Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to the Nordic Key Forge podcast.
Speaker: My name is Jason, the Captain Kirk, learning how to speak again.
Speaker: And I'm here with my co-host, Carl.
Speaker: Well, well overdressed, Carl, also known as Algon Honour.
Speaker: How you doing, Carl?
Speaker: I'm doing good.
Speaker: Before we introduce our special guest, have you had...
Speaker: How are you?
Speaker: Are you feeling well today?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm good.
Speaker: You know, just had some microphone crisis here.
Speaker: I have been looking for my microphone for the past two days.
Speaker: And now that I found it, I see my kids actually broke it.
Speaker: So my voice might be
Speaker: Even worse than usual today.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: Well, I mean, if people don't recognize it, then I've done a good job with post-production.
Speaker: Yeah, or maybe they think that I'm Hydro or something.
Speaker: That could also be the case.
Speaker: You could do that as well, yeah.
Speaker: But let's introduce our special guest.
Speaker: First time on the podcast, Emperor Riku, also known as Riku.
Speaker: Dining in straight all the way from Vietnam.
Speaker: Hey, Riku, good to see you.
Speaker: Hello, everyone.
Speaker: I am good to see you too as well.
Speaker: It has been my honor to be on this Moscow.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, so pleased that you can finally come on.
Speaker: I think I reached out to you at the end of last season to say, come on and talk about winning the Keyforge League, the most prestigious award, unofficial award in Keyforge.
Speaker: And it's taken us until the start of the next season.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But we're here.
Speaker: We've done it in classic Nordic Key Force podcast, you know, better late than never.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the good thing is that Riko's had time to win another big trophy.
Speaker: while waiting for us to get him on here.
Speaker: So yeah, he has.
Speaker: So before we get to know you, we are going to do the world famous How Was Your Forge Night.
Speaker: So how's the last two weeks for you been, Riku, in Keyforge?
Speaker: The last two weeks?
Speaker: The last two weeks or the last period of Key Forge.
Speaker: What have you been doing in Key Forge?
Speaker: KFPL won.
Speaker: Yeah, last week I played the KFPL final with Nova and then I had to spend all my time to prepare for the Vietnam Stars Championship which happened this week.
Speaker: This weekend.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, because because I have to I have to organize two TOR championships in two different cities.
Speaker: So it's a bit busy, but I guess two different TOR championships.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah, so in Vietnam we have two cities and only one LZS in each city.
Speaker: I have to try to communicate with both of them.
Speaker: Did you get to play yourself or just organize?
Speaker: For this weekend I will play at home.
Speaker: Oh, great.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So tell us about the KFPL win.
Speaker: Because there were four finalists, weren't there?
Speaker: There were four finals in this KFW Premier League.
Speaker: Which was the final that you won?
Speaker: In the Prague KFW and then I play again Nova.
Speaker: And yeah, in all the
Speaker: The other two brackets, I lost very badly, so I have nothing to say about that.
Speaker: I lost one game to Agonot here.
Speaker: Yeah, and then luckily for me, I have again Kadek that when 11 wins and then I get into the final and then I go on again Nova as well.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Yeah, Riku got so many wins that he actually broke my spreadsheet sorting because we weren't expecting it to go to two digits.
Speaker: So he went the long way in the losers bracket with the left column and that was impressive.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: So you came through the losers bracket to win.
Speaker: Yeah, I slot very early in the second round, I think.
Speaker: And then I have to
Speaker: have to play all the way from the loser racket yeah yeah I mean it's kind of one that's like I can see a Hollywood remake of this you know Riku wins a true underdog story well congratulations congratulations for that win we're gonna talk more about the store championship stuff and the awesome job you're doing in Vietnam later on the interview
Speaker: because that's really, really interesting about the fact that, you know, the stuff that you're doing there is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker: Carl, you're fortunate.
Speaker: Let's get our stuff out of the way quickly, and then we can focus on Riku again.
Speaker: Yeah, so my fortune has been... I played in ABR, the playoffs.
Speaker: My team actually very narrowly got into the playoffs as the fourth team, I think.
Speaker: And I got to play Archon in my... The way it works is everyone is assigned a specific format.
Speaker: and then you played basically a single elimination, small four-player tournament in your format.
Speaker: So I won my first match versus B-Hawk.
Speaker: It was scholar spam.
Speaker: Crazy, crazy scholar spam from both decks, and I just happened to get the most scholars out, the earliest, so that was nice.
Speaker: I'm gonna play Dr. Cheap in the final there for Arkham this weekend.
Speaker: And then we have the Key Forge Team League that me and Rico has been organizing, where I've been assigned the adaptive role, and so far, so good.
Speaker: I've won my games thus far.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, you were lucky in your first game.
Speaker: Yeah, very, very lucky.
Speaker: I beat a superior opponent there, but yeah, sometimes you have to be lucky.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How about you, Jason?
Speaker: Yeah, my season for the NNKFL started off brilliantly.
Speaker: I'm through to the next round of one of the cups.
Speaker: I can't remember which one.
Speaker: I still haven't played a game, but someone dropped, so I go through.
Speaker: So still haven't played a game, and I've been promoted and through to the next round of the cups.
Speaker: So I'm having the best season of my life.
Speaker: Perfect.
