KPR Episode 5 Transcript

Zach Armstrong: [00:00:00] Whether you're using birds on treadmills to generate electricity, or you're building an alliance deck in Keyforge, you're gonna need some Jpower. This is the KPR interview with Jason, aka Jpower, the Keyforge player currently holding the shiniest alliance competitive resume. Let's get sweaty.

Meghan A.: Welcome to Keyforge Public Radio with your host,

Zach Armstrong: Zach Armstrong. Welcome, dear listener, I am so happy that you have shown up here for this episode where we're going to talk about the Alliance format in Keyforge. Now, you might know what Alliance is, maybe that is drumming up a lot of emotion in you, maybe excitement, maybe terror, maybe anger.

But here's the thing, it's an official format, I've played it, I've tested it, and it's here to stay. And because we're trying to create a more informed Keyforge player, and that's you, we're going to talk about Alliance and what it takes. If you're unfamiliar with what [00:01:00] Alliance is that a Keyforge Alliance deck is one deck consisting of three house pods recruited from your collection of regular...

Keyforged decks. The three pods in the alliance deck may be recruited from up to three different Archon decks, and each house pod must be from a different house. Of course, you can't have a duplicate house, and all the recruited pods must be from the same Keyforged set. So everything has to be from Mass Mutation or Call of the Archons.

All the same set. And so the house pod is you probably understand intuitively it's well named is the set of 12 cards dedicated to one house and a single Archon deck. So, you know, a regular Key Forge Archon deck is, you know, how it's printed on the deck list, and it's got three different pods of three different houses, Alliance decks are also subjected to the restricted list, which is a list of cards maintained by ghost galaxy.

And if. If an alliance deck includes a card listed on the restricted list, [00:02:00] that deck cannot contain any other cards on that restricted list. So basically you get one card from that list perhaps in multiples, if that's allowed by the list, but then you can't include any other cards on that list. So this ends up, of course, it still feels like Key Forge or still very much is Key Forge.

But here's the thing you're going to have to deck build. You're going to have to select pods, put it together, and think about your game plan. And then compete in a game that might have a slightly different feel than, than your Archon decks, because these are going to be more tuned. You're going to have a game plan going in.

And in November of 2020, there was Keyforge celebration. You might be familiar with this where Ghost Galaxy held a number of different tournaments is kind of the final big testing ground for a number of things. And that included Alliance. And our guest today is Jason. He goes by JPowerOnline. You may have seen him and Jason built.

Two alliance decks. And here's the thing both of those decks ended up in the finals, one piloted by him and [00:03:00] another by a friend of his. So kind of an automatic W at the end of the day if you and your, you and a friend are staring each other down in the finals with decks that you both made, right?

So as we approach the 2023 competitive season and Alliance is on the docket, it's brand new there's nobody better. There's nobody with a better resume really to equip you and me really with the foundations of Alliance than Jason. So Jason, thank you so much for coming on Key Forge Public Radio. I appreciate you coming.

Thank you for having me. Yeah. Yeah. And we some listeners who perhaps if they got into Key Forge after the initial competitive seasons back in the day, we actually got the chance to hang out in person a couple of times at a few of those vault tours. And I think the, the grand championships in Arlington, Virginia.

Jason B.: That's, those are the ones we got to see each other and I was, those were fantastic events. The sealed events for one of them. Really good.

Zach Armstrong: Yeah. Yeah. Lots of sealed. I, I kind of lamented. Okay. My I always [00:04:00] wanted to do better at those until I looked and I realized I played sealed sealed I played Sealed Age of Ascension for the vast majority of, of all the competitive events I was able to make it to.

So, yeah, especially when it's Sealed Triad. Anyways, that's, that's Tibet. Alliance is what's here. And you showed up at KFC, Jason, with, with two Alliance decks you had made. You handed one to Jared, who, who piloted it to the finals to face you of all people. And so... The place we're going to start at the beginning.

So Jason, when you, when you sit down to build an Alliance deck for competition where do you start?

