Latest / Archons Corner / Keyforge Deck Ascension

Transcript

Keyforge Deck Ascension · Archons Corner

• 0:23
  In our potty mouth. I depend on you hitting record. I'm already recording.
• 0:28
  I have been recording since we've popped over, sweet sweet, So what's
• 0:32
  going on? Everybody? I am the one, the only the w oh
• 0:34
  okay I e the misfit uh cycle continues to cycle, but starting out,
• 0:40
  we got ewakis E Walk Walk Jr. Hello, keyboards, community, glad
• 0:46
  to be here, man, the choke show dress? Hey guys, how's
• 0:50
  it going? Is there? That's he keeps dropping his mind? He walk?
• 0:57
  Did you just fall over? Didn't I get you a arm for your
• 1:00
  crophone? What happened? Well? But he doesn't have an arm right now?
• 1:04
  I only have one. Well, I think we got the resident pH
• 1:11
  d doctor sheep. We're gonna have to cut it off. Yep, doctor,
• 1:18
  I want to be like twin doctor Dre. Just don't sit there and
• 1:23
  take no nobody. Okay, Ben might remember. But and then we got
• 1:29
  bad the monkey joining us this week? What's up? Man? What's going
• 1:32
  on? Key first? Community? Very exciting to be here. Yeah,
• 1:37
  are you ready to bash g G for a full hour and hour and a
• 1:41
  half maybe two hours? Let's do it? Okay, but can ire a
• 1:45
  little bit of breaking news that we just got in breaking news. This is
• 1:53
  something that that you're truly matters only to me. I'm a if for those
• 1:56
  who don't know, I'm a Khalifi dragon uh fuscessor worshiper who knows uh.
• 2:07
  In the past created art that was meant to make leaves of the Cleffee Dragon,
• 2:09
  where I like kind of edit out the background of stuff. But the
• 2:14
  latest blog post, we have brand new coming in the full sized or at
• 2:17
  least the full dimensions art of Kaliffee Dragon. We can now actually see the
• 2:22
  rest of his wing and it's blowing my mind. I'm sure nobody else is
• 2:27
  excited about that, but I am extremely happy to see more of my my
• 2:30
  favorite dragon boy. It just kind of looks like a floating act because the
• 2:36
  kind of act wings are cool. Yeah. I mean he's got rocket launchers
• 2:45
  on his wings too, right, I mean it's all it's all about perspective.
• 2:50
  This excitement, Ben is exactly what we need is little moments. Share
• 2:55
  the joy in those little moments. I love it, man, all right?
• 2:59
  So well, this could be the gateway drug to full art cards.
• 3:07
  How cool would full art key forge cards be? I think that'd be cool.
• 3:14
  I do look at art. I know not everybody on this cast does,
• 3:16
  but I like a lot of the art in this game. To saying
• 3:23
  there was I hear on one of them things I don't understand. They asked
• 3:29
  for people to comment on their favorite key Forge art. They did that.
• 3:32
  It's called x and or Twitter, whatever you want to call it. This
• 3:38
  week sheet. I can't do that. I'm not smart enough, which is
• 3:42
  weird because doctor Sheep has a Twitter, just it doesn't use it. Yes,
• 3:46
  actually I do have a Twitter, but that's only there to put you
• 3:49
  back in your place when it has to happen fair enough. It's only when
• 3:53
  I have to do my doctrine. Yes, but I did. I did
• 3:59
  participate that discussion on the discords, which is the only OPR I care about,
• 4:02
  is the one that says key Forge and organized play that Ghost Galaxy Games
• 4:09
  asked favorite key Forge art and go, can you guys maybe guess some of
• 4:15
  the favorite art. Let's just guess. Mmm, does she have legs?
• 4:23
  We need a full art art? We don't. We don't know about you
• 4:26
  doesn't have legs. Maybe she just sits in the Maybe that's how she became
• 4:30
  captain because she has Maybe maybe she has like spider legs like the guy from
• 4:35
  Wild Wild West. Maybe you don't know, good day, Well I'll get
• 4:41
  I'll give you one guess. Actually there's there's two bad Penny does is not
• 4:46
  on there. Raptors also not on there. They have to be there for
• 4:51
  some reason. Because they're not, they keep they keep that wormhole also not
• 4:56
  on there. That's a good gues What about the Fuzzy Star Fuzzy Gruin is
• 5:02
  on there. Buzzy Green was the first response. The Bot token Bot is
• 5:10
  not on there. Neither is fish Fishes fish Fish. I was going to
• 5:18
  Bernie stockpile is not correct. So there's another fan favorite that everybody loves that
• 5:26
  I want to burn to the ground after playing it this week, The Storm.
• 5:31
  It's number one, I love, I love Heart of the Forest.
• 5:34
  Don't you dare ever say a bad thing again? Number two it's one hundred
• 5:40
  percent. But that card is trash. That's the best. Wait, wait,
• 5:45
  what do you mean because you had a deck that could do everything that
• 5:48
  you wanted, except you had the except I had Literally I haven't opened any
• 5:55
  other token of either of the houses. I had Brobne, I had Equadon,
• 6:00
  and I had Mars. If I have a functioning token from any other
• 6:08
  any one of the nine possibilities, or I'm sorry, it would be any
• 6:11
  eight possibilities. I have a deck that might be slightly busted. I get
• 6:16
  a blurb and it just grinds to those blurb fought and it was unimpressive.
• 6:25
  It was very unimpressive because everyone else opened Mars and then I got a Mars
• 6:29
  experien Air. I'm done, I quit, all right, all right,
• 6:32
  I have another guest. How about the ultra Gravitron. I'm trying. It's
• 6:36
  not on there. So we have a disc card on We have one one
• 6:41
  disc card that you're missing. This card is an action. It is an
• 6:46
  action one that I would not have guessed that. I actually never paid attention
• 6:53
  to the art until now. I was going to name a DT card,
• 6:57
  but I actually can't think of one. Right. It is from what's that
• 7:02
  DT bad set? It is from Coda, from Coda all that three fates.
• 7:12
  You you are not you guys are not taking the bait here I can
• 7:19
  zoom Nope. Control of the Week. No, but that's I wanted.
• 7:25
  I thought that would be on it. What ah what that's grading the brain
• 7:29
  of aniphilate. But I like that you will gain three chains after you play
• 7:32
  this card. It is Gateway. That's I just thought of Turns because a
• 7:42
  guy on it. Okay, my my brain, my brain has frozen here.
• 7:48
  You said you're going to name a disc DT card. No, no,
• 7:53
  no, any DP card Okay, okay, because all I heard and
• 7:56
  that and I'm like, it's not okay. I'm like, is this why
• 8:01
  you've been having issues? People like this? This just looks like, you
• 8:07
  know, somebody with a problem. Like I've never looked at it before,
• 8:15
  but it's literally a mountain collect like it's like a sinkhole almost with you.
• 8:20
  It is kind of cool. There's like a sanctum night, like barely holding
• 8:22
  on while the like this demons all creatures fall into the into the pit.
• 8:30
  There is a DT card on here though, from Shadows D and it is
• 8:35
  not rad Penny, although it is common and he will steal ember from you.
• 8:43
  Is there anything else? I mean, that's still the Simpson hobnobber.
• 8:50
  Somebody really likes the art for a hobby, which I always thought was too
• 8:52
  busy. But somebody really likes top number. He'll never miss. He's just
• 8:58
  he's just like he looks like just a snobby jerk. Yeah yeah, but
• 9:03
  and we'll do one more. This is a Mars card from CODA. I
• 9:09
  think it's actually it's only printing ever, and it is a rare Mars rare.
• 9:16
  It's going to go battle fleet. But now no, but it was
• 9:20
  action card, don't it's an action card. Is it bad? It is?
• 9:26
  It was bad? Now maybe not so bad? Oh gosh, hYP
• 9:37
  not a command nords hold? Uh mass subduction? Is that a rare?
• 9:46
  It's not. But is that a rare subduction? Yeah? Is it?
• 9:52
  Okay? It's not mass subduction. It will give you a singular chain and
• 10:00
  it has to deal with traits. Oh yeah that one card? Yeah that
• 10:07
  card? That what that card with the green in it? Yeah, it's
• 10:11
  like the play something. It's like an artifact or something. It is an
• 10:16
  action virus doesn't do act It doesn't give you a chain. Maybe I'm not.
• 10:20
  Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe this isn't from CODA. Maybe this is what
• 10:24
  I'm not. I'm pretty sure this is Coda. It might be AO a
• 10:26
  destroy creature of each destroyed creature at each creature that shares a trait with it.
• 10:33
  Extinction, yeah, extinction, Yeah, that is that is a wrong
• 10:39
  set I don't think have you hadding right? The right set would have helped
• 10:43
  me in this gate. I could have saw that was in that was in
• 10:46
  coda, but maybe it wasn't thetinction which has got like the red Bird.
• 10:50
  Yeah, well it's that's definitely a done. That's definitely what is it Felix
• 11:00
  the Disintegrator? Is it Felix or filex the Yeah, that's yeah, that
• 11:07
  is a goal card or it looks like it's aoa whoa and masters? How
• 11:15
  was it? Oh whoa? Okay, well it makes sense. I thought
• 11:16
  I was thinking World's collidees. How would it be in World's client There was
• 11:20
  no there were no Critters in the world or no uh Mars in World's Cliente.
• 11:24
  But with that being said, we brought Ben here for a very specific
• 11:28
  thing today. Sheep is Yeah, big clef Dagon news. Thanks for coming
• 11:33
  on, Ben, have a great night, guys. By by So,
• 11:39
  actually, if you're really into the show, this is not the first time
• 11:41
  you've heard Ben on it, because he did join us in the walk Wagon.
• 11:46
  I think that audio none of that's been released. Yeah, oh man,
• 11:54
  you might hear Ben again because there may have to be mass editing that
• 11:58
  happens, and there's five hours five hours of ash. There was just some
• 12:05
  snoring from Wookie. We're fine. That was on the ride back. I
• 12:09
  did all of Ewok's show last week in the car on the way back.
• 12:13
  Uh. That's why I don't want to do it again. I've already let
• 12:16
  my brain drop all that stuff. But we have Ben, who's also been
• 12:24
  the monkey here because he is the open arc on winner at Extra Crispy.
• 12:31
  Yeah, and well a little bit later we're gonna be talking about deck ascension
• 12:37
  and he is specifically the person I wanted for this conversation. M So why
• 12:41
  would that goes? Why would that be sheep? You'll have to stay tuned
• 12:46
  to find out. All right, Okay, Ben, I got a few
• 12:50
  questions here about how you got to the arc on open, so people can
• 12:56
  get a little background, some understanding, and then we'll just you know,
• 12:58
  keep going on like we do here, which means we will get sidetracked.
• 13:03
  Sounds great. Uh. The big one the first one because of the way
• 13:07
  this event was our con versus alliance. How did you Yeah, because you
• 13:13
  I mean like going in? Because uh, Ben and I talked going in.
• 13:18
  He you also played in the Last Chance qualifier, and you know,
• 13:22
  depending on how that panned out, you had to be ready for both if
• 13:26
  you were able to get a qualifier into Worlds, and then from there you
• 13:31
  knew you had a good choice for both decks or for both things, so
• 13:37
  you actually had to choose going into the open. This is this is all
• 13:43
  correct, this is accurate information. So yeah, so she had helped me
• 13:46
  bitcraft an alliance with a decently broken scholar pod or sorry and pod that I
• 13:56
  opened paired up with scholars, and yeah, I mean it's definitely pretty gross.
• 14:03
  It had oh man, I forgetting all the names of all the cards.
• 14:09
  The Brian Briar's arc, a bunch of the fuddle your usual broken stuff,
• 14:13
  the classic combination of equadon, sorry and unfathomable. But as Faye would
• 14:22
  have it, I was in between the two a lot I couldn't decide.
• 14:24
  And then that night I was playing games with all the random, awesome key
• 14:30
  forged people at the hotel and it was a little bit late, but one
• 14:35
  of the games I was playing against this really broken tokened out mm deck.
