Dark Tidings preview, the latest Keyforge set

The main concept of House Logos in Dark Tidings is to play cards from hands. It rewards players both in resource generating and fighting against the opponent’s creatures. For example, let’s take a lot on the latest spoiler card Science! If we get this in our deck somehow, it supports playing Action cards from hands because it can generate Æmber while doing so.

If we are lucky, having this card with the Library Card in our deck will show a potent combo and bring more resource to your side.

As a result, more Æmber can dictate momentum in your favour. Meanwhile, this card can be played in an aggressive move by having Mind Bullets later on to inflict damages.

Logos is now more concentrated to Action Control. For instance, take a look at Groundbreaking Discovery that helps to deny our opponent's assets and tackle their momentum. The cost to activate is quite hefty, but when we successfully pull it, boy, it can really be devastating.

At this point, House Logos also begins to become more dependent on the state of the board. In this case, Captain Kresage can be a pretty strong existence when the other creatures with the useful keywords present.

In addition to this creature, his Evil Twin also boost the new more controlling Logos even more. By denying the keyword that may turn the tide, this creature can really cripple our opponent's creatures on the board.

In particular, we will also find some old-but-gold cards getting reprints in the Dark Tidings set. Honourable mentions include cards like Doorstep to Heaven, Cleansing Wave, Radiant Truth, Gorm of Omm, Barrister Joya, Orb of Wonder, and Bring Low.

Combining them with their latest card prints, they bring a whole new synergy to the gameplay. Hence, it's interesting to see House Sanctum in this set.

Bringing the potent old cards from the previous sets may help House Sanctum to face the ferocious wave in this nautical set. Most of the reprints are control cards. How well can the new cards help Sanctum to counter the other Houses' way to deny their momentum?

Alas, it's not a Keyforge: Dark Tidings preview without talking about their new (spoiler) cards, right?

A noteworthy one is Redhand Registry that acts as a counter for Shadow's typical stealing effect. It punishes our opponent when they take our Æmber.

Next, we have Orphiel and Orphion who reside in the ocean and on earth. Orphiel is somewhat better for us with the skirmish keyword and its skill to gain 2 Æmber while Fighting. In an instance, it is similar to Dark Faerie. Orphion on the other hand can be a decent tool to control the opponent's Æmber when Reaping.

The Saurian in Dark Tidings has almost no tool to deny the Capture and Exalt. As we know, the latter one is kind of how usually Saurian plays Keyforge. To Exalt becomes a cost for this house to activate some powerful effects. The only one released in the spoiler for this House is Bury Riches.

However, we think there's no reason to be worried. Under this particular changes, House Saurian adapts and shifts its play style. They get several tools to exalt the opponent's creatures. One of them is Carpe Vinum that exalts two opponent's creatures. In addition, Lapisaurus and the Evil Twin provide the possibility to exalt even though with different ways to do so.

Enlist Numeri, for instance, is a powerful tool to convert our opponent's creatures with Æmber on it. This card has a good synergy with the new way House Saurian should play in Dark Tidings. By exalting the creature, we can take control of it, and it belongs to House Saurian somehow. Hence, it produces a nice combo to control our opponent's creature.

The twins Eclectic Ambrosius the good and the evil are also unique cards which can be useful when we have either of them in our deck. The first one can generate a lump sum of resources when it survives long enough. Its twin, however, acts like Shadow of Dis, enabling us to put an Ignorance Token and blank the opponent's creature's text box.

Hence, when we saw Diplomat Agung in the Dark Tidings spoiler, we were not even surprised with its unique effect. Triggering its effect helps one of our house's creatures to belong to one of the houses of our choice, making it possible to use an out-of-house creature in your favour. We would say that this card is much better than Commander Chan because the effect can run as soon as this card gets into play. As we know, Keyforge is a game of momentum, so this is a great boost for this house.

Professor Emeritus Kering could be used in the same manner when placed correctly, neighbouring with creatures from other Houses. It is triggered the same as Diplomat Agung, so actually it is a useful one, too.

One of the best cards from House Grand Star Alliance is its Council. It is definitely in the contention to be the best board-wiping tool in the Dark Tidings preview.

Still bringing out its flexibility, Shield-U-Later can be played either as a creature or an upgrade. This is a great alternative to boost one of our creature's armour when needed, especially if that creature is the one we can't lose to keep the momentum. Meanwhile, this robot's Evil Twin can bring destruction to our opponent. Not only it has 5 Powers, we can play this as an Upgrade to deny Armour from a creature and further diminishing its Power. I think it's the first time we have an Upgrade to compromise Power and Armour without limitation, and Keyforge becomes more exciting.

