A Guide to Understanding Competitive Keystone

**So!**

You've been playing a while, unlocked a few cards, tried a few things, formed a few opinions on what's good and what isn't. Then you see that there are these tournaments that get run every so often on the discord. Maybe you don't pay much attention to them. Maybe you think it's a neat idea but you just really don't enjoy the thought of being forced to play certain decks. Maybe you're interested but feel a bit intimidated.

Well, you've come to the right place!

Hello! I'm Anachronity, AKA SpringSkipper. I've won several KSCG tournaments and I love the way this game plays at the competitive end of things, rather than only the ubiquitous casual 3v3 games you see every day.

I wrote this guide to help people learn more about competitive play - in KSCG in particular though many of these principles also apply to other card games - and to maybe help people see the merits in it that I see, and to hopefully dispel some illusions people have about competitive play.

## "Competitive? Rush decks and cheese strats are boring!"

"Standard sucks.", "More players always makes games more fun.", "I just want to play with all of my cards.", "Braindead easy win decks are boring."

I feel there are a lot of misconceptions surrounding competitive play. It does not mean only playing rushdown decks that win within the first ten turns or not at all. It does not mean only playing standard with the reduced card selection; I personally don't like standard either. It does not mean giving up on all creativity and running only 'what works' and nothing else. It does not mean never playing any of the cool splashy cards 'because they're bad'.

To the contrary, it means new possibilities! It means learning anew how to make combos and strategies work that you may have long ago given up on! As for player count, while 1v1 and 2v2 are very different formats I promise that they aren't just rush-to-win snoozefests. Also, a 3v3 tournament has long been discussed as fun to try; we only lack the participants needed for a sizeable tournament. You can help with that too if you so choose.

I also feel that a lot of players are scared away from competitive play because it requires a more nuanced understanding of the game which they do not have, and losing repeatedly because of something you don't understand isn't fun at all. It becomes very tempting to dismiss the whole thing entirely with any of the many phrases above. This isn't to say that reading this guide will make you never lose again; it won't. But it will let you understand why a deck you made loses in a more nuanced fashion, so that you can know what changes to make to get a better deck for next time.

When a competitive deck beats a casual deck, it usually happens in the early or midgame. This can lead to the impression that competitive is all about rushes and playing for the early game at the expense of the late game. This is, again, not true. It's true that you must be more mindful of the early game than in casual, but going all-in on early aggression is just one strategy of many, and in fact with the game mechanics of keystone it isn't as strong as you might think. The tournament-winning deck combination in the most recent 2v2 tournament as of this writing was an early-game terran deck to hold the line, and a powerful late-game mecha-ultralisk deck that supported the terran deck with a ceaseless stream of infested.

That's not to say the combination didn't win early sometimes. It did, because this was a carefully-considered combination of decks intended to be strong during all phases of the game. Both decks could put up a solid performance early on and both decks continued to contribute well into late game. But the early game was not the point in the game where the deck combination was strongest, nor was it intended to be.

## So what even is competitive? What's the difference?

At the surface level, competitive play is simply playing to win. Nothing more; there are no other constraints. This means employing whatever in-game strategy is most generally effective within the chosen format, whether that format be 3v3 or 2v2, standard or eternal. Whether that strategy be rushes, or late-game buildup, or an explosive blacken the sky combo deck.

In practice, what KSCG competitive play actually means is building a deck with three considerations first and foremost in mind: opportunity cost, pragmatism, and pressure.

What does that even mean?! Well, first lets explain what an opportunity cost is, for anyone not already familiar with the concept:

An opportunity cost is the inherent cost of doing one thing instead of another; it is the forgone option. For example, if you have 40 cards in your deck and you want to find space for your favorite pet card Loaded Valkyrie, the opportunity cost is the two cards you remove in order to include them. If the two cards you're removing are the basic 2/0 marine squads, the opportunity cost might be worth it. If the two cards you're removing are Brothers in Arms and Hyperion, you might want to rethink things and figure out other cards to remove; that opportunity cost is too high.

But opportunity costs take many forms in KSCG. Another good example is the protoss mechanic of mineral upkeep. Robotics Facility and Gantrithor are powerful cards, but they have an opportunity cost in that they cost 1 mineral upkeep. This means that you may not want to include as many 8/3 cards as you otherwise would, such as air support or vortex, or that if you do then you may be unable to play them; locked into your hand since you're limited to 7 minerals. This is the opportunity cost you pay.

Some people may shrug it off and point out that those upkeep costs aren't really a downside because you can play around them. You can 'just' run cards like assembly drones or robotics bay or 'just' use crystallized energy from chrono boost. However those cards do not remove the opportunity cost, they only shift it. Now you have two more deckslots occupied by cards that do little else other than assist you in playing around your upkeep. You need to draw these cards to play them, and when you do you lose the opportunity of drawing and playing other cards instead, like a unit card or a gateway. The opportunity cost is still there.