Jason B.: Right. So I think what I typically do is try to come up with a deck concept, something that you can kind of see form in Archon. You'll usually see top Archon decks have some sort of strategy associated with them, but you start to think about the [00:05:00] easiest ways of most approachable ways, how can you take that strategy?

and make it more effective. So what tools do you have between pods and synergies? Can you build that? A normal distribution of Archon printed decks, you wouldn't see, but in the aggregate between all the pods, what can you find so you kind of look at your collection. That's what I had to do for KFC and decide which things can I really push the power level limits to with things that we already know exists.

Of course, if you get really creative, you can look at things that people have never thought that could exist, and that gets to be its own exercise. But I think for the most approachable exercise for a new player in the format is look at your decks. And think of how could they synergize between the various

Zach Armstrong: pods.

Yeah. So looking at trying to figure out a deck concept or a deck game plan, what are, what are some examples of a deck game plan that, that somebody could build around, maybe, maybe some of the [00:06:00] more common ones that, that might be easier to find in a collection. Yeah.

Jason B.: So I think that, you know, the, probably the most approachable type of deck that you can build is sort of one that generates a lot of Amber very quickly.

And you look for just a lot of raw pips on your cards and things that can sort of synergize to get more amber. That's the ones where you can kind of find those old Coda decks where you'd be running a bunch of dust pixies or that type of thing where you get a lot of amber gem very quickly or you look for some sort of synergies maybe out of I see mass mutations where play a lot of mutants and you throw down a bald splash and you can look for things that there's just a lot of common cards that generate amber.

That's a very approachable. type of archetype. It's not necessarily one that will get to the day two or the top cut, but you'll always have a pretty consistently strong performance and a pretty executable game plan while usually having something available in your collection that can sort of support [00:07:00] that for most people.

Zach Armstrong: Yeah. Yeah. And the, the decks, the decks you built for, for Key Forge celebration, there was a call of the Archons deck that Jared piloted that had a battle fleet where you reveal Mars cards from your hand to draw more cards so this can build on each other. It had the, I was looking at the disc pod earlier.

I think it was three control the weeks, two Hysterias. For, excuse me, for Control the Weeks, two Hysterias, and I think three Ember Imps.

Jason B.: That was an unusual pot to play with, yeah, so. That deck archetype was leaning, of course, into a bit of a, of a combo, but the inspiration for that deck sort of came from two, maybe in people who've been in the game for a long time, two deck concepts that Should be somewhat familiar to them.

Yeah. Which are if you saw the battle fleets, you might have heard of the linguini deck, which was like a three key abduction, [00:08:00] or two key abduction, three battle fleet deck that was known to just be able to burst and cheat, cheat key. So I've had a pod not as good as that, but something similar that I thought was functionally workable.

And then also one of the other early concepts in call the icons was, They were called Lands Decks, library access with phase shifts and Nepenthes Seeds, in order to be able to cycle your deck and sort of execute a one turn kill. In this case, this deck didn't rely on Nepenthes Seeds, but it did have the library access and it did work with phase shifts, but it worked with Battlefleets, which is something that a deck statistically would have never had the opportunity to match up with.

Yeah. And that old Lansdack did get library access nerfed in that you couldn't play multiple copies. It would go to purge. So I recognize that those two elements worked extremely well. And as you know, exactly pointed out the control of the weeks, the Ember Imps act, it is a sort of proxy for no Amber control [00:09:00] and work purely just for the control element, which worked very well because the pod that I worked with for logos had three wild wormholes.

In a giant loop, you could end up playing a wild worm hole into a controller week or an ember or some form of control mechanism, your power spike. And so it was very much designed to lean into some archetypes that had already. Existed by underlying the power level of what was possible.

Zach Armstrong: Yeah. Yeah. The, that archetype of the library access which most listeners, you probably are familiar with this, especially if, if you're coming back to key forge, but, you know, after you, it, it sets you up for the rest of the turn.

After you play another card, you get to, you get to draw a card. And with, with, with that deck, that is one where I have a moderately sized collection for context listeners. I have about 570 decks and I have a number of library access, double phase shift decks. I have a [00:10:00] number of. You know, double Nepentheseed pods, you know, with Hunting Witch, Key Charge, Chota, Regrowth, and then other things that, that support that as well.