Speaker: However, Keyforge Team League, I've lost... I did lose for the first two weeks, but I won in my previous game, actually against one of your colleagues or friends, Riku, in Vietnam, Gould.
Speaker: I won 2-0.
Speaker: nice versus uh his uh mass mutation um which i did not expect to to even win one of those games so i bought uh captain trouble and tragedy which is my dark tidings um val uh captain val jericho um deck and i just i drew so well to begin with um and i i
Speaker: Val Jericho came out turn one and I could just cycle and get through my deck so quickly and I had every answer at the right time for when he brought out to Silius for when he brought out all of his big mass mutations spamming etc etc I could just deal with it but then when we play the the reverse game
Speaker: I again had the draw.
Speaker: I kept De Silius out most of the game and he was just taking care of everything.
Speaker: The only key that he did forge was I thought, okay, well, I'll hit Keyfrog anyway because he's going to forge for six and so he can't basically...
Speaker: I can't raise the key cost or stuff like that.
Speaker: So, you know, he's going to do it anyway.
Speaker: So why not do it now?
Speaker: And then I could just push on and kind of control the game.
Speaker: So I drew very well both games.
Speaker: So yeah, I'm talking about that win because I won a game.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: But I think that's pretty much like one of the best feelings in Kifu.
Speaker: When you play adaptive and you are the underdog and you win the first game.
Speaker: yeah yeah exactly and like winning winning with the like a dark tidings deck which you need to be able it needs to draw okay to to come off and against a crazy mass mutation deck um like i say uh decilius three daughters um and uh a whole load of star star alliance i can't remember the star lights cards it had in it but it was a very good mass mutation deck
Speaker: but yeah Dark Tidings did his job and I'm loving that deck more and more so that was my Forge Knight over nice and quickly Simon will be happy he never listens to the podcast anyway the ones he's not in so it doesn't matter he will never know but Zaramis would be happy now we can get to know Riku
Speaker: We have four questions, three questions for you.
Speaker: What is your favorite house and set?
Speaker: My answer is very generic because my favorite house is Logos.
Speaker: Yeah, good man.
Speaker: I think everyone likes it, maybe.
Speaker: Yeah, Logos is mine.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because I like the consistency of the when I play a deck, I like how solid it can perform every game.
Speaker: So yeah, and Logos is the help for that.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And the set, do you have a favorite set?
Speaker: I start the game as the mass mutation.
Speaker: So obviously, I like mass mutation the most.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I actually don't own many decks from the set 1, 2, 3.
Speaker: I've got a ton of Worlds Collide you can have.
Speaker: Most of them got Blobnar in.
Speaker: In Vietnam it will be very difficult for me to find stock for the other sets.
Speaker: So how was the distribution in Vietnam for the first three sets?
Speaker: Was there a key foge in Vietnam then?
Speaker: There is key foge in Vietnam but we have no official distributor for both games and card games as well.
Speaker: Most likely we have to buy it from some American websites like miniature market.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: And then it's got a lot.
Speaker: It's got a lot because we have to we have to pay for it and then we have to pay for the shipping for the international shipping.
Speaker: And then we also have to pay for the stock.
Speaker: So usually we have to buy.
Speaker: A lot for just playing both games and other.
Speaker: I see.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Great.
Speaker: Favorite card?
Speaker: My favorite card is I think it's Ulxaravichong.
Speaker: Because my first leg ever when I pulled it had Ulxaravichong in there.
Speaker: And then the first time I have learned that there is a concept about two different cards that can compete together into one.
Speaker: And then I was like, oh, it's cool.
Speaker: It's cool.
Speaker: And then also luckily that Ultra Gravitron is the strongest among the three Gigantic.
Speaker: So I got hooked into it.
Speaker: So do you have any League decks or anything with Ultra Gravitron in it?
Speaker: Yeah, the deck, the deck I, the first deck I pull for now, until now I still use it for luring all of my, uh, all my hexa-saf lineup.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's, they're really, yeah.
Speaker: I've never appreciated the gigantic creatures as much when they first came out because I really felt like they could be
Speaker: destroyed quite quickly in Mass Mutation.
Speaker: Like, they come out and there was a lot of removal.
Speaker: But now, they're not as easy to get rid of, I found.
Speaker: I found it quite difficult to get rid of Decilious for a few turns against that Mass Mutation like before, for example.
Speaker: So I think the gigantic creatures are kind of coming in the way now.
Speaker: But also because I think the most value of Uxara with Chong is the play effect.
Speaker: So even if my opponent can kill it, it doesn't matter because I already archive five cards.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Insane value for sure.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: One of my like chase decks would be one of these double ultra gravitron decks with two copies of them.
Speaker: That would be nice to have, I think.
Speaker: Yeah, I think Second Art, you know Second Art, right?
Speaker: He also own a very solid double Ujjara video.
Speaker: I played with it a few times and the ability to hide run in the deck is very, very high.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, high rolling is, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: So do you play a lot of, a lot of different competitive leagues and formats?
Speaker: Like, obviously your favorite is Nordic Hexad because, you know, obviously.
Speaker: No, but do you, do you have, do you have a favorite league or format?
Speaker: Or do you play, how many different leagues are you actually playing in?