That brings us to the second consideration: pragmatism. This is a realistic understanding of how a game actually plays out with the opportunity costs we've chosen to pay, versus the napkin math numbers of what a deck or card combination can *hypothetically* do. Hypothetically, a protoss deck can do almost anything. It can play unlimited copies of any hero unit in the game (void shades + replicate combo), it can remove an unlimited number of structures with a purifier carrier or send eight heroic battlecruisers with a single card. The upkeep costs don't even matter, you can 'just' run assembly drones. None of this is pragmatic, though, because all of the enablers required to do these things have a tremendous opportunity cost.

Pragmatism is accepting the inherent limitations within the game mechanics and building a deck with them in mind. It is accepting that you only draw cards so quickly, unless you pay an opportunity cost to draw more. That you only get one resource per turn, unless you pay an opportunity cost to speed that up. That lower-cost cards that only send units aren't worthless outside of the early game simply because they can't single-handedly crush the opposing push or foil the opponent's late-game plan, and that the goal of the game is actually to destroy the enemy keystone and not, instead, to build the biggest coolest and most impressive unit wave imaginable. (not to say that doing so isn't worthwhile; the point of any game after all is to have fun and making the game look like it bugged out with your lag-inducing unit blob is definitely fun! But doing so is not playing with the intention to win. In that sense it is not pragmatic, and not a good competitive strategy.)

All of this may sound an awful lot like "build a rush deck", but there is still an important distinction. I'm not saying that you can't run late-game combos, I'm saying that for your combos to be competitive, you must run them more carefully and while being cognizant of early-game pressure.

## Pressure

Pressure, then, is those two fundamentals of opportunity cost and pragmatism in practice. It is synonymous with momentum and closely related to tempo (tempo is technically slightly different; we'll discuss it later). Pressure is the reason why trading away too many cards for assembly drones and robotics bays and replicate karax combos will lose you the game. Pressure is the logical conclusion to looking at all the limitations and opportunity costs inherent in the game and accepting that the best way to build the biggest sandcastle on the beach is actually to spend at least some of your time kicking over the competition's.

   This is an anti-structure card. It and other cards like it are the answer to archives and psi disruptors and mecha ultralisks. This is because it comes out fast and early. It moves towards your opponents' side of the board, and then it stays there causing problems for them until they spend effort to remove it, or lose because they didn't. You know that feeling you get when you're losing within the first two to five turns and wondering "god, doesn't anyone have any unit cards??"? That's what pressure is, and you want to build your deck to, as much as possible without compromising your actual game plan, either counter it, or intentionally inflict it on your opponents. To some extent you already know this. You already know that your deck has to have \*some\* early-game cards or it will fall apart. But by putting a name to that and distinctly recognizing why that is, we can better evaluate it. We can figure out how to devote as little of our deck as possible to it, and more towards the deck we actually want to play.

Pressure is the bane of late-game strategies. It is the bane of structure decks and build-up decks that wish you would just leave them alone so they can live the dream of screencapping their absurd board state and posting it to the discord. It is the way to undermine 'overpowered' late-game strategies with 'no counters' and it is not, as some people seem to think, the same as playing a rush deck.

While it's true that rush decks apply a lot of early-game pressure, not only rush decks apply early-game pressure. Squares are rectangles but rectangles aren't necessarily squares. One of the best ways for late-game decks to stall for time while they get their combo online is to put the opponent on the back foot, especially if the cards you use to do it also advance your game plan somehow.

It quickly becomes a game of playing just a little more early pressure than your opponents without sacrificing too much of your game plan, and from that lens, efficient early pressure that also advances your game plan becomes extremely attractive. Cards like Stray Mutalisks, Moebius Search Crew, Bitter Daelam, or Fenix. (though he doesn't really advance any game plan, he's extremely efficient since he represents two early sends in a single deck slot)

At some point, particularly for very late-game decks that are highly confident their game plan will be enough to overcome almost any resistance, it becomes effective to start running anti-pressure cards. Cards like Heavy Lab Security, Widow Mines, Sunken Colony, Volatile Infested, Contraband Hauler, or Dark Archon. Cards that don't really apply much or any pressure, but are very efficient in answering opposing early pressure cards. Here your goal is not to hobble your opponent but instead to prevent them from hobbling you while your unstoppable gameplan comes to fruition. If you enjoy casual 3v3 for the freedom it provides this may be the archetype for you and, good news, it's a very strong archetype!

Note that not all defensive cards are good at efficiently blocking aggro. You'll need to evaluate the cards to figure out which are better and which are worse.

## How to evaluate unit cards

Well that's easier said than done. But to get an idea for how to evaluate cards lets look at two seemingly similar cards...

these guys again, and

these ladies.

