Decks of KeyForge

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The AERC of your Deck


AERC Deck Traits

I've rated every card in key metrics, like its expected Aember Control (A), Expected Aember (E), Artifact Control (R), Creature Control (C), Efficiency (F), Recursion (U), Disruption (D), Effective Creature Power (P), Creature Protection (CP) and Other.

Together these traits form a deck's AERC rating, pronounced "Arc" much like aember.

When added together, these metrics represent the value of a deck converted to Aember.

When searching for decks you can use these to filter decks and only show decks with strong or weak traits.

Aember Control (A)

Aember control represents the amount of aember the deck can deny your opponent for forging keys. Lost and stolen aember is counted at a 1:1 ratio, while captured aember and increased key cost is counted at a 2:1 ratio, as those can be reclaimed or avoided.

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Expected Aember (E)

How much aember you can expect a card to generate. It does not account for creatures reaping unless they have a special ability like Dew Faerie's "Reap: Gain 1<A>".

Some cards that are difficult to play have their base aember reduced, and some cards that immediately allow the use of creatures have aember added.

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Artifact Control (R)

Artifact control is increased by cards that destroy enemy artifacts, or deny your opponent the use of them.

Destroying an artifact is worth 1.5 points. Using an enemy artifact (destroying single use artifacts) is 1 point. And delaying artifacts is 0.5 points.

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Creature Control (C)

Creature control is increased by cards that damage, destroy, or disable enemy creatures. Special abilities that encourage using a creature to fight contribute extra depending on the ability.

1 point is approximately equal to dealing 3 damage or stunning 2 creatures. Destroying a creature is worth 1.5 C.

Board wipes assume your opponent has 4 creatures and you have 1 creature. An unconditional board wipe is considered 5 C and -1 P for 4 total AERC.

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Efficiency (F)

Efficiency is increased by effects that allow you to play extra cards. It is reduced by cards that prevent you from playing or drawing cards, like cards that give chains or Bad Penny.

One chain is worth approximately -0.5 F.

Archiving a random card is worth 1 point, archiving a card of your choice is 1.5, drawing a card is worth 0.75, and discarding a card is worth 0.5.

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Recursion (U)

Recursion is increased by effects that allow you to play cards that have already been played. Replaying a card is usually worth 2 or less AERC, depending on restrictions.

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Disruption (D)

Disruption is increased by effects that reduce the number of cards your opponent can play. 1 point is approximately equal to preventing your opponent from drawing 2 cards.

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Effective Power (P)

Effective power represents the real usable power of creatures in a deck. Creatures like Grommid, which often cannot be played or used, have their total power reduced.

Effective power is also increased by Armor at a 1:1 ratio, and other abilities that affect creature survivability, like elusive, skirmish, hazardous, assault and healing.

When included in total AERC score, Effective Power is divided by 10.

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Creature Protection

Creature Protection includes any cards with effects that protect creatures from fighting, damage, or removal. This includes cards that increase power, but whose primary value is in making high value creatures harder to destroy, like Banner of Battle.

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Other

Other is a catch all for qualities of cards that don't fit into the other AERC traits. It includes unusual effects such as viewing an opponent's hand.

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AERC Score

To calculate the AERC score divide Effective Power by 10, add all other AERC scores, and then add 0.4 x number of creatures. The AERC score represents how good a deck is at the core mechanics of the game.

Efficiency Bonus Score


The efficiency bonus score is a new experimental score for decks. I hope to take feedback on it for a period of time and eventually incorporate it into SAS.

It improves the scores of decks with high value and high efficiency, and lowers the scores of decks with low value and high efficiency. This is meant to model the increased value of playing extra cards of higher value.

67 SAS is the baseline SAS score for this value, so decks with that score should have near 0 efficiency bonus.

To calculate this score, a positive or negative bonus is calculated for each source of positive efficiency in a deck.

To see the equation used and a full explanation please join the DoK discord server and look at the pinned messages in the #sas-discussion channel!

How SASy is your deck?