• 14:41
  I was starting to make a bunch of misplays with that alliance Deck. I
• 14:46
  had done things that's in the wrong order, and it just basically demonstrates to
• 14:48
  me that I, although I had maybe twenty games maybe with it, I
• 14:54
  wanted to stick with what I knew even though it was going to be the
• 14:56
  harder field to play against. And so good reason to me. Yeah,
• 15:03
  So I went with my baby, who I've been with me since Wins of
• 15:07
  Exchange pledges arrived, and that is as maybe known by now, But they
• 15:15
  use that trains all three houses. Yeah, give us a minute prime around
• 15:20
  that one. So it's Warrior Token equed on Mars, and the Mars is
• 15:26
  just a token machine. It's got one pip, one amber pip on one
• 15:31
  of the clone homes inside a second clone home, and it's got make to
• 15:35
  mark two generator, a vetminder, a little bit of ever control with one
• 15:41
  hypnotic command in one of the other action that makes the opponent capture one from
• 15:48
  their own side. And then the Equodon is interesting because it's double talent Scout
• 15:54
  and that kind of makes it's one of those cards. It's very similar to
• 15:58
  CMDP or interdimensional graph in a sense in that it makes your opponent play differently
• 16:03
  even if that card never shows up in the game. So your brain dark,
• 16:08
  thank you. So especially against decks that, like in furnace based decks
• 16:12
  or decks that are that very much care about one or two creatures, they
• 16:18
  have to get those cards out into the archive real quick or play them in
• 16:22
  a sub opiminal way. And I think that is part of what helps that
• 16:26
  the game out a little bit. Got a board wipe in both Mars and
• 16:30
  Equadon, and then the Bravnar has got nothing. I mean it's guy's got
• 16:33
  a triple Berserker slam, which is one of my favorite styles. My World's
• 16:38
  Collide favorite deck also had a double Berserker slam ah and then double Ragnarok Prep,
• 16:48
  so bunch of amber control and bramnar And is always going to have board,
• 16:51
  so it Ragnac preps always always fire. And yeah, so then between
• 16:56
  the Warrior tokens, one brick, a bunch of amber pips. Uh.
• 17:00
  It just dominates board and keeps board. It wipes the board out and puts
• 17:04
  the board back on, so like it'll wipe board Mars put three creatures out
• 17:08
  that same turn. Yeah yeah, board presence, board presence is steel,
• 17:14
  good creatures. I love the double tail scout like that's that's my idea of
• 17:19
  fun in key Forge double sewards that gives it good pips and no dead cards,
• 17:27
  which is the classic, which is what I know that Nova loves to
• 17:32
  look, uh for one looking at good decks. I mean there is a
• 17:36
  blacksmith in the deck, and it's useful for being the target of the generous
• 17:41
  offer or the force retirement. It actually, yeah, it actually gets used
• 17:48
  way more than gets discarded. This is true, right, And and uh
• 17:52
  so I have played this deck as well, and I think you're right.
• 17:55
  I was like, ah, shoot, like the pip is on the Ember,
• 17:57
  pip is on the black Smith. That really stinks. And I still
• 18:02
  have discarded the blacksmith. But you're right. It does get played far more
• 18:07
  often than in a normal deck where you got a blacksmith. That's true.
• 18:11
  Over half the podcast today has played this deck in a tournament, which we
• 18:18
  will get to halfore we talk about your success at World Sweet Okay, a
• 18:23
  couple of quick questions if you want to hit any interesting stuff on it going
• 18:27
  into the Woe or to the Open. Were there any particular decks you thought
• 18:34
  we're going to see in the open or was you just feeling like you have
• 18:37
  absolutely no idea? What's happening in the open because the biggest decks are over
• 18:41
  in world. Absolutely the latter. Yeah, I had no idea what to
• 18:45
  expect in the Open. I just thought I'd give it a shot, and
• 18:48
  I the whole way up until the final, I was just happy to be
• 18:52
  there, like happy with the performance so far. And so when I was
• 18:55
  top eight, oh so happy. I made top eight, top foard,
• 18:59
  that was great, I can finish top four, I'll be really happy,
• 19:00
  et cetera. It just kept it going and Ooz kept using it. Did
• 19:07
  I know particularly there was some discussion before the championship game. I remember being
• 19:14
  there, You're talking about it, and I was in my own funk at
• 19:18
  that time. But the way I had read the conversation from you, you
• 19:21
  were reading that deck list and is like you seemed defeated before you played that
• 19:25
  game. Yeah, I was saying. I came in saying like he and
• 19:30
  it was one of the best key forward, most fun I've had in a
• 19:32
  KEYBOARDE game. I think that I can remember where I was cheering for him
• 19:37
  because I knew that his deck just had the like if Ooz doesn't keep board,
• 19:41
  OOZ doesn't really do anything. OOZ will really fall flat in its face
• 19:45
  if it can't have more creatures than its opponent. And boyo boy does that
• 19:49
  other deck have ways to make sure it has more creatures than me? And
• 19:53
  between? So yeah, so the deck that I was facing was a fault
• 20:00
  Masters back Uh, I say in hushed tones the set that will not be
• 20:06
  named it. So it's got hollowfast with a brick it was it was what
• 20:11
  kind of dark? Uh? Oh? Yeah, my voice Masters deck?
• 20:18
  What that that set that makes a fan of the show JM very very upset.
• 20:25
  Our voices just get really staticky as soon as we say that word.
• 20:26
  They made good They made good ones of those now good players for how to
• 20:32
  play mediocre ones. That's not true. But anyway, the middle this deck
• 20:38
  is real gross. So it has so many ways to make you go really
• 20:41
  high on amber and then archive it's uh it's it's called rant and rive,
• 20:48
  so it'll make sure you really pay for that with that rantoon drive between having
• 20:52
  a So yeah, so it's braden or just logos. Let's back up a
• 20:55
  little bit. Uh. The key component though, is that holofast with a
• 20:59
  brick two ganger chieftains to make it fire the turn you play it Harmal while
• 21:03
  up Headhunter Volca it just it you play, You play all the fest and
• 21:08
  then you get them all killed. Your opponent finally takes care of him.
• 21:12
  Then you play grim Reminder and dis take all the probleminar back to your archive,
• 21:17
  which is what one, two, three, four, five, six,
• 21:19
  seven, eleven creatures, ten creatures, nine creatures final answer. Then
• 21:29
  okay, finally you kill this entire board. Somehow you kill the Harmal before
• 21:32
  you kill the rest. Great, you've managed to kill its board. Well,
• 21:34
  then he has think twice. That'll get grim Reminders again. So he
• 21:40
  has between Holi Fest, Grim Reminder and Think twice in three different houses the
• 21:44
  way to bring back his entire Brobmar board. Pretty good? Yeah, ritch
• 21:49
  pretty good? Does it really take skill just to play the same seven cards
• 21:53
  nine cards again and again and again? Would really? I mean, there's
• 22:00
  yeah, all right, come on, there's there's there's there's ordering, there's
• 22:03
  there's old you know, there's I mean this, I've never played this deck.
• 22:10
  This is what keem Vaz, Master of the Glacier. I've never played
• 22:17
  this deck. It does some good. There's some good stuff in here,
• 22:19
  right like, because what you mean in terms of being able to boost you
• 22:22
  up with the eddies and the the lash and the drum ble and so on
• 22:26
  and so forth, right and then and then knock you down. But I
• 22:33
  don't think this is just a necessarily a full auto play, right. You're
• 22:37
  trying to you're trying to execute a plan with this, and I'm the only
• 22:45
  person here plays a near autopilot deck. There you go, But it's not
• 22:51
  a pilot because x Ray sucks and he can't play it. Well. I
• 22:57
  know that my deck is also uh user friendly because and we'll get back to
• 23:02
  that, but okay, but it does have a couple of key cards that
• 23:10
  kind of have to come out at certain times, and when that doesn't happen,
• 23:14
  that's when that deck doesn't fire, and that's what happened games two and
• 23:17
  three. But if you outboard early, I could see where this might struggle
• 23:26
  if he can't get this unlock gate, right, yeah, if you if
• 23:30
  you can, if you can kill the harm will, obviously the harmle is
• 23:32
  the key, So I would I would I chained force Retirement for for most
• 23:38
  of several games, like Force retirement was my was my my ticket out of
• 23:42
  there, so I would be hard pressed to play it and at the cost
• 23:47
  moving slow. If eighty three SASS is a mediocre deck, I would hate
• 23:52
  to see what you say is straight fire ninety one fraud the easiest questions in
• 24:00
  the world next question. So so all that I just need the I need.
• 24:07
  I need like clarity in my life here. So anything below eighty is
• 24:11
  what just we just rip we just burned those or like, uh, yes
• 24:18
  it's okay, well we shred them burn here. But it might be a
• 24:23
  moderate Jenka deck so maybe it gets played, but yeah, otherwise they go
• 24:27
  into the obscurity pile, the uh the box of shame as we call it.
• 24:34
  Yeah. Yes, the other the other challenge with this deck for if
• 24:41
  you're piloting it, Uh, I'm gonna say pilot a lot now since I
• 24:45
  know quick draw doesn't doesn't like a pilot. So, uh, it's only
• 24:51
  got three emberor pips. The entire deck that's really low, right. One
• 24:56
  of them is your rants and drive that you're probably holding to try to uh
• 25:00
  do your your fancy moves a scale okay good, and then wild wormhole,
• 25:07
  which could be risky at times, so you need to reap this is this
• 25:15
  is very true and you and or you can just roll six with ganger chieftains.
• 25:18
  You know for that you always spin the wheel which is also reaping.
• 25:25
  So yes, reaping, reaping wins games. We have learned this, okay,
• 25:29
  and there's no tokens to to get rid of, like you can't accidentally
• 25:32
  token your brick, nasty. How many rounds did you play in total?
• 25:37
  So yet five? I went, uh four to one? Does that make
• 25:41
  sense for uh drazz? You went you were three two? Yeah? I
• 25:45
  was? I was three two? I was. That makes yeah, so
• 25:49
  that makes me? Yeah, so for one day one and then uh the
• 25:52
  so six games? No what five games and then three more on the next
• 25:59
  day or depending? Was that? Uh so yeah, I think you also
• 26:03
  have the distinction now for longest untimed final. I do believe you took that
• 26:11
  from Nova and Seattle. I'm not one hundred percent of details, but your
• 26:15
  second game was like an hour and a half alone, wasn't it. I
• 26:18
  couldn't tell you time. Time was not moving while I was in that game.
• 26:22
  I know because we were watching you play like that was that was?
• 26:27
  It was a very long game. I don't remember the exact time, but
• 26:30
  like it, you guys played for a long long time. I was determined
• 26:36
  to not lose by misplay, which he did not. He did not play
• 26:40
  slowly. I played slowly well, But I'm not commenting anything about slow play.
• 26:47
  I don't think the game in Seattle was sole play. It's just a
• 26:51
  situation where you can encounter each other's plays multiple times, uh, which can
• 26:57
  really go on because you know, he walk and I have played a few
• 27:00
  Woe games where we'll have cycled decks three times and nobody's got a key because
• 27:06
  they just like you make tokens, the other guy kills them, and then
• 27:10
  you make tokens and then that's just normally well, you have that you have
• 27:15
  the counter for what your opponent is going ahead and bringing. I will say
• 27:21
  Ben, for me, what really stood out in this game, having been
• 27:23
  in the same room, I think that it's really important for the greater community
• 27:30
  to understand how much mental fatigue can happen in this large tournament with the amount
• 27:36
  of games that were being played, and the idea not to take yourself out
• 27:41
  of a game. So we had talked about when you face this deck,
• 27:44
  you saw the matchup, but you kind of almost gave yourself I'll give a
• 27:51
  step down, like you you saw the advantage. You saw what the odds
• 27:53
  are for winning, and while the odds were not in your favor, your
• 27:59
  ability to kind of process and to see what outs were also early on in
• 28:03
  that first game, like, oh, I've already lost. And I think
• 28:07
  this is a really important aspect for top level competitive play because I remember being
• 28:11
  there and just like, hey, buddy, you got this, like calm
• 28:15
  down, slow down, So his slow play, you can go ahead and
• 28:18
  blame it on me. That's fine, he loses, slow walk. But
• 28:21
  Ben, after we had talked, like to see that joy round in game
• 28:25
  two when it finished, and then game three went very very very quick on
• 28:29
  the other side, right correct, seems super quick. So it does just
• 28:34
  come down that sometimes that match up and how the game goes back and forth
• 28:38
  will vary drastically from game to game. But I think, Ben, the
• 28:44
  part that I loved about your journey was the aspect that you controlled slowing yourself
• 28:48
  down and not working yourself into the loss. And I can't stress that enough.
