Second Act (John Ziegler)
Welcome back to my house-by-house review of the cards in Mass Mutation! I want to thank Alex’s Worlds Collide previews for being the inspiration for these. In an effort to not fix what isn’t broken, I am mostly going to keep Alex’s format, and his rating scale. Here is the scale:
Ratings Scale:
5 – All-Star. This card gets it game on and go plays. It’s great in any deck it’s in.
4 – Great. Just like Philip Hamilton, this card is pretty great. It works in most decks.
3 – Average. This card’s favorite color is grey. It’s squarely in the middle, meaning that it provides either low value or inconsistent high value.
2 – Situational. This card is waiting tables, waiting for its big break. It will shine if the stars line up perfectly, but most of the time it isn’t very good.
1 – Trash card. This card is roommates with a certain Muppet grouch. You almost never want it in your decks.
Today we’re moving on to review House Logos. They were probably the strongest house in Worlds Collide, and they continue that trend here. Let’s see why.
The Bot Creatures – 4
Like I did with the Fiends in Dis, I am just going to lump all these together. These are very solid due to their ability to reap and cycle your deck. They also happen to combo very well with Auto-Encoder, which is a major plus.
Auto-Encoder – 5
The existence of this card and Dark Aember Vault is why Borrow is such a great card in Mass Mutation. In fact, having any artifact removal is pretty much necessary. By now everyone knows that this is a powerhouse combo with The Archivist, but it has some other great synergies as well. For example, it works great with Novu Dynamo, and the aforementioned Bot mutants. There’s a great episode of the Help from Future Self podcast dedicated exclusively to this card. I think you’re going to see this card pop up in most every competitive MM Logos deck.
Bot Bookton – 3
Opinions seem to be wildly split on this card. Some people hate this card for the same reason they hate Wild Wormhole; random plays can really mess up your game if you’re not careful. However, the value on this card is extraordinary. The original Doc Bookton let you draw a card, which would be playable about one third of the time. Bot Bookton automatically plays the card, which moves you through your deck faster and oftentimes sets her up to reap for an extra Æmber if she hits a pip. If you’re concerned about hitting a Gateway or something, you can always use her 4 power to fight instead.
Diametric Charge – 3
Certainly a contender for the best flavor text in the set, this is a decidedly average card. It gives you an Æmber pip, which is nice. It can also be used to take out a small threat like an enemy Daughter, or some wards. In fact, it’s a great response to an exalted Defense Initiative. It’s also a great card to have enhanced with damage pips.
Eclectic Inquiry – 3
Archiving cards is always good. Random archiving is obviously not as good as selected archiving, but it still helps you move through your deck quickly. This card works really well with a card that helps you sort your archive like Auto-Vac 5150.
Even Ivan – 3
Having only one of him in a deck is fairly good. Once you get multiples, his value decreases rapidly. I find that sometimes it makes sense to run a creature with a captured Æmber into an opposing creature to donate the Æmber to your opponent, and then steal it back with Even Ivan. Despite the one less power, he’s probably slightly better than Odd Clawde because he can pull your opponent off of 6 Æmber.
Odd Clawde – 3
Much of what was said about Even Ivan above also applies here. It’s actually really good to have both of them in a deck, because if they are in play you are pretty much always guaranteed to be able to steal two, using one to steal first and then following up with the other one. Even though this one has the greater power, it isn’t as good as Even Ivan in most circumstances because of its lack of ability to pull an opponent off check. That said, if you have Titan Engineer in play and not on a flank, then Odd Clawde becomes a lot more valuable.
Infomorph – 3
Your valuation of this card really depends upon how you value card draw pips. The ability to move through your deck more quickly is nice, but in Keyforge you will always draw up to your full hand size at end of turn, so draws only help if they are in house, and you only have approximately a one third chance of that happening. Of course, a lot of it depends on where in the deck your draw pips land. If they bunch up in one house, or if you have other ways to take advantage of them like Chronus, they become more valuable. Draw pips aside, this card is a 4-power mutant body, which does have some value in a house that has Professor Terato.
Lethologica – 3
I like this card. It is way better than Sound the Horns was in Brobnar because it stops on any Logos card. Sure, it might toss an important card along the way, but that’s the risk you take for the upside of speeding through your deck. Ultimately, dumping other houses in your discard pile means that you’re likely to draw more Logos, and that will keep you moving through your deck faster. This card is especially valuable in Ultra Gravitron decks, as it will get you to the pieces you need to build the big robot faster. I like to think of it as Eyegor with an Æmber pip instead of a 2-power body.
Munchling – 1
Almost certainly the worst Logos card in the set. But wait, you say – Munchling lets you kill an enemy creature and gain an Æmber at the same time! Of course, to do that, you have to toss a Logos card, and if it’s a Logos turn, you probably want to play that Logos card. Munchling does have a couple decent synergies. Letting him fight off-house with something like Mutagenic Serum or Seeker of Truth is good, and his discard ability plays nicely with Auto-Encoder. That said, Munchling is still pretty awful, and made worse by its tendency to show up in multiples.