Speaker: I think, I think I play every format that I, I, I, that I have now, but, uh,
Speaker: But I only interested in format that let me pick a lineup like Shire and then Headshot.
Speaker: And then I can also ban pick because I think I have a better strategist than a player.
Speaker: So if any format that let me prepare before the match, I think I do better than just an icon.
Speaker: So that's why I think I like Head Start the most.
Speaker: I have to thank Arshon and Arshon for introducing me to the AKFL.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: Well, let's start talking about NKFL.
Speaker: Let's go into that.
Speaker: Karl, do you want to take on some of these questions?
Speaker: I have to find the questions.
Speaker: Where did you post that, Jason?
Speaker: I realize I've been talking and asking too many of the questions and thinking, if we're going to do this interview properly, you need to ask some questions too.
Speaker: Yeah, but I...
Speaker: I mean, I should.
Speaker: I posted them somewhere.
Speaker: Let me find them.
Speaker: Yeah, you wrote most of these questions.
Speaker: Yeah, I know.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: But this microphone crisis has let me like I've been distracted by other things.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: It's fine.
Speaker: We can cut this.
Speaker: I won't, but we can.
Speaker: Yeah, I will have them here.
Speaker: I'll put them in the Google Doc.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Cool.
Speaker: We need some elevator music now.
Speaker: So actually, when did you, this is not on the forum, but when did you enter NKFL?
Speaker: Like what season?
Speaker: Do you remember?
Speaker: Season 16.
Speaker: Yeah, season 16.
Speaker: And this is the only season that we don't play in the system right now.
Speaker: Instead, we play the bracket and like... Yeah, when we reshifted everything, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: yeah yeah yeah that also i plan uh uh because because i uh i i got in season 16 for the first time and then i got third i think yeah i got hurt i got third and then after that in the seven 17 uh decide to put
Speaker: people into the division follow the result of the system.
Speaker: So he told me in gold with the highest division at that time.
Speaker: So yeah, I haven't been robot in NKFL from the start.
Speaker: So you know you've never been promoted.
Speaker: You came in at the right side.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And I stayed there.
Speaker: I also, yeah, I stayed in the gold.
Speaker: And then after that, the Cesar make the diamond division.
Speaker: And then I just move on from there.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then you have stayed in diamond since then, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So 17, 18, 19.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So seven seasons, I think.
Speaker: That's impressive.
Speaker: Impressive stuff.
Speaker: Yeah, that's impressive.
Speaker: That's really impressive.
Speaker: I mean, I think Hydro stayed in the top for the first seven, eight seasons or maybe longer as well.
Speaker: Yeah, that was for a very long time.
Speaker: That was before we let the international people in.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So what's also impressive is obviously your win last season.
Speaker: Could you describe that journey that you had that season?
Speaker: Yeah, overall it was a great season.
Speaker: All of my opponents, of course, are very touched.
Speaker: It's diamond after all.
Speaker: So I was very happy that I won again.
Speaker: Almost everyone except for Golami.
Speaker: But at the end of the season, my game with Scyzord, I win that because Scyzord profit the game.
Speaker: So, yeah, it's called a bit of controversy at the end.
Speaker: So I could have a better ending of the season, but I will take what I have.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, true.
Speaker: Yeah, no, I can definitely understand that because if you want to, you know, you want to kind of go through and play everything and fulfill all the games.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: as they come in that as well.
Speaker: But did you, did you win every matchup during the season?
Speaker: Did you win, did you win all the games or was there one, a couple that you lost like two, one?
Speaker: No, I, I lost a few games, but, uh, I lost, I lost, most, most of my games were two over one.
Speaker: And then, uh, I win, I won three, zero over, uh, Christopher.
Speaker: And then I, I lost, uh, one, one over two again, uh, Golami.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But,
Speaker: Because my shaggy in headshot is that I always try to have my game win only two.
Speaker: So I don't usually go for 3-0 and then that explains I try my best to get the two wins and then I can... You can just relax a little bit and... Yeah.
Speaker: So many of my games actually come...
Speaker: come down to the look of the draw, the quality of the deck and the opponent over there is very high.
Speaker: Was there a matchup or a game that you particularly remember or enjoyed during the season?
Speaker: I don't
Speaker: No, I don't think so.
Speaker: No, no.
Speaker: I mean, you just love crushing everyone.
Speaker: So yes, that's fine as well.
Speaker: So as we've heard, or as many listeners maybe know as well, you might be one of the players in Nankifeld that does the most preparations.
Speaker: I think certainly more than I tend to do.
Speaker: Would you mind telling what your process is?
Speaker: How do you approach NKFL match or Hexit match versus an opponent?
Speaker: So I make matches for every of my opponents.
Speaker: So I got a matrix like a spreadsheet.
Speaker: Yeah, the press it and then the match is like I put all six of my decks in one column and then I put on six of my opponent deck in another.
Speaker: And then I try to to make to see how every matchup happens.
Speaker: And then that took a lot of time, but I
Speaker: Unlike many players in Diamond, I have no Y and I have no Kitschler.
Speaker: Time is all I have.
Speaker: And then at the first few seasons, I basically practiced every single matchup in the Magic.
Speaker: So you just do one game of each matchup?
Speaker: At least.
Speaker: So yeah, it will be like 36 games per opponent.
Speaker: But that process took a lot of time.