• 28:53
  I think that you could have easily just given up on game two,
• 28:57
  but you didn't. You fought, and you fought, and you fought,
• 29:00
  and you kept looking for those outs, and that is the difference between your
• 29:06
  position and winning that open and just going ahead and finishing close. So that's
• 29:10
  that top level key top level key Forge community and like play that we're looking
• 29:15
  for that Oftentimes it's hard to quantify and really go ahead and showcase to people
• 29:21
  who aren't there. But awesome job, man. Yeah, I like that.
• 29:26
  I like how you know, talk of going slow, energize you walk
• 29:30
  over here to speak up, tribute to the conversation. Slow again, you
• 29:38
  may position it as slow, but the end result is being meticulous about your
• 29:44
  play and control is another level that can go ahead and allow you to be
• 29:48
  successful. Yeah, and me fall asleep at the table. So I definitely
• 29:55
  agree with a lot of what of what Jara said I do. I think
• 29:59
  I have a slightly different take, and that's I think are different mentalities,
• 30:02
  which is that I hang on, let me start that again. Oh no,
• 30:10
  you're gonna make Wookie trying to edit. He's not gonna just keep people.
• 30:14
  It'll be in there. We'll get some good throat sounds and clap.
• 30:19
  Okay, uh what I was saying? Okay? Uh so yeah, So
• 30:23
  so I do have different mentality than JR. In terms of I appreciate his
• 30:29
  his his pep talks and the optimist to me tries to in still, but
• 30:32
  I have I went into every single game day two assuming I was going to
• 30:37
  lose, and I found that that for me is the way to go auh,
• 30:41
  to to set myself up for okay, great we made each game was
• 30:45
  okay, we made it this far. I proud of myself. I did.
• 30:48
  I dide no misplays in day one between luck and good matchups. I
• 30:52
  made it to day two. But this is where the journey ends, and
• 30:56
  this is really awesome. I'm just happy to have made it to day two
• 30:57
  in the open, and then I won Top eight. Okay, sweet,
• 31:00
  I've looked at the next deck list. It's it's it's strategically one that that
• 31:04
  U OOZ has a lot of trouble with because it was a double uh cursed
• 31:10
  relic deck. So it goes very high, very fast, and ooz does
• 31:14
  not have any scaling amber control. So if you go to twelve, I
• 31:18
  say, oh right, good luck that you got it. For example,
• 31:22
  it didn't happen all right, I high rolled hard in that in that top
• 31:26
  four game. Uh and then yeah, and then I looked at the next
• 31:30
  decklist and I said Okay, great, Uh, this will be one where
• 31:33
  I'm really interested and excited to see that of all master Deck won the the
• 31:37
  Open. That'll be really interesting. Uh. He came really far to I
• 31:41
  forgot where back back, No, I think it's the name. Uh,
• 31:48
  I forget where he flew in from, but I believe it was a part
• 31:49
  distance. And so I told him like, all right, we're I think
• 31:53
  you're you're very favorite to win this one, and I'm rooting for you.
• 31:56
  H And that was true when he lost game two, and then I was
• 32:00
  still rooting for him when he when he also ended up not winning game three,
• 32:05
  and and I think that that showed in like our camaraderie while we were
• 32:08
  playing that match. But but yeah, the gist of what my response was
• 32:13
  to Jerr's comment was was, yes, you should have a positive outlook or
• 32:17
  you you have have have take the opportunity when when they're available, But I
• 32:23
  don't don't de send yourself up for disappointment. And then my my other comment
• 32:29
  about my performances, I do think that, uh, speaking of like experience
• 32:35
  and and practice, is that like it was absolutely the fruition or or the
• 32:37
  culmination of my key Forge career in terms of UH, A lot of that
• 32:43
  play style came, or at least a big part of the way that I
• 32:45
  played at h at World came from my Day two game with Z where I
• 32:52
  was playing Ooz and he when and I telegraphed very hard that I was holding
• 32:57
  on to hypnotic command and and he explained that after the game, He's like,
• 33:00
  hey, I mean all other play aside, just be careful of not
• 33:07
  deciding what your whole turn is going to be before you start your turn,
• 33:09
  because you really telegraph that you were holding onto one more Mars card. And
• 33:13
  that really stuck with me for the rest of this tournament, where the whole
• 33:16
  I thought through, ordered it all, sequenced the whole turnout before I started
• 33:21
  doing anything, and that could definitely have contributed to the duration of the games.
• 33:27
  And then part of it was also just experience. I was in my
• 33:30
  top eight game. My other the other player, mentioned that he was nervous,
• 33:31
  he's never made it this far and and there was some pressure on him
• 33:36
  from being like at Worlds in a top eight, and I was cool as
• 33:39
  a cucumber because this was my third time not to This is mean, sounds
• 33:44
  a little pumpsus, but it has been my third time making Day two,
• 33:45
  maybe fourth. At that point it had my nerves had calmed, like I
• 33:50
  knew what it felt like to be in day two and knew it felt like
• 33:52
  to play precisely and slowly and make sure you're doing you know, drawing cards
• 33:58
  face down, all that stuff. And I think that that uh, you
• 34:02
  know, at the end of the day, what was important was that I
• 34:05
  drew well, but also those other things. Yeah, if I ever find
• 34:08
  a top four in a major event, I don't know what I'll do.
• 34:10
  I might pass out top eight every day of the week. Top fours Nope,
• 34:16
  can't do thems them in Canada. But that's all other experience. Okay,
• 34:21
  So do you got any thoughts on Too Low that you want to share?
• 34:24
  That was? Yeah, well I was a big changes in the season.
• 34:29
  You did play pre too well? Oh you were at an event pre
• 34:31
  too well ow and post weren't you? Or yeah? I mean I was
• 34:36
  at Collinsville back when I was Swiss and and a bunch of other vaults back
• 34:37
  on, particularly in this twenty three season, was too well for gen Con?
• 34:45
  Uh No, it was right after gen Con. I think, yeah,
• 34:49
  so it could you double elimination at gen Con right after gen Con,
• 34:52
  after the pictures were released, the dirty pictures of Round one being four people.
• 35:00
  Yeah exactly. I remember past CTP at his booth about uh about it.
• 35:06
  It was all drazz Corey's like, man, just st Marcans corriers,
• 35:10
  guys, just do something about it. You're welcome to something. So you
• 35:15
  you did get to experience the full breadth of tournament formats for this year.
• 35:20
  Any thoughts on that, Yeah, just that's just a yeah that. I
• 35:23
  mean, part of it was obviously seeing the man is that that you had
• 35:27
  to go through sheep, as as the in the World's Art Hunt. But
• 35:31
  my yeah, my main thought is is that it needs to be slightly tweaked
• 35:35
  at least a little bit, to ship closer to perfect brackets, because when
• 35:40
  when those brackets get sloppy, uh, things get really silly. But I
• 35:45
  do see the benefit of it over, like I experienced the downside of the
• 35:50
  alternative of being of Swiss, where all the people start dropping out after they've
• 35:53
  lost twice and you get a bunch of weird buyes and the the whole process
• 36:00
  gets very uh screwed up. When when you try to do Swiss and people
• 36:04
  drop Yeah, well, thank you for thinking of me. I think I'm
• 36:10
  with you, like I think something needs to be cleaned up for the bracket
• 36:13
  side, or we just go back to three deck survival because that's basically too
• 36:19
  well. Ow, just listen, I have a cookie in my mouth,
• 36:27
  so I'm going to be short. I can't find one good deck, let
• 36:30
  alone three, So no, that is fair, all right? Is there
• 36:38
  anything else that you experienced in the meta field of open that you thought was
• 36:44
  interesting? Like you actually got to see a VM at a high level,
• 36:46
  So that's that's new. Like we've we've talked about it, people have feared
• 36:52
  it's going to be a thing. It still has not won anything major,
• 36:55
  but you did face one of the good ones. Yeah, it's a strong
• 37:00
  deck. There's other aall master decks out there that are absolutely bonkers, and
• 37:07
  I bet we'll keep seeing them pop up for once in a while. But
• 37:09
  I think that we don't see I think that randomness does play a large part,
• 37:14
  and there just aren't enough of them out there to see them come out
• 37:16
  from the from luck plus skill, I believe there was a Was there a
• 37:22
  DT deck in your field? Did you get to face it? I did
• 37:25
  not, and I had to ask people about what the relevant cards in DT
• 37:29
  were in the car ride when you're heading down, because I was like,
• 37:31
  if I face DT and I look at the deck list, I'm gonna I
• 37:34
  mean, first of all, everyone was so nice, like, if there's
• 37:36
  ever a question, there's one or two new cards I faced for the first
• 37:38
  time. Everyone is very welcoming and letting you know what things did. Yes,
• 37:46
  there was three point one percent dark tiding decks in the open. It
• 37:52
  was sixty seven percent winds of exchange, and seventy five percent of Day two
• 37:57
  was winds of exchange, so that that plays out and then Masters in there
• 38:01
  at one point five percent, So there was two DT decks D two poor
• 38:08
  poor folks. Wow. Okay, So you are the first person to be
• 38:13
  announced as a qualifier for twenty twenty four Worlds Woo, congratulations. How does
• 38:21
  that impact you're looking to the current non existent twenty twenty four tournament season.
• 38:28
  I think that I'll still obviously drive out to any driving distance fault, and
• 38:32
  then if there's sealed vaults, I'll be much more interested because sealed is just
• 38:37
  more fun in my opinion. Yeah, even as an owner of one of
• 38:42
  those top hold on hold on, hold on, say that again, just
• 38:45
  one more time. Just I need to make sure I heard you appropriately,
• 38:47
  and Josh, I need you to take notes one more time. Just run
• 38:52
  just like and then say it again, OK, and go. I think
• 38:58
  that Sealed is the most fun something for me. Uh. I would love
• 39:01
  to see Seal Menagerie as a as an. That would be really cool.
• 39:05
  Wow. Wow, you want to talk about random trash? All right,
• 39:08
  you might you might have crossed the line there, but you know what,
• 39:13
  We'll allow it. And if it brings oh jeez, if it brings back
• 39:17
  Sealed, we might have we might allow it. So I just think it'll
• 39:22
  bring new players. Maybe. I don't know. That is a question we
• 39:25
  are not able to answer. We think, but we don't know. So
• 39:30
  are you so you're qualified to our understanding unless something changes, like you're only
• 39:36
  qualified for ARCon World, which is bring a deck. It's true. Are
• 39:40
  you going to be in the market in this next season trying to find an
• 39:47
  upgrade? No? That sounds exhausting. I yeah, it's tough, right,
• 39:53
  it's it is a It is a very hard thing. U E Walk
• 40:00
  is just kind of coming off of that, like he was on an extensive
• 40:02
  search coming into Worlds twenty three trying to find something he was really feeling he
• 40:08
  could play and get somewhere with. Ultimately, somebody else found a deck and
• 40:13
  he got to play it, so it worked out well. But it is
• 40:15
  it is. It is almost demoralizing. I think I'd have to make I
• 40:21
  think I'd have to make a pen name or some sort of mask to mix,
• 40:23
  because otherwise, anybody that wants to sell for me, like understands that
• 40:27
  they're selling me a deck that they'll see at Worlds, right, like,
• 40:30
  that would make it harder to buy. I've seen it doesn't happen that much,
• 40:35
  but sometimes I see Team Sas struggle to go through with the purchase because
• 40:40
  the other people understand that they're selling a Team Sas. There may be truth
• 40:46
  to that. I would I don't know has said that for himself, right,
• 40:53
  And I've heard others mentioned as well. I don't know that. I
• 40:59
  don't know that it's happened for me, but who knows. I mean,
• 41:02
  yeah, we're rid of this buying decks. I don't. I don't I've
• 41:07
  bought. I've definitely bought lots of decks, but mostly Kalefe Dragon decks,
• 41:12
  one of the most expensive decks about was the single savior Kalefie Dragon deck in
• 41:15
  existence, and I'm extremely happy that I have it now. I did share
• 41:22
  a picture of your Khalifi wall in our chat in the show chat, so
• 41:29
  good luck finding it, guys. If you're not listening live, too bad,
• 41:31
  you don't get to see it all right. So As promised to let
• 41:36
  Well keep back in in this conversation because he doesn't he doesn't like interviewing people
• 41:38
  anymore. That's not his thing. But we also want to talk about a
• 41:42
  deck ascension, and it's a very specific reason I wanted to bring you on,
• 41:47
  Ben. I have heard rumors that is potentially your deck that is going
• 41:53
  to cause deck ascension to be a thing. That's really interesting. I had
• 41:58
  no idea because when you look at it, e wok. How did you
• 42:01
  do with it? Well? I did fairly well. This is the deck
• 42:07
  that's in Minnesota. I was able to take the second place, so us
• 42:12
  did very very well for me and qualified you for the event Drascore. How
• 42:16
  have you done with ooze uh to top eights? Ben? What's your record?