Opposition Research – 1
If Munchling has competition for being the worst Logos card in the set, this is probably it. Inky Gloom was a bad card, and putting it in Logos and giving it a damage enhancement didn’t make it a good card. Preventing your opponent from reaping for one turn simply isn’t a strong enough effect, as your opponent will usually just switch houses and play a bunch of cards from hand instead.
Q-Mechs – 3
If this card wasn’t so easy to recur, it would probably rate a 1. However, the fact that it keeps coming back and drawing you a card every time it does is a good effect. It may not hit you a Logos card every time, but give it enough recursions and it will provide good value. Of course, if it is enhanced, then that’s a huge bonus. I am waiting to find a Q-Mechs enhanced with an Æmber pip and a draw pip, making it a much easier to recur Timetraveller.
Titan Engineer – 3
The fourth Keyforge set brings us the fourth Logos titan. As compared to the other Titans, I would rank it above the Titan Mechanic, below the Titan Guardian, and probably about on par with the Titan Librarian. Key cost increase can be important Æmber control, and Logos doesn’t have a ton of Æmber control options, so it’s usually a good card to see in the Logos list.
Causal Loop – 2
Archiving is good, but the problem with Causal Loop is that it archives itself. That means that unless you archive a Logos card (an Effervescent Principle is a good choice), this card is going to usually just be clogging up your hand for a couple turns after you pull your archive. That said, it is fantastic with The Archivist if you can get those cards together. Not only does it get him into archive, but after that you can pull what you want, which eliminates the inefficient hand problem.
Chronus – 3
I have mixed feelings about this card. It’s clearly better than Infomorph, as trading one power for the ability to archive cards is a great trade. The problem is that it’s something of a witch card. Your opponent will usually remove it pretty quickly, so it won’t generate much value unless your draw pips happen to land in Logos. It’s obviously much better if you can land it next to a Taunter, but of course that’s true of most creatures with a static effect.
Fission Bloom – 2
This card’s value really depends upon where your pips landed. If you landed a lot of pips in Logos, then it’s very good. However, if all your pips landed in another house, then it does almost nothing. In most decks, the best value of this card is going to be just occasionally replicating an Æmber pip on something like Lethologica. My biggest problem with this card is that being an artifact, it tends to be slow.
Forge Compiler – 3
This card is another very inconsistent artifact. It can do almost nothing, or it can produce a big swing in the game state. If I see that my opponent is about to forge and I have the Forge Compiler in play, I usually try to dump out as many creatures as I can just to get them all the wards. My favorite thing about this artifact is that it creates interesting decision points. A lot of times I have the choice of letting them forge and gaining a bunch of wards, or pulling them off check and having them potentially forge later when I won’t gain as much benefit. This saddest thing about this card is when you don’t draw it until your opponent already has two keys. It’s pretty useless at that point.
Krrrzzzaaap!!! – 5
Arguably the hardest Keyforge card to spell, this card also speaks to the Logos obsession with the letter z. All that aside, this is a fantastic board sweep. When playing MM against any other set, it will usually be a one-sided board sweep for just one chain. Even within MM, there are a lot of houses that don’t have many mutants, such as Sanctum and Saurian. Given the fact that those houses tend to capture a lot of Æmber and you tend to want to remove them from the board as quickly as possible, that just adds value to Krrrzzzaaap!!!. Recent sets have made board sweeps very important, and this one is one of the best.
Mutagenic Serum – 3
This card can be really valuable with the right list. Given the fact that it is a Logos card, and Logos tends to have a lot of mutants, it certainly has value in many lists. What I like about it is that it’s another card that forces interesting choices. Do I pop it off now for a reap or two, or hold it for later when I might be able to get four or five activations out of it? That kind of decision-making requires knowing your deck really well. As you might expect, this card has a lot of synergy with particularly valuable mutants such as Subject Kirby.
Novu Dynamo – 4
A lot of inexperienced players might look at Novu Dynamo and think it’s trash. After all, you have to discard a Logos card every turn to keep it in play, and if you run out of Logos cards, you lose it. However, experienced players will see the value in this card. For one thing, it’s very sneaky. Your opponent gets you down to five Æmber and thinks that you’re off check, but Novu Dynamo triggers before the key step, so you can discard a Logos card, go back up to six Æmber, and forge. It also combos really well with Auto-Encoder, as those discarded Logos cards fill your archive. However, it’s important to note that if you discard a Logos card from your archive with Novu Dynamo, then the Auto-Encoder won’t trigger. By the way, even though Novu Dynamo is big and hard to remove, I recommend against using it as a bank for captured Æmber, as there is too much chance of running out of Logos cards and not only losing the Dynamo, but also being forced to hand a bunch of Æmber back to your opponent.
Professor Terato – 4
This is a great card, but there are two things to keep in mind here. First, it’s essentially a witch and your opponent will probably kill it quickly. Second, if they don’t kill it quickly, it’s probably because they have more mutants than you do and the effect is symmetric. If you’re looking at a board where the opponent has a bunch of mutants out, just discard Professor Terato. Don’t give them the card draw.
