This post originally appeared on the KeyForge blog Cosmic Crucible where Zach was a guest author. We’ve posted it here to the KeyForge Public Radio blog for archival purposes.
Greetings, Archons! This is Blazing Archon and today is a big day for Cosmic Crucible, since a good friend of mine comes back to Cosmic Crucible. Ladies and gentlemen, the awesome commentator and podcaster Zach Armstrong brings us a wrap-up from “The Glorious Few”, a tournament organized by our friends from Sanctumonius featuring some of the top archons in the world currently. Congratulations on such a great quality event!
On Sunday, April 26, the KeyForge podcast Sanctumonius conducted their first-ever invitational tournament THE GLORIOUS FEW. They invited eight of the top teams in KeyForge, and each team selected two people to compete on behalf of the team. The format and variant combination was Archon Two-Deck Survival, done in an elimination bracket, and the competition was some of the fiercest that our game has seen. As an additional restriction, a player’s two decks could not share a house between them, which made for an exciting diversity in deck choices.
We encourage you to find and watch the various matches, all of which has been made easy to do on this event summary page. Please imagine a royal fanfare in your head as I present my top four moments from this fantastic competition!
1. Lady Aurore Earning Her Spot
Aurore is a visible community member whose record in organized play and production of strategic KeyForge content has built her a strong KeyForge resume. Sanctumonius fielded their own team for this tournament, and co-hosts Jake, Alex, and Dan offered Aurore one of the two spots on the team.
In true knightly fashion, she turned down the nomination and asked for the Sanctumonius community to vote for who their champions would be; guaranteeing that the community would feel invested in whomever they fielded.
Lady Aurore, of course, was nominated by the community and received one of the two spots. Make some more room at the Round Table, people, we’re gonna need it!
2. Petitbot’s Comeback Victory vs. Dunkoro’s Pink Fraud
Given all KeyForge decks are unique, we see storylines develop of powerful decks piloted by their brilliant owners and the stories – victories and losses alike – that they make together. Player Dunkoro and his deck Adm. Inslang, the Pink Fraud is as close as we have to a “household name” in KeyForge, having taken first place in two Vault Tours. In his player information submitted for The Glorious Few, Dunkoro himself said that Pink Fraud “needs no introduction,” and he’s correct.
Petitbot, co-founder of the French KeyForge Association (AFK) and wielding the powerful but unproven The Agent of Ratcot, met Dunkoro and Pink Fraud (Pinkoro?) in Round 2. Both took a loss in Round 1, placing them in the lower bracket where a loss means elimintation. Dunkoro saved Pink Fraud for this bracket, and in more than one-third of all submitted bracket predictions had a Top 4 finish.
Dunkoro began the game strong, and victory seemed out of reach for Petitbot and Ratcot. However, after trading huge piles of aember back and forth with Interdimensional Graft, Too Much To Protect, and many Miasmas, Petitbot and his deck Ratcot got to their third key after Dunkoro was several aember short of a match-winning Key Abduction. This was a major upset that rocked more than a few predictions. Want to see it blow-by-blow? Watch the match on YouTube!
3. Dave Cordeiro’s Lower Bracket Dominance
Dave of Team Reapout may have come in second overall, but by several metrics his performance in this tournament was unmatched. Looking at the finals standings, we see that Dave had the most wins out of all players in the tournament: seven, to the eventual winner’s five.
Dave and Nuvolori lost their Round 2 game to Nathan and Kantphage, sending Dave and his second deck – Sultana – to the “losers” bracket, perhaps the most ironic name for what was about to happen there. Dave and Sultana “Urraca” Donovan won six consecutive matches against some of the toughest players in KeyForge.
Jake Frydman of Sanctumonius said it best when summarizing Dave’s accomplishment: “I think it is fair to say that this is the most impressive bracket run in KeyForge history.” To drive this point home, here are each of the players Dave beat on his way to the finals:
- Big Z, Captain of Team SAS-LP and #1 ranked player on the Vault Tour Leaderboard
- Justin Lizza of Tabletop Royale, winner of the PAXU Archon Vault Tour
- Kav Manickaraj of the Archons of Atlanta, winner of the Atlanta Vault Tour
- Bhawk, holder of the most “hall of fame” records on thecrucibletracker.com with more than 4,000 online games tracked
- Lady Aurore, Grand Champion (Saint-Gillies)
- Nathan Starwalt of Tabletop Royale, winner of the Richmond Vault Tour, in a best-of-three
With the tournament being double elimination, Dave needed to beat Nathan in back-to-back matches to win the whole thing. That, dear reader, brings us to our final moment from the tournament.
4. The Final Match: Nathan vs Dave
With Dave on a six-win streak and taking out Nathan’s undefeated Kantphage in a best-of-three match, the final showdown between Dave/Sultana and Nathan/Ardreth was also played as a best of three. If you have the time, you can watch the full showdown; if not, skip to hour 3 minute 54 to see the final game of the matchup.
Dave and Sultana had been slamming top-level plays with Logos, Star Alliance, and Saurian all day, at blinding speeds. The deck they had to face in the finals – Ardreth – excels in purging and aember control via Infurnace. Nathan fell behind by two keys, but managed to purge many of Dave’s tools, clawing and sweating for the victory. I was literally on the edge of my couch, clutching my head in my hands, watching these two top players duke it out for the top spot in Sanctumonius’s first invitational, and would highly recommend that anyone interesting in following the competitive KeyForge scene watch through this match.
This invitational was an absolute spectacle and fantastic showcase of the KeyForge community, from the players, to the organizers, to the streamers. Please thank Jake and Sanctumonius for putting on such an engaging event!