• 42:23
  Yeah? So top eight at gen Con UH and then UH zero and
• 42:29
  two in Canada. I will say and then obviously one that they are kind
• 42:32
  of open at Worlds with it. Well, that shoot's territory up there,
• 42:36
  so you got no chance. So that's right, you got it. You
• 42:39
  got to ask permission, you didn't kiss the ring, you don't get to
• 42:42
  win. And then Z's not here. Ze also played us in Seattle and
• 42:46
  took it to third and also got a World's invite. So how did you
• 42:53
  do with Ooz? I beat you walk in a practice game when I played
• 43:00
  it. Oh, I never I never ran Oose. I've had my own
• 43:05
  silly thing to play. Right, we're not here to talk about me.
• 43:07
  We talk about I'm at gen Con with it. That was last day one.
• 43:17
  Yeah, so fraud is also a deck that kind of hits this because
• 43:21
  it qualified me for Worlds through one event, and it also qualified Z and
• 43:27
  do ARCon before he upgraded his invitation. Right, he did upgrade to a
• 43:30
  win in Alliance. Sorry Alliance. I was gonna say, did he I
• 43:34
  was gonna say, didn't he get an Alliance? Yeah? He got a
• 43:37
  top three Alliance invite and then upgraded his to a win on a different deck.
• 43:43
  But you know, two of us are sitting here with two decks that
• 43:46
  I have accounted for sort of five total invites in a season that there was
• 43:53
  only eighty, right, like eighty eighty eight total invites everywhere, And the
• 43:58
  two of us own a deck that is wrapping. You know, we we're
• 44:01
  wrapping five anvice. I guess one is for twenty twenty four. So like
• 44:07
  that, that is a thing that the decks keep getting passed around. Now.
• 44:14
  An interesting thing that's totally aside to this is when EWOC played your deck
• 44:22
  in Minneapolis, you were not actually a member of Team SATs, so it
• 44:24
  was not like a team borrow at that time, right, Like h JR.
• 44:30
  Did a very good job of reaching out to you and saying, like
• 44:34
  you rock this. I like what it does. Can I use it?
• 44:36
  And you, being the giving person you are, you agreed to let him
• 44:38
  roll it. And then after that, yeah, I said we had to
• 44:45
  have you. And that's what I mean. I've been in the shadows of
• 44:49
  team stats for a while now, right where I've dripped down with you guys.
• 44:52
  Yeah, you travel with us all the time, like it's a so
• 44:57
  you're part of the group, and I think that's a really important part.
• 45:00
  Well, we see it as team SaaS the end result is you've been one
• 45:04
  of our travel buddies for a while. We love hanging out with you.
• 45:06
  And when you love hanging out with people, you want them to be on
• 45:08
  the team. That's a really important aspect for a team. Hey, who
• 45:12
  do I want to ask exactly it? Yeah? And I followed, Sheep
• 45:15
  from being in sanctimonious over over the says, yeah, yeah, we've been
• 45:20
  playing together since very early in this thing, so it is interesting. So
• 45:24
  we started talking about deck ascension, like is it fair that that many people
• 45:31
  qualified with the same deck. I don't, I mean, like, I
• 45:37
  don't actually think this is a team discussion because when you look at Mindy,
• 45:39
  which won an event and then was played by four other people throughout the season
• 45:45
  that I know of, and only one of those players was a repout player,
• 45:50
  like an APR player played at once, a SaaS player played at once.
• 45:57
  Wait who who played with the sea from sas uh Sydney Sydney Head in
• 46:02
  Canada and then in Canada? Okay, okay? And then JR Has played
• 46:07
  a reapout deck at a all tour. So it's people keep saying teams,
• 46:15
  and I just want to be clear, I think teams is the wrong word,
• 46:16
  because teams is really kind of identifying your friends group, especially the way
• 46:21
  this game goes now, there is a lot of sharing that has nothing to
• 46:27
  do with teams at this point. You know, I think it's also because
• 46:30
  the community is so great, small and niche, Like we all a lot
• 46:34
  of us know each other very very well, whether we're on the same team
• 46:38
  or not, because we played on a b R teams together, we played
• 46:40
  on weekly events together online. Like, it's a pretty tight community. But
• 46:47
  the person who runs, right, even the person who runs a b R
• 46:52
  is right, like right, so uh oh, by the way, he
• 46:57
  sign ups are up, so everybody should to go sign up for the next
• 47:00
  season a b R. It will start in January. So you got a
• 47:02
  few days, yes, uh so? But is is this a real discussion?
• 47:07
  Like is it a problem that who's kept qualifying people? Yes? I
• 47:16
  I'm not here to disagree with you, So talk to me. Talk to
• 47:22
  you why because that was a that was the resounding yes from Wookie. But
• 47:27
  why because you see it a little bit differently? All right, So what's
• 47:31
  our goal as the community, right, like we run a podcast, what's
• 47:37
  our goal us? It used to be to learn how to crush phase.
• 47:42
  Right, Okay, but what's but like, what is our our goal?
• 47:46
  Our goal is to hang out on Thursdays typically and talk about key Forge with
• 47:51
  friends, Gonna drive this truck right off a bridge? Okay? What what?
• 47:58
  Uh? I didn't did you get a right start this year? Rookie?
• 48:00
  So I don't. I don't know what my goals are? What's what's
• 48:02
  my okay rs for this year? So? Like what what? What do
• 48:06
  we all want to play keyboard correct? And what do you need? What
• 48:13
  do you need to play keyfde an op event? And what do you need?
• 48:19
  What do you need at set Opia? What do you need to have
• 48:22
  a set OPI event? Players? Player humans? So you need new players?
• 48:28
  Right we just said players. I mean I have you need? You
• 48:34
  need people? You need new players? I would I would, I would
• 48:40
  reckon a gander And I think there might be one person who has this type
• 48:46
  of information. Not pointing any elbows here, but I would wonder what the
• 48:53
  I would wonder what the percentage of people that went to all the ball tours
• 49:00
  was. What percentage were one one player? One player went to all the
• 49:05
  vault tours? Okay? What percentage were multiple multi offenders? And what percentage
• 49:13
  yeah, I think it's going to be higher. I don't know. I
• 49:20
  mean I did go to all but one vault, so there were a lot
• 49:24
  of local faces at almost every event. How many familiar faces were almost were
• 49:32
  at almost every event. I mean they're all on my team and then Reap
• 49:37
  out right, so there's probably a bus right off. There's probably twelve,
• 49:43
  twelve to fifteen people that went to a lot of them. Yeah, you
• 49:49
  talk about the post. The unresult is there is a select group that is
• 49:53
  extremely invested in this game. Yeah, they're dedicated. So they're okay,
• 49:59
  you call it stupid, you call it dedicated, But the end result is
• 50:01
  this group loves the game, is willing to invest a lot of money to
• 50:06
  travel for the game, to to go ahead and acquire important decks. They're
• 50:10
  putting a lot of time, energy, and money into the game, right.
• 50:15
  Okay, So from a business perspective, how does any of that time,
• 50:17
  money and energy help gig besides for like people like x Ray who just
• 50:22
  buy boxes. Okay, so what say I'm getting I'm a totally different point.
• 50:30
  But however, to acquire new people, you have to rotate decks that
• 50:34
  have a proven track record of being able to compete at a high level to
• 50:38
  move new decks in Why so, because the way this game sells decks if
• 50:46
  at some point like I don't I mean like this is all gut, I
• 50:52
  don't have any good facts. But as the number of different decks showing up
• 50:58
  in ARCon, if that number starts to shrink, like if it's not just
• 51:02
  players, but the number of decks that are showing up is not rolling over
• 51:07
  consistently, that indicates that the meta is really really stale. And if,
• 51:15
  as we have talked, like we know, buying sealed decks is a poor
• 51:21
  way in general to open, like we can't all be bent and open a
• 51:23
  news, right, some of us have to buy a fraud. Sure,
• 51:28
  So if that does get stale and the decks that are showing up are not
• 51:34
  changing much, it dissuades people even more from investing in an opening product because
• 51:38
  the chance of it being meaningful is low. A lot of that's perception.
• 51:44
  And there is a problem. And this is where the team talk. It's
• 51:46
  the thing is you keep seeing the same players at the tops. But if
• 51:50
  you look like Reapout and Devin, he top eight at almost every event he
• 51:54
  did, probably top eight every event he went to this year and he played
• 51:57
  a different deck every single But that's what I want to actually point out.
• 52:01
  So for me, for Philly and then gen Con, I played I went
• 52:06
  ahead and played Smoke. For Minnesota, I played Ooze. When I was
• 52:09
  down in Dallas, I played one of Devon's decks that I literally acquired with
• 52:14
  under under two minutes before deck registration was there in the Lion's deck, I
• 52:19
  played that so when you were and then I played Melndrack for Worlds. So
• 52:24
  if you look at all of the top eight finishes, the top like four
• 52:30
  finish that was there to to finish, these are all very very very strong
• 52:34
  finishes. And so while I hear this on a deck, you see Devin
• 52:39
  and myself both being able to make it across multiple different decks, and I
• 52:44
  think that is different. I think deck is part of it, but I
• 52:46
  think the player also. There is a seventy thirty split in decks, right,
• 52:51
  seventy percent of it is deck thirty percent of it. As player,
• 52:55
  you you go ahead and side it, think as you Ooh's top aided?
• 53:02
  How many times? Well? I do think that I just all I want
• 53:07
  is all I want is an answer, Who's that top aided how many times?
• 53:10
  Well, because I want to go ahead and talk and Drezz, I
• 53:13
  don't want to throw you under the bus here, but DRez you ran into
• 53:16
  some issues with Ooz because it just comes to matchup and I think people miss
• 53:22
  is player. It is. It is your luck in what you draw.
• 53:25
  So that is the matchups and it is thirty incasingly I so so the first
• 53:35
  time I top aid and lost to the Sandhopper deck, I actually should have
• 53:40
  done what Ben said he did before, which was hold that forced retirement because
• 53:50
  I was not. I was all of my the see and all of my
• 53:55
  talent scouts were not coming out, and I wasn't I wasn't able to knockout
• 54:00
  that. I didn't have anything in my hand to be able to take care
• 54:04
  of the steward once it appeared. Yeah, the sound shout's super strong against
• 54:07
  that deck, it is, but they didn't come. But I did get
• 54:10
  the forced retirement, and he put out his Sandhoppers and he didn't yet have
• 54:15
  he didn't have the that that steward yet. But I just used the force
• 54:20
  retirement on something and that was that was the big mistake, because I was
• 54:25
  like, I've got so many better options for it, but like, once
• 54:29
  he gets in that cycle, you're really screwed if you can't stop it immediately.
• 54:32
  So I could have interesting because against Ooh's with that deck, because I've
• 54:37
  actually played Faith online quite a few times now that the typical way you play
• 54:43
  that deck is you never leave the pipped up steward on the board at the
• 54:46
  end of the turn because right, they can't, they can't kill it,
• 54:50
  and then you just get to do it. But against oohs, if you
• 54:53
  own board, I guess you have to leave it out because of the talent
• 54:57
  scout. Yes, so so's interesting. I have not encountered that play,
• 55:01
  but that does change the way that deck plays in a way, and that
• 55:05
  is what and that's what Sith was doing. He was he was leaving it
• 55:09
  out because he was afraid of my talent scouts. And you know, I
• 55:16
  uh, that deck without the pipped up steward is real, real slow,
• 55:22
  real real slow. Yep. But I I didn't I didn't hold the forced
• 55:27
  retirement because I was like, I'll get my talent scouts, I'll get better
• 55:29
  stuff, and you know, that's not that good a card. It was.
• 55:34
  It was. I don't know if it would have won me the game.
• 55:37
  But but I did have it in hand and I could have held on
• 55:39
  to it. So there you go. Okay, so uh, not here
• 55:44
  obviously is the discussion of Nova and three event winning Jacques, yes one that
• 55:53
  one, not two Vault Tours and a whatever the other nation thank you Nationals?