Speaker: And then after some time, I realized it's not actually practical at all.
Speaker: Because me and I learned that myself and then the opponent play very much different.
Speaker: And because that I may have a misconception about how the match play out.
Speaker: For example, sometimes I think that it is match up.
Speaker: My deck is stronger, but when we play it, my deck is actually a weaker one.
Speaker: So that's why I decide I have to stop doing that.
Speaker: And then I only focus on making analysis just by looking at it.
Speaker: I still play my opponent deck at least once because I want to know how they play out and also I can also take note that what I need to be careful about when I play again that deck.
Speaker: But it took less time to repair compared to before.
Speaker: So that's how I prepare for my game.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And you mentioned that you went for a strategy where you want to go 2-1 versus your opponent's deck.
Speaker: Like you want to ensure that you have two winning decks in your lineup.
Speaker: So how does that affect the banning and how you protect your decks?
Speaker: Yeah, so my lineup is actually very best because I have a game card deck
Speaker: that everyone will ban it.
Speaker: And even if they don't, that deck can also win game.
Speaker: So I feel a lineup around that deck.
Speaker: So that even if opponent ban it or not, I can still have the deck that play very similar to the Genkha.
Speaker: So I don't have to worry about my opponent first ban.
Speaker: Then I focus so that I will always have a good matchup in the first game.
Speaker: Or if I cannot, I will focus on the third game.
Speaker: And usually I give up on the second game.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: I think there are a lot of people entering NKFL or trying out Texas for the first.
Speaker: time maybe, that there are a lot of depth in how to approach the banning phase.
Speaker: It's just not like this deck is the strongest, but it's like what damage can these decks do to my lineup in particular, which is not always the same.
Speaker: So interesting.
Speaker: Did you change your lineup going into last season from the season before?
Speaker: Did you make any changes for the previous season or was it a lineup that you had from before?
Speaker: So in season 21 and before, I actually had the 6-deck problem where the last deck of mine doesn't actually do anything.
Speaker: I would be either have that deck with zero win rate,
Speaker: I found out that I could not make a good matchup for it, so I didn't play it at all.
Speaker: So basically I played all the seasons before with only 5 decks.
Speaker: And then season 22 was the first time I actually had 6 decks that I could play in many situations.
Speaker: And then I brought two Win-Off Exchange decks into my play-up.
Speaker: One of them performed really, really solid.
Speaker: And then another one is okay, not so great, but acceptable.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And how about the opponents lineups, since obviously Windsor Exchange was a new set going into the last season.
Speaker: Did you see a meta change in the Diamond division?
Speaker: What impact did Windsor Exchange have there?
Speaker: Yeah, there was a few very solid WD decks in Diamond, but I don't think WD impact very much in the meta that season because most of the Diamond players at Season 22 do not bring WD deck at all, like Street of Fear
Speaker: and survivor and then you also Argenon, you didn't bring any win of exchange deck.
Speaker: So only Scyzod with six win of exchange, but I don't think he was very serious at that time.
Speaker: So yeah, and then the diamond meta is all about the speed of the game.
Speaker: So I don't think win of exchange actually change anything.
Speaker: There is a few
Speaker: good deck, but they also reliable on how fast they can win.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then I am very lucky because I have my store so I can play KeyFox and I have a lot of people who help me to prosecute the budget.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you get a bit of outside.
Speaker: I suppose you also have some time to look at the spreadsheet or the document for the coming season, season 23.
Speaker: Like, how do you see Grim Reminders making an entrance into the Diamond Division?
Speaker: Do you think that will be a meta change or more impactful?
Speaker: Yeah, it's very interesting.
Speaker: But of course, because Scyzor limits the set into only allow you to bring two Grim Reminder decks.
Speaker: So I think... I don't think...
Speaker: the Grim Reminder will affect, will change the meta as much because only two decks per player.
Speaker: I checked the NKPL and then I think there will be some very solid decks.
Speaker: But it is set.
Speaker: The Grim Reminder is a very complicated set.
Speaker: I think we need to have more time to actually
Speaker: see how it's played and then how the deck can be formed, especially again the best deck among all the sets.
Speaker: So it's different from the Widow Exchange.
Speaker: I think we only need like a month or so so we can play Widow Exchange good enough.
Speaker: But I think, give a reminder, we need more time to practice the set.
Speaker: Yeah, and I suppose, like, maybe my own theory is that it will have more impact in the lower divisions, since the set is more likely to improve a lot of lineups in maybe bronze and below, for example.
Speaker: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker: Because the diamond, like, in the diamond division, you have the best decks, really, really solid collections already, so.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, it's true.
Speaker: So let's see, let us see.
Speaker: Because I think there were already two games in Diamond.
Speaker: But I didn't know, I didn't check if there is any matchup between Green Reminder and the other sets.
Speaker: But I think it would be very interesting to know.
Speaker: Yeah, it makes you want to have the full stats, I think, between what sets win versus what sets.
Speaker: It's very interesting statistics.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So do you have a special method to pick decks for your lineup?
Speaker: Or how did you decide on what decks to bring for this new season, for example?
Speaker: I mean, I know Saramis, for example, he plays a lot of solo tournaments, play versus himself, in order to find what decks perform the best.
Speaker: How do you go about it?