In the spoiler for Dark Tidings preview, we could only find two creatures with the similar synergy: Z-Force Agent 14 that generates a resource for each Upgrade on it whenever it Fights, and Commander Dhrxgar with similar effect but different way to trigger it. Despite the lack of cards having this synergy, we find quite a bunch of Upgrades in this set.

Star Alliance also gets two controls from Artefacts. Ceaseforge helps to stall our opponent, preventing them to forge keys. Meanwhile, The Ulfbehrt Device can help to further control and limit which House your opponent can play. However, the latter Artefact works both ways.

The special cards in this set are a set of combo of Chenile, Bombyx, and Fifalde, the best illustration of how nature metamorphoses. In particular, the first two show the recursive ability of this house in the Dark Tidings preview. Meanwhile, the last creature can be really annoying with its raw Power and healing ability. It's the typical Untamed creature.

However, to pull this combo off without wasting our momentum, we need to have all three cards in hands. Thus, making the combo situational. Nevertheless, these cards are not nonsensical. If the cards present in a deck with some Archive and/or drawing support, then the likelihood to see the butterfly coming out of the cocoon is high. Thankfully, they have it covered with Waste Not.

Some control cards from House Untamed include the Evil twin version of Chelonia that has a contrasting effect in regard to the normal version. Consequently, this one helps to deny your opponent's Æmber.

Plus Mookling that brings the new way to play House Untamed by abusing Power counter. Not only it increases the Power of this creature, the cost to forge the Key for your opponent also gets higher.

Mookling's Evil Twin, on the other hand, gets Power counters every time our opponent has forged a key. This creature becomes one of many Untamed house members that utilizes the Power counter.

Cross Porpoises is another card to Enrage two of our opponent's creatures. While this can be easily bypassed by the Untamed thanks to the Power counter abuse and several creatures with high raw Power, it is proven to be effective to inflict damages to the other party.

Both tools are not only useful to control creatures on-board, but it can also stall our opponent to get more Æmber. Enraged creatures are forced to Fight whenever possible. In short, the chance to reap for resources is denied. This card can potentially swing the game flow.

For the most part, controlling creatures can also be done by wiping the board. For this purpose, we have Infighting and Thin the Herd.

The way House Shadows steals now relays on the board presence. For instance, we have Monty Bank and the evil Monty Bank. Both can steal an amount of Æmber depending on how many they have on themselves.

While we are talking about the Evil Twins, the ones in House Shadows mostly are more useful than the conventional version. The Sea Urchin duo, for instance. The evil one has a more powerful stealing effect, despite the usual one that has that Poison keyword.

Captain No-Beard and his sibling, too. As we can see, the evil one has a strong keyword, Power, and better effect. It makes the neighbouring creatures capture Æmbers.

Moving on to their next cards, we have Borrow and Hornswoggle. These tools are reliable and useful for Artefact control. One to steal it, and the other for a one-time use only.

The new House Unfathomable (will be discussed later on) is pretty annoying with its Exhaust effect. Nevertheless, House Shadows are prepared to counter it with Early Bird, readying all pirates to battle against the sea monsters.

House Shadows is also provided with some cards with options of effects to trigger. Loot or Pillage gives us options to either steal one or capture three Æmbers. Meanwhile, Walk the Plank dictates the same function with two different scenarios.

We'll start with the gimmick trio: Drawn Down, Dive Deep, and Dark Discovery. With these three cards in hands, they guarantee forging a key at no cost at all. That is situational, but doable somehow.

Another unique gimmick from this new House Unfathomable is Omnipus and its Tentaclids. The octopus is a milling tool, generating resources afterwards. Meanwhile, the tentacles are the defensive mechanism, attacking creatures.

Although both gimmicks look so situational, they are pretty interesting to see in the next Keyforge. It's a nice sight to watch our opponents pop their eyes out whenever we successfully pull it through.

For creature control, The Chosen One can be a great help. It prevents our opponent's creatures from readying themselves. Of course, it is triggered not without any price.

Another way to control by House Unfathomable in this uncharted territory is through milling the opponent's deck. Well, this is another situational card. Milling can be either good or bad, depending on the game state. It can be game changing, but we need to make sure it does not hit us back. Timing is the essence when using Thalassophobia.

House Unfathomable has a board wiper, but it's pretty much limited in the usage: Sleep with the Fishes. It is helpful to have the Upgrade Under Pressure and Action Storm Surge to make the wiper more efficient. They work by denying your opponent's creatures the chance to readying themselves.

For Æmber control, this House has some tools but may not be as strong as the House Dis it replaces this set. We see some Æmber disruption, such as Photic Rider, Wikolia and its Evil Twin, as well as Hookmaster.

All of them have different ways to control our opponent's resource. Either by denying through capturing or increasing the cost to forge keys.