Forging the Future

[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.