17. The Unfathomable Playbook in Winds of Exchange

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Cold Open

You know, I can fathom them just fine. Let's get sweaty.

Introduction: The Unfathomable Playbook

Welcome to your listener. My name is Zach and this is KeyForge Public Radio. And today we are talking about the Unfathomable playbook in winds of exchange, but don't worry. The playbook is actually fathomable. It's actually quite clear and quite good. For unfathomable. In winds of exchange. This is a fun house. This is their second set. They are sometimes called a wet dis. Dis was the control and disruption house in many of the past sets and unfathomable has taken on a new flavor for control and disruption. There are a lot of fun and they're very good in the set. So I can't wait to dive into their playbook. We're looking at the comments and uncommons, what do they do?

What can you expect to see in your pods and your decks that you are playing in, sealed in a [00:01:00] Alliance sealed in arc-on and in Alliance? What are they going to get done for you? How can you best play with them? And what do you need to watch out for when unfathomable from winds of exchange is across the table from you. My name is Zach. Again, this is KeyForge public radio. We were going to help you and me be more informed about unfathomable so you can use them better and play against them better. Remember to subscribe if you haven't already to hear all future episodes when they drop off.

Unfathomable has multiple high impact control cards at common and uncommon. Uh, the pain of getting hit by these and having your game ended because of them is probably floating back into your brain right about now, if, if you've experienced the other side of a lot of these, so really high impact control cards that you're going to see a lot of, we're going to dive into exactly how they're used, what they do, where they're showing up in these decks. Their are board wipes and board control is really skilled testing, but it's backed up with really good targeted bounce and exhaust. So while they're probably not going to wipe the board in a traditional [00:02:00] way, most of the time, and you really have to manage what's going on as you play their actual board wipes, you do have a lot of good disruptive removal for bouncing and exhausting things.

That's going to put a lot of work in, even if they're not just going to clear a board straight up. Unfathomable in the set does have trouble pushing forward your own game plan. It has trouble being the beat down. They mostly just wreck your opponent. They mostly just lock them out, take away the key cards and take away their options. So if you can put yourself across the finish line with unfathomable while you are using all the control, then you're going to be in a great spot. Sometimes you're just making sure your hurt your opponent real bad with an unfathomable turn so that you can then just keep cruising with another turn. And there's a couple things to look out for. That's really going to help you get that beat down.

Get that pushing forward in an unfathomable turn. Uh, with a couple of factors that you can either control or look for in a great deck with an unfathomable pod.

High-Impact Control Cards Review

So first off, we're going to be diving into their high impact [00:03:00] control cards and doing a review of all their control cards and how they work so that you know exactly what's going on with these. The first and one of the most famous, I mean, All of these are very good. But a fantastic one. Uh, starting off right here at common is Abyssal Sight. It's an action card for some reason, unknown to God has an aember pip. And it says, play, destroy your friend, the creature. If you do look at your opponent's hand and choose a card from it, that player discards that card, you get total hand knowledge. You get to discard a key card from it. Either they're big out or some control, right? Maybe aember control or a board wife, or a combo piece that they were working on all at the cost of just destroying a friendly creature.

There's lots of good destroyed effects. In this set, you can usually be getting a token creature out or a regular creature out that you were then is worth destroying for this effect, because it has such a huge impact. It has such a huge impact, and you're getting an aember flow for blowing that creature up because of the aember [00:04:00] pip. This is fantastic. We could do an entire episode about the skill test that it is to pick the right card with a Bissell site, right? Like what is important in the matchup? One classic way is if you're able to get to check in this unfathomable turn while you're playing Abyssal Sight is to simply take away their aember control. A very solid use, but if you're in the mid game or your not on check, you're going to be wanting to take away as much of their advantage as possible and using that hand knowledge. At the very least, you can at least be doing some bad handcrafting for them, right. It can be doing some bad handcrafting taking away the most useful card out of the house.

