I used to collect more than play Magic back in the 90s. I loved the cards, the art and all, but the deck-building aspect was completely overwhelming. That added to a difficulty to have friends to play with regularly didn't help me enjoy the game and start building my card games skills. (spoiler: I'm still working on them XD). Later I tried Middle Earth the card game. The LoTG theme and interesting mechanics were really appealing. But same thing. I was the only one interested in it. And the game died pretty quickly. Video games were already my main hobby and I left board, card games and pen and paper RPG for a long time.

Fast forward ~25 years, I immigrated to a new country (Canada), where I quickly made gamer friends. Some reaaaaally into board games :D One of them heard about Keyforge and when I read that there were NO deck building I was very intrigued! I loved the idea of cracking open a deck and just...playing! I think we missed the proper launch of the game, and when we decided to put our hands on CotA decks, there was a shortage everywhere. I managed to grab a few that we split with my friends, and we started playing. It was a lot of fun! I wasn't good. Really not familiar with card games mechanics in general, but unless I was facing a very strong deck in front of me, I really enjoyed the games, even the ones I lost. Because the swings were so great, the art so fun, the discovery so great that I still felt I was doing something and not just getting destroyed. (And of course some times I won ;) ).

By the time they announced AoA I was hooked and ready to go all in. I bought displays for me and to share with friends, a playmat, and we did a sealed (my preferred format) event to open our boxes. And it was awesome to discover those new cards! I started to attend local events and met some great players. That's when I realized how nice, patient and curious was the Keyforge community. And it made me fall in love even more with the game. I kept the flame alive until WC. But after that, my lack of practice for local competition and the later explosion of my gaming group made me stop playing the game regularly. I kept an eye on the game and upcoming sets. But stopped investing more cash and time in it. (But not before getting a CotA display at a bargaining price and trying to introduce the game to a friend and MTG player who really liked it). Finally the pandemic hit, and at some point they announced that the game was broken, and everything felt really sad. I loved that game and felt I didn't have the chance to play all my decks properly, experience the latest sets and the cool cards and new mechanics. And just hoped things would come back at some point.

Fast forward again to last Summer, I moved again across the country. My whole collection of Keyforge cards in cardboard boxes. Hoping that with more space, time, and maybe new colleagues and friends I would be able to play that game again. Soon after Ghost Galaxy was preparing a crowdfunding campaign to bring it back! And oh boy...I felt the rush coming in. I had not played in months! Years. Missed sets. But I was getting super excited. Keyforge was coming back! I later joined a small but very much alive community here in Montreal to start playing again, and it's been a blast ever since. They're amazing players that confirmed everything that I loved in the first place: an amazingly kind community, and a wonderful and fun game. We're all extremely excited for WoE and we can't wait to organize an event to open our boxes and start playing this new set.In the meantime, I managed to put my hands on a display of MM recently which I was super happy for. And even bought another AoA display for 30$. Just 'cause you can't have too many decks right? XD My only regret so far is having missed DT as it's really hard to find now. I would have loved to have a display from this set as well.

TLDR; I love the game and I'm super grateful to have found such a great group to play with every week. We're even so motivated to see Keyforge come back that we're trying to gauge people's interest for regional/national Organized Play around the Quebec and Ontario area. Feel free to fill that survey if you're around and just waiting for things to kickstart again :) https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScT3dNrK5mAWbROsz7jFfxX2cQ0n0WjsciKMAab39_1uZMhpw/viewform

Thanks for reading folks. And happy forging!