11. Using the NARP Deck-Learning System

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Introduction

A special shout out to everybody believing in this game and this podcast enough to support it on Patreon. Wouldn't be able to do it without ya. Let's get sweaty.

Hello there, dear listener. Today we're talking about how to practice a KeyForge deck.

History of the NARP Deck-Learning System

My name is Zach and I created a deck-learning process called NARP and launched it in February of 2020 when I had just started as host on Call of Discovery, another KeyForge podcast that we sunsetted in January of 2023.

At that point, this deck learning process was called CD ROM, an acronym for a number of things, and over time we simplified it to NARP.

What does NARP stand for?

Now, NARP stands for Notes, Antagonists, Recall, and Play. It's the four principles of how to practice a KeyForge deck well, or at least my take on it, [00:01:00] creating a system that might be useful to you if you want to get better at a deck, but you need a system, you need something concrete to grab onto so that you can practice that deck in a meaningful and productive way.

Why You Should NARP

Now, you might have any number of reasons for wanting to practice a KeyForge deck. One, it's just a lot of fun to get to know one deck, through and through and very deeply. And two, you might want to actually be practicing it for competitive play, and really getting to know that deck so well that you know the matchups, you know how it plays, and you can really maximize your skill and this deck together.

It's a really great system, and I've done this with a number of decks, and have enjoyed so many of these processes. So when I started this process, I wanted to kind of prove my dedication to the system, right? I opened a World's Collide deck during the recording of the launch episode, and then I played a hundred and fifty games.

One hundred and fifty games with that deck sight unseen before I opened it. That deck is called Keepers the Strong Chinned. It is a Logos Untamed and Brobnar from World to Collide. It was a trip. [00:02:00] It was absolutely a trip. And playing it for 150 games was a really great experience. I use these NARP principles when I'm practicing a deck for serious competition like the Vault Tours now that we have those back.

And you yourself can use it to improve your skill with the deck if you want to. So today we're going to go over this system, which is a collection of best practices, right? Around learning a deck so that you can focus your skills with that deck and win more. So walking through NARP, the NARP system, right?

The first one is notes. Take them. Take notes, write them down. What does antagonists mean? What does antagonists mean in this context? Well, antagonists is anything that gives your deck a hard time. We'll go through all these in just a minute. It's anything that gives your deck a hard time.

It's anything that your deck is especially good against. It is the word that stands in for matchups, right? Both against specific cards that are going to be tough for your deck to face, or matchups that you're very good at in general, depending on what kind of deck you're [00:03:00] against.

And then recall, right? N A R P, notes, antagonists, recall. Recall is my call to you to memorize the cards in your competitive deck. I want you, if you're walking into a competition with a deck that you've NARPed, I really want you to be able to, at the spur of the moment, name all 36 cards in that deck, whether it's out loud or writing them down.

Now, we'll go over the reason for this later, but R is for Recall. Recall all 36 cards in your deck at a moment's notice. And then, lastly, Play. N A R P. The last one is P for Play. Get reps with your deck. Nothing can really replace good intentional practice, especially when you're taking notes and looking out for your antagonists, right?

And recalling what your deck is as you play it and memorize it as you go and you get those reps in. So all of these are important. We're going to dive into them a little bit more deeply. Notes, antagonists, recall, play. Excellent.

N is for Notes

So notes, it's just taking notes on how [00:04:00] the game went right now. You can kind of develop a battery of questions for your deck in particular, but they might look something like this.

Why did you win or why did your opponent win? Was it simply a really terrible matchup you couldn't overcome? Did somebody make a really great insightful play? Did somebody make a mistake? What was the win really attributed to? Now be honest with yourself here, right?

And there's gonna be room to learn about this. You might attribute a win to something, and then upon reflection and many more plays with the deck, your opinion of what exactly caused that endgame state, whether you winning or losing, to change. Make notes on what could you have played better? What cards gave you a really hard time? Were there a whole lot of creatures on the board, and those just overwhelmed your ability to keep up? Or were there some action cards or some control cards that really messed you up, specifically with how your deck wants to work?

