Fantasy Flight Games Announces Revolutionary New Card Game by 'Magic: The Gathering' Creator

Fantasy Flight Games has announced a brand new card game by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard [...]

Fantasy Flight Games has announced a brand new card game by Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield that looks to totally revolutionize the tabletop card game genre.

Fantasy Flight, makers of popular games like Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game and Legend of the Five Rings, announced last night that they would be releasing KeyForge, a new card game by Richard Garfield. KeyForge looks to defy the traditional tabletop card game standards, as its neither a collectible card game (like Magic: The Gathering) nor a living card game like Arkham Horror.

So - how can a tabletop card game be neither a CCG nor a LCG? Instead of buying booster packs or expansions, players will buy complete KeyForge decks, which are literally one of a kind. Each deck has its own name (based on an "Archon", the role a player assumes during the game) and 37 cards. Players can't swap out cards from these decks, so it's up to them to figure out how their deck works and come up with a strategy to maximize its effectiveness.

With over 360 cards in the base set alone, Fantasy Flight bragged that there were billions of possible decks, meaning that every KeyForge deck is literally one of a kind.

keyforge

The cards themselves seem mostly influenced by sci-fi tropes (there's an entire House based around classic "little green men" aliens) but there are fantasy influences too. Several of the cards also have very tongue-in-cheek names. One card actually uses "Yo Mamma" in the title, so this is definitely a card game that doesn't take itself too seriously.

During Fantasy Flight's In-Game Report at GenCon, Garfield said that he hoped KeyForge would bring back that sense of "discovery" found in early collectible card games. With the rise of the Internet and competitive play, cards became commodities instead of the player feeling that they had something unique that no one else had.

The purpose of KeyForge is to forge three keys, which require amber to build. A player's deck consists of cards from three different Houses (out of a possible seven), which players play to collect amber. At the start of a turn, a player declares which House they want to use and then can only play cards from that House. Some Houses specialize in attacking opponents (thus preventing them from collecting amber) while others specialize in stealing amber or evading attacks.

Some cards also automatically generate amber when played, and the game encourages players to play as many cards as they can during a turn. The only limit to how many cards you can play in a turn is that you can only play from one House, which forces players to make quick decisions every turn.

At first glance, it seems odd to tear away the deck-building and collecting aspects from the tabletop card game genre, but after playing KeyForge last night, the game definitely left me excited. Since decks only cost $10 to purchase, players can easily pick up a new deck to try something new. And certain cards are more rare than others, so there's still a sense of collecting in the game, it's simply not tied to deck-building like Magic or the Pokemon Trading Card Game.

KeyForge will be released later this year.

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