They have the most up there. Now, of course they are going to be drawing up at the end of their turn, but taking away the most useful cards takes away the value of them playing that card in that turn to come if they go into that house. If you get it in multiples, if you get it with some regular token makers, that is absolutely fantastic. It's a great card. Look out for it. It's gonna win you games. It's gonna win you games.

Next we have befuddle another common [00:05:00] action card with an aember pip that says, choose a house on your opponent's identity card during their next turn that cannot play cards. Of other houses. So all this means they can use anything that's out on the board. So that's good. And it just restricts two houses worth of playing. Now of course they can still discard. Right. So playing a befuddle is you get to pick two houses that they are not going to be able to get some cars out of their hand from right. And they can't even play those cards of other houses.

Now, keep in mind that if you get Befuddled, right, if we're on the other end of this, you can still discard cards from your hand. And so if you need to handcraft, go ahead and discard a couple of cards that aren't going to be. Aren't going to be worth it, especially if you're digging for an answer now that you're further, if you're further behind in your board development, how much you're getting out and set up onto your board. I'd recommend against over discarding right now. If you know exactly what's left in your deck and you want to be trying to build up a bigger turn for one of the other houses in your hand, go ahead and pick something [00:06:00] and discard cards that aren't going to be really high impact or a part of your out.

Right. Maybe that's going to be all of them. Maybe that's going to be some of them, maybe the right call is to call just whatever you have the best of on the board and discard or use just whatever card you can have. The house that's left over. Of the house that you are permitted to play. If you have any right. So there's a lot of different ways to respond to this. Again, a double bow fuddle means you're playing nothing from hand, so you've still got what's on your board. You've still got what's on your board. But you can't play anything from hand. If you get double befuddled and they pick a different house each time that actually locks you out of playing anything. From your hand, which is really powerful, that is going to end some games.

We also have an uncommon catch and release. This is one of the best kind of anti combo. Combo cards. Uh, when there's a board out, it's an action card uncommon. it says, play return each creature to its owners, hand each player, discards random cards from their hand until they have six or fewer cards in hand. I gain two chains. This is great for a couple of reasons. If somebody has a combo piece and a few [00:07:00] creatures out, right, they've played to where this is going to return all of those creatures to their hand. And they're discarding down until they have six in hand. There's a chance that combo piece. Are there key card gets knocked out. Right. And at the very least, if they have a developed board catch and release is likely just going to really mess up. Uh, any handcrafting they've been doing any plans, any answers they were holding? It's a great disruptive piece. And because it's it's two-sided right. All creatures going back to your hand as well. Um, if you've kept a smaller board or blown up a few creatures, you can do the math so that you're discarding as few as possible or no cards. Right? If you, if you bounce all these creatures to your hand, and then you're just at six. And then you're not discarding anything. And you have perfect knowledge of what's going to be in your hand because nothing's getting randomly discarded. So catch and release is fantastic. It combos really well with befuddle because you know the information of course, token creatures, you don't know what's on the printed side, right? Um, With, uh, sending a board back to their hand and then seeing [00:08:00] what gets discarded. You can now make an educated guess for befuddle and keep in mind with a Bissell site. You're getting to see their entire hand. So if you can buff huddle and a Bissell site, there's a lot of synergy that when you use your knowledge of what you've seen, especially with a Bissell site or what you've seen discarded with the catch and release that can make the befuddle that much more powerful. So fantastic cards, all work really well together. Uh, the weights play around catch and release. If you know, you're not sacrificing, you know, completely sacrificing your wind condition, you know, is to keep is to not really just have any creatures on the board. That might not be a productive use of your time. I might just have to chance it. Um, but it also might be your best out. Uh, but of course, If you are planning. All you're doing is planning around this and just playing scared of catch and release. Maybe you're slowing yourself down way too much. Maybe you just have to take the risk if something gets hit with catching and release.