My formula calculates a rating for every deck based the quality of its cards and their synergies and antisynergies. This is the deck's SAS rating.

Card AERC Total

Each card's AERC total represents the quality of that card. This is mapped to symbols that represent the quality of the card

From worst to best:

Average
Above average
Best

Timetraveller is one of the highest AERC cards with a 3.5 average. Played by itself or with Help from Future Self it consistently provides Aember, a creature, and often replaces itself with its draw effect. Key of Darkness, on the other hand, is one of the lowest at 0.2. It provides no aember and is very difficult to use.

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Card Synergies

Every card is given a list of traits it provides, and synergies and antisynergies it has with card and deck traits.

Traits, synergies and antisynergies are rated from 1 to 3, with more powerful effects rated higher. A synergy or antisynergy becomes stronger the more instances of its trait that exist in a deck. Each Card with synergies has a range in which it synergizes, and its value goes up or down within that range based on its synergies and antisynergies.

Ember Imp and Shadow Self synergize because Ember Imp has a great effect but is easy to kill, and Shadow Self provides protection. Ember Imp provides more Disruption points to decks when paired with Shadowself.

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Deck and House Synergies

The app calculates statistics for all decks, like how many creatures are usually in a deck, or whether the creatures are high or low power. Some cards synergize with the traits of a deck, or a house in a deck.

Ammonia Clouds damages all creatures, but if your creatures have armor, it can prevent much of the damage dealt by Ammonia clouds. Ammonia Clouds synergizes with decks with high armor.

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SAS (Synergy and AntiSynergy Rating)

60

BASE AERC

+ 5

SYNERGY

- 2

ANTISYNERGY

StarStarStar

50%

I add together the base AERC total for each card, synergies, and antisynergies of a deck to create its SAS rating.

The system isn't perfect, but it gives a reasonable approximation of the relative quality of decks, and can help you see the useful synergies in your deck, as well as antisynergies to be aware of.

Please keep in mind this system will never judge decks as accurately as a human, and it will inaccurately judge many decks, especially ones with very complex interactions or strategies. So just because SAS thinks your deck is bad, or average, doesn't mean it is in real play!

SAStars


SAStars give you at-a-glance info about the percentile ranking of a deck in terms of SAS among all other decks.

Unlike SAS, a deck's ranking in terms of SAStars can change at any time if the quality of all registered decks is changed in some way, for example by the release of a new set that is rated better or worse than previous sets.

SAStars are calculated as follows:

  • Top 0.01% of decks (1/10,000) will be 5 gold stars

  • Top 0.1% of decks (1/1000) will be 5 stars

  • Top 1% of decks (1/100) will be 4.5 stars

  • Top 10% of decks will be 4 stars

  • Top 25% of decks will be 3.5 stars

  • Middle 50% of decks will be 3 stars (Half of all decks)

  • Bottom 25% of decks will be 2.5 stars

  • Bottom 10% of decks will be 2 stars

  • Bottom 1% of decks will be 1.5 stars

  • Bottom 0.1% of decks will be 1 star

  • Bottom 0.01% of decks will be 0.5 stars

Using SAS and AERC


SAS estimates the total power of the cards in a deck, and how the synergies and antisynergies effect the deck's quality, but it won't be right about every deck. Many decks have complex combos SAS doesn't take into account, or their component cards and synergies are very good, but they're missing a key overall trait, like sufficient Aember Control.

Using a combination of SAS, AERC deck traits, and human judgement, it's possible to make an educated guess which of your decks are best, or what would be a good deck to purchase. But even then, the best way to judge the quality of decks will be playing the game!

AERC + SAS Details


Traits and synergies are matched together using a complex software algorithm. For example a human creature with the synergy "Destroys friendly creatures" would synergize with a trait that read "Destroys creatures artifacts" (where player is unspecified) but not a trait that read "Destroys friendly demon creatures" because the card with the synergy is not a demon.

For more detailed notes on how AERC and SAS are calculated and rated, please take a look at this google doc.