Vault Tour

From Archon Arcana - The KeyForge Wiki

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Vault Tour
Dates:
March 2019 - Present
Frequency:
Year-round
Tier:
Formats:
Structure:
No set restrictions

The Vault Tour is a series of top level KeyForge Organized Play tournaments held throughout Europe and North America. Vault Tours are open to all players and all decks, and any tournament legal set can be used.

Usually held throughout a weekend, Vault Tours attract hundreds of players to play in one or two main events and numerous side events. The main events are always two day tournaments: a Day 1 consisting of multiple Swiss rounds, with the best players progressing to a Day 2 single elimination top cut.

Prizes

Currently, cash prizes and invites to the World Championships are awarded to the top four finishers in Alliance and Archon; First place wins $3000 (USD) as well as an invite and a first round bye at the World Championship, Runner-Up wins $1500 and an invite to the World Championship. The remaining Top 4 finishers win $500 each.

Upcoming events

2024
TBD
US flag US
TBD
TBD
TBD
TBD

Results

2023 Season

The first Vault Tour to be held after the Ghost Galaxy acquisition of KeyForge was located in Philadelphia, PA (USA). Vault Tours in the US are no longer run by a third party, but rather are organized directly by Ghost Galaxy, while international events are organized through partners. The Vault Tours followed a format established at KeyForge Celebration 2023; Friday night featured a Sealed Alliance event, Saturday featured the elimination rounds of the main Archon and Alliance events, and Sunday featured the Top 8 finals of the main events.

2023
Alliance
Standard
19
Jaypower
Jul 7-10
Archon
Standard
99
FlamingHobo
Archon
Standard
99
FlamingHobo
Alliance
Standard
18
TheNobleOne
Aug 18-20
Archon
Standard
48
June
Archon
Standard
48
June
Alliance
Standard
26
AV8R
Aug 25-27
Archon
Standard
47
Nova
Archon
Standard
47
Nova
Alliance
Standard
25
Gorlami
Sep 15-17
Archon
Standard
58
Sith of Angmar
Archon
Standard
58
Sith of Angmar
Alliance
Standard
14
vaivi
Sep 15-17
Archon
Standard
53
exina
Archon
Standard
53
exina
Alliance
Standard
23
Big_Z
Sep 29-Oct 1
Archon
Standard
51
Nova
Archon
Standard
51
Nova
Alliance
Standard
53
PetitBot
Oct 6-8
Archon
Standard
84
Dorian11
Archon
Standard
84
Dorian11

2019-2020 Season

The first Vault Tours were held in March 2019 in Eindhoven (NL) and Seattle (WA). Vault Tours in the US were initially run by Cascade Games, but from September 2019 are run by Yeti Gaming. In adaptive finals, the winner's deck was not always the deck that won most games in the final.

Round Æmbershards Power level
Participation 30 3
Per win in Swiss 15
Top 32 (only Day 2) 50
Top 16 (only Day 2) 75 5
Top 8 100
Top 4 150 6
Finalist 300 7
Winner 500 8


The winner of each Vault Tour was to be awarded free flight and accommodation for a later Vault Tour. Unlike the announced VaultWarrior series and current Vault Tours, no cash prizes were awarded at Vault Tours.

Æmbershards and power levels were awarded to all participating players and decks. Æmbershards from all Vault Tours count towards the Vault Tour Leaderboard.

Invites to the 2020 KeyForge World Championships event were to be awarded to the Top 100 players on the Vault Tour Leaderboard after the Sealed Solo event at Fort Worth, TX, USA on Feb. 6-9. 2020. If a player at any point entered the Top 100 by participating in a subsequent Vault Tour before Worlds 2020 (at the time, there were 4 scheduled Vault Tours between the Fort Worth event and the World Championships), they would also receive an invite. After the World 2020 Championships, the Vault Tour 2019-20 season would conclude and the leaderboard was to be reset.

Each Vault Tour also featured a Prize Wall where players could redeem Æmbershards for unique prizes. At the time, it was the only way to redeem Æmbershards gained by discovering decks in the Master Vault, as well as playing at Vault Tours and all other events within KeyForge Organized Play.

At the Collinsville VT in September, George Keagle became the first two-time Vault Tour winner, winning for the second time with the same deck. Jakub Nosal was the second player to achieve this, just a few weeks later at the Madrid VT. In November, Nova Westlake became the first player to win both an Archon and a Sealed Vault Tour (thus, winning with two different decks).

The final events of the 2019-20 season were to be held on the weekend of April 24-26 in Hannover, Germany and Alameda, California, USA.

2019
Mar. 15-17
Archon
Solo
184
Rachael Trimble
Archon
Solo
184
Rachael Trimble
Sealed
Solo
175
Yaro Tkatchenko
Archon
Survival
122
George Keagle
Archon
Survival
131
Nova Westlake
Sealed
Solo
128
Kav Manickaraj
Sealed
Solo
388
John Pickavance
Sealed
Solo
185
Ben Wallace
Jun. 21-23
Archon
Solo
342
Alessandro Storti
Archon
Solo
342
Alessandro Storti
Archon
Survival
151
Jakub Nosal
Sealed
Solo
241
Devin Chiriboga
Archon
Solo
203
Trevor May
Sealed
Solo
122
Marc Zontek
Archon
Solo
147
Panagiotis Kyriakou
Archon
Solo
69
George Keagle
Sept. 27-29
Archon
Survival
168
Jakub Nosal
Archon
Survival
168
Jakub Nosal
Archon
Triad
121
Joe Huber
Sealed
Solo
94
Nathan Starwalt
Sealed
Solo
166
Nova Westlake
Archon
Solo
72
Justin Lizza
Sealed
Solo
107
Nick Alexandro
2020
Archon
Survival
142
Luke Daniels
Sealed
Solo
94
Laura Darley

Meta and analysis

Main Article: Vault Tour Meta

The Vault Tour meta is always changing as new sets are released. For both the Call of the Archons and Age of Ascension periods, house Shadows was extremely dominant among Vault Tour top cuts, with Dis as the second most successful house. The card Urchin was the most common card among decks that reached top 16 or higher at a Vault Tour until the release of Worlds Collide. After the release of the third set, however, house Saurian replaced Shadows as the most successful house among Vault Tour top cuts.

Further reading

This Vault is Open, 16 January 2019
Each Vault is Unique, 18 February 2019
The Hunt for Æmber, 6 March 2019
What Is a KeyForge Metagame?, 27 March 2019
The Key to the Crucible, 9 July 2019
Bräkken Now on Tour!, 18 July 2019
Cracking the Vault Tour, 3 January 2020
Vault Tour Data, from Alex Watkins of FFG Organized Play


KeyForge Organized Play