On the surface they look near-identical, but one is a strong early pressure card and one is a middling anti-pressure card. This sort of thing is what I love most about keystone; even very simple cards are loaded with nuance. The underlying real-time strategy game itself plays a huge part in how you evaluate cards.

One of the best ways to get a feel for cards is to play 1v1 with them. You don't even need to try to be competitive yet, just find a buddy and send some units at each other. You might think more players is always more fun, but the thing is that 1v1 is a fundamentally different format; units and individual cards are much more impactful. The much less crowded and complex field will really plainly show you how units interact, who wins out, and why a seemingly subpar card might actually be very strong. I need you to take a leap of faith with me here, and not just dismiss it out of hand. Just try it. Just a few times. I promise that you'll learn something if you make an honest effort.

Play shifting adepts in 1v1 and you might notice that they die a lot while attempting to retreat, especially outside of the early turns of the game. Their retreat mechanic is slow and takes a bit, because how the AI uses it isn't very in-line with how adepts are meant to be used in the base game. They're good at killing early light rush units like zealots, marines, and zerglings, but that's about it. They don't do much to buildings and they don't apply much pressure. They probably aren't worth running unless you have bio synergy like a cybernetics core or maybe you have a huge number of anti-armored units like Immortal Phalanx and multiple Unchained Exemplars and you want something to cover their weakness to light units.

Play blinking stalkers and you'll notice that they're extremely consistent at retreating, because they blink away near-instantly. Stalkers almost never die unless they get 1-shot or until the enemy forces reach your defensive line and the stalkers no longer attempt to retreat. They live to stick around and attack again at a later time, sometimes multiple times, and that tends to make them quite efficient when you're applying pressure and pushing to the opponent's side. Their damage isn't anything to write home about, but it's enough and they are reasonably bulky and they make good distractions for other units to hide behind. That last part especially also synergizes with how they tend to repeatedly retreat, heal up, and march out again at the start of the next battle phase, ahead of whatever other units you sent for the turn.

Many seemingly boring and bland cards are actually really interesting. Unit cards are by far the most complex of keystone's card types. There's a whole new world out there to explore! Go on, try it!

If you want some guidelines to start with, then I think that self-healing tactical units (reapers, roaches, protoss units; especially if they're heroic) and even small sends of tactical/defensive energy units may surprise you. Immortals, phoenixes, marauders, ghosts, hydralisks, and ultralisks are some of my favorite 'vanilla' unit sends. I also find that contrary to the "endless swarm" approach advocated by cards like hive experts or slave broods, zerglings are strongest as opportunists. Cards that have rush like frenzied zerglings, raptor pack, or leaping raptors are good cards for capitalizing when your opponents are pushed back or a bit lacking on units in general. They can cause a lot of extra damage to undefended structures or the keystone very quickly!

## What about other cards?

The immediate pressure value of a unit card is unmatched in general, but pressure isn't the only aspect of the game; I emphasize it only because I feel it's the most often overlooked, and it's one of the main differences I see between casual and competitive play. Some action cards, especially AoE removal like storms, are also good at improving your pressure game by gaining you value and tempo.

Value is a measure of how many cards and units and other 'game elements' in total are available to you (i.e. in hand or on the board; not in your deck, unless you've reached the point in the game where you're still drawing cards and they aren't). Tempo is a measure of how many more resources you have committed to the board and operating than your opponent does, i.e. how 'far ahead' in the game you are. Technically, every turn you kill more value in enemy units than they kill in yours, you've also gained tempo on them, because they now have fewer resources committed to the board than you. You can see how removal now factors in: if a timely psionic storm wins you value by killing enemy units before they can attack, and allows your pressure units to break through the enemy line and take down some structures then you've also gained tempo. A well-aimed yamato cannon that takes out an Eternal Hunter Dehaka gains you tempo but not value. This is because even though they may regain that card later from a primal unit scoring a kill (thereby recovering their lost value), it stops Dehaka from tearing apart your push **right now** and undoing what momentum you've already gained. It buys time for your units to tear up their structures and maybe even to win, and so it's often a good play even though you technically lose value doing it. If you understand why stasis and the Syndrea arbiters combo are good when you're winning a push, you already have an intuitive understanding of what tempo is and why tempo is good. Again, putting words to it can help us better examine and evaluate it.

Structures also provide slow value at the cost of tempo, and this is why I think a lot of newer players overestimate their strength. Without pressure forcing you to play quickly, structures seem like the obvious pick over units. 3 minerals can send 8 marines, or you can build a barracks that might send 20 or more marines over the course of the game. Without considering pressure, this seems like a no-brainer. But structures pay a tradeoff for their value in a way that I think a lot of less experienced players are aware of, but have difficulty quantifying or putting into words. They should be run in moderation, probably 6 or fewer unless you are playing a structure-centric strategy like cannon rush or secret hangars, or you expect them to win you the game in short order.