So I think that is, that is one that if you, if you have a handful of decks or you're going to hunt on the secondary market for perhaps a cheaper deck that has one of these really good pods and then Two other houses that make the deck perhaps unattractive to Archon play. That, that is one you can, you can certainly try and it, it does feel good to pull off and testing, right?

If you just enjoy comboing off. It is. And as

Jason B.: I think that one, because almost all of the cards, not in the Mars house, but on the other ones are commons, it's easy to get duplicates and because there were over a million scanned, you know, called Archon's decks. There are a lot of. Things available that are workable tools.

Now that being said, they did, you know, of course restrict your ability, as you mentioned Zach, to be able to use a library access with a control a [00:11:00] week. But there are other types around that that make sense and are worth exploring and are approachable. Yeah,

Zach Armstrong: yeah, yeah, for sure. What Jason was referencing, there's the, the restricted list.

Now it has both library access has control the week on it. And so if you're including control the week or you're including library access, you can't, you can't include the, the other one, the other one. And as far as other archetypes go what tell us about the archetype that the other deck you brought to key forge celebration.

It was a mass mutation deck with dis dis. Logos and Star Alliance. Tell us about the, an archetype that, that that fits into.

Jason B.: Sure. So that, that one was not completely unique in the tournament, but very rare in that tournament. However that one, I leaned into a pod that I had on Star Alliance was from a deck that the community, longer term, you might be familiar with, which we call Sad Panda.

What [00:12:00] that was, that, that pod was a. Somewhat of a combo deck with a transport platform, which allows me to bring a minion back from the board as an artifact. So as an action with now, who, when you play upgrades he will help you draw cars with a number of upgrades with, in this case, enhancements on them, right?

So it allows you to draw quite a few cards. This would be a perfect example. What I had said before, which was that's an Archon deck has done well in Archon events. And so I wanted that specific pod with other pods that would make that more consistently executable. And so my other houses I chose to go with, again, you probably see my design preference was this because I had marks of this and furnaces sort of standard items, but control again, control items.

in that package, a jar to block against, which actually was relevant in the files to [00:13:00] block cards like battle fleet or control the week or things that if you stack them become very disproportionately powerful. So it was a strong shield that came with the deck. Along with the efficiency engine, I'll call it of start lines and then a high quality logos house that had auto encoder, had a, a little bit of a Kronos and also had significant number of drop ins in house printed.

So it had scaling Amber control. It was a fairly robust and complete deck. It didn't have. It didn't have artifact control in it, but it didn't have a jar which could block significant other artifacts. The way it functioned was to be fairly efficient. It had a high efficiency rating. So I would say that archetype, as I've worked on it a lot since that event, largely revolves around the creation of efficiency and high card quality.[00:14:00]

That one. Is a more challenging archetype to execute and build on. And there are variant variations of it that I've discovered over the last eight months or so, but that was what I used to that was the winning deck for the KFC event.

Zach Armstrong: Yeah. Yeah. And a listener, forgive me if you don't know all the cards we're saying as we go through Alliance.

This would triple the length of the episode to explain each of them. But one card I've heard talked about. Because it was in Jason's deck listener and and elsewhere is, is Eaton's Jar, which is only in mass mutation. It's a rare, it's an artifact. It has a playability that says name, a card until Eaton's jar leaves play cards with that name cannot be played.

And so one just very specific question for you, Jason This, this is one of those cards that gets. More gets better, you know, in Alliance is, is that correct?

Jason B.: That is definitely, [00:15:00] that is an extraordinarily powerful card in this format. And, and I had been lucky because when Mass Mutations first came out, I had a particular affinity for that.

So, all my top tier competitive... Mass mutations, X included a job in them, so I had choices to work from for that,

Zach Armstrong: In, if somebody wants to make a top cut at a vault tour in alliance, do you think they need to have jar or a plan? Or a response to JAR, or at least or at least a, a approach. I mean, they'll, they'll need a plan for seeing JAR, I assume.

But do you think people need to pack specific responses like purging it or, or something else? It will totally

Jason B.: depend on the deck that you're deciding to show up with. I don't think that the meta is so well defined that you need to. To come with a specific response to a specific card in all instances a little bit maybe but for I suspect there will be [00:16:00] more Martian Generosity key abduction decks because there are probably over a thousand pods that have both of those cards in them and they act as a fairly good tool from AOA.