• 56:05
  Like is that is it? And actually I played that deck once it
• 56:10
  turns out I'm a scrub, So I did not do that well with it.
• 56:16
  But but your your two losses. You lost the ooze when I was
• 56:21
  on it for Minnesota, and what was your other loss? Raider? Okay
• 56:25
  on Uh he went hot. I didn't go hot. You know, that's
• 56:30
  how it goes. Sometimes. Regardless of all this we have, we have
• 56:32
  really gone off the beaten path here. The fact of the matter is is
• 56:36
  that if you are from the outside looking in, if I am a player
• 56:39
  looking to get into KeyForge, and you're you're right, I'm not. I'm
• 56:44
  not looking at getting into key Forge. But I'm saying we get to the
• 56:46
  six month mark and maybe I'm starting to go to some some events where I
• 56:52
  gotta travel to right and I consistently see the same and it is as a
• 56:57
  perception is reality thing, So you have to control the narrative. So if
• 57:02
  I'm going to continue to see the same decks over and over and over and
• 57:07
  over and over and over and over and over again, which you are seeing,
• 57:10
  you can argue with me that, well, it's player dependent. It's
• 57:14
  not a lot of the same decks are repeating over and over again. And
• 57:20
  if I now am getting into my year mark and it's like, listen,
• 57:22
  bro I don't have a deck, so I'm just going to go and I
• 57:28
  can't change my deck. It's not like I can be like, oh well,
• 57:30
  if I just had this and maybe just make these minor tweaks here or
• 57:32
  there, like I can you know, battle against it. You can't.
• 57:37
  You gotta buy a whole new deck. Doesn't that make it easier, though,
• 57:42
  We'll keep in order to buy a deck if you know what's going to
• 57:45
  consistently be making top cut that you can find that counter, I mean,
• 57:49
  sand hopper white. What did you just say to So it doesn't it doesn't
• 57:53
  make it easier to just go buy a deck. Yes, counter, So
• 57:58
  I'm going to go buy a brand them deck and look for a hard counter
• 58:00
  to it. Oh no, no, I didn't say a random deck.
• 58:04
  I actually said on the secondary market. So let me be very very clear
• 58:07
  about that. If we look on the secondary market, if you know that
• 58:09
  Faith is going to consistently be there, or you're looking at Minity, or
• 58:13
  you're looking at Melan Jacks or whatever deck you want to be able to put
• 58:16
  in, ooh or better, I have a better idea. I can just
• 58:21
  go play Commander. Like the the reality of the situation is this is what
• 58:29
  you face? Is it? Because there were plenty of yes. But what
• 58:36
  I'm saying is other card games out there where I have more control of what's
• 58:40
  in my deck? How do I control the narrative? How? The thing
• 58:45
  you got to think of is how does Keith Forge control the narrative of the
• 58:50
  same people with the same decks being dominant in everything they do. But it's
• 58:54
  not the same if you get different decks, it's different people are different decks.
• 59:00
  It is the same decks with multiple people. I mean, did melon
• 59:06
  did melondrac go ahead and show up before nobody even owned me? When actually
• 59:12
  actually Melondraq was owned by both Devin and z before. But did it ever?
• 59:17
  Did it ever? See? Why? Why not? Because I don't
• 59:22
  know why not owned by a player? Actually because because people haven't gone ahead
• 59:27
  for the because people, yes, Devin did, because people go ahead and
• 59:31
  are making decisions on I don't have decks, and okay, this is what
• 59:36
  you're doing. You're going far off right. Because Oo's did show up to
• 59:42
  almost every event. Fraud did show up to almost every event. Jacques showed
• 59:45
  up to a ton of events. Some reepout decks were very consistently showed up.
• 59:52
  There are decks that did show up a lot and did consistently good.
• 1:00:00
  Here here's the other thing that I But if we also have if we also
• 1:00:02
  have people who are going ahead and making it still into the top eight,
• 1:00:07
  who are not on your teams or do not have decks that are identified,
• 1:00:12
  I still think that it is open. Just because they're not identified does not
• 1:00:15
  mean it's not good. It just means it hasn't shown up yet. But
• 1:00:19
  what I'm saying is in comparisons that it isn't a fixed matter. What I'm
• 1:00:22
  saying is if the tome it's not to be a fixed If like you went
• 1:00:25
  to three events in a row and it was the same, we're always the
• 1:00:30
  same. That is a huge, huge problem. That's not what we're seeing.
• 1:00:35
  We're seeing one or two decks correct, And that is a very big
• 1:00:38
  difference because of a field of a game where decks are supposed to be unique,
• 1:00:45
  which is kind of the antithesis of key Forge, Like the point of
• 1:00:51
  key Forge is supposed to be new experiences and new decks are not. Like
• 1:00:55
  that's the way a lot of people like Sealed, like Keith for they're not
• 1:01:00
  in this game because they only play one deck forever. That's not I mean,
• 1:01:07
  like most people have decks they like to play, but it is not
• 1:01:10
  a lot of people that are not me or some of the people here,
• 1:01:15
  Like the variety is half the spice of this game, and there is a
• 1:01:22
  reduction in variety. And the question is is would the question we're getting and
• 1:01:29
  we're just right around is would deck ascension actually make anything? What would that
• 1:01:32
  look like? My flat rule would be, if a deck qualifies for Worlds,
• 1:01:38
  it's out for the rest of the season. In theory, if that
• 1:01:43
  was always guaranteed to come with a prize of value X, you can think
• 1:01:49
  of it as being paid to not play your deck anymore that season. If
• 1:01:52
  it doesn't always come with a value, that's harder because then you're like,
• 1:01:58
  okay, so I played once and now the one deck I own that's good
• 1:02:00
  enough can't be played for the rest of the season. Uh, this sucks.
• 1:02:05
  Like what am I going to do for the rest of the season because
• 1:02:07
  I'm so able to buy another good deck? What? What? What?
• 1:02:13
  But but what does it do to all the other sub decks in your collection?
• 1:02:17
  Nothing? Because everything else isn't good enough to matter. But if I'm
• 1:02:22
  also eliminating a lot of the good decks, does it not You're now going
• 1:02:25
  to eliminate enough to I'm not saying the seventy fives of the world, but
• 1:02:31
  I'm saying, like your subpard decks are going to now see some play.
• 1:02:36
  No. I disagree about that. I don't I I don't like you eliminate
• 1:02:40
  one deck. I'm telling you if you eliminate I'm not lose. If you
• 1:02:44
  eliminate Melondrec, there's just another deck that is there ready to come in.
• 1:02:49
  Well, it doesn't. It doesn't go ahead and open up like you think
• 1:02:52
  all the other decks and we do need to see what can we do with
• 1:02:54
  our other decks, but it it it opens You guys are talking about eliminating
• 1:03:00
  one deck. I'm not. I'm talking about eliminating eight decks a vault to
• 1:03:06
  her. But again, cheap is very spot on. What are you doing
• 1:03:09
  to that? If you go ahead and foil that deck, if you gain
• 1:03:13
  some advantage and you can then play it at Worlds, awesome, there is
• 1:03:16
  an advantage for it. But if you're just saying, hey, top two
• 1:03:20
  qualify for Worlds, you get something, and then all the top eight decks
• 1:03:23
  are gone, that's awful. You wouldn't even want to play top eight,
• 1:03:30
  all right, So who gets money? Top four? Top four? All
• 1:03:34
  right? So top four get eliminate, are done forever until Worlds. They're
• 1:03:37
  allowed to play in the Worlds, and then they have ascended. I mean,
• 1:03:40
  this is why if if Worlds is the refresh, it's actually the World's
• 1:03:44
  invite. Is that matters because also you don't get an invite for no no,
• 1:03:47
  no weld. I'm not saying they're done until Worlds. I'm saying they
• 1:03:52
  can be played at Worlds, and then at Worlds we have a grand ceremony
• 1:03:54
  for all the archons we have lost in twenty twenty four. They are done.
• 1:04:00
  They will not be played anymore. They have ascended. That's uh,
• 1:04:03
  I mean, so that's a thing it's not terrible outside of the ramifications of
• 1:04:13
  just wasting all the paper and destroying sort of the value of secondary market,
• 1:04:19
  Like does your secondary market does it bring some decks that have zero value to
• 1:04:25
  some value? No? It it doesn't squash everything back down, and then
• 1:04:30
  you sort of like you start filtering out. I'm like what you're saying,
• 1:04:35
  and people were played a lot Ben who who's gun? Silent? As we
• 1:04:41
  ramble, now, I know your deck collection is not as strong, maybe
• 1:04:45
  like your number two deck is not in the same ballpark as Ooz. Like
• 1:04:51
  I have to go from what I am onto a deck called square Bus,
• 1:04:54
  which is good but it's not great. But what I played at a Vault
• 1:04:58
  certainly. Have I played at a volt certainly, but it's it's not on
• 1:05:02
  the same level. Ah, and Wookie is right. I would actually like
• 1:05:08
  the opportunity where that deck could be played and had fun with in a meaningful
• 1:05:13
  event, which it doesn't have right now. Like that that's you and you're
• 1:05:17
  talking about matchup dependent I eliminate four matchups immediately. You don't think that opens
• 1:05:25
  up matchups now for other decks to come in definitely? I I just I
• 1:05:31
  think you're on a typical wookie like say a really big thing without understanding the
• 1:05:36
  ramifications. No, I understand what. I understand the ramifications. I do
• 1:05:43
  not think you're I do well, okay, so explain to me the ramifications
• 1:05:46
  and then I'll I don't think you understand the ramifications on how that's going to
• 1:05:50
  affect secondary market and deckbind Why does GG care because they want to sell Yeah,
• 1:05:58
  the secondary mark get A healthy secondary market is important for any game.
• 1:06:02
  Yes, correct, However, and so I think having those top you guys
• 1:06:09
  at a healthy secondary market, we do. There is no healthy secondary market
• 1:06:14
  right now. I think what I'm saying is that the more decks you have
• 1:06:19
  going for bigger dollars, the more that lifts other portions of the market and
• 1:06:25
  makes people think, hey, I can buy stuff and maybe I can sell
• 1:06:27
  some of it and get some money back. Like I think, I do
• 1:06:30
  think it's good. I don't see. I don't see our secondary market is
• 1:06:36
  healthy right now, our secondary market and say it was, that's just saying.
• 1:06:42
  I'm just saying. If I agree with the thought that if you,
• 1:06:45
  uh, if you get rid of too many decks, right, if you
• 1:06:49
  send too many decks, it will right, it'll depress the value of those
• 1:06:55
  decks, and it'll or if you want to think of it the other way,
• 1:06:58
  like, it'll constrain the growth of or time of the value of those
• 1:07:00
  decks. I am talking twelve to sixteen decks a year, considering why does
• 1:07:06
  think we have we have three to four vault tours and you think that'll make
• 1:07:11
  our coun players be like, oh, I actually stand a chance now because
• 1:07:14
  those yes, because because it is it's a perception thing, purely a perception.
• 1:07:18
  So so okay, So when it comes to perception and new players like
• 1:07:21
  I I don't know, so like, okay, how many times has Ooze
• 1:07:27
  come in first place? Once? Right? This last time? I'll open
• 1:07:30
  Yes, that's open. So if new players top decks in the world with
• 1:07:34
  the thirty two top players in the world, yeah, sixty four. There
• 1:07:39
  you go. So, but but let's just say a new players looking at
• 1:07:43
  well, let's just pretend for a second Wikipedia. There's a lot of stuff
• 1:07:45
  on Wikipedia about k Fords are like, oh, let me see which decks
• 1:07:49
  have won, right, and if they saw I feel like I don't know
• 1:07:54
  that they would look through the list of let me see all the top eight
• 1:07:57
  and let you googatrol f and how many have I found? Right? You
• 1:07:59
  just sort of scroll through right to me. I feel like seeing Jack shock
• 1:08:02
  Jock is more impactful to that new player saying, oh hey, what's this
• 1:08:08
  versus the number of times that Ooze has gotten top eight. I mean,
• 1:08:15
  yeah, Josh, I said, originally a send the whole top eight.
