KeyForge, from Magic the Gathering and King of Tokyo designer Richard Garfield, has been hugely popular. Part of the reason is the allure of unique decks that no other player will own. Secondly, you can't construct decks and therefore aren't sucked into hunting for that rare powerful card. Thirdly, Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) seem to be listening to the community. This was already evident when they added more tokens and removed the unnecessary learning decks for the second starter set, Age of Ascension. Now, it seems to be the case again with Worlds Collide.
Worlds Collide - What we Know
The biggest news is that two new houses are appearing in Worlds Collide. You have the Saurian Republic and the Grand Star Alliance. To make room, Mars and Sanctum have be placed on the subs bench but there are hints that they will return in the future. This will be good news for some as many found Mars' somewhat chaotic style a bit frustrating. Of course, it will be interesting to see how common these new houses will be as I can imagine it being frustrating opening two or three packs to find only the five houses of the previous sets.
Joining the new houses are new key words/concepts. Warding can add protection to your creatures as a ward token is removed instead of a creature being damaged or leaving play. Think of it like a one-use super shield. Creatures can now be enraged, meaning it must fight if able. This is going to be a good way to disrupt reaping creatures!
Exalt provides another way of adding æmber to cards but when this creature leaves play the æmber goes to the opponent's pool. Why would you do this? Because certain cards will power up when you do!
Adding a bit more to the collector's compulsion is the new Anomalies. These are super rare cards that can occur in any house.
A new starter set will be available with all the tokens you need and two unique decks. To save those of use already deep in the KeyForge well, FFG have also introduced a 'Deluxe Deck' which is a unique deck with all required tokens. Alongside the standard decks is the new Premium box, which is filled with goodies. It contains a chain dial, status tokens, armour tokens, a token box, five deck boxes with stickers so show what houses they contain.
Initial Thoughts
Worlds Collide looks to be the best KeyForge set yet. It's great to see FFG going further to provide the best options for KeyForge fans. The only small misstep I can see is the inclusion of armour tokens only in the premium box.
While these tokens are not strictly needed, they can be helpful and to suddenly provide them in the premium box and not the other products feels a bit wonky. That being said I'll be grabbing a premium box or two anyway...
Keep your eye on the Zatu store, pre-order stock will be available within the next 24 hours!!