Uh, we have a classic reprint Allusions of Grandeur, also with an aember pip. You're. If you're seeing a theme here on great control cars with aember pips. This is an action [00:09:00] card uncommon it reads play. Choose a house on your opponent's identity card. If your opponent does not choose that house as their active house on their next turn, gain three aember. We've got a similar card called watch your step, which has the same kind of setup. It has an aember pip. Play choose a house on your opponent's identity card. If they do not choose that house as their active house during their next turn, make two token creatures and ready then. So both of these say, Hey. You can pick whatever house you want to, but if you don't. I get free stuff. Uh, these are great in combination with each other or in multiples. Because you can pick two different houses, right? And so you're getting a reward no matter what they pick. And if you double illusions, for instance, let's say you pick house one and house two. If they pick house three, You get six aember, and if they pick anything else, you get three. So there's some fantastic. Uh, there's some fantastic ways to like, build, build on each other here with watch your step and illusions of grandeur. So fantastic cards. Uh, fantastic cards count, be counting their cards in their discard pile and in play to have a best guess at what's in their [00:10:00] hand or what cards you haven't seen yet that might have a whole lot of utility that they might want to play and then pick a different house with illusions or watch your step.

Right. So fantastic cards. Um, and when you get played into these, sometimes you can fight those token creatures down. Sometimes you get rewarded for fighting creatures. So you're okay with creating the creatures from watch your step as the opponent. And with illusions. If they pick a really good house for illusions, um, if they pick a really good house where you would have a, basically a non turn. Evaluate the game state where you are, where you need to go. Because it might be the right call to go ahead and pick the house that gives them three aember, and just deal with the fact that they got an additional three aember off of that card, sometimes it's right to kind of Dodge that especially if they don't make the most. The most strategic call with it, right? If they made flash slightly weak or call, but if they've made a really good call and your turn would be absolutely nothing. It might be worth going ahead and giving them that three aember, just so you can develop a board and perhaps get more than three aember worth out of that turn. As a, for yourself as [00:11:00] the game continues right. As the game continues.

Board Wipes in Unfathomable

Uh, looking at their board wipes, we already talked about one of them catch and release, right. We also have maelstrom a reprint from dark tidings, which reads put each creature on top of its owners deck in a random order gain two chains. Honestly, this can end. Games, this can end games. If you have a whole bunch of just nobody's on your board and maelstrom is played and it just mixes it all up and all you're doing is drawing these creatures, especially if they don't have aember control on play, either through a play effect or a passive effect, it can be devastating to hit somebody with this.

Right. Now if it's against a board of tokens from winds at exchange. Uh, you will be putting a, perhaps a variety of houses, right on top of that person's deck. And what, what really you need to do and playing against maelstrom. He has no that if you're hit by a maelstrom, Does that just end the game? Do you just lose? What are the houses in your tokens? What are the cards? What are the cards that are out? Do they have play effects? Do [00:12:00] they have passive effects? If all of those go on the top of your deck in a random order and you're slowed and you're just redrawing those for anywhere from one to three or four or more turns, depending on your situation. Does that just end the game, right? Because when you were playing maelstrom, you want to look out for that situation. What are all the kinds of creatures they have out? If you put them all onto the top of the deck in a random order. Is that going to slow them down that crazy and give you a few turns of breathing room as you know exactly. If you can remember exactly what they're going to draw into, and maybe all you need to remember generally is that they don't have a lot of good play effects, right? They don't have a, got a good play effects.

So maelstrom is fantastic. You're not always going to be playing it, but you can manipulate the situation to know exactly what's going on top of your deck. If anything. While, uh, while just putting everything on the top of their deck in a random order. Uh, similar to this adult swim comes with an aember pip, put each creature with power three or lower on the top of its owners deck and a random order. There are some funny things with this. It's fine. It's fine. [00:13:00] Sometimes you have plenty of creatures and it just mixes them all up and puts them on top kind of like a bad maelstrom effect. For yourself. Right? However, if you've got an unfathomable token, you can actually perhaps fight off a few tokens and then just get everything onto your deck of a specific house or just the cards you want. It's kind of a hilarious, super jenky deck filtering mechanic to choose exactly what tokens are going to go there with adult swim.

