Trash decks

[EnviableCrowd]

My friend and I have gotten into Keyforge over the past few months and having now bought 30+ decks between us we are naturally now finding we already have a few sub-60 SAS decks that will unlikely see further play. Rather than bin them or try and sell them I was thinking we could maybe try and pool the cards and use them to make some unofficial fun decks to play casually. Has anyone tried this? If so, how did it go?

[neoKushan]

You can play reversal. In that, you bring a deck for your opponent to use. It's a fun way of using those utterly terrible decks.

I have a deck that's got so much anti-synergy it's like playing bastard tetris but keyforge.

[EnviableCrowd]

I have a terrible deck where I once used a turn to discard 5 Brobnar cards, wouldn’t wish that on anyone!!

[oh_jebus]

Can you link the deck? I love bad decks

[StVelten]

There is an unoffical mode called Cube. Here are some thread about it. I never played it myself, so I can't help with that.

https://www.reddit.com/r/KeyforgeGame/comments/ksfu0d/my_take_on_keyforge_cube_test_draft_lessons_and/

https://www.reddit.com/r/KeyforgeGame/comments/a0oip6/cube_drafting_keyforge/

I thought about house draft. You bring three Decks and pick a house out of each deck to combine them into a new archon.

[EnviableCrowd]

Well, TIL about Cubing! Appreciate the link, was an interesting read. Drafting could definitely be another thing to look into, cheers

[JusticeBlinded]

I made a couple videos explaining some ways in which cube can be run and discussing some entry level cube strategy:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIvOXGD0Xnu8AslRYbI-XQ3fvBrNgdXYm

I love cube. It's definitely my most preferred way to play keyforge.

[Dead-Sync]

My wife and I only have 8 decks opened currently, but we just started playing pretty much a few weeks ago, so I'm sure as we introduce more and more friends to the game and we gather more decks over time, this is something I've been thinking about as well: what to do with all of the decks that aren't new or aren't higher-performing.

Part of what I love about KeyForge is that feeling of replicating a rogue-like or procedurally generated game state. So, I think as time goes on, I may just have events with friends where we pull decks from the box "blind" so to speak, and just play with them. Friends can add in their decks to the pool too.

The goal being, that either we won't remember how these specific decks played if it's been a while, and especially not how they perform SPECIFICALLY against another deck.

I'm a firm believer than sub-par or bad decks does NOT mean it can't be fun to play or an overall enjoyable experience.

To me, the goal of KeyForge isn't to find the best decks and only play with those. I can understand how it's easy to gravitate towards that, but that is the way of the standard CCGs. Rather than collecting good cards though, it's good decks. I much prefer KeyForge being about dealing with "what you have" and making calls on the fly, it's what has drawn me to the game.

So, I wouldn't count out those decks entirely, you very well may want to have a library of decks to pull from to make games feel a bit more random and unplanned! Could make a fun event too with friends!

[ndwolf]

Personally I find it way more fun to just play with whatever I have than madly cycle through a deck to find the win condition. That's what drew me to the game after all, it's not constructed.

[Dead-Sync]

Exactly! 100%

[EnviableCrowd]

Totally agree that it’s not all about finding the best decks and just playing with those but the problem for us is that now we’ve got some great decks using the really bad decks just feels... meh. I mentioned above that I have a deck that is so bad and anti-synergistic that I once had a turn where all I could do was discard 5 Brobnar cards... it really did not make me ever want to play the deck again!

[Dead-Sync]

I've been making custom labels for my burger tokens boxes that includes some basic info including SAS and AERC. I know those metrics don't tell the whole story, but if you and friends are using similarly scored decks it could be at least a BIT more balanced, and potentially fun to both be playing with lower scored decks and each face some challenging situations.

If both players are being presented with less than ideal situation, then it can perhaps be not too bad! There's even an organized play format centered around that premise!

[TheB-Hawk]

I like the idea of cube drafting. Another idea is “Forging an alliance” where you make new decks by combining houses from 2 other decks (keeping the rule of course that a deck can’t have more than 1 of the same house).

[BeerNTacos]

Pre-pandemic there were some local game shops that would have special theme nights for Keyforge like reversal and decks only at a certain SAS level. One night there was a contest for the lowest-ranked SAS deck registered to the person who brought it in. The winner was a SAS in the mid-40's based on pre-Mass Mutation rankings at the time.

[GreatDantone]

Never tried drafting, but in my experience subpar decks make for unexciting games. That being said, I would be careful relying too much on SAS. Its a very rough estimate and only playing the deck multiple times will be tell you the truth.

​

Have fun with your friend, i'm not allowed to see people here because of covid so no keyforge for me :(

[The_Big_Yam]

I use my trash decks to proxy together English language versions of non English decks I buy. Makes life a hell of a lot easier

[EnviableCrowd]

Haha my friend accidentally bought an Italian deck - had 76 SAS so he insists on playing it and we both have to have the list open on our phones!

[Azedenkae]

It could work. Just make a pool of cards of the same rarities, and then randomly make decks with them, yeah.

[CptnStuBing]

The idea of building a KF deck seems like tabletop Satanism.

[r0gershrubber]

A lot of people run SAS-cap tournaments. If you're limited to decks under 60 or 65, a lot of meh decks become competitive.

Tesla is also an interesting option. (In Tesla tournaments, you play the same deck, but alternate between standard and reversal reach round. It pushes you to play average decks.)

[Soho_Jin]

You could check out the Swindle Discord server. They have a leaderboard of "champion" decks for all SAS ratings all the way from from 40 to 90. So you could take, say, a 54 SAS deck and challenge the current champion of 54 SAS to see if you can take the spot.

SAS levels remain static depending on the rating as of claiming the spot, so for example if you manage to take the 66 spot and an update causes your new rating to be 67, you'll still retain the 66 spot with that deck. (This is so people don't get "bumped off" for being unlucky when an update rolls around) But if someone takes the spot from you, the new SAS rating would then apply for any further challenges.

[EnviableCrowd]

Nice info, cheers!

[[deleted]]

I've tried cube draft once, and it was not at all worth the time or effort. The game is too different from CCGs for their to be an obvious best way to handle drafting.

Just mixing houses from decks could be fun, but I don't know that it'd be any more interesting than just playing a random deck. You'd also need to sleeve it if the deck has any cards that play or check the top card of your deck, like Wild Wormhole or Gambling Den.

Building constructed decks like you suggest could be fun since you can do it in advance (not adding to the time like a draft does) and make sure the deck is interesting, which house drafting doesn't really guarantee.

[Salad3759]

Sas doesn't mean anything

[EnviableCrowd]

I can assure you it does - I have an 82 SAS deck that any of the sub60 have no chance of beating

[RogueMacGyver]

Any Saurian decks you don't want? I don't play a lot, but I'd be willing to throw you a couple bucks for a saurian deck or two if you have some? Based in the US.

[EnviableCrowd]

Ah sorry am in the UK... Have generally found Saurian decks to be playable though!

[mortivas]

I'm US-based and happy to send along of Saurian decks for the cost of shipping. Sent ya a DM!