Vault Tour
The Vault Tour is a series of top level KeyForge Organized Play tournaments held throughout Asia, 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, two, or three main events and numerous side events. The main events are always two day tournaments: a Day 1 consisting of multiple qualification rounds, with the best players progressing to a Day 2 single elimination top cut.
Prizes
As of 2024, Ghost Galaxy has discontinued cash prizes for Vault Tours, citing a lack of interest generated by the offerings. Cash prizing was replaced with promotional decks, playmats, and achievement pins. The champion is awarded a trophy for their format, and gains the title of Vault Warrior (details are expected in Q3).
Upcoming Events
Las Vegas, US
Hamburg, GermanyResults
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.
Cash prizes and invites to the World Championships were awarded to the top four finishers in Alliance and Archon; First place won $3000 (USD) as well as an invite and a first round bye at the World Championship, Runner-Up won $1500 and an invite to the World Championship. The remaining Top 4 finishers won $500 each. There were no additional prizes for the 5-8th place finishers, and no additional participation rewards.
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.
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 |