So keep notes on these things. And it doesn't necessarily have to be written notes, although written notes are... Fantastic. And there's a NARP notebook in the merch store, uh, just a blank notebook with NARP and [00:05:00] KPR on it to remind you what it's about that you can use to take these notes. But maybe you're a verbal processor and you want to be keeping voice memos on your phone and talking about what happened with that deck. That's a fantastic way to, to process this and really learn over time. Your notes are the tool to get all of this knowledge into your brain through reflection in a way that sticks.

So whatever your learning style, whatever your reflection style, utilize that, utilize that to take notes on your deck as you play it.

A is for Antagonists

Your antagonists are, your matchups. what gives you a hard time? How much of a board presence can a deck have before it's a problem for you? What kinds of board wipes are an issue for your deck, right?

What kind of control really shuts it down specifically? You're going to want to look at this from specific cards that you want to watch out for, right? Especially maybe things that really hate on bursting. You know, Amber Burst, like, like, uh, Rant and Rive, perhaps, from Winds of Exchange. Um, Or things that punish you for having [00:06:00] a huge board if you're going full, you know, large with your board, right?

Something like Hold the Line from Star Alliance or Glorious Few in Sanctum, right? Glorious Few giving one Amber for every, uh, for every enemy creature your opponent controls in excess of you. So you want to see what all of these cards and outs are that are either strong against your deck or weak against your deck and know those so that when you sit down, and you look at your opponent's Archon card, you already have this information in your head and you can match it up with what their deck list looks like saying, okay, no, this is going to give me an issue.

I need to watch out for this. They have this kind of aember control, right? That's going to set you up for success at the start of the match with the more knowledge you have. And so if you're taking notes on your antagonists, you're going to do even better.

R is for Recall

Now, recall, right? I'm asking you to memorize 36 cards, and if it's Mars or Ewkidon, there's gonna be a whole lot of wacky names in there, right?

Yeah, well, I can't do anything about that. However, uh, why, why should you memorize these cards? Why is that good to [00:07:00] know all these cards? You know, you have them on your Archon card, and you can look at it at any time. Now, that's true, and that doesn't take a lot of effort.

But the more things you're able to cut out that you have to spend effort on in a match, the better, right? And sometimes looking at your Archon card can be a tell to an opponent of a certain kind if your opponent's watching out for that. So if you know what's left.

You can just look at everything you've played and say, Nope, I've got this aember control left. I've got this board control left, right? I've got this burst card left. I've got this little combo I'm digging for. If all of that is just natural and easy because you've memorized your deck, and you will likely perhaps memorize your deck simply through playing it a whole lot, then that's going to save you time, that's going to save you energy that you can spend on the strategic and tactical thinking that you need to win the next match.

So, try it out, try to memorize all 36 cards of your deck, and write them all down so that you can be even more efficient, save more energy that you can spend on thinking about how to win that match. [00:08:00]

P is for Play

And then, lastly, play the dang deck.

Play it a bunch. Load it up onto TCO. Play with friends, right? I recommend, personally, if you want to take a deck really seriously for competition, I, I would like you to have at least 50 repetitions with that deck. 50 recorded plays with that deck. That really helps you see it across a variety of opponents, right?

A variety of different pilots across the table from you, a variety of different draws, behaviors that your deck might exhibit. That gives you a lot of good data to go on. Now going more than that, Of course, higher than that is awesome. Another part of playing it, of course. Now, really, I mean, any reps are good.

Just keep in mind the kind of reps you're doing, especially if you're just knocking out a whole lot of reps on The Crucible dot online against strangers, right? You're going to be seeing particular kinds of decks that people are testing there, so you might not get the widest swath of play. Practice there.

That being said, you can find a couple of strong decks online. You want to practice against and grab a friend, right? Grab a friend, [00:09:00] grab a key forge companion who likes to think strategically about key forge and apply themselves, and then play a deck and talk through it. Talk through the choices you may point out things perhaps that you could do better, right?

