Magic: The Gathering creator’s ‘unique deck’ card game KeyForge has a release date

KeyForge: Call of the Archons, the next card game from Magic: The Gathering creator Richard Garfield, is coming out next month.

The card-battler is the first ‘unique game’ from Fantasy Flight, which claims every single procedurally-generated deck in the world will be different. This means you won’t need to craft a deck before you jump into playing, but you also won’t be able to customise or tweak the fixed card lists – the only way to try a different deck is to buy a new pack.

We played KeyForge at Tabletop Gaming Live last month, and found it to be notably different to Magic: The Gathering, as the two players compete to collect Æmber and forge three keys before their opponent, rather than just reducing their life points to zero.

The game also takes a new approach to how many cards can be played on a turn, with players only restricted by which of the three factions that make up their deck they choose to play that turn – they can play and activate any number of cards aligned to that group from their hand or on the table, rather than having to expend a limited pool of mana equivalent.

Fantasy Flight has announced that KeyForge will be released worldwide on November 15th, with local game shops running launch events to teach players, give away cards and hold tournaments with other goodies up for grabs. Some retailers will also be holding pre-launch parties on November 10th, selling a limited number of decks before the full release.

Organised play has also been confirmed for KeyForge, with forthcoming weekly events and monthly tournaments planned to lead into championships and other “top-level events” yet to be detailed in full.