If there are three power or less, of course and any other creatures that are three power or lower? And then send them there. So the benefit, of course, like any double-sided board wipe or card is that you have control over this. It might be a discard depending on your situation. So it is going to be just bad in some situations. However, keep an eye out for where it is actually going to be to your advantage, especially with unfathomable tokens. To fight off what you don't want on top of your board, whether you're shaping for a hand or just getting down to some really key cards, right? Depending on what houses they are, what cards they are, and then putting all those on top of your deck to draw in over the next one to two to [00:14:00] three turns. So keep an eye on adult swim, especially if you've got an unfathomable token. Uh, I've learned some lessons about the value of a token, especially with a Raider, which is just a terrible token. However, there is value in just having a token, especially depending on what house is in which we're going to talk about a little later, when we get to unfathomable token creatures. So the board wipes are very skilled. Testing are very skilled testing. Um, And because they're wacky, they're not always going to be good for you. Uh, catch and release will probably always be good for you. And it's very powerful against an opponent with a board. And these others. These others are pretty janky. And so you're going to have to really apply yourself to use them well. But I think there's some pretty great plays you can do with maelstrom and adult swim that can end games. You don't want to just play them Willy nilly though. You don't want to just play them without consideration.

Unfathomable Exhaust and Bounce Effects

Um, because unfathomable does have a lot of good cards for exhausting and damaging exhausted creatures and blowing up exhausted creatures and bouncing to hand or bouncing to the top of the [00:15:00] deck. They have a lot of these effects and they're, they're quite good. Right? You have thunder tow and action card that says exhausted two creatures deal, two damage to each exhaustive creature, just sleep with the fishes, which destroys all exhausted creatures. Bubbles, which puts an enemy creature on top of its owners deck great non destruction removal, and it slows them down a little bit.

We have their outpost from the outpost cycle in this set, right Azore base and outpost with a name or pip, it says, action. Put a friendly creature on the bottom of its owners deck. If you do exhaust three. Uh, enemy creatures. That's really good value, especially if you want that creature later, it's a token creature that you want to cycle back into your deck, or you've already reaped with it. You've got some good bonus pips on there. Exhausting three enemy creatures is a really good value. You can say, Hey, I can see, you might want to go into Ekwidon to reap out next term. I'm going to go ahead and exhaust three of those cards, or I'm going to exhaust a creature from each house just to slow you down and you can make a lot of strategic decisions with how powerful, exhausting three enemy creatures is. And the great thing about these effects. [00:16:00] Is you don't always need to have the same one. Uh, you don't have to have a consistency across these kinds of effects. To be. Uh, to be using them really effectively, even just one bubbles in your deck is great. It's a five power creature. You can bounce something. That has a destroyed effect that you want to get rid of. You can use it to get rid of pesky upgrades on something. Like if you have an FMF transponder, berserker situation, or just F of transponder with a whole lot of echo dot. And destroy your own creature stuff like generous offer and forced retirement. Right. Great combos there. So even just one, bubbles is fantastic. And having, having the exhaust effect on a stick with Azure Basin Outpost means it's consistent simply from being a artifact, takes a turn to get online. Right. You have to go back into unfathomable, but it's very good when it's working for you. So there's a lot of exhaust. A lot of blowing up exhausted creatures, a lot of bouncing things to hand, and these work a bit better together than they did back in dark tidings. There's a lot of [00:17:00] good disruption here to shut down a board to slow them down while you try to take the advantage. Either in a really highly tuned fathomable pod, or you slow them down, you jump back over to another house and really push your advantage there.