However, you know my experience and I've built quite a few Alliance builds every set has viable archetypes to try to get to a topic cut of an alliance format, from my perspective there are different sets have different number of viable architect, to be sure and different archetypes have different availability.

Also, to be sure, some are extraordinarily rare to be able to build as an archetype. Some are fairly common, like, it's grand martian generosity key abduction. So I think what I would tend to speak to on that to your question is. Generally, I would work on my deck design if I were to be in the secondary market, procuring decks or things that [00:17:00] make my deck work better first to create better consistency and performance for my deck.

I think it's a design consideration if you can have sort of an embarrassment of riches and be able to swap specific cards for meta purposes. But generally speaking, you really want to synergize in however your deck wants to behave. That's going to be your higher priority. And usually if you do that, you'll get a higher overall win rate and a better sick, more success out of your deck.

And probably also have a more reasonable time procuring the pods you're looking for. Yeah,

Zach Armstrong: that makes sense. So, so it's your. What I'm hearing is that when you're putting together an alliance deck, you're, you're kind of starting from scratch, looking at your collection, you, you get a concept perhaps just one you enjoy or one inspired by you, you know, you have at least one really good pod there.

So is [00:18:00] the recommendation then to, to focus on your concept and the game plan and focus on that first and then worry about any kind of tools. Or responses later.

Jason B.: Yeah. So to, to my experience and probably. Probably outside the statistical norm for Alliance players since I'm trying to build maybe 8 to 12 archetypes concurrent to one another.

So, if I have all the pods, it's very easy, right? And if you have one or two pods, it's, it can be a challenge to fill out your second or third pod. Building an idea from scratch and having no viable pods is... Extraordinarily challenging. I can tell you I've been working on some of my archetypes for eight months and have yet to complete them.

I might have two out of three pods at a level that makes me satisfied, but it is a very challenged thing to do. So for most people, my suggestion is if you have [00:19:00] one pod that you truly think is special. Work from that part. If you have two that you think work together, you are so much better shape, but the trick to the mentality associated with building a good line stack, I think is very different than what people might on average be used to.

And the reason is, is because as you try and work towards getting three pods to perform the way you want them to my experience, you're better off getting suboptimal pods to fill out. Your alliance first, hopefully cheap ones, and then iterate and then upgrade. Your pods. So build your deck. Don't just get two out of three and then hope and think that you must get the perfect third pod.

Get two that one or two that you really like and find a viable third one. And don't stress too much if it's not the perfect one. What I find is when you play that way, you get more excited about your alliance deck the more you play it and then you will dig deeper and try harder to swap out individual pods.

So once you've [00:20:00] gone back and you've been able to upgrade some of your pods, you start to form a long term affinity for your deck, because you really do start to add pods. And once you've added and even gone back to some of what were your original ones that you built your pods with, What I'll help you do, I think, over time, or what I expect will happen in the long term form of the meta, is you'll be able to swap some of those pods for things that you might see in, in the meta that you might want.

Defenses, I guess, to your point earlier, Zach, on the jar, for example. So you might... not start there when you're building it. That's why I say focus on making your deck good the way it should be and synergize well. Get your second or your third pod and then you can go back and you can try to find new ones over time.

That's, I think, the exploratory nature of your alliance deck which is very different than so you have to have a different mindset associated with, you can always [00:21:00] tweak and improve what your underlying deck could be. Yeah,

Zach Armstrong: something, something you said in, in that kind of process overview, Jason, that I think is really good advice is talking about it being a process and an iterative iterative process instead of simply, you know, you've, you've.

Found you've tested a little bit. You found a one set of three pods and then like, that's it. You're, you're playing Alliance, but instead thinking of it as well. No, if you have one or two good pods that really sing together, they harmonize with that concept that you want, go ahead and just find something that roughly supports it and play it.

So, you know, what you need matchups, right? So I think, I think that's really, really good advice for people who want to explore Alliance which I, I hope is plenty of people. And I've been, even though I was skeptical, I have been, I have been brainstorming and testing myself, even though I don't think I'll play it at Philadelphia as of recording [00:22:00] is the upcoming Vault Tour.