Speaker: I think my method is that I practice a lot with everyone, my friends and then everyone I know.
Speaker: Sometimes I ask online players like Karen and then Sik of Angma or Mongogi.
Speaker: I mean, I will ask everyone I know to practice with me and then I experiment with
Speaker: as many lineups as I can.
Speaker: So I will figure out which deck is good enough and which deck doesn't work in my lineup.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: OK.
Speaker: Sarah.
Speaker: I think that's a lot more than I'm doing, if I'm going to be honest.
Speaker: Yeah, same here.
Speaker: That's a lot of thorough.
Speaker: I mean, it would be a dream of owning a game shop and just being able to be like, yeah, I mean, everything is...
Speaker: is part of the job.
Speaker: Like you ask a friend to play.
Speaker: You're still selling the game.
Speaker: You're asking someone to play the game.
Speaker: People come in.
Speaker: Oh, what are you playing?
Speaker: You don't even have to ask a friend.
Speaker: You can just order an employee to play.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: That's perfect.
Speaker: I mean, I have six employees in my store because they are on part time.
Speaker: So I have six.
Speaker: and five of them playing keyboard because I introduced them to keyboard and that explains why I can play keyboard anytime I want.
Speaker: I mean, moving into, I guess we can move into finding more about what you do in Vietnam.
Speaker: and how like we see so much stuff like you are responsible for Key Forge being translated to Vietnamese especially Winds of Exchange and Grimmerminders you translated both sets you're doing two store championships like
Speaker: tell us more like you've done so much for the game in that country which is just brilliant can you tell us any more about like what that setup looks like wow it will be a very long story it's fine we've got two hours okay so I start in did you not get the memo Carl sorry sorry
Speaker: I started the game in 2020, so during the mass mutation era.
Speaker: At that time, they were already a keyfog community in Vietnam.
Speaker: And the community at that time was not most, but also not big either.
Speaker: So mostly they are friends.
Speaker: who enjoy keyfork and play together.
Speaker: So I joined in and then I feel like one keyfork day a week was enough for me.
Speaker: So I decided to do one more day in my own store.
Speaker: And then I really think Kifok could be something very big in Vietnam.
Speaker: But it needs a clear vision of how to grow a community and how we should do in the future, instead of just a group of fans.
Speaker: So the next thing is...
Speaker: It's quite a long story, but basically I took over all the keyfork sales in my city and then I browse all the stores under my banner.
Speaker: Basically I took over all the keyfork in Vietnam.
Speaker: Yeah, but I gave everyone a very clear future of how Key Fork will grow in Vietnam.
Speaker: I promised them from the start that I would bring Key Fork official to Vietnam and many things.
Speaker: But we struggled a bit during the pandemic.
Speaker: But fortunately, everyone still judged in me during that time and we still play.
Speaker: And then right now is the time I return my promise for a hundred players who trust in me.
Speaker: I translate the game.
Speaker: I localize the game to Vietnamese.
Speaker: And yeah, so that's how I build a community in Vietnam.
Speaker: Yeah, that's really great.
Speaker: I'm sure it feels great to be able to actually fulfill that promise to the community.
Speaker: So has the community grown a lot since you entered the community in 2020?
Speaker: Yeah, I think at first we only have like 10 people or something.
Speaker: And right now I think we have like
Speaker: 150 players in the whole Vietnam.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That's really good.
Speaker: I really think that Vietnam has a lot of potential for gaming.
Speaker: If you look at the eSports, you can see that.
Speaker: We play very serious in some online games for some eSports games.
Speaker: But the
Speaker: the language barrier is very difficult in Vietnam because the most... You can look at me, you can look at me, and then many, many of my players is like a young audience, so they don't actually focus on the elite.
Speaker: So if I... So because I local them into local, the key form into Vietnamese, a lot of people can access the game easier.
Speaker: So yeah.
Speaker: So do you have a feeling for like, is there a big, big part of the Vietnamese community that is also like involved in leagues?
Speaker: I know there are some, but would you say most of them play locally or are there like loads on playing on TCO, for example?
Speaker: Most of them play locally because as you can see we can play mostly any day with one so most of the players here doesn't like to play online but some of them will play on TCO and a few very few of the players will introduce into online league by me.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, it definitely, if I haven't, if I'm playing against someone new, I don't know, I go, okay, cool, where are you from?
Speaker: What's time zone?
Speaker: Oh, yeah, I'm from Vietnam.
Speaker: Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker: I know Riku.
Speaker: It's like most players that I play now that I haven't played before are from Vietnam now and know you.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, I think the league is growing because of you as well.
Speaker: The players coming in.
Speaker: It's also very nice to hear since there is some doom and gloom in the community now.
Speaker: And it's very nice to hear what you actually can do with enough determination and building a local community because there are
Speaker: other communities as well, like in South America, for example, that seems to be growing quite fast.
Speaker: That's really great.
Speaker: Oh yeah, definitely.
Speaker: I mean, we all know that Ghost Galaxy are doing an amazing job with the resources that they have.
Speaker: But us, like internationally, we love the game, so we're doing everything we can internationally to help the games succeed.
Speaker: And I think what you've done, Riku, is a
Speaker: something that we can all look up to, to say, actually, like, like Carl said, put enough, if you're determined enough, you could do that, you can push it, then
Speaker: you can cre ate a really good gaming community by doing that.
