As we approach KeyForge Celebration 2025, one of the events I most look forward to is the keynote address. This is where Ghost Galaxy (GG) shares details on their plans for the coming year, with new information on expansions, summer events, and any changes to Organized Play (OP).

It is the changes to OP that interest me right now, because I feel (like many of you) that there is still lots of room to grow. So far under GG, we have just seen Vault Tours, World Championships, and annual Store Championships. Players have been clamoring for more local OP, and I have my fingers crossed that we'll finally see that. On top of that, I also am holding out hope that we'll see some bigger shakeups to supported formats -- with the addition of Adaptive and Triad to the list of officially supported formats.

I'd like to share one proposal for what I think would be the simplest and most effective way to grow OP in 2026. The focus here will be on utilizing existing infrastructure and making sure to not harm the things that are currently working well for the game. I also will explain how I believe Adaptive and Triad can be a part of this while being minimally intrusive. I encourage the folks at GG to take a read and think about it with an open mind.

Working Assumptions

I'll start by sharing what limitations we have to my knowledge. This proposal is an attempt at something realistic, and I want to work within the framework that GG is operating, rather than just a pipe dream. Hearing what GG employees have said in the past, I'm working under the following restrictions:

1. Vault Tours (and KFC by extension) cannot get any longer -- they are already action packed 3-4 day weekends, and there simply isn't enough time to allow for adding too many more things to the schedules.
2. GG has a mandate to have every level of premier level OP support all formats that feed into the World Championship. For example, since the official World Championship formats are Archon, Alliance, and Sealed, every Vault Tour must support those 3 formats.
3. Alliance isn't going anywhere -- GG has gone on record many times stating this, and I want to be clear that I'm not here to change that.

The Return of Primes and Local OP

Players have been clamoring for more local OP since GG took over. We miss the days of Chainbound events and Primes all over the world. A large, interconnected OP structure among all game stores might be difficult to maintain (although hopefully this is something that KeyChain can continue to build on). I think the most logical next step for OP would be to slowly expand from the top down, since bottom up (e.g. weekly Chainbound) might be too ambitious. A top down approach here means creating more Tier 1 events (which GG defines as local weekly play and store championships), but tying them closer to established Tier 2 (Nationals and Vault Tours) and 3 (World Championship) events that have already been so successful.

I propose we expand with a tier below Vault Tours and bring back Primes. Primes were competitive events held across the world up until 2020 that were single day events, rather than a weekend long like Vault Tours. GG already has the Home Base system in place, and it makes sense to leverage that home base system even more, giving another perk to those stores that have made a commitment to KeyForge.

Each Home Base listed on keyforging.com could be eligible to run one Prime in 2026. The organizer could choose the format that they think their community would be most engaged in. All matches would be played best-of-1, with the final match between the top 2 players being best-of-3. If GG wanted to mix up the World Championship format and schedule at KFC (and violate Working Assumption #2 above), the winner could also be offered a spot in the World Championship for that year, as was done in Primes until 2020 (even though that never came to fruition). With over 80 home bases currently listed, that would be a lot of players getting a chance to qualify for the World Championship that maybe didn't have the opportunity before due to the tightly restricted regions that host Vault Tours (in addition to the financial investment required to attend a Vault Tour). It would, however, require an extensive rethinking of the schedule at KFC to accommodate a much larger number of qualified players, such as by replacing the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) entirely with a play-in tournament from all Prime winners. Attending KFC without an invite in hand for the World Championship would thus mean you are attending for the celebration in general and open tournaments, and not for a chance at a World Championship.

A secondary (but perhaps more important) benefit of reviving Primes in this manner is to hopefully provide another incentive for stores to consider becoming a Home Base. Stores that make a commitment to the game are going to be the most reliable way for the game to grow, and there should be more incentives for stores to take a risk on KeyForge. With Primes, they will hopefully have an incentive for players to build a community there, and at the very least will have some additional foot traffic from players willing to travel a few hours (as I did in 2020) to play in a competitive KeyForge event without having to commit to a flight and a hotel for an entire weekend. In the end, an event that could potentially link Tier 1 play at your local store to Tier 2 or Tier 3 events is the kind of thing that can attract more players to the game and to a store.

Official Formats

There is a connection to be made between the addition of Primes and an update to the official formats in KeyForge. As everyone who has attended a Vault Tour in recent years can attest, the weekends are jam packed with fun and very little room to add anything else. However, Primes could be a blank slate, and a testing ground for seeing how popular other formats could be if played in Tier 2 or Tier 3 settings. For these reasons, I propose that Adaptive and Triad be added to the list of official formats in KeyForge competitive play, but rather than adding them to the Vault Tour schedule, add them to a Prime schedule.