And just train. Train and get those reps in, reflect on those reps, get somebody who can be, you know, a companion or coach in this process, and that is going to 1. make it enjoyable to spend time with them, and so that you do it more, right? And then 2. it can help you reflect and get a second brain thinking about, okay, how did I play here?

How could I have played better? I personally get to do this with a number of old Keyforge friends that I get to practice with now, and they point out ways I can improve. I love it. It's amazing. And I get to improve that much faster when people are pointing out to me. Oh, hey, Zach, you play this way, or you didn't play this way, or you played suboptimally here.

It's fantastic, right?

Story Time: NARPing Keepers the Strong-Chinned

So a little bit of story time, Keepers the Strong Chinned is the KeyForge deck I opened on Call of Discovery all that time ago and committed to 150 plays with that deck and took me a little over a year, but I got through it. [00:10:00] So I practiced this system with Keepers the Strong Chinned.

And here's the thing, Keepers the Strong Chinned, as far as just like straight Archon deck versus deck goes, not a very good deck. It's middling at best. It has very conditional amber control. It has only a few really powerful outs. It has just, one or two kind of medium sized plays.

It can make no really huge outs, but it does have some tools. It does have, some ways to win. And I learned those in and out at over 150 games. What playing with a mediocre deck taught me was to fight for my outs as hard as possible, both in playing towards and whatever chance I had to win and playing well, fighting for every advantage I could.

If I, if I placed my creatures poorly in a battle line that allowed them to be destroyed in a way that they wouldn't have if they were arranged in another way, I had to learn the hard way not to do that. Right? I could not afford any mistakes. I need every [00:11:00] little advantage I could just to eke out a win with this thing.

So, it was such an amazing journey for me to learn with Keepers the Strong Chinned and really start to see how to handcraft, how to sequence, how to push for my out and not. Give up. I remember at least once, right? Where somebody got to check for their final key and they said, all right, GG. Cause they assumed they won.

But I said, no, no, no, I've gotten out left that you're just not seeing. And then I won. And it was brilliant. So all sorts of fun things can happen.

Recap: Why Should You NARP?

If, if you really want to dive deep and become a more informed KeyForge player, become a stronger KeyForge player with a particular deck or a stronger KeyForge player overall, right?

Then this system is really going to help that. Even I mean and kudos to you if you pick a deck that you love playing and it's a kind of a middling strength deck It's not too great. It's not super weak. That is a great deck to pick and use the NARP process on because you're gonna learn so much more about matchups, about playing to your outs than you would if you played a really [00:12:00] strong deck now playing a strong deck is great, don't get me wrong.

I don't think you're behind the eight ball if you do I just think there's a different set of lessons you might learn with a deck that you're gonna lose more with. Now, that's the tough call. But I'd respect to you if you made it.

The Wrap-Up

So that's the NARP system, Notes, Antagonist, Recall, Play. It's a deck learning system that I put together. I didn't invent every part of it. I didn't invent note taking, of course, but I pulled it all together in one place, and gave it, a name that people could think about, that people could do something concrete to hold on to, so that you have, that you have something you can chase down as far as practicing a deck is concerned.

So if you NARP a deck, let me know.

The NARP Notebook: Now in the KPR Store

And in the KeyForge Public radio store at shop.keyforgepublicradio.Com there is actually a NARP notebook.

Now it's a blank notebook all on the inside, but on the outside it has NARP, a little subtitle as well as the KPR branding. So if you want a dedicated notebook, if you wanna spend just a little bit of money, support the podcast and say, all right, I'm gonna commit by buying a notebook. I'm gonna commit to [00:13:00] practicing a deck and taking notes

in this notebook, head over to the KeyForge Public Radio shop at shop.keyforgepublicradio.com and pick that up. It'll support the show and you've committed by spending a bit of money, just 20 bucks. You've committed to playing a deck and practicing a deck and becoming a better Key Forge player. That way, right?

Outro

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