Speaker: So, yeah, thank you for showing us how to do that.
Speaker: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker: But speaking about that, have you noticed what difference has it made for you in your community building or Key Forge in general in Vietnam for you since GG has taken over?
Speaker: like obviously now you are gonna have a volt tour in vietnam uh this summer and that didn't yeah as i said before there is no official board game or card game distributor in vietnam so uh so because i i after i took over and then i i i get the stop by myself from directly from the from the printing house and it's it's helped a lot to
Speaker: to distribute the key fork into the community.
Speaker: But before that, we have no official distributor.
Speaker: So it's also a plan why we have no OP or anything.
Speaker: We are so used to not having any support.
Speaker: So for us during the pandemic, it's actually the same.
Speaker: During the pandemic, if you go to the Facebook or the Discord, you will see everyone say there's no longer OP or something.
Speaker: But for the Vietnam, because we didn't have any from the start, we were like, okay, it's normal first.
Speaker: And then we got Galaxy took over and let us localized KeyFox and then it's actually helped because right now for now we have official OP and then we have official KeyFox decks in Vietnamese.
Speaker: So yeah, I think the
Speaker: God Galaxy took over the game helped Vietnamese grow a lot.
Speaker: Okay, cool.
Speaker: What's next though, because you've got it in two stores so far, right?
Speaker: In Vietnam.
Speaker: How many stores in Vietnam are selling?
Speaker: Right now, actually, we have more than two, but only
Speaker: only two other, other, other, like the key for classic.
Speaker: And then we have like four orders, much more smaller.
Speaker: Hmm.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I, I, I don't know.
Speaker: I, I actually haven't, I have not figured out if I should, uh, I should expand it into more stores or I just, I should focus on the, the current, currently store.
Speaker: I have not figured out about that yet, but maybe in one or two months later I will see.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So do you have like some general advice for how to how to succeed with this community building?
Speaker: Like for other people who wants to build their own communities?
Speaker: So I think it's
Speaker: There are a lot of things I want to say but it will depend on how the market, how the culture in every country and then how the community is different.
Speaker: So the only thing I think I can say is that consistency is the key.
Speaker: Consistency is key.
Speaker: I like it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So when I first started my community, my own store only had four players for the key fork day.
Speaker: But I keep that happen for every week.
Speaker: And we didn't fail to make it happen for the last four years.
Speaker: And by doing so, whenever there is a new player, they come with us and they see if that's a game, they can put effort into the game and do not have to worry about one day nobody would stop playing or something.
Speaker: So yeah, because of that, more players will come and see that we have fun and then we love the game and then we play it every week and then they decide to fight with us.
Speaker: And that's the thing I want to mention, that consistency is very important to build a community.
Speaker: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker: I really like that consistency really is key, just pushing on, pushing on, pushing on.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: No, that's, I mean, like I said, that is like, I can't think of the word.
Speaker: Speechless.
Speaker: You're speechless.
Speaker: I am speechless.
Speaker: I'm thinking of Swedish here, which would help Carl.
Speaker: It wouldn't help anyone else.
Speaker: Like, you know, what I'm trying to say is like, the...
Speaker: Yeah, repeating what I said earlier, the work you've done is just brilliant out there.
Speaker: And so it's really nice to hear everything you've done.
Speaker: And it's inspiration.
Speaker: That's the word I'm trying to think of, inspiration.
Speaker: I think you've inspired them.
Speaker: You can inspire a lot of people.
Speaker: to do that and to help transform their communities as well.
Speaker: So huge thank you from the Vietnam people, which I do not represent.
Speaker: But I'm pretty sure the Vietnam players would want to say thank you to you.
Speaker: But what I want to know...
Speaker: But we can also say the international community or the online community should also thank Riko because Riko's also setting up this wonderful team league.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And that's exactly what I want to ask about.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Perfect position then.
Speaker: Yeah, we transitioned from Vietnam thanking Riku.
Speaker: Now we can transition into the world thanking you and actually thanking both of you because both of you have given us the Key Forge Team League.
Speaker: Kind of taking on the essentially the baton because we had Key Forge Online Team events and then you had Swindle Team events which is kind of paused for the moment but then you kind of took this in instead of doing an event or what, like a tournament like that, actually coming into doing a Team League
Speaker: which kind of feels like more of an ongoing league basis thing and really exciting.
Speaker: So both of you, how did you come up with thinking, actually, this is what we're missing again now?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm going to let Rico answer that because Rico was the one approaching me asking if I wanted to co-host stuff with him.
Speaker: Yeah, it's actually very simple.
Speaker: Just one day, I, you know, because there were, there were co-tell before, you know, the team league.
Speaker: A very long time ago, I think we played it before the pandemic.
Speaker: And then after that, we have the Widow Team event.
Speaker: And then after that, we have the World Cup from Scythezord.
Speaker: And then I feel like maybe we need some event that we can make a team and then we can play together and have fun.
Speaker: So yeah, and I miss the time of Kote and Widow, so I came to Agenon and then I asked him, let's make one.
Speaker: And then yeah, that's all.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I think also, I really like the simplicity of the format there.
Speaker: And I very much like the selected roles that I, as an appreciator of adaptive, can actually focus only on that.