I don't think I'll play Alliance there, but man, it has, it has, I've sunk at least. For myself, at least probably 12 hours into just brewing and then, and then testing and trying some ideas. I tried to break, I'll save this for another time, dear listener but I tried to break Tesmol in Worlds Collide because I have a legacy Tesmol and it used scientifical hack.

The most, it's not even bad enough to be complete, like be remarkable in some way. It's just. It's just the most meh artifact of all time. Well, that's

Jason B.: funny because I, I, you know, I think people could look, I think sometimes at the decks that I've created and they would say those are extremely impressive.

But what you don't always see is all the deck archetypes that I thought might be fun to try and then failed miserably. And what I had to learn from why those don't work and looking at the, the, you know, they've taken an approach on the format. It can be very different. And I think. One thing I would suggest for most people too [00:23:00] is, fixing the cards, of course, you know your cards, that's important, but you need to think about what the game mechanics you are, that you're, that exist, that you're trying to work with.

And where I, and I'll suggest to people where I found the most success with archetypes are things that bend the game mechanics the most severely in a way that sort of, is interesting. That's sort of the, what people might've saw in my finals match with Jared, where suddenly I was cycling my entire deck.

I had all my cards in my deck, in my hand, multiple turns in a row. How did the game state evolve to get to that point? And I mean, thinking about what you can do, that's not the only consideration, obviously. There's a lot of different ways. Manipulating your graveyard, manipulating your archive, manipulating your draw pile, manipulating your opponent's hands and draw pile.

So there's. A lot of ways. So you really want to think in terms of game mechanics and how you want to your point earlier, is that too, again, [00:24:00] was what is your game plan? What do you want to try to have fun with in the format? It can be very different.

Zach Armstrong: Yeah. What, so when you sit down and you're, you're testing against, against other Alliance decks, or you're, you're sitting down like at, at key for celebration.

What does matchup evaluation look like in Alliance? Is it, is it. Does it look different than it does in, in Archon? In some ways

Jason B.: it's easier to understand in some ways it can be more convoluted. I think when you practice, if you're very good at Archon you know, your deck extraordinarily well, what is easy to sometimes overlook in certain cases in Archon would be.

Edge case synergies within our conduct, because you don't see them very often, but because the deck was printed, there's just a little extra sweetener typically in a deck in Alliance. [00:25:00] There's not as many edge case synergies. Most of the major synergies will jump out at you because somebody threw three battle fleets in their deck.

That's right. Something that's like multiples because they're trying to, like I said, just now break a mechanic or push a mechanic to its, its edge of design. Yeah. And so you can see it. What, what becomes harder in your deck analysis is to know if they, if your opponent does that. or pushes their game plan that way.

How broken is this going to feel when it, if something breaks loose? If I'm playing against a Janky deck, exactly how, if there's a helper bot, if there's a nature's call, if there's a Janky, like what weird things are about to happen to you all at once that you normally not have experienced? And trying to read for a different level of power is more challenging.

And exactly when, when is that going to show up in the game? You know when people start to, and I especially probably are most guilty of push on [00:26:00] efficiency builds your sense of the cadence. of playthrough is very different. So you might look at somebody's deck and you say, well, there's a jar in there, but if that deck draws its entire deck three turn, but by turn three, almost every game that jar is going to show up, it's going to be a relevant card.

It is not going to be a turn eight and maybe it's. 15% that it shows up, it's like 100% that it'll show up. So be able to read a deck for, for what they're capable of is one of the more interesting challenges you know, in that, in the last format. Yeah, for

Zach Armstrong: sure. For sure. Yeah, I do. I do think it's generally, generally speaking, I think you're totally right in that when you sit down, you can go, oh, yeah, they're, they're packing four of this common.

Right? Or, you know, they've packed three of this common and then two of this uncommon in this other house that does something similar. Okay, I see, I see where the game plan is starting to go. And sometimes, yeah, it's so explosive that you are going to [00:27:00] be facing everything in the deck each time. Each time because that consistency, that consistency is, is a big factor.

And I think people will know this perhaps from board games or card games they've gone. But is, and I know you have this is one of your affinities, right? Efficiency and especially in, in Key Forge with extra card draw with, with archiving. Do you think? Do you think a deck without efficiency as a part of its concept can compete against a deck with efficiency as a part of its concept?