Adaptoid – 3
This card does add value by having three enhance icons, but as a creature I think it’s highly overrated. I have noticed that my opponents tend to prioritize killing this over many other creatures, and I think it’s a mistake. First of all, Adaptoid requires a lot of bonus icons in Logos in order to be used successfully, so if your pips landed in other houses, that severely reduces Adaptoid’s ability to trigger. Secondly, two of Adaptoid’s abilities work against each other. Let’s say that I am able to play four pips, so I give Adaptoid +4 assault and Fight: Steal 2, and then I swing it into my opponent’s Snudge. What happens? Snudge is killed by the assault damage, which means the fight never takes place, so I don’t get the steal.
Animator – 4
I love this card as re-usable artifact control. I suppose it might also buy you a reap every now and then if you happen to have another Logos artifact with it, but for the most part it’s a great way to turn your opponent’s Etan’s Jar or Auto-Encoder into a creature and then run something into it to kill it. Another cool thing that can be done if you have the right list is to capture Æmber onto your artifacts. When they turn back into artifacts, the Æmber stays. This can be especially awesome if the artifact you are capturing onto happens to be [REDACTED]. I also happen to think this is a fantastic card design, as it explores some cool new design space.
Auto-Vac 5150 – 4
This card is sort of a combination of two of the best COTA Dis artifacts, Library of the Damned and Lash of Broken Dreams. My only problem with this card is that it’s slow. Once you get past that, though, it offers a lot of value. The ability to build up an archive is always important, and the ability to control Æmber might be even more important. My favorite aspect of this card, though, is that it allows you to trim your archive down to what you really want in it. Let’s say you have an archive with five Dis cards and a Causal Loop. Use the Auto-Vac to discard the Causal Loop, and then the next time you break your archive for Dis, you won’t have a dead Logos card sitting in your hand.
Cyber-Clone – 5
When set previews for MM were originally going on, this card was the first card previewed that really made me sit up and take notice. The ability to purge an opposing creature and gain its key stats is hugely valuable. One common misunderstanding that occurs with this card is that players get confused about what exactly a Keyword is. Gaining Keywords means that Cyber-Clone gains abilities like Taunt or Elusive, but not other text like, “Reap: Draw a card.” It’s also worth noting that you don’t take any of the negative effects that might be in the text box. For example, you can purge an opponent’s Gargantodon and have a 16 power creature that actually deals 16 damage.
Library Card – 5
It’s Library Access as an artifact. Even after it got nerfed, Library Access was a great card, and so is this. MM doesn’t have some of Library Access’s best friends such as Wild Wormhole and Phase Shift, but it’s still a great card. It’s super hard to get because they’re both rares, but I have gotten stomped on TCO on a few occasions by decks that have Library Card and Dark Aember Vault together.
Mind Over Matter – 4
Now that’s a board sweep, Logos style. Obviously, the value of this card will largely depend on what’s on the board. If you have a bunch of creatures with great play effects on board such as Infurnace, Bo Nithing, or Cyber-Clone, then this is a fantastic play. If your opponent has those same types of play effects, then it’s not so good. That said, if you’re behind this can really clog up your opponent’s archives and slow your opponent down a bunch.
The Archivist – 3
I have really started to think of this card as being fool’s gold. It seems like it should be awesome, and I think there’s definitely potential for it to be, but it’s hard to make it work. It has to show up in just the right deck. Clearly the combo you want with it is Auto-Encoder, but you also need some kind of targeted archiving to get The Archivist into archives in the first place. Causal Loop is great for this, but cards like Mobius Scroll or Auto-Vac 5150 also work. You could also hope to randomly hit it with Auto-Encoder or Eclectic Inquiry, and that might work.
Ultra Gravitron – 3
There’s no question which the worst of the gigantic creatures is (that would be Niffle Kong), but I am split on whether this or Deusillus is better. If U-G survives, his ability can be very high impact, especially since it purges a creature. The ability to use its bonus icons is usually just gravy. The real value here, though, is being able to archive the top five cards of your deck, and then potentially groom your archive. As a side note, if you are playing against a gigantic creature and you have Infurnace in deck, never purge both halves of the gigantic. Purge one half and leave the other half and the It’s Coming in your opponent’s deck as dead cards.
Final Rating – 5
Logos has been one of the strongest houses in every Keyforge set, largely because the ability to move through your deck quickly is valuable, and Logos has always been the house that does it the best. Logos does have a couple awful common cards, but it makes up for it by having arguably the best common in the set and a load of good cards at uncommon and rare. It also has three board-wipe type cards, with Krrrzzzaaap!!! being joined by Standardized Testing and Bouncing Deathquark. After being the strongest house in WC, Logos may again be the strongest house in MM. It’s almost unfair.
If you have any comments, feel free to reach out to me on most Keyforge Discords (such as Sanctumonius) as jfkziegler or on TCO as SecondAct.