Speaker: You like adaptive, really?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I mean, some people don't really like adaptive, so it's good for them to be able to avoid it.
Speaker: Well, then they just need to adapt, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because we have ABR, which is crazy, like different formats every week.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I did one season.
Speaker: I loved it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It's great fun.
Speaker: But I also really appreciate the simplicity and the structure here.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: What I didn't realise until last minute was that you're actually stuck with the whole season.
Speaker: You're stuck with that one format.
Speaker: Because I was saying to Murph, we can just switch backwards and forwards between Archon and Adaptive.
Speaker: Because Dave Cordero really wanted to go with Triad.
Speaker: I think Murph really stitched you up then because I think Murph knew exactly what was...
Speaker: But to me, I was like, I don't have... I like playing my own decks because I'm familiar with them and I needed to be familiar with something and I needed to be familiar with something good enough to be an Archon.
Speaker: So I said, yeah, I'll take Adaptive if I can.
Speaker: But I was thinking, yeah, we could switch between... Because I know Werth likes his Adaptive as well with his...
Speaker: He should, I suppose.
Speaker: Kargi stuff there as well.
Speaker: But yeah, we're doing not that well.
Speaker: But how do you like Adaptive, Jason, now that you've played three rounds?
Speaker: I've always been a big fan of Adaptive because I'm a big fan of like...
Speaker: no deck goes to waste unless it's low AOA.
Speaker: Because I've got so much AOA chaff.
Speaker: And what was called?
Speaker: But I really enjoy the...
Speaker: the deck analysis that happens in an adaptive game because you know your deck, but you also know, but you also have to learn your opponent's deck at the same time.
Speaker: In a normal game, like, you're not going to play your opponent's deck in an Archon game.
Speaker: You're not even going to touch your opponent's deck in Archon.
Speaker: So you don't really care as much about, I'm going to have to play this, so I need to kind of pay as much attention here.
Speaker: I mean, you guys, I mean, Riku, you're probably thinking, what do you mean?
Speaker: I pay equal amount of attention to every single opponent's deck that I play against.
Speaker: For me, I don't.
Speaker: But in Adaptive, I have to because I have to play it.
Speaker: So I'm picking the key cards, how's this card?
Speaker: Are they bouncing it, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker: I lost 2-1 in my second game, and I...
Speaker: my Dark Tidings deck lost both games and then they won with the Dark Tidings deck because I took too many chains on their Woe deck but he pulled off a combo and I was like that's nice and so then I focused on putting off the same combo to take the win back for example and so I kind of feel like then you get the fair the fair analysis to go okay how do I want to take the third game
Speaker: And I really enjoy it.
Speaker: If you're going to play best of three of something, then, yeah.
Speaker: I find it quite interesting, personally, because I never liked Reversal at all.
Speaker: I've always been like, I want to play my own decks.
Speaker: I don't enjoy borrowing decks either.
Speaker: I like to play what I actually own.
Speaker: But in adaptive, my favorite game to play is actually game two, where I have to beat my own deck because I really like, I feel like that's where
Speaker: your knowledge of your deck is showing the most because you know how it loses.
Speaker: So you're essentially just playing your own deck in that game as well.
Speaker: And I think playing adaptive, when you play someone else's deck in competitive adaptive,
Speaker: you're going to h ave a better time playing someone else's deck because they've put thought into bringing a competitive deck.
Speaker: So you're not just going to play any crappy deck that belongs to someone else.
Speaker: You're going to play a deck which they have said this is good enough to play a competitive game.
Speaker: So I kind of feel that if you're going to play something else, you're going to play something interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, it should be interesting, but also I suppose it should be
Speaker: not very transparent, I guess, like there should be some hidden stuff for you to figure out, like how to maximize in order for it to be an actual, like a really good adaptive deck.
Speaker: I mean, that's a really, really good point.
Speaker: Do you think I go deep enough to worry about that?
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: No, I don't think I think that deeply when it comes to adaptive, if I'm being honest, where I think, okay.
Speaker: in this deck, I have to hide the big combo because I don't want my opponent to play the big combo.
Speaker: Maybe I should.
Speaker: Maybe that's a tactic.
Speaker: Maybe that will change to make me into the best keeper of player in the world.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I just know that I find the trickiest decks to face in Adaptive is DT, both since I know the set the least, and there are some card combinations or card interactions that I just haven't had experience with, but also because
Speaker: how the chains affect game three.
Speaker: Like I bid on a deck that has to take chains, like how that exponentially changes how the deck operates.
Speaker: And that is very tricky to get a feel for, I think, especially if you are not the owner of the DT deck in question.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So Riku, the format of KTL, who came up with the format of going Adaptive Arc on Triad and do that?
Speaker: Was that an idea you had before you came to the beekeeper?
Speaker: Or was that something that you came up with together?
Speaker: I think it's
Speaker: It's cool my idea, I think.
Speaker: Is it?
Speaker: You had the format idea.
Speaker: Yeah, because I remember when I first started Q4, I have heard about the World Championship team where they will play the same format where one player will like a strong battle tree.
Speaker: and then another one we played child's battle 3 and another one we played adaptive battle 3.
Speaker: So I remember that.
Speaker: And then I also remember there were the online tournament.