Will that be an uphill battle?

Jason B.: Yeah, so there are viable non efficiency build archetypes that My team has, I have that I think are viable. I don't usually always show off all those archetypes, but those archetypes certainly exist. They are far more interesting in certain respects because they have to be very mindful of it's been the mix and nature of the cards.

They have to play [00:28:00] a different type of approach. I would say generally. In all cases, even if you're playing with a card like that, or a style or type like that, you're still going to want to add efficiency if you can find a way to add, just objectively better, because as I like to sort of say, you know, efficiency is the way to consistency.

Right. So, right. That's what I do like consistent performance. And I think anyone who's trying to really. Push their decks will want to look at, but there's very, there's various ways to achieve that consistency in your decks.

Zach Armstrong: Yeah. I, I, I would agree with that recommendation that and I like how you said it where, you know, perhaps your concept isn't completely centered around efficiency in a particular way.

But wherever you can put it in so that you play consistently. So that you can get consistent results with that deck, which is what you want. Especially if you're going to go to a vault tour, try to make top eight and you're trying to win actual cash money at this point, that's right. For sure. For sure.

One, one more question. So going a bit [00:29:00] off of all these kinds of standard recommendations and philosophies for, you know, how to put together an Alliance deck, how to have an affinity for it over time. So you've practiced a lot of Alliance and. Are there any, are there any, like, thoughts, recommendations, or changes that you want to put out there in, into the Key Forge universe as far as GG's considerations for Alliance moving forward as far as fine tuning it, are there different, are there different philosophies they could apply to it, as somebody who's practiced this a bunch, where, Where, where have you landed so far in thinking about Alliance on that level?

So,

Jason B.: so, you know, this is, I've had some conversations with the folks at TG when I went to KFC and I think what we got feedback from a little bit from that was their revised, restricted list to the kind of key feedback, if you think about it, or one of the things that they said was they're looking for people to show up with things that are very.

Broken. [00:30:00] That is part of what they want this format to feel like for, for the players. And so I'm not at a point yet, and I've played a lot of games. I have played a thousand plus Alliance. I've probably played more than that. I've played a lot of games of Alliance, but where I'm at right now is I think we need to see how the meta develops and allow people and afford people the ability to, as Zeus sort of spoke to, Decide how to make that meta evolve.

If the meta becomes stagnant over time, then some tweaks are necessary, especially if the decks that win are not replaceable as archetypes. That would be. A problem. So I'm aware of a couple of decks that exists Alliance decks that exist that are non replicatable decks. There simply aren't other lists printed that can replicate what a couple of people have been able to do with just a couple of decks.

And I mean, only two. So I'm not like, this is not a long list, but those two decks won every event. Nobody [00:31:00] could replicate the archetype. And in one of those cases, I'm not so sure people could really counter the archetype effectively. And I'm not saying that that deck is good enough to win, but I'm saying if that were to be the case, then I think...

They would need to re evaluate some of their, their approach, but in the meantime, if people show up with archetypes that are approachable, I think that's why they didn't ban the Martian Generosity, Key Abduction, Combo. Fairly commonly available to the top four decks were those. They did lose to the archetypes that I built.

So they were clearly viable compared to the entire rest of the field. Yeah. But were they so broken that they could just. Win an event, and it wasn't, and it felt like a terrible play experience for people. Not so much. I think... The one thing that they will probably should give consideration over time is what is the play experience for people in the event.

So, not, do you just win? That's not [00:32:00] the message. How do you win? How does it feel to lose in that experience? That may have been in small part some of the consideration for the control the week restriction with the library access because you know what Jerry was doing oftentimes there would be games where he would control the week somebody four turns in the row and just win the game and they were just out and that it's a very negative play experience.