• 1:08:17
  But like most things, I think I got a little over zealous. I
• 1:08:24
  don't what have them been disgusting? Is that? I think the biggest impact
• 1:08:26
  ascension would have is a is deck borrowing, because you're not gonna you're not
• 1:08:30
  gonna borrow, You're not gonna lend out your favorite deck if there's a chance
• 1:08:33
  that it'll get somebody else into the world, and then you don't get to
• 1:08:36
  play it right like it even less. I think that's the biggest impact is
• 1:08:44
  I think that you lend it out less if if. And that's that's an
• 1:08:48
  interesting statement there, Ben, because we see the difference between f FG and
• 1:08:54
  gig and how the ability to borrow decks has been handled. So early in
• 1:09:00
  discussion of deck Ascension, people were talking about how imminent deck printing was going
• 1:09:04
  to be and how we're going to have these subscription services pop up where oh
• 1:09:08
  you can you can get access to Yeah, exactly, Thanks she for starting
• 1:09:13
  that. So this could be just getting ahead of that issue before it becomes
• 1:09:15
  an issue, right like Brad will travel the world. If you can print
• 1:09:18
  a second copy of it and bring it to you know, have it be
• 1:09:20
  in Italy and in the US. Yeah. So my question, my question
• 1:09:28
  here is ewok, you're so against it? Why Why? Because I don't
• 1:09:34
  see the true impact on the game. I think that if you're going ahead
• 1:09:40
  and pulling out one and two and those have qualified and you have it for
• 1:09:44
  Worlds, it is a timeout piece. That is fine, But you have
• 1:09:46
  people who have invested a lot of time and money into a deck. I
• 1:09:51
  mean, man, I'm thinking about June, who I'd played with a thousand
• 1:09:55
  reps on a deck and she qualified, and now you're just saying, hey,
• 1:10:00
  my favorite deck because she played Alliance, but that was that was her
• 1:10:06
  choice. But it's gone. But if you talk to it correct, it
• 1:10:12
  would be gone forever, Tours, World's Nationals, forever. But that's her
• 1:10:17
  for this season or forever forever. No, he's saying forever, and that's
• 1:10:23
  the That's the thing is that I have to stand up for players like that
• 1:10:26
  who have invested the time for those reps. If you are passionate about a
• 1:10:30
  deck, I don't mind a timeout until Worlds. Fine, enjoy it for
• 1:10:34
  the season, come back because frankly, as we add new sets, you
• 1:10:38
  guys act like metas don't change in other games where you have to completely start
• 1:10:43
  from the ground and work your way up. This is your card games.
• 1:10:46
  But what you are doing is modifying the meta. So for me, Wikie,
• 1:10:55
  what I'm seeing is that if we're doing something special with it, awesome,
• 1:11:00
  we get to get some true value then out of that deck ascension.
• 1:11:03
  But if you if you're time it out until Worlds, that makes sense to
• 1:11:06
  me. If you're going out and timing it out long term, it becomes
• 1:11:10
  even less. What's likely that so then it just comes back next year.
• 1:11:15
  I mean, that just doesn't make sense. What's what's plays in one event
• 1:11:17
  and that it's out and for the rest of the season, Like that's good
• 1:11:21
  these decks and be beaten, like these decks aren't, aren't unbeatable. But
• 1:11:26
  I was fifty to fifty twin toss most in many of those games in the
• 1:11:30
  open where I think disception was fifty to fifty. I think the reality is
• 1:11:34
  much different. Well, I think that there is a percentage above fifty,
• 1:11:40
  but again I don't think that it's an eighty or ninety percent, which is
• 1:11:44
  looky what I feel you're trying to lean into. I think that we have
• 1:11:47
  to understand that some of these decks do have at they have a higher percentage
• 1:11:53
  chance if if I look at my reversal deck versus what I'm playing with Melondrack.
• 1:11:57
  Sure, Melonjack is going to go ahead and win that cansistently, but
• 1:12:00
  it doesn't mean that it's completely out of possibility that our other decks are going
• 1:12:04
  to win. A thing I'm hearing from everybody is I've spent a lot of
• 1:12:09
  money on these things, and I don't want to lose them. But if
• 1:12:13
  if you have, if you have competitive players that have invested that money,
• 1:12:16
  why would they do it again? So so what because they want to remain
• 1:12:20
  competitive? Right? This is what he talks about all the time, remaining
• 1:12:24
  competitive, being competitive. People who want to remain competitive are spending the money
• 1:12:29
  going to Vault Tours doing all these things, right like this is this is
• 1:12:31
  what we've spouted off for a majority of the Vault Tour season but we've also
• 1:12:35
  gone ahead from the beginning and been given this statement that it's ever green,
• 1:12:41
  and that's not true. Been plenty of times where we have talked about dex
• 1:12:46
  ascension from FFG for many times never said money and deck ascension are linked,
• 1:12:55
  right, they said old decks don't get to play for the money that was
• 1:13:00
  had. They went ahead and said that they would never delivered geared system.
• 1:13:02
  Correct, they never, They never delivered, and that's what they were gonna
• 1:13:05
  do. Deck is said, like the whole one deck thing, that is
• 1:13:08
  a Richard Garfield correct thing. This isn't Richard Garfield's game. Well, it
• 1:13:15
  is his game, but you gotta quit that. That's I totally disagree with
• 1:13:20
  that end. If that's the model, you can just wrap up and close
• 1:13:25
  because this is a dead game. If everybody only buys one thirteen dollars deck
• 1:13:28
  and they never played again, this is called single print run. Never look
• 1:13:31
  at again that That isn't a model for a game. That is a game.
• 1:13:39
  So if I were to tell you that if you are going to buy
• 1:13:42
  a deck, and you're going to buy a deck on the secondary market,
• 1:13:44
  that you might if you go and you win, you might have to do
• 1:13:46
  it again. The idea would be is that deck deck prices would come down
• 1:13:51
  correct not nice. In theory, what do you mean there's and there's plenty
• 1:13:59
  of decks. There's lots of decks out there, tons of decks. How
• 1:14:01
  about you need I got lots of decks. So when you there are no
• 1:14:06
  decks to go and play with because there's only eight that win events, and
• 1:14:10
  you're you're kind of getting around like you're I don't rattling. I don't think
• 1:14:15
  eliminating sixteen decks a year would make him meaningful. No, a real meaningful
• 1:14:23
  thing. Maybe not in year one, but in your year two, I
• 1:14:27
  think it does, and year three it does, and you're four it that
• 1:14:29
  it can either printing new sets with good decks and good cards, and in
• 1:14:34
  theory and hopes, I had higher hopes for Briar's archists for changing the meta.
• 1:14:40
  Every every now and again you get a DT set. It's rare,
• 1:14:44
  but it's an answer to so many different UH and in any way UH action
• 1:14:53
  based. Oh I play three cards, I win. But this is what
• 1:14:57
  ZI has said for the longest time. Are powerful cards need to be in
• 1:15:00
  common that is extremely important where that's got nothing to do with that evens No,
• 1:15:06
  no, no, it doesn't have to do with dec excemption. We
• 1:15:09
  if we want to be able to rotate, if you want to have an
• 1:15:11
  impact on the meta in the cards, then put your powerful cards in the
• 1:15:15
  common slot. That's what it has to do with. Well, that's a
• 1:15:18
  whole other like power creep, whatever issue thing going on. The real question
• 1:15:24
  that that that all there is is is deck ascension and the discussion I wanted
• 1:15:30
  to attempt to have to day, which of course we never do a good
• 1:15:32
  job on, is is deck ascension something that really should be considered. And
• 1:15:40
  I will say from an owner of the most expensive deck in KeyForge, public
• 1:15:44
  sale might be a private sale deck that's sold for more. I'm not certain.
• 1:15:50
  Uh, I would be on happy if it retired with just a qualifications
• 1:16:00
  to world and not the paycheck. And this is a funny thing for me
• 1:16:04
  saying, because I don't support money in KeyForge, right, I've never been
• 1:16:10
  a big fan of it. But if you're going to like, you can't
• 1:16:18
  you can't provide different levels, significantly different levels of value to people when you
• 1:16:25
  take their toys away, right, Like that has to be level, Like
• 1:16:29
  I don't mind them taking toys away like they like a ton of people had
• 1:16:33
  thousand dollars nepsy library access decks early on that all got nerved and sucked now
• 1:16:40
  right, like once that combo went away, those decks lost all their thing.
• 1:16:44
  Like that's gonna happen. You're going to spend money on a thing,
• 1:16:46
  you know, and the deck doesn't keep up with the meta they you know,
• 1:16:50
  like in other games they ban a key card to it or limit a
• 1:16:55
  key card to it, and that deck is no longer viable. Most other
• 1:16:59
  games, you can piece some of the stuff out, but the overall value
• 1:17:00
  does decline in certain decks, you know, like that individual car places go
• 1:17:05
  down because they're only good because of something else. So that happens, and
• 1:17:10
  other things like it is a risk anybody who anybody who has bought a deck
• 1:17:14
  in this game thinking investment. I'm not here to defend if you're buying a
• 1:17:19
  deck thinking it is an investment. Where we're talking different languages, right,
• 1:17:25
  any money spent on cards, cards, games or this is I mean,
• 1:17:29
  I'm a firm believer you should not think of it as an investment. It
• 1:17:31
  should be out of your discretionary income. And if you lose it. You
• 1:17:35
  can't be heartbroken about it because game companies often don't make very good decisions for
• 1:17:43
  supporting secondary markets, and you can't blame them for it because secondary market doesn't
• 1:17:49
  always equate to more sales from the game company, which is what they're there
• 1:17:54
  to do. They're there to sell cards, right, like to sell more
• 1:17:58
  cards, not making so you're old cards are worth more. There is a
• 1:18:01
  balance, right, like if there's no secondary market, that hurts, but
• 1:18:05
  that's rarely the focus. And it so like deck ascension, I'm okay with
• 1:18:13
  it. I'm okay with it being said that for a period of time you
• 1:18:17
  can't just keep showing up with the same thing. But for to take it
• 1:18:20
  away forever, I would be hurt by that, both financially and uh personally,
• 1:18:30
  Like it would make me upset. But they ban cards and other games,
• 1:18:34
  and like you're just gonna be like, well, that's a thing,
• 1:18:38
  and then you're never gonna spend that kind of money on a deck again.
• 1:18:41
  And it will like if they were banned forever, it would reduce the value.
• 1:18:46
  Nobody would ever pay, ever pay more than like you would think the
• 1:18:53
  prices would sort of cap at whatever the minimum you could win is right if
• 1:18:58
  first and second always got ascended in second place stayed with the same prizes at
• 1:19:04
  vaulteurs of fifteen hundred bucks, like that would kind of cat prizes because you're
• 1:19:08
  like, there's a chance that this deck only ever returns me fifteen hundred dollars
• 1:19:13
  and then it's done forever. That is going to affect deck prices. It
• 1:19:18
  might even actually bring a benchmark to where you could say what a deck is
• 1:19:26
  worth, Like, is this a top to vaulture deck, then it's a
• 1:19:29
  fifteen hundred dollars deck, because right now, what's a top two vaultuer deck?
• 1:19:31
  I don't know. Some people are like, you should never pay more
• 1:19:33
  than a hundred dollars for a deck, and then there's another day who pays
• 1:19:36
  thirty six hundred dollars for a deck. So, like, prices and key
• 1:19:42
  Forger are the most violatile, crazy numbers in the world that are totally meaningless,
• 1:19:46
  and this is the first season where you've ever even been able to actually
• 1:19:48
  get a financial return on it. Here's my question, why should I play
• 1:19:56
  key Forge as opposed to Magic Fun Financially you don't have to build decks,
• 1:20:02
  Okay, I don't have to build decks financially. But but I want to
• 1:20:09
  be competitive in a game, right, so so financially, So how much
• 1:20:15
  is a key forge deck going to cost? A good key forge deck,
• 1:20:18
  a solid winning key forge deck gonna cost me? Do you under the blacondary
• 1:20:24
  market or for second secondary market? I'm not going to pick a random one
• 1:20:29
  out of a box. Secondary market? How much a few hundred five,
• 1:20:38
  five hundred. There's a scale where if you put in hours and hours you
• 1:20:42
  can find a real diamond in the rough. But but usually you'll pay yeah,
• 1:20:46
  exactly, I'm a dad. I don't have hours and hours exactly.
