Is Competitive KeyForge Broken?
You are sitting across from your opponent, waiting for them to finish their turn for what feels like forever. It’s late in the game, your opponent has two keys, and they are making sure they make the best possible decisions. Finally they finish with three amber, draw their hand up, and pass the turn. You call your house, start your turn, and not more than 10 seconds into it, time is called and you know you’ve lost even though you’ll end your turn in check for your third key. What happened?
The Problem
To be clear, this isn’t a problem with the KeyForge rules, it’s a problem with the timed tournament rules. Going to time in any competitive card game is unsatisfying, but in KeyForge it’s down right broken and easily taken advantage of.
The KeyForge Tournament Regulations were released shortly after the game was released in November of 2018 and have not been updated since. We’re going to focus on pages 8–9 of this document, in the section for “Going to Time,” which starts:
Going to Time
When time is called for the round, the player who is currently taking their turn finishes their turn. If that player does not achieve victory by the end of their turn, then their opponent may take one last turn.
If neither player has achieved victory (forged three Keys) at the end of the opponent’s last turn, they must follow the steps below, in order, to determine who receives a win for the current game.
“When time is called for the round, the player who is currently taking their turn finishes their turn. If that player does not achieve victory by the end of their turn, then their opponent may take one last turn.” This is where it all breaks down because this isn’t how KeyForge works. Without cards that explicitly allow you to win during your turn (only 14 cards of 868 total cards), the rules of KeyForge have you forging a key at the START of your turn. So, what this is really saying, is the active player will not get another chance to forge a key by the standard rules. No other competitive card game puts the active player in such a position. But it gets worse. The opponent gets to take a full turn, not only giving them the opportunity to forge a key at the start of their turn, but also a chance to “game” the tie breaker rules which read (omitting step 4 and 5 for brevity):
1) Each player who has 6 or more Æmber forges 1 Key (removing the 6 Æmber from their pool as usual). Cards that affect Æmber costs have no effect during this step. Each player can only forge 1 key from this step.
2) The player with the most Keys forged is the winner. If there is a tie, proceed to step 3.
3) The player with the most remaining Æmber in their pool is the winner. If there is still a tie, proceed to step 4.
Referring back to our game at the top of the article, you’ve just ended your turn with six amber, enough to forge your last key. Your opponent has two options. They could call shadows and steal one amber from you, and nothing else, or they could call untamed and generate four amber. During regulation play (before time was called) they’d be forced into shadows or lose the game. But now the tournament rules have given your opponent an entire turn where they do not need to worry about stopping you from forging a key. So they call untamed, get four amber (for a total of seven) and end the game. Neither player has won, so you both forge at six (based on step 1), you both have the same number of keys (skipping past step 2) and your opponent wins with 1 amber in step 3.
Why did your opponent get to play an entire turn without needing to stop you from forging? Did your opponent slow play near the end of the game to make sure you were the active player when time was called? Is this the best we can do for timed KeyForge matches? No.
The Solution
The solution is simple and it goes back to that one problem paragraph at the start of the Going to Time rules. Let’s imagine a situation where the rules instead read:
Going to Time
When time is called for the round, the game continues until the active player finishes their next forge a key step or either player forges their 3rd key.
If neither player has achieved victory (forged three Keys) by that time, they must follow the steps below, in order, to determine who receives a win for the current game.
With this change, the active player finishes their turn, the opponent takes their turn, and the active player gets one last chance to forge a key in regulation play. This adds no additional time to the match, as the check is basically instantaneous. It is also during regulation play so all key cost or key denial effects still apply at this point. If neither side wins then you go to the tie breakers as they currently are, no other changes are required.
Besides making sure both players have a chance to forge a key after time is called, and perhaps more importantly, it means the last full turn of the game is still played by the same rules as the rest of the game. That is, both players still need to be concerned with whether their opponent is in check or not. When the rules for victory do not change in the last turn, going to time is much harder to game.
The Conclusion
Going to time is never fun. It means you’ve played a long, back and forth game, where no clear winner is quickly decided. But you should never end a game where it’s clear the one player would have won if only the “buzzer” went off a few seconds sooner or later. Nor should you have a system that makes using the clock so advantageous.
If you think this is only a problem at high level play, then bring a new player to a store chainbound event and watch those games go to time (because new players tend to play slower). And then explain to that new player how winning the game has changed (be ready for the blank stare). With the above solution, new players don’t need a new rules explanation because they will continue to play the same way they have the entire game. That is, get as much amber as you can without letting your opponent forge their 3rd key.
So yes, going to time is currently broken in KeyForge, but the important part is that it doesn’t have to be.