Riku's Unofficial Errata

As you already know, with the release of Prophetic Visions, the competitive scene has been thrown into chaos once again—and this time it feels worse than ever. We have had unbalanced metas before, but none of them sank this low.

People complained about Genka. But Genka rarely won anything and actually had more counterplay than most players realized (and Genka decks all played very differently). People also complained about MM dominating the scene. In reality, MM mainly dominated in popularity. Top decks from CotA, AoA, and WC proved they could consistently beat MM during that era. Even during the GR era, which was rough, we still saw meaningful play from other sets.

By contrast, PV dominated last year so completely that we almost saw nothing else played.

PV is so overpowered that it outvalues everything we have ever seen before. It has an answer to everything—and it is built around one of the most oppressive mechanics in KeyForge history: prophecy. You can read my full opinion about the set here. But overall, I think the power bar has been raised too high, and Ghost Galaxy’s design may have reached a dead end—at least for competitive play.

If they design something weaker, nobody will buy the new set. But if they design something stronger, they will be forced to keep escalating, and players will become skeptical about investing in a game that feels like an arms race that resets every six months. There is also a hard limit to how high power can realistically go.

Back in the GR era, I actually predicted this would happen. I just didn’t expect it to happen this fast.

There are a few possible ways to fix the situation. Errata is one of them. I believe Ghost Galaxy already considered this option during the GR era, but instead of using errata, they chose to introduce counter tools in later sets. That approach worked reasonably well for a while. Æmber Skies and Tokens of Change briefly brought the power level of GR down a bit.

However, either Ghost Galaxy was not satisfied with those results, or they became too confident in them, and they went all in with Prophetic Visions. Either way, this is how we ended up where we are now.

Sooner or later, they will have to use errata. Otherwise, the power creep will keep stacking. And when they finally do act, the errata list will likely be too long—because every new card that needs fixing will also force older cards to be fixed as well, due to the chain of counters Ghost Galaxy keeps creating.

Errata has always been discussed within the community, but only now do I think it is truly necessary. There may be other solutions, such as rotating sets or introducing some kind of format restriction, but errata seems to be the most practical option on the table.

That said, I do not believe we will receive any official errata from Ghost Galaxy. They are busy with many other priorities, and based on how they have operated so far, issuing large-scale errata feels very unlikely.

But I still need to do something—at least for my local scene. It has been more than half a year since PV was released, and as someone who has been leading the Vietnam community, I have already lost players during the GR era, and I am losing players again now. If Ghost Galaxy does not take action, then I have to.

So I created my own errata and started using it in my local events, both as playtesting and as an unofficial real change. I will share those errata in this article for anyone who wants to try them in their own local community.

MY GOAL FOR THE ERRATA

First of all, I need to repeat that this errata is unofficial. That means it only applies to unofficial play and has no effect on Ghost Galaxy official events such as Vault Tour or KFC. It may also cause players to develop habits that are not legal in official play. So please use it at your own discretion.

I am also not doing this as an attempt to “save” KeyForge or anything like that. I am doing this for the Vietnam community, so that we can have a healthier state of the game. This is manageable because, under our current OP system, we rarely have official events, so using unofficial errata does not create much conflict.

I have no intention of persuading Ghost Galaxy to implement any of this. I also understand that The Crucible Online will not support anything unofficial, and I fully respect their reasons for that.

Before going into the details, I want to be clear about the following.

I want to preserve the design spirit of Ghost Galaxy. My first step is to identify what I believe the original design intention is, and then keep that in mind throughout the process. Of course, this may involve some misinterpretation, since I have no direct way of knowing Ghost Galaxy’s true intentions.

My goals are:

• To make cards less random.

• To introduce more counterplay, so the game has more interaction.

This also means that I am not doing this to bring down the overall power level of Prophetic Visions or to target specific decks. I believe it is impossible to truly balance sets without redesigning them entirely. So do not expect any major shift in the overall power scale—something I will discuss in more detail at the end.

ERRATA

Prophecy

Errata: You can only activate a Prophecy when it is ready. After it is fulfilled, exhaust it, and it readies again like other cards.

At the moment, the entire mechanic is extremely oppressive. The filtering engine is simply too efficient, making almost every PV deck faster than decks from any other set. My goal is to preserve the core spirit of Prophecy while reducing its raw power. This approach also indirectly weakens some of the strongest individual prophecies. The idea originally comes from Tutenkharnage.

After extensive playtesting, this change feels reasonably balanced. On average, PV becomes much healthier to play against while still retaining its identity.

If I were to add one more adjustment, it would be to have Prophecies enter play exhausted. That would prevent them from being activated on the very first turn.

Cosmic Recompense

Errata: Add “Purged after fulfilled.”

I feel like this one barely needs explanation. Timewalk is an extremely powerful effect. Corner the Market is weaker and has a clear downside; Cosmic Recompense does not. The other two cards with timewalk-style effects are both purged after use, so there is no real justification for Cosmic Recompense behaving differently.

On top of that, PV introduced a significant amount of recursion (which seems to be one of Ghost Galaxy’s favorite mechanics), making this errata even more necessary.

I have tested this change, and honestly, it feels like the best errata I have made so far.

Trenk’s Creed

Errata: Change the first option to:“The most powerful creature captures all but 5 of your opponent’s æmber.”

I tried several different approaches at first, but eventually settled on this version. I have heard that Trenk’s Creed was intentional and that Ghost Galaxy fully understood how it would work. I have also heard that playtesters warned them about it, yet it was still printed in its current form. There must be a reason for that decision.