• 1:20:49
  So I mean, realistically, I've heard sheeps say many times, if you're
• 1:20:58
  not ready to bust out a thousand, forget about it. You've said that
• 1:21:01
  multiple times. Five thousand dollars five is real numbers these days? Right now,
• 1:21:06
  I think I think that number has changed from when we were looking at
• 1:21:11
  fraud frankly, and what was about on the secondary market. Different equation,
• 1:21:15
  no, no, no, no, But I want to say this,
• 1:21:17
  but when we had talked about fraud and the purchase and what decks were available
• 1:21:20
  and how they are transpiring at that point, now that woe has come out.
• 1:21:26
  I think that it is easier to be able to buy a deck for
• 1:21:29
  Woe that is in that one hundred to five hundred dollars range that I can
• 1:21:32
  go ahead and make Day two with that is top eight, I think,
• 1:21:38
  I think, I think five hundred is a very reasonable spot and to be
• 1:21:42
  able to give me a very good Woe deck. All right, how much
• 1:21:45
  if I wanted to go build a modern deck, a good modern deck,
• 1:21:48
  how much is that going to cost me? No idea? You're talking about
• 1:21:53
  magic? Yeah, take a guess A million dollars to Nope, But I
• 1:22:01
  don't care because I have absolutely no idi. I understand you don't care,
• 1:22:05
  but I'm saying, but I am saying, that's that's your sheep. When
• 1:22:10
  I go into my local game store, key Forge players they're here because key
• 1:22:15
  Forge doesn't require doing what you do in the other kinds of card games.
• 1:22:19
  All right, So according to Google in the first result, eight hundred two
• 1:22:24
  one thousand dollars, so about what a key Forge deck is going to cost
• 1:22:28
  me? Right, m hm? But with magic, look at the places
• 1:22:32
  you can use that I do. Letna say I can use that a ton
• 1:22:35
  more places in magic. Not only that, what the big advantage of what
• 1:22:40
  Magic has over key Forge. I have to drop all grand right now,
• 1:22:45
  whereas in Magic I can piecemeal it. I don't have to have it all
• 1:22:49
  right now. But I can buy a few cards here at this check,
• 1:22:53
  and I can buy a few cards here on this check. But you're not
• 1:22:56
  competitive until you have the whole thing. So just save your money and buy
• 1:23:00
  a deck. Like no money for magics and drafts, right, isn't isn't
• 1:23:03
  draft nights the big thing for Magic? Well? That's I mean that's the
• 1:23:06
  game stores money, sure, and money is what we're talking abou right,
• 1:23:11
  we're talking about how to get GG more money. No, we are talking
• 1:23:15
  how to get more players into this game. Yeah, okay, so yeah,
• 1:23:17
  but I mean ultimately for G yeah, it is in their financial interest
• 1:23:24
  to start giving the acts to some of these older decks. And maybe we
• 1:23:30
  don't have rotation, maybe we have ascension selling selling more decks, getting people
• 1:23:36
  to buy more decks seems pretty key to uh card game companies structure. I
• 1:23:43
  totally agree. I'm not. I think cheap. Why don't you why don't
• 1:23:47
  you open more Woe decks? I open decks when I play them. Now,
• 1:23:51
  Okay, I opened lots of decks. Still, I just only opened
• 1:23:56
  them to play them because I have found the less of interest in opening decks
• 1:24:01
  and not playing them. Like then, it does not provide me happiness to
• 1:24:08
  open decks and not play them. Did that become more? Did that?
• 1:24:12
  Did that feeling become more? After you had a deck? You know?
• 1:24:15
  You knew that this is what I'm going to be taking to said to said
• 1:24:18
  event every time. No, Actually, that happened right at the start of
• 1:24:25
  the pandemic. Yeah, for and for me, I think that it's happened
• 1:24:28
  as we've acquired more and more and more decks, and we've talked about this
• 1:24:30
  extensively. But when you just have more decks, you don't gain contentness,
• 1:24:36
  and so you have to look at where's the joy the joys naked? Well?
• 1:24:42
  But but but why did why did she you and I open it on
• 1:24:45
  Tuesday? Because we were together. It was a social gathering. It was
• 1:24:48
  fun, even with the horrible deck that she pulled and we played. Yeah,
• 1:24:57
  I have a deck for you, please stop putting them in. I
• 1:25:00
  left that baby on the table. Somebody, Okay. It equated to a
• 1:25:09
  night out, and it is cheaper to do that than to go ahead and
• 1:25:12
  go to a movie or about comparable is cheaper than a night at the bar,
• 1:25:15
  things of that sort. So if you look at it as an investment
• 1:25:18
  for a social time with friends, it's a great investment. But if you're
• 1:25:24
  looking at it from a competitive standpoint, no, opening a random deck is
• 1:25:29
  not in our best interest. Okay, but deak ascension, let's close this
• 1:25:32
  off and go to bed, because we've been recording for a long time.
• 1:25:35
  So across the board, I'm I'm in a middling support position, like I
• 1:25:45
  would not mind seeing some force change in meta. I'm not one hundred percent
• 1:25:51
  sold on worlds because, like you also, like what if you're a player
• 1:25:55
  who's gonna get you can go to two vaults this year, but not worlds,
• 1:25:57
  Like you don't want to lose your deck two two worlds that you know
• 1:26:02
  you're not even attending, Like that's a that's sad, Like a lot of
• 1:26:10
  people do have very large personal connections with their decks, and eliminating that,
• 1:26:17
  like that ability to have a personal connection with a deck and have it be
• 1:26:23
  a thing and something is yes is is something that I don't think would be
• 1:26:30
  strong for the game in the long run. I don't think that like ascending
• 1:26:38
  tons of decks to me, is not what key Forge is now. Top
• 1:26:45
  End meta of ARCon is also not the best part of key Forge. I
• 1:26:51
  enjoy it, but it is not the best part of KeyForge. Sealed and
• 1:26:59
  casual play is is the in my vision standard now, it's the golden standard
• 1:27:06
  of playing key Forge. I also like top end Murder key Forge, but
• 1:27:13
  when I'm playing that, it's a little bit different mindset, So I'm I'm
• 1:27:17
  not opposed to it. Uh, but what could I give you? The
• 1:27:26
  negatives of it, like are a lot like to just especially in a permanent
• 1:27:33
  system, like you're saying, Okay, I think a seasonal thing I think
• 1:27:38
  is sufferable, like if you know, you're you know, But then it's
• 1:27:42
  just it's the same ship next season, is it? Though that's a lot
• 1:27:48
  of the different all are still going to be around next next set, There's
• 1:27:57
  still going to be around the set after that. There's a very scarcity mindset.
• 1:28:01
  Yeah, but if so, if Keyboards actually grew, then there'd be
• 1:28:04
  enough vaults that you wouldn't that it wouldn't be as big of a deal,
• 1:28:08
  Like if there was only ten vaults a year, Yeah, it's huge but
• 1:28:11
  if if we should be thinking of a mindset of like I mean, I
• 1:28:14
  know, realistically, next year is not going to be I'm thinking it's three
• 1:28:16
  to four vaults a year. That's my honest like thought. Like four vaults
• 1:28:23
  a year I think is more than enough. Is the actual problem that the
• 1:28:30
  player base is too small because you're really talking about taking decks away from twenty
• 1:28:38
  Yeah, I could I name the twenty individuals and the twenty decks that you're
• 1:28:41
  going to send in the first year, all right, Like I could,
• 1:28:44
  I could probably name that. So the people who are you're right, I
• 1:28:49
  guaranteed results, No, but like you do pretty good. But is that
• 1:28:57
  not more of a problem of that there isn't enough different faces in the game,
• 1:29:01
  Like if if every Vault Tour had two hundred players showing up at it,
• 1:29:06
  it would not be the same tacks making to the top. Like the
• 1:29:13
  variance that is key Forge would cause more elimination of players that of consistency like
• 1:29:21
  the bigger the event, you know, Key Forges a game of luck and
• 1:29:27
  draw and the bigger the event and more. I think there's more inconsistencies there
• 1:29:31
  and you have it. But because it's so small, what we're doing,
• 1:29:35
  like you are seeing the same decks. But is that more of a problem
• 1:29:40
  that we don't have enough players? And then what he's saying, we're not
• 1:29:44
  getting players because people look and they go like, well, I'm not one
• 1:29:46
  of them seven people with those seven decks, So why the hell am I
• 1:29:48
  playing? H I don't. I think there are a few people, and
• 1:29:55
  there are, And it is true, like it is hard to compete at
• 1:29:58
  top ar Con. It's hard to compete at top Alliance, is it not?
• 1:30:02
  What actually needs to be is that point of play entry that does not
• 1:30:08
  require a one thousand to two thousand dollars investment like that I have. That's
• 1:30:15
  a big investment to ask for one person. Well, but that's what you
• 1:30:17
  have to do to go play Magic Modern. But I can, but you're
• 1:30:21
  missing the points. I can do that over time. I can't do that
• 1:30:25
  with KeyForge. That's that's that's just because you don't know how to put money
• 1:30:30
  in a bank account and buy yourble deck at once, like you're still spending
• 1:30:32
  the same amount of the same thing. Yeah, it's just right, But
• 1:30:36
  we are talking about game store people. If this happens more often than not,
• 1:30:44
  Yes, and half of these people who are buying their magic modern deck
• 1:30:47
  every three months come in and sell the third of their collection back to me
• 1:30:50
  at a loss because they can't pay rent. Correct this happens in gangs stores
• 1:30:55
  all the time, so it's not actually healthier for anybody. So it comes
• 1:30:59
  down your healths here. I think it really comes down to op support for
• 1:31:04
  sealed right, like if if I didn't have before I owned ooze the faults
• 1:31:11
  that I mostly went to where the sealed bolt like, I went out of
• 1:31:13
  my way to go to the sealed both back in the World's Collide days,
• 1:31:15
  because that sealed is where I like, I don't find the appeal of buying
• 1:31:20
  the deck with money and then showing up and then stomping face to be as
• 1:31:25
  high for me as my double means in opening the decks. I did not
• 1:31:29
  mind that at the LCQ at the Last Chance Qualified World that I opened up
• 1:31:32
  garbage. And that's you know, I practiced a ton of sealed alliance beforehand.
• 1:31:38
  I know others can vouch for the amount of sealed practice I did,
• 1:31:42
  and sometimes you drop a bad but that just seems like that That's where I
• 1:31:47
  think, like you like like that the novel player is going to look at
• 1:31:50
  Arkon even with Ascension and be like, oh yeah, sure these sixteen ascended,
• 1:31:55
  But I still am staring at my thirty decks and none of them are
• 1:31:58
  Arcan still like, uh, I don't know that the new player is going
• 1:32:03
  to know the secondary market enough to think about or know how to buy smart
• 1:32:09
  on the secondary market to show up in our coun most people. So I
• 1:32:13
  think newer players are buying such bad decks, gimmick decks, right, they
• 1:32:18
  do one gimmick because they think it's fun. Well, I still buy those,
• 1:32:21
  but but the Sealed needs to come back in a huge way, and
• 1:32:29
  I think we just need to drop alliance. I hate to say it,
• 1:32:33
  like the experiment. The experiment failed. Like I long for the days of
• 1:32:41
  opening three decks, picking one and playing different conversation totally, but we didn't
• 1:32:45
  actually touch on that in deck Ascension is what do you do an alliance?
• 1:32:53
  That's that's a tough one that I haven't really I haven't really figured out what
• 1:32:59
  you just got to pick. You got to use the Sheep's ass alliance formant.
• 1:33:01
  It's just like one of your pods are gone. It's like one of
• 1:33:04
  those three pods and it's gone. Why not all three of them are going?
• 1:33:10
  Why not? Why not all three? I don't know. There should
• 1:33:13
  be a special prize if you managed to get a different pod in a different
• 1:33:15
  alliance. I think the honest to guys, thing is just alliance like the
• 1:33:19
  experiment. I don't really fully agree with you that the experiment didn't work.
• 1:33:30
  Yes, and I will be happy to discuss it next week. Absolutely.
• 1:33:34
  The only the only thing that I want to pull real quick is looking at
• 1:33:39
  your statement, Wookie Arkana. Kana has all of our vaute winners. So
• 1:33:44
  do new sets have an impact on decks? And this impacts for ascension.
• 1:33:48
  So looking at ar Con solo is specifically what I'm looking at versus sealed,
• 1:33:53
  because there's a lot of sealed that's in here as well. So the Captain
• 1:33:56
  of Barrick lash So, Rachel Trimbles are on deck. Do we see it?
• 1:34:01
  Well? Do we see Rachel? I understand, I am dak.