Adaptive

I believe KeyForge needs Adaptive. It's a format that truly fulfills the evergreen promise of "open a deck and play it" competitively. It gives players a reason to play their old decks, which takes away the feeling of obsolescence when a new set comes out that is so much more powerful than the previous (looking at you, Prophetic Visions). If players felt like their decks didn't have an expiration date, they would be more likely to invest in sets as they come out, especially if they enjoy the gameplay it offers.

If you're not convinced that adaptive is popular among players, I would point to the litany of leagues and live events that have been happening lately that say otherwise. KAGI is just wrapping up it's largest season ever of 81 players. The Final Refrain, extremely popular for pitting the best players in each format against each other, just finished up its Adaptive tournament with great interest. KeyForge Team League also features an adaptive slot among its 3 featured formats. And at the in person level, KAGI live is happening (and being requested) at more and more Vault Tours (it took place this year in Baltimore, Paris, Vietnam, Bochum, and Las Vegas) and KFC. I have started hosting Adaptive at my local gaming store every other week and it's been more popular among our group than sealed.

Triad

Triad is another original format with KeyForge that has a strong following, and for good reason. Triad is a highly strategic format that emphasizes skill in lineup creation and matchup evaluation. Many players (like myself) believe that Triad actually has a lower bar to clear than Archon for deck power in order to compete, because you can craft a lineup that can punch up if you understand your own decks' strengths and weaknesses, and craft a lineup that doesn't have a gaping hole.

Triad doesn't have a large online league presence like Adaptive has KAGI, but Triad has also been featured in the KeyForge Team league every season, which has a set restriction that requires every deck to be from a different set. Triad has also inspired many other formats that involve banning such as the incredibly popular Hexad. However, Triad has the benefit of being less complex and more compatible with in person play (since it can be played as best-of-1 instead of best-of-3).

Primes as a Testing Ground

"Intriguing result. Let's do it again."

Assuming you are now open to the idea of Adaptive and Triad as official formats -- how could they fit into the OP system given the aforementioned requirements? Since Primes present a new time and place to host competitive play, they are the perfect setting to introduce the official formats of Adaptive and Triad back into KeyForge OP.

While organizers could be free to run the Primes in the format of their choosing, I would recommend that all Primes be run as either Adaptive or Triad. The organizer could still choose to run these as Sealed (where players open 1-3 decks) or Archon (where players bring a deck/decks of their choice). In either case, all Primes would still be best-of-1 (both of these formats are excellent best-of-1 formats) until the final match between the top 2 players, which could be played as a best-of-3 match.

If World Championship invites are being offered to the winners of Primes, this is also an opportunity to have 2026 be the first year to have Adaptive and/or Triad World Champions. This would of course require reconfiguring the KFC 2026 schedule to fit it in, but it would solve the potential issue of too many players getting World Championship invites in the current 3 official formats and allow the LCQ to continue as it historically has been done.

Epilogue

I believe the above proposal is an elegant way to slowly incorporate Adaptive and Triad into the OP scene with the least amount of disturbance to the existing, established, and successful format of Vault Tours. The benefits to doing it this way are many, and include:

• No disruption of Vault Tour schedules
• No need to replace an existing format
• More incentive for stores to become a Home Base, and thus increasing LGS engagement with KeyForge
• Allows GG to test the real popularity of Adaptive and Triad without making any sweeping, risky changes to already successful Vault Tours

Most importantly, for Adaptive specifically -- as I've thought about how to bring back Adaptive in an official capacity, I realized that local stores are actually the perfect place to be hosting Adaptive. Running Adaptive at the store level rather than at Vault Tours is a perfect encapsulation of what Adaptive embodies. It is a format that lets players play a balanced match with friends regardless of collection size or if they consider themselves casual or competitive. Adaptive is about embracing the fun of KeyForge, while playing a unique deck that specifically appeals to you. What better place to do that than at your LGS with friends?

Ever since the Chainbound days, KeyForge was all about meeting at your LGS and exploring all of the wacky possibilities the game has to offer. No format captures that magic better than Adaptive, and that's why it belongs at KeyForge Home Bases across the world. For players like me, who love the format and consider it the best competitive outlet in the game, it's only fair to also offer it at the highest stage in Tier 3 competition at the World Championship.

Even though offering World Championship seats to winners of Primes goes against one of the known mandates GG has with regards to premier level play, I believe this is a compromise that warrants an exception to the rule. We can call this an "experiment" if you wish -- one that I feel confident will result in success and generate a great amount of excitement upon being announced. I believe it's a realistic proposal that requires minimal investment from GG other than to utilize an already existing list of LGS that support KeyForge, and empowering those Home Bases to be able to do more.

I think all in all this is a win-win scenario for GG, the players, and Home Bases.

If you have any thoughts or feedback on this proposal and would like to discuss, find me in the Sloppy Labwork Discord server!