It was. Can't argue that it won games. I mean, he went undefeated. It won against, it would be both those Jankos decks that placed top four or one earlier in the tournament and one, the other one in the top four, it, it was stronger, but it didn't create a play, you know, the right play experience. And I wouldn't necessarily say Janko would either, but I think there has to be some consideration to that, but let's see how, you know, the C in my opinion, I would rather see how the first season goes and then tweak.

after the season to see what people do and how they respond because you know, right now it's [00:33:00] sort of, there's a, all there really is to work with is an online. culture where people are testing some severely, you know, edge case decks that are, that may not be viable in real play. Let's see what people can really show up with and how those, those decks interact and what the play

Zach Armstrong: I think that's a great answer because as, as much as, as much as we can, you know, trust people like, you know, Michael Hurley having plenty of development experience and we've got Luke Olson on there now, I don't I do think, yeah, like, You said they're going to be iterating. They're going to be learning and seeing what happens.

And so dear listener, if you're planning on playing alliance and this helps you like, yeah, it's a, you've, you've been asked, Hey, come, come break this, right? Come, come win with the deck that they go. Excellent. You're now a vault tour champion and we're going to, you know. Make changes to the restricted list in your honor,

Jason B.: you know, [00:34:00]

Zach Armstrong: or the 2024 season, you know, we'll have some adjustments to Alliance because of what showed up in the 2023 season.

So yeah, like, like your process, you know, like you're like a person's process with their Alliance deck. I think I think it's, I think it's going to be easy to have a lot of fun and Alliance, and I think this is going to be really. You know, shouldn't always give Ghost Galaxy a free pass, but I think where Key Forge was such uncharted territory and in some places it still is, and now we're in Alliance, which is again, uncharted territory.

So I think giving, giving some space for some iterating, for some learning, some figuring out what those play experiences should be is a, is a good, is a good thing as a good thing. I, I

Jason B.: would, yeah, I would kind of build on it and say I'd encourage, you know, people not to chicken little when they see a deck or have a play experience that it feels ridiculous.

I think if you come to it with the right Obviously, people are trying to, they're paying money to get these vaults. So I understand the investment involved, but [00:35:00] also have a little bit of, you know, awe when somebody does something that is ridiculous, because I think in doing so, it'll, it'll incentivize people to dream big.

And I can say. Even though I know I've been working on these archetypes for, for a lot of hours, a lot of time, there, there are a lot of unexplored, and I can guarantee you viable archetypes I have not yet touched, and I know other people have not yet touched either. So there's a lot of open space. So, the initial reaction shouldn't be, I didn't like that play experience, it should be, how could I dream up something that could be competitive with that?

And, and start to use that creativity, which I think is a, is a, for a certain type of player is a, is a joyful experience, not for everybody, but for people who might find that fun, it can be a lot of, a lot of fun.

Zach Armstrong: That's great. Well, Jason, thank you so much for coming on today. It's been a pleasure, a pleasure having you and dear listener, I hope you feel encouraged and equipped to, to [00:36:00] be trying to do some Alliance brews yourself.

And here, here's your goal, dear listener. Is if you go to a vault tour and you're playing against my guest, Jason here, I want you to have built a deck so degenerate that Jason has to go, wait, no, this isn't a negative play experience. I'm having all that's right. And Jason, I understand that Nova, who is the person behind decks of key forge launched a couple new, a couple of new features to support Alliance.

Could you go over what those are? What what those features are on decks of key forge. com.

Jason B.: Yeah, I think there's a couple items that have been very helpful that have been pulled together here specifically for your deck building. So now you can go and look at, not just the decks that you're creating, but you can also look at other decks that other people have pulled together.

And I think while there's quite a bit of noise there, there's also quite a bit of... Interesting deck ideas. So you can use that as [00:37:00] a form of some inspiration if you're looking for a place to start on what the art of the possible could be for decks and maybe what you could do with that. And then the other thing that I've seen, which I think is also fantastic, is after the master vault had opened up where pips fell, you can now see those.

On each individual deck on Decks of Key Forge, which is also, I will give a hint to everybody, extremely helpful if you're trying to build edge based mechs and you want an inordinate number of pips in a pod that you might be playing for this format. So I would use those tools to see what you can dream

Zach Armstrong: up.

Awesome. Well, again, Jason, thank you so much. And yeah, we'll we'll see you around the circuit this fall.

Jason B.: Look forward to it. Take care. Thank you, Zach.

Zach Armstrong: And dear listener, just like your radio dial, may your Key Forge skills be well tuned. Key Forge Public Radio is produced by Rooster Hide Productions, which is me.

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