There are other cards that give you value at the cost of tempo, such as terran's many card draw options. Compared to structures, these are generally a very good tradeoff because the value is immediate, can't be interrupted like structures, and is overall quite aggressively costed in keystone. In competitive, you want to choose your long-term investments very carefully, because you often want your value right now. Getting value immediately allows you to apply more pressure immediately. It is easier to kick over their sandcastle if you have your value right now and they need to wait eight more turns for their investment to pay off. Card draw also makes your deck more consistent by filling your hand with more options, making it easier to use your full resource count each turn.

Of course there are lots of other types of cards, and only by messing around with them can you decide how good they are and why.

## Types of Decks, and the base game mechanics

Okay but so far I've only been telling you that you want to play cards earlier and you want your value sooner. Didn't I say that competitive wasn't just all rush decks?

Well, it isn't, and in fact even coordinated rush decks tend to lose against decks that are prepared for them. If you're familiar with Magic the Gathering then you may be aware that in competitive eternal formats, the games end very quickly. There is a fundamental difference between how Magic works and how Keystone works: resource accrual.

In Magic, you must play cards from hand in order to accrue resources to play your other cards. In Keystone, you don't. You get your free mineral or gas income every single turn that you live to see, and (with the exception of a few specific zerg cards) there is no tradeoff between gaining that resource or instead playing more cards that affect the battlefield. In Keystone you do not need to counter their strategy and then also have the cards left over to afford to play a land. You get to have your resources and play cards too.

What this means is that the end game is inevitable, if only you live to see it. It means that every time you counter their card 1-to-1 with yours, things shift a little bit more in favor of the late-game deck. Generally, what differentiates a late-game deck from a rush deck is consistency. Rush deck lists are relatively homogenous, with every card in the deck devoted to either applying as much pressure as possible or else ensuring you can continue to apply pressure (e.g. with card draw) until your opponent misses a play or their defense cracks. In keystone, a good rush deck needs to also play the late game. Not in that they need to be slinging elaborate combos, but in that they need to remain an aggressive presence right up until their deck runs out of cards. Your slow buildup deck's late game is stronger on paper, but maybe the rush deck kicked your sandcastle down enough to win anyways. Maybe the cards you play just happen to line up nicely with them drawing the exact right removal, costing you precious tempo and creating the opening they've been looking for all game. Maybe they can keep up the pressure enough that that one turn of dead tempo you use to play Karax's Invention still costs you everything. A good rush deck does not burn out in a few turns and then idly mash 'end phase'. It is absolutely relentless, and runs more high-cost cards than you might expect because it accepts that it will still need to be playing in the late game.

In contrast, the advantages of a lategame deck are twofold: first, you do win by default - you will eventually win if you don't lose first, because your tempo will eventually outpace theirs due to the inherent efficiency of playing more 8/3 cards, or else the highly synergistic combos that you had to dig for. Second, you have access to more efficient cards than they do even at low costs. This is because while you can mirror their strong early-game cards, you also have access to certain purely defensive cards that rather than applying pressure, stops theirs. These cards tend to be more cost-effective than pressure cards.

This is a sliding scale. The more lightweight your final combo play is, the more your deck can resemble a rush deck save for one final trick. Maybe a terran rush deck that finishes with Imperial Witness + Amon, or a zerg deck that runs just enough infested for the Aleksander they're running to do work. Your final gambit isn't unbeatable, but it also has a low opportunity cost. At the other end of the scale, you can focus almost exclusively on stopping your opponent's pressure because your end-game strategy is nearly unstoppable. For this it simply becomes a matter of stripping down your combo, or making sure that every defensive or pressure card you play somehow builds into your combo, or generally minimizing the opportunity cost until you have only what it takes to mount an overwhelming end-game offensive and nothing more. All the rest should go to defending your combo.

This too is a matter of evaluation, and it's very easy to test this at a basic level in a normal 3v3 game. You just need to accept that, as one-third of your team, you have less overall contribution to the game than you would in a 2v2. You need to understand that, unlike your unstoppable end-game combo the effects of your pressure and anti-pressure cards are being comparatively diluted if your allies aren't running the same. Because one third of unstoppable is probably still unstoppable, while one third of an anti-pressure card will fail if your teammates aren't playing that phase of the game alongside you, possibly making the pressure/antipressure cards seem weaker or less worthwhile than they actually are.

If your final combo has a glaring flaw or weakness; something semi-common that it just dies to like massive marine pushes to irradiate or storms, then it may be better to figure out how to make it into a more lightweight finisher combo in a more aggressive deck. If your final combo is extremely difficult to stop, requiring specialized decks or counters which would be a high opportunity cost with low payout to run against any strategy other than yours, then you have a good candidate for a true-blooded competitive late-game deck.