However, I believe this card is toxic for the game and needs to be fixed. At the same time, I am still listening to feedback and trying to keep Sanctum playable. If Trenk’s Creed were nerfed too heavily, it would risk making the entire house unplayable—which, unfortunately, aligns with how Ghost Galaxy has currently designed that house.

Atrocity

Errata: Change its power to 2 and its text to:“At the start of your opponent’s turn, that player discards the top card of their deck. They cannot choose the discarded card’s house as their house this turn. Deal 1 damage to Atrocity.”

This is essentially the Skybeast Screeyan effect. I tried several different versions of Atrocity, and honestly, this card is so toxic for the game that most of my attempts did not lead to anything meaningful. Converting it to the Screeyan-style effect feels like the best way to make the card bearable while still preserving its disruptive spirit.

Rage Reset

Errata: Change to:“Fate: Randomly discard one third of the cards from your hand (rounding down).”

I find it strange for Logos to have access to both Rage Reset and Reiteration at the same time. I also want to keep the total number of errata cards to a minimum. If the Prophecy fix works well, then I may not need to errata Rage Reset at all—or possibly not even Reiteration.

This change may make Rage Reset feel like a weaker version of Reiteration, but I think it is a reasonable compromise.

In Here Somewhere + Junk Restoration

Errata: Remove their æmber pip.

I believe these two cards are the root of most Geistoid-related problems. They are so strong that they made Geistoid powerful in both GR and AS. They are common, multi-purpose, and extremely efficient. Because I want to keep changes to Geistoid to a minimum, I decided to target these two cards first.

This change actually feels very good in practice. It does not reduce the overall power of Geistoid too much, but it creates significantly more counterplay and helps broaden Geistoid playstyles. Unfortunately, with PV being so dominant, you will not notice this change as much as you might expect.

Dr. Xyloxxzlphrex

Errata: Change to:“After reap: Play a Mars creature from your discard pile.”

I want to stop all the silly ready-effect shenanigans. While Ironyx Rebel is just as guilty, I think fixing Xylo is more aligned with my design goals.

Xylo is still a very threatening creature to leave on the board. You can still set up some Ro6 turns with enough combo pieces, but it is much harder to do now. I can assure you this will not make Mars unplayable in any deck. It will still be strong—just with fewer absurd, overly long, and uninteractive Mars turns.

Winds of Death

Errata: Change to:“Play: Each player that is not haunted archives each creature from their discard pile. Destroy each creature.”

This fix keeps Winds of Death as both a board wipe and a combo piece. The reason I felt this errata was necessary is because of the Windka decks—even now, when we have a lot of archive hate available.

During playtesting, this change also felt very good. Winds of Death still serves the same purpose as before, but it is less automatic and less efficient. You now have to rely more on decision-making and timing to use it well, rather than it simply being correct in almost every situation.

ADDITION SUGGESTIONS

So far, these changes have resulted in a noticeably healthier game state. PV is still stronger than any decks that came before it, simply because of how much raw value its cards provide. I honestly do not want to change more than what I have already listed above.

However, if you feel that additional errata are necessary, here are my extra suggestions:

Hoodwink

Errata: Add a maximum amount of steal. I think 4 would be reasonable.Alternatively, it could be changed to 3 and remove the purge so it can be reused. This should introduce more meaningful decision-making.

Feldar’s Plan

Errata: Change to:“Choose a card type. During your opponent’s next turn, each time they play a card of that type, steal 1 æmber.”Again, this creates more decision-making while not reducing the card’s power too much.

Bandit Culver

Errata: Change it so that it can only steal 1 æmber total, no matter how many Bandit Culvers you have in play.Bandit Culver is one of the most important factors—if not the most important factor—in winning PV sealed events. Multiple Culvers are the real culprit. The value it already provides through house enhancement is extremely high, so its steal effect needs to be limited.

Reiteration

Errata: Change to:“Fate: Discard 1 random card from your hand.”This card is common and already has a very strong play effect. If the Rage Reset change above is not sufficient, this could help. It is also quite strange that Logos suddenly becomes the second-best disruptive house with only two cards.

You will notice that most of these additional changes target Shadows. The reason is simple: PV Shadows cards generate an enormous amount of value. Their traditional weakness is a lack of board control, but the Prophecy mechanic allows players to act outside their active house, effectively removing that weakness.

Reducing the power level of Shadows cards is therefore the best option we currently have.

WHAT I COULDN'T ACTUALLY FIX

After all of this, you will still see that PV remains very strong. In fact, Saurian will then likely feel like the strongest house in PV, alongside Dis. However, Saurian and Dis are much trickier to fix cleanly, so for now, I will not propose any additional changes for them.

I also could not find a good way to fix the Untamed loop in PV. That loop exists because of the interaction between older cards that Ghost Galaxy included in the set and the house enhancement mechanic.

The best solution I could come up with is this:

Break of Dawn

Errata: Remove its Nature æmber pip.

This would slow down the Untamed engine slightly. I am not sure if it would be enough on its own, but at least it does something.

THE END

This will be my final section. After more than a month of local playtesting and receiving feedback from several other communities, PV decks are still stronger than decks from other sets. However, their power level has been brought down by a reasonable amount. I consider this a successful attempt, because my goal was never to make strong decks unplayable.

My purpose was simply to introduce more decision-making and reduce non-interactive card combinations. In that sense, I believe these changes have achieved what I set out to do.

I hope you can use these errata to make your KeyForge games a better experience as well.If you have any feedback or would like to discuss this topic further with me, feel free to join my Discord:https://discord.gg/mGhBmuhbcv

Happy forging!!! 🔑