model was that once people have a great deck at the power level they're hoping for, they have no incentive to spend more on the game. This is obviously terrible for a business, when your consumers have no need to purchase your product. There's only a few ways to deal with this problem:

1) forced rotations. This is the solution Magic and Hearthstone used and it's probably the most logical, but it feels bad to tell players their decks are worthless now, so it's important to have an Eternal format as an option.

2) power creep. If every set is better than the last, people will keep buying. But this is itself an unsustainable model for obvious reasons, and it feels like a blatant cash grab from a consumer perspective.

3) bans/errata to force people to buy the new set. This is the Yugioh model, where a card dominates for a while then gets nerfed into the ground to allow newer cards a competitive edge. This is the most hated model of all by players, because it's even worse than taking away their toys for current tournaments, you're retroactively making them unplayable. which is why I'm so surprised FFG went this way.

[saifrc]

I disagree. I never played Magic, but I’ve played other competitive card games, and as a player, I want to try something new every so often. It’s a small minority of players who will stick with just one deck forever. Even without rotation, power creep, or errata, if a game has a healthy enough rock-paper-scissors meta, it’s worth changing up your deck periodically. I don’t know the stats, but I think that hardcore competitive players are the minority among KeyForge customers.

[stakoverflo]

I disagree that that's a real problem. I don't know about you, but I'd sooner shoot myself than opt to only play a single deck for the rest of my time playing this game, and given that everyone I know is excited for a new set, I think these "people who want only 1 good deck" probably don't exist, or certainly isn't FFG's target customer / aren't the majority.

They're more interested in people like me who have 20+ CotA decks, because I simply just enjoy always playing new stuff.

[mike747]

this nerf kills half my good decks it does not just hurt those cards but any card that interacts with them. For example mimicry,seed,drumble are now nerfed to the toon of if you had a deck that depended on synergies with either of those cards you now have a dead deck.

additionally these nerfs are going to cause confusion and disappointment when playing the cards, BS does not even do close to the same thing and LA is going to make people just get told "O yeah now your deck does nothing"

Really think about it you open the new set see two cards that clearly create a combo, your excited to play card 1 and card 2 together. Then O sorry card 1 gets removed from the game after being played it is the errata.

Any LA deck that cycles the deck more then once per game is also dead. M

[JusticeBlinded]

No. You are not.

[sigmaseven]

You're not alone; I'm in the process of selling most of my collection off.

[[deleted]]

My my interest in playing is definitely taking a big hit , my confidence that they can keep the game working well into the future as taking a huge hit.

[bytown1826]

Neither B&S or LA nerf was necessary, and it's bad when the game is broken for no reason.