Lack of Aember

Very few of these cards and unfathomable at common and uncommon are actually going to get you a significant amount of aember You have aember pips on course on some of the best control cards that are already in there so the aember pips are great But you don't. you don't. really have cards at common and uncommon that have combos or setups to generate you a ton of aember's just in their house just in this house On its own right and i think that's fine that's a good balance because the control in here is so powerful they have so many good things But when you can set up or find an unfathomable house where you can really get a bunch of aember in that house as you play your control game that's going to be really good and that i think is one reason why you might have a great time with an unfathomable [00:18:00] token no matter what that token is even if the poor thing is raider because that thing can still reap you can still get a big board of unfathomable creatures And reap that way Right you can reap just using what might otherwise be kind of a bad token creature but you're still reaping for one the same as anything else does the same as any token creatures do well except for diplomat And pushing yourself to check each time while you're playing your abyssal sites your befuddles your illusions of grandeur while you're using zuora base and outpost to exhaust the rest of their board Right. So i think there's actually a lot of value in having an unfathomable token at least in, in something like sealed or sealed alliance and maybe this will inspire you to find an Archon deck or an alliance brew that actually uses an unfathomable token to great effect right to great effect now there are some good ones we're going to go over those in just a minute The other way that you can actually get a to push forward with unfathomable is getting a whole lot of good bonus pips especially [00:19:00] aember pips from enhancements elsewhere Looking out for a cursed relic deck that is giving its enhancements over to an unfathomable pod right Uh i've got at least one of those they're quite fun. Uh decks with rowdy skulls dewar suzanne um or stuart suzanne or um cassie all the benevolent these are all the common enhancer creatures that are going to be putting out enhancements Onto other cards In the deck and if you get a bunch of aember and especially draw onto these unfathomable cards You're going to be able to draw keep drawing and fathomable cards getting and federal cards back into your hand through draw sometimes and especially With the aember pips you're going to be pushing to check more often if you have aember pips on these high value cards. Alrighty so keep an eye out for those pods keep an eye out Uh either for alliance or in uh in a deck right in an arc-on deck where you've got a bunch of these extra aember pips in unfathomable to really push yourself over that finish line [00:20:00] while giving some using some of the most the best control cards that are in the game

Token Creature Overview: Priest

So jumping down to the tokens and talking about this token power or review um like i said unfathomable doesn't have a lot of ways to really push for the finish line itself except if you have some Unfathomable tokens. Just reaping out with two to three to four creatures is really going to be pushing you over the edge getting to check while you play your control cards which is great. We have priests which is to power which has some good staying power and has action exhausted enemy creature But giving up a creature to exhaust an enemy creatures really just to fair Of a trade right it's a one for one like looking at gilt spine net caster which comes with enhancements and all this sort of thing not that a token creature should really be quite that good although some are Um It's kind of too fair of a trade right even a raider with poison on your turn which is otherwise pretty terrible can take out something much bigger than it if the target doesn't have any armor right for an unfair trade So uh it's a bit of a [00:21:00] finger trade you're really just turning off a reap or an action or a fight ability so that's fine it's not that great but to power we'll stick around on the board a little bit more so priest is fine if you just need some tokens To reap out while you're in unfathomable i think reaping out in a fathomable is one of the strongest things you can do if you're playing one of these control cards so i think priests with two powers just fine.

Token Creature Overview: Raider

Raider Here's the thing about raider raider taught me a lesson Because first off rader is nearly useless it is one power it gains poison during your turn. so it's a blank one power creature during her opponents term. Right This is not greg armor that from betrayed briefs for one leg The other token, because. Blah, blah. What raider ty was really down because it's just all the other token it's bad their [00:22:00] token creed. great if there's any You can't even write stinks It. Tougher to fight however with a ring It's a body too. and that bind to turn off Right I think that body bad com could have been good reap out with can still swim a few raiders on top exempt and then on rubbing out hammer is just more benefit because it's forward while your whole cards plastic. It's still bad wrong it's the worst token. token or none It. I Don't only be Rader since, especially if [00:23:00] infill of token makes plenties and you can go Oh, Well right