• 1:34:05
  But that's it is that it's an important attachment. The next one gasoline from
• 1:34:10
  George Ego, we saw it place? Was it at World No? But
• 1:34:15
  it did make an attempt at vaults in the twenty twenty three correct Nova or
• 1:34:25
  going ahead and looking at Bahamad sold to a collection outside of the country.
• 1:34:30
  So that was your twenty nineteen. You had some seal that was also there
• 1:34:33
  that we can't look at. Going into Age of Ascension, you then have
• 1:34:38
  for Arkan. The first one was coming from Italy Honk the menivically Topaz,
• 1:34:43
  which I have not heard of or seen. I don't actually know where that
• 1:34:46
  deck's I think the problem you're going to find here is a lot of these
• 1:34:49
  players just don't exist anymore. Okay, again, we keep going, adam
• 1:34:55
  inslaying the pink fraud from Nurremberg. Heard of this admiral never where I'm going.
• 1:35:00
  That's why there's some play on it. You have the Snappy Pariah sold
• 1:35:05
  to a private collection outside the country, lit Miss the Stone Keeper of Joy.
• 1:35:13
  That one is that uh, that's the TTR deck right, well,
• 1:35:19
  that one was what one krakou Poland Okay, getting wrong, I don't know
• 1:35:26
  that one. Yep. Then we have Gasoline coming back from Collinsville. Then
• 1:35:29
  you have Pingk fraud coming back from Spain. And then you have Vegas with
• 1:35:35
  Triad which is a little bit different, but Yack Street, Ricardo Inferno and
• 1:35:42
  King Tertia hopeavicious. I think I actually know where all three of those decks
• 1:35:46
  are. Yes, and we'll still see like one is on a player that
• 1:35:51
  doesn't play, what is on a player with a collection that is absolutely ridiculous
• 1:35:57
  that even fraud wouldn't get played if they owned it, like that kind of
• 1:36:02
  thing. I guess I don't know where the third one is. What was
• 1:36:06
  interesting, I'm gonna throw in the Richmond Virginia with Nathan Starwalt cancer phage actually
• 1:36:13
  showed up here and made him recall, So that was interesting. But that
• 1:36:16
  was a want a sealed and then yeah, he's been top eighted with it.
• 1:36:23
  And then Novak back for uh what is it? Okay? Sorry,
• 1:36:30
  light Tasker coming up for your trr TTR deck, and then one I don't
• 1:36:39
  I wonder why they quit playing it because that deck still has legs. And
• 1:36:44
  then you have Galaxy that's coming from Albany. Galaxy showed up quite a lot
• 1:36:49
  this season, so for me, that was a really interesting thought process.
• 1:36:55
  When we start to see some of the decks, they just go on by
• 1:36:59
  themselves because players have moved on, they're not using them. Some of the
• 1:37:01
  decks not showing up, and there are quite a few of them are still
• 1:37:06
  very relevant. I think actually what you're saying is that dextension is because half
• 1:37:12
  of the decks you listed are still in cycle and seeing play, which is
• 1:37:15
  why I went through it in that manner. So like that's that says to
• 1:37:20
  me that, yeah, maybe maybe they do have to think about it,
• 1:37:26
  because there are decks that are just better, uh key forged. It is
• 1:37:30
  part of this game, right, decks are just printed better. Yes,
• 1:37:38
  that was something that I only to only have money attached to owning the best
• 1:37:45
  stuff just drives it in a direction that it's not attractive to somebody like Ryan
• 1:37:50
  Wookie here, right, like that's and it's and it's a thing, and
• 1:37:56
  you're right like you can't. It is hard. It is hard spend one
• 1:38:00
  thousand dollars in this game and have a deck you feel very very confident about
• 1:38:04
  then just buying the same deck as the next guy for a thousand dollars in
• 1:38:09
  magic, a proven deck, a winning deck, a deck I know that
• 1:38:14
  I've seen win. I will also say, when you buy a thousand dollars
• 1:38:18
  Magic deck, you also get to read the primer that tells you how to
• 1:38:21
  pilot that deck or jockey that deck, or play that deck, whatever words
• 1:38:26
  you guys like, like, basically, not only is the deck list out
• 1:38:31
  there, but how you play the deck is hand fed to you. And
• 1:38:34
  that doesn't work in key Forge because even even a deck that won three freakin
• 1:38:42
  majors this year was played by another player who me top eighted many events and
• 1:38:47
  couldn't make it fire the same. And I'm running Fraud, and you know,
• 1:38:53
  not everybody who has borrowed Fraud can play it as well as I can,
• 1:38:56
  because players skill and understanding. What you have to do with a deck
• 1:39:00
  in this game is not that this is this is the deck, this is
• 1:39:05
  how it plays. If you always mul ag in for this exact thing in
• 1:39:11
  like Magic is like some of that stuff in modern decks is like, here's
• 1:39:15
  exactly what it's supposed to do. Here's exactly how you have to do it.
• 1:39:19
  Did you do it before your opponent? Win some of those games,
• 1:39:25
  and key Force doesn't do that because no two decks play the same. So
• 1:39:30
  you can't just be like, Okay, well I bought a copy of your
• 1:39:32
  deck and I know how to play the same, because it isn't solved like
• 1:39:38
  it is in some of those other games, and that's part of why it's
• 1:39:42
  good. Well, the short answer is that something, in my opinion,
• 1:39:45
  has to be done. I think it needs to be short term wokie.
• 1:39:48
  I think that Nova is my perfect instance that she did very very well with
• 1:39:54
  Jacques, and then Jacques just went O two for Worlds and the idea for
• 1:39:58
  I do well, but then it has gone forever by just making it to
• 1:40:00
  worlds like there's too much investment with a personal attachment to a deck from Becky
• 1:40:06
  to Jacques to other decks that people have. That that is an important aspect
• 1:40:14
  for Keyfordgs and so for that reason I think that it would not be good.
• 1:40:17
  I also will say that the secondary market, I don't want it to
• 1:40:21
  go ahead and spike where people have to then spend. It's just a pay
• 1:40:25
  for play. But I don't think it spikes. I think it cuts down.
• 1:40:29
  And I think this is what I'm saying, come up and there we
• 1:40:31
  find a middle happy ground. I don't. I don't think we're going to
• 1:40:34
  get I don't think we're going to find a middle happy ground. I think
• 1:40:36
  what's going to happen is that people who are willing to spend five hundred dollars
• 1:40:41
  consistently or one thousand dollars are going to continue to do that, but at
• 1:40:45
  a higher rate than those who aren't. I think the ability to sell other
• 1:40:48
  decks that frankly look like they stat well and then we can go ahead and
• 1:40:53
  make some money in order to put into another deck is what you're going to
• 1:40:57
  see. I don't think it's going to help our secondary market. Yeah,
• 1:41:01
  so this is a land of no facts and all what we think. So
• 1:41:06
  that is deck ascension and no real meaningful discussion or real meaningful decisions like well,
• 1:41:16
  it shall be making the decisions. So yeah, yeah, I think
• 1:41:19
  this is a thing that they need to have in their back pocket to wait
• 1:41:25
  for the time where it is needed. I don't think that time is now.
• 1:41:29
  What about when making copies of decks is available, Well, we'll find
• 1:41:33
  out maybe it'll be needed then, yeah, because there can be two copies
• 1:41:40
  of the same field right now, only not No, you can only ever
• 1:41:45
  have one person who's controlling it in the vault playing it at the vault.
• 1:41:47
  You guys took that question far too seriously. It's actually not even confirmed to
• 1:41:55
  know if if two vaults were going on at the same time, if it
• 1:41:58
  could be registered at fault. There was a Trainmond and it was headed to
• 1:42:02
  California. There was another train in California. Sorry doctor, Yeah, you
• 1:42:08
  don't put Keyford stacks on trains. Well, but if if there were or
• 1:42:14
  planes, no, actually put them on planes. Sorry? Was the train
• 1:42:18
  has to run over one? Key Ford have to choose? Are you choosing
• 1:42:21
  the right horsch deck or the left? Didn't the palette go by rail to
• 1:42:28
  Yeah? So yes, you don't put key Ford playing you didn't? Ah?
• 1:42:38
  Yeah, so a fun one there. I know he was there for
• 1:42:42
  that. Yep, that was his first event, right, that's right,
• 1:42:45
  Okay, I mean I really think the short and skinning number one is that.
• 1:42:48
  I mean, I think we've we've all figured out Sealed needs to come
• 1:42:51
  back. That's not something I haven't figured out. But that has nothing to
• 1:42:55
  do with that ascension. I actually I think it does because if you put
• 1:43:01
  Sealed back into play for the people who think denk ascensine is required, they
• 1:43:06
  have something to do and don't have to care about deck ascensione anymore. No,
• 1:43:10
  I mean, that's that's actually not a bad point. I mean,
• 1:43:15
  like I'll be honest with you, like I am, I'm much like Ben,
• 1:43:18
  I have one hundred percent more likely to show up to a sealed event
• 1:43:21
  than I am in art kind of event. There there was nothing for me
• 1:43:26
  this year to be like, I am going to piss off my family to
• 1:43:30
  go play KeyForge, because it was almost like a no good excuse not to
• 1:43:34
  do cubes when they've got sets of every single card in this in the in
• 1:43:39
  a set in one box already ready to go. I mean, my biggest
• 1:43:44
  thing is I can either I can go to a key Forge event, scrub
• 1:43:47
  out, go to two oh two who knows and then do god knows what.
• 1:43:54
  Or I can go to my little girl's birthday party. My little girl
• 1:43:58
  loves me key Forge. It is well, no, the answer is not
• 1:44:02
  that. But if it was sealed, so if we're going, are we
• 1:44:09
  going ahead and ascending those decks too, then Wiki, Well you're you're in
• 1:44:14
  a whole nother box of worms now, because sealed is a whole other ballgame,
• 1:44:18
  box of worms, box of rocks. Yes, actually, e Walk,
• 1:44:25
  you are one hundred percent right. Once a sealed deck wins a sealed
• 1:44:28
  tournament, it should never be played in a sealed event again. So what
• 1:44:30
  we should just be playing is called shudder than what I'm hearing singles always and
• 1:44:39
  forever. That's not what I said. But okay, I will shread.
• 1:44:44
  I will shred blind with you. Never mind I had words, but I'm
• 1:44:48
  gonna keep it to myself. Yeah, I again, Yeah, I don't
• 1:44:54
  know. I mean how many how many Sealed Deck winners have actually gone on
• 1:44:59
  to do anything? Olivier has never done anything else. It's done over day
• 1:45:09
  in some I think it might have seen some kfpl use early on, but
• 1:45:14
  now most so, sure, go ahead of send them. Well they are
• 1:45:17
  sented. They never get to play Sealed again. It's built into the format.
• 1:45:21
  Oh well, perfect win win. They can then go play ARCon where
• 1:45:28
  they probably don't matter where they suck with all the rest of my seventy fives.
• 1:45:33
  Yeah, that again is a totally different topic in that there is still
• 1:45:36
  absolutely nothing to do with the more majority of decks you own, unless you
• 1:45:44
  just like playing random key forge yep, whichhould do. Yeah, I mean,
• 1:45:51
  yeah, there's always just playing Sealed from reach behind you and grab out
• 1:45:56
  of the box of shame instead of buying another dock. Canada, great job.
• 1:46:00
  Canada did a great job with Resealed where they did some nice paper wrapping
• 1:46:03
  around the sass. I did like that. I did like those I wanted
• 1:46:06
  to know how they did that, because I thought that was really awesome.
• 1:46:11
  Extreme amounts of effort, I would imagine, but I would not mind like
• 1:46:17
  a shredder event where here's your shutter deck and it's just like a deck that's
• 1:46:23
  already been opened, but like it's like it's new to you and you're still
• 1:46:27
  cracking its sealed, and you know, you get to uh, you get
• 1:46:31
  to like play it and then then trund it. But either way, have
• 1:46:40
  we covered that ascension thoroughly? Probably not. It'll come up again. I
• 1:46:44
  think we we've ascended this conversation. We have ascended the conversation with Max,
• 1:46:54
  descended the conversation there. All right, but that's gonna do it fir ust
• 1:47:00
  this week. We'll see y'all next week. Be forging everyone, may the
• 1:47:08
  damn im Sorry step on you go now. The real keys forged were the
• 1:47:14
  friends who made up along the way. Ah, you're on the wrong show.
• 1:47:21
  Can what a big pressure up in the way you t