Keybearer Journal

Volume 1: A "World" of Opportunities
By Nicholas Agranoff

Greetings!

A warm hello to all of you from the cold North. I am Nick Agranoff, a staff member here at Fantasy Flight Games. Some of you may know me from our Kingdom Hearts TCG Heart Forums (as FFG Nick). Others may know me from brief correspondence via email regarding a question about Kingdom Hearts TCG organized play or rules. Today, I greet you as a fellow player of the Kingdom Hearts TCG as we explore the upcoming set A Darkness Awakened.

As I looked over the new set that would be releasing, one of the things that really struck me as amazing was the new world cards. As a core building block of "World Racer" and the "Jack of All Trades" type of deck builds, I wanted to highlight one world in particular, But first I'd like to revisit what you and I have been using thus far to try and get to 13 levels of world cards.

The Easy Decision

As of right now we only have seven different world cards to choose from:

Traverse Town, levels 1-3
Wonderland, level 2
Agrabah, level 2
Deep Jungle, level 2
Halloween Town, level 1

This does not really lend to much difference in deck building. Typically you will see people play the rare world cards when possible with a few traverse towns thrown in to round out the 13 levels of world cards needed to win. A few brave souls will brave the level 3 Traverse Town and its increase in difficulty it lends to dark/heartless cards that become attached to it. I have seen people use the Halloween Town to an interesting effect in "Aggro" decks (a very aggressive deck build used to defeat their opponent by eliminating their Heart Points) by simply using them as a quick 2 Heart Points. All in all, the decision is not all that difficult as to which world cards to use in your deck build.

The Hard Decision

Once A Darkness Awakened releases, where once we had seven different world cards, we will now have a combined total of nineteen different world cards to choose from for your deck. Suddenly, choosing which world cards to include becomes blurry rather than cut and dried.

One such card is "The Hundred Acre Wood." At level 0 it will not help you attain the goal of 13 levels of world cards directly, but indirectly, by eliminating you and your opponent's hands of cards, you can seriously disrupt whatever plans they have laid for their win or for your demise. If you happen to be playing an "Aggro" deck, this can be an important component. By eliminating both you and your opponent's hands while you have the edge in friends over your foe, you can more easily defeat your opponent in the challenge phase without having to worry about the surprise of an attack card or magic/friend card interrupting your challenge.

The "Hundred Acre Wood" World card

While crippling your opponents hand, you also stop them from playing dark cards on your world card (and not only for just that round!). The most interesting thing about the card is its text regarding the amount of dark cards that may be played on it (or rather, the amount that cannot be played on it). The worlds from A Darkness Awakened will explore this concept at length and in very interesting and challenging ways, but I'll let you see those for yourself when you open your first booster pack (if you're lucky).

The Right Decision

With the second set debut in North America, we will see a revolution in possibilities. By adding 138 new cards with some brand new concepts to the game including the new world cards, higher level (and lower level) friend and magic/friend cards, interesting new magic cards and keyblades to wield, and the iconic pieces of the set… Villains. Will you be able to make the right decision?