Worlds Collide

Worlds Collide

Houses:

Set Number:

3

Symbol:

Released:

Nov 8, 2019

Cards:

405

New Cards:

284

Design and Development:

Brad Andres, Skaff Elias, Richard Garfield, Aaron Haltom, and Daniel Schaefer

Languages:

11 - English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Thai, Russian

Preceded by:

Age of Ascension

Followed by:

Mass Mutation

Worlds Collide is the third KeyForge set, announced at Gen Con on August 2nd 2019 and released on November 8, 2019. In the US, Target stores unintentionally leaked and then started selling Worlds Collide starter sets on October 2nd, more than one month before the official release date.

The first set to include new houses, Worlds Collide brought houses Saurian and Star Alliance, while taking out Mars and Sanctum. The total cardpool is 405 cards, of which 284 are new and 121 returning from one or both previous sets. The increased cardpool is only due to a larger number of Special rarity cards, while the “base” number of cards per house is the same as in previous sets, typically 52.

House Rotation

• New: Saurian, Star Alliance
• Rotated Out: Mars, Sanctum

Saurian explores the theme of hubris through the exalt keyword that was introduced exclusively with Saurians, big creatures with high risk / high reward effects define this house. Secondary themes include steal-hate, capturing and warding.

Inspired by classic sci-fi tropes, Star Alliance is thematically the opposite of house Mars. As the primary mechanics are allowing playing and using cards outside of the active house, Star Alliance brings cohesion and efficiency to decks.

Mars and Sanctum are the first houses to rotate out in KeyForge's history. Sanctum would return in the following set Mass Mutation, with Mars not returning until much later in Winds of Exchange.

New in This Set

New Status Effects: Ward and Enrage

Ward and Enrage were introduced as new status effects, joining Stun. Ward offers protection to creatures, while Enrage forces a creature into fighting if they can do so.

Exalt

The exalt mechanic, heavily featured in house Saurian, was a new shorthand term used in abilities which causes Æmber from the common supply to be placed on a creature, which could ultimately be claimed by that creature's opponent if it left play. This term is heavily featured in Saurian to emphasize their risk/reward theme of hubris.

Anomalies

An Anomaly card in Worlds Collide

A new type of card introduced in Worlds Collide are Anomalies: cards that are not part of any current or past set, but from possible future sets. These very rare cards can appear in any house, have a lightning-style border treatment, and usually contain new keywords or mechanics not yet seen in any previously released card. There are 10 Anomalies available in Worlds Collide (these are in addition to the 405 standard cards in the set). About 3.5% of Worlds Collide decks contain an anomaly. Anomalies have not been included in every subsequent set, but were present in Winds of Exchange and Unchained 2023.

Other Mechanics

Some card abilities refer to the center of the Battleline (on creatures with the new Leader trait), and Worlds Collide also introduces Star Alliance creatures that can also be played as upgrades (such as CALV-1N and Explo-rover)

Gameplay

The introduction of new houses and mechanics brought a significant shift in gameplay. Boards are even more important than in Age of Ascension, new cards that prevent stealing are introduced, and there are significantly more abilities that modify key costs. All of this makes Worlds Collide’s gameplay the most intricate thus far.

House leaders are some of the best cards in the game, while Quixxle Stone, Fangtooth Cavern and Snag's Mirror are new, gameplay-warping artifacts. Some of the strongest combos are in house Saurian: Cincinnatus Rex + The Golden Spiral, or cards that take advantage of Tribute. Purging is an increasingly common mechanic in house Dis, with cards like Infurnace and E’e on the Fringes.

Special Rarity Cards

Special rarity cards in WC include Mega versions of common Brobnar creatures (each with their own Brew), a unique Blaster for each common Star Alliance creature, as well as different Banes (in Dis) and Plants (in Shadows) for different houses. Dexus and Sinestra are also variant cards.

“Fixed” cards are Hyde and Velum, Igon the Green and Igon the Terrible, Xenos Bloodshadow and Toad, as well as Ortannu the Chained with Ortannu’s Binding. Moor Wolf always appears with at least 2 copies, while Chain Gang and Grumpus Tamer always appear with another card.