Token Creature Overview: Fish

Um, related to this the last one i'm quite good has destroyed damage to the monk creature tastic it's done a lot of tests, myself a lot of pink day creature controlled Castro. And descend blowing up so how right which is here or not. and we even want sometimes whether our Bissell sites tastic It can be destroying it abyssal site Him and turn benefit figure out that friend right Astic. Yeah. It descent being blown up behind him like prosp [00:24:00] which means it's a little bit longer a little bit more going to set up in other houses val of Maurice needs Amylase kinds of fantastic It's a good check

Token Creature Overview: Cultist

The last token is of course. Cultist. This has a one card that pulls it in and then one card that comes with it. That's primordial Vault. It is an artifact. It is a rare, it's a location and it says at the start of your turn, make a cultist, it's got action. Destroy for friendly cultists. If you do search your deck and discard pile for Tangaika, reveal it and add it to your hand, then shuffle your deck. Tangaika of course, being a 25 power creature that you can only play. If you control four or more cultists, it has two aember pips splash attack five. And after fight gain one, this thing is huge. This thing is fun. And in most decks you can actually get this out somewhat consistently. The vault really helps creating a bunch of tokens. Uh, really helps and it's not bad. I don't think it's going to win any Vault Tour. However, it's good. It's a lot of [00:25:00] fun. And honestly, if you're playing sealed Alliance and you find some good synergies with this thing, I say, go for it. It's a lot of fun. It's super cool. It's one of those really cool cards. It's actually not. Terrible, right. The cultists, having a action, destroy cultist and war to creature, which you can use for Tangaika of course, to keep it around for longer. You can also use that as you go along to get wards on to other creatures. There's not a ton of warding in this set. So having that. On demand at the cost of an entire creature. Uh, only during of course, a unfathomable term. Uh, is nice. It's uh, is nice and they are two power. So they're going to stick around a bit. So not terrible. A lot of fun, not sure it's going to be high competitive, but Hey, one of Vault Tour with one I'll change my tune.

The Unfathomable MVP

And then of course, the very last, our most valuable player for unfathomable. And here's the thing I couldn't pick just one. I couldn't pick just one. We have two MVPs. They are tied. That is Kamalani and kelp minder. Kamalani being the four power creature that has destroyed [00:26:00] make two token creatures. This is fantastic. Maybe you're going to get a few reaps out of it, but being able to destroy it either with something like blow pipe and peered. Drusilla or him to do them is really fantastic because blowing something up and then getting tokens out of it has a ton of synergies all across the set. It's an absolutely fantastic card. I adore it. And I really like kelp minder to draw pips and to capture pip on a five power. Just imagine if that said play, draw two cards, capture on aember on a five power creature. That's fantastic. I love, I love this enhanced card. It's so good to get multiples. Five power is going to stick on the board and you're getting such good draw, which is at a premium elsewhere and a little bit of aember control, which I won't complain about either.

So calm, Alami and kelp. Minder are totally great. Are really good. What I will say about Kamani though. Is it does allow your opponent to make tokens on their turn for you which means if you're trying to be careful about what you tokenize you've got to be playing you've got to be careful playing kehlani because they can tokenize as long they can [00:27:00] tokenize your stuff as long as they blow up camelot

Summary and Outro

So in summary if you want to play control winds of exchange unfathomable is for you but fuddle catch and release a Bissell site all of this lets you live out your most ridiculous control fantasies it makes sense there's a lot of blue in the classic control color from magic the gathering Thank you so much for joining me always remember that there's KeyForge public radio.com or all the episodes and money blogs are posted you can find a lot of stuff there find us on socials find our merch there As well again thank you so much to everybody who supports on patrion and especially our airwave advocate level supporters like paul Roadrunner. i couldn't do this without you all i really do appreciate it when you joined the patrion which starts at $4 a month you get to vote on what content comes up like this one you get to participate in the discord hear updates on what's going on on the show Make sure you're following on whatever platform you're listening on and leave a review if you can Unlike your radio dial may KeyForge skills always be well tuned

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