Speaker: where they call it the Sado Sado Sado work or something.
Speaker: I don't I don't really remember.
Speaker: But yeah, but they basically they do the same thing, but they do online because the World Championship will cancel at the time.
Speaker: So yeah, and then when when Sado make the World Cup
Speaker: I start to remember everything and then I think that maybe I should.
Speaker: You took influences.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And also since you said like when we discussed it, like we need some kind of team event where we actually can choose who we want to team up with.
Speaker: Since both, like ABR is, you know, the captain's pick, the team, and then you end up with the team, and that is very interesting.
Speaker: But in the World Cup, it's also based on your performance in NKFL, so some players won't have the chance to play those formats.
Speaker: But here you can actually just team up with whoever you want to and have a good time.
Speaker: with some friends.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I like that it's ongoing.
Speaker: Like everyone, everyone's going to have the same amount of games.
Speaker: And unless you make top cut, but like you, it's, it's, it's the league basis.
Speaker: So it's not like two losses and out or anything like that.
Speaker: You can just improve this season, have fun.
Speaker: And then if it doesn't go so well,
Speaker: you know, come back next season, but you'll still have that same amount of games in the league thing where I think with, um, there was a lot, there was a big top cut for coats, I think.
Speaker: And some of the other team events, it was a, you know, you play in, you're out with, there's a lot of tournaments that I like to kind of stick to a tournament.
Speaker: And I really, I'm really looking forward to that there.
Speaker: But you've got quite the team together, Riku, as well for KTL.
Speaker: So you've got Astron on media and getting the people to record games and stream games as well.
Speaker: So you've got feature matches every week, which are coming out.
Speaker: So there's three streamers streaming a feature match.
Speaker: And then you've got Hydro on rules.
Speaker: And Blinking Lion as well.
Speaker: And Blinking Lion as well on Judge Calls.
Speaker: Who else is involved?
Speaker: That's everybody.
Speaker: Oh, is that everyone as well?
Speaker: I felt like Murph's got very, very involved as well.
Speaker: But I think he's just really enthusiastic then.
Speaker: Yeah, and I think for the feature matches, obviously, Estran isn't streaming himself over the game.
Speaker: So you have different casters, and those are involved in that capacity.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: But I mean, he's done a really great job in just in organizing everything as well.
Speaker: And it has been nice, like Murph and Xhoc, for example, other people has been streaming there.
Speaker: their games outside of being in future matches.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So he's got the streamers together and to do stuff as well.
Speaker: So that's the Key Force Team League.
Speaker: So if you're listening to this and you don't know anything about the Key Force Team League and you want to get involved, get a team together, find the Discord, find us on Discord, and we'll put you in the right direction.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, cool.
Speaker: Well, yeah, it's kind of, I think we kind of run out of time for the interview and it kind of turned into, you know, more.
Speaker: I thought you said we had one more hour to film.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Time flies.
Speaker: I mean, if we want to fill an hour, I mean, we could start talking about, I don't know, a different game.
Speaker: You a fan of Star Wars, Riku?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: As a film?
Speaker: Do you like the film, Star Wars films?
Speaker: Yeah, I like the film.
Speaker: I think we should stop the interview now.
Speaker: No, I mean, I'm not going to talk about another game.
Speaker: I'm just wondering how... I'm joking.
Speaker: I'm joking for those who had to suffer through our last episode, which we kind of half-apologised for.
Speaker: But it's also fun to record.
Speaker: Um, but yeah, Rico, it's been so good to like get you on and like, for me, like talk to you properly for more than an hour, because I think you popped into like a, a swindle, um, team meet for half an hour at some point, uh, when I was on there.
Speaker: But, um, yeah, really, really good job.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Great job on pushing on with speaking English as well, because I knew you were kind of a little bit worried about that, but I think you did a great job.
Speaker: But thank you for taking us on your journey through your NKFL and what you're doing in Vietnam as well.
Speaker: So huge, thank you.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: And cool.
Speaker: Where can people find you?
Speaker: Where?
Speaker: I mean, where can people find you like online?
Speaker: Is it just Discord?
Speaker: Yeah, you can find me on Discord.
Speaker: The handle is EmperorRecoons.
Speaker: You can also find me on Facebook.
Speaker: It's RecoongWing.
Speaker: If you add a tip in the keyword, you'll probably see me somewhere.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: They're quite active there as well.
Speaker: Great, cool.
Speaker: Well, yeah, again, thank you very much.
Speaker: But until next time, when we get behind the mics again, we say, first of all, good luck for this season, Riku.
Speaker: Good luck.
Speaker: Have you played your first game this season?
Speaker: No, I tried to contact, I mean...
Speaker: My first opponent is Dick Roland and suddenly he stopped responding to me so I haven't scheduled a game with him.
Speaker: Well, this will be out in the morning so if anyone knows Dick Roland personally, give him a nudge and get him to go in contact with Riku because Riku needs to beat him.
Speaker: to keep it that is quite the clash of titans though that is a huge clash of titans that is a big big game as well but yeah so we say thank you we say thank you for your listener for listening to us again if you're still listening to us seriously thank you if you came back after last week's episode again thank you
Speaker: But until next time, we say thank you very much for John and Prosper.
Speaker: Bye-bye.
Speaker: Have a good night.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