Card Distribution

This table indicates how many cards are in each house of Worlds Collide and how many are of each rarity. The bottom section displays the number of reprints in each house and the set from which they originated.

Rarity								Total
Total	68	60	53	53	57	61	53	405
Common	16	16	16	16	16	16	16	112
Uncommon	16	16	16	16	15	16	16	111
Rare	20	20	20	21	20	21	20	142
Special	16	8	1	0	6	8	1	40
Set of first appearance:
New in WC	44	35	29	53	33	61	29	284
AoA	14	14	10		7		10	55
CotA	10	11	14		17		14	66

Reception

On the strength of new houses and mechanics, the set was widely praised by players and 100,000 Worlds Collide decks were registered in the Master Vault within 15 days of the set's official release. Worlds Collide immediately proved to be a highly competitive set, winning the first Archon Vault Tour held after its release as well as outnumbering CotA in the top cut.

Competitive Success

Most Popular Cards in WC Vault Tour Winning Decks, by Rarity
Commons
EDAI “Edie” 4x4 (6) Eyegor (4) Thero Centurion (4) Com. Officer Kirby (3) Harbinger of Doom (3)	Infurnace (3) Rhetor Gallim (3) Rotgrub (3) Wormhole Technician (3)
Uncommons
Helmsman Spears (2) Hysteria (2) Lay of the Land (2)	Library of the Damned (2) Orator Hissaro (2) Snag (2)
Rares & Specials
Not enough data

A Worlds Collide deck won the first Archon Vault Tour after the release of the set. This was the first ever time that a non-Call of the Archons deck won an Archon Vault Tour. Although many fewer Worlds Collide decks have been opened than Call of the Archons ones, Worlds Collide proved that it could compete head to head with earlier sets by placing well in several high-level Archon tournaments since its release. Cards such as Infurnace are very effective in mitigating the impact of powerful cards like Dust Pixie and Ghostly Hand that are popular for their bonus Æmber. The set also features many anti-steal cards like Odoac the Patrician and Discombobulator that directly counter Call of the Archons Shadows.

Last updated on February 9, 2020

Most Successful Houses

Although every house from Worlds Collide has won a Vault Tour at least once, the most common houses in Worlds Collide decks that reach the top cut are Logos, Saurian, and Star Alliance. Brobnar has been the least successful. The following is a graph containing the house breakdown of all Worlds Collide decks that reached the top cut of a Vault Tour.

(Note: For the sake of simplicity, decks can be counted more than once for this data.)

House Breakdown of All Top Worlds Collide Decks
All Time
	11	16	24	36	17	28	15
Set								Total
WC	11	16	24	36	17	28	15	49

Last updated on February 12, 2020

Products

Name	Model	Description
KeyForge: Worlds Collide Archon Deck	KF05a
KeyForge: Worlds Collide Display	KF05d	Contains 12 Worlds Collide Archon Decks
KeyForge: Worlds Collide Deluxe Archon Deck	KF06	Contains: 1 Worlds Collide Archon Deck 3 Key tokens 1 Chain tracker cards 17 Æmber tokens 21 Damage tokens 4 Stun, 6 Ward, and 4 Enrage tokens 10 +1 power tokens
KeyForge: Worlds Collide 2 Player Starter Set	KF07	Contains: 2 Worlds Collide Archon Decks 6 Key tokens 2 Chain tracker cards 22 Æmber tokens 24 Damage tokens 6 Stun, 9 Ward, and 9 Enrage tokens 20 +1 power tokens 2 Poster paper playmats Quick rules insert
KeyForge: Worlds Collide Premium Box	KF08	Contains: 2 Worlds Collide Archon Decks Chain tracker dial 10 Stun, 10 Ward, and 10 Enrage tokens 24 +1 power tokens 15 Armor tokens 5 Deck boxes 1 Token box 1 Collector's box

See also

• All cards in Worlds Collide
• Cards with an errata: Auto-Legionary
• Deck registration data
• Competitive success among houses