Grand Archive! And why you need to play it!

A Brief overview of Grand Archive, and what has caught Sapphires attention!

Grand Archive, you’ve seen us mention it a bit since November 2023, but what is it?

Grand Archive is a Trading Card Game made by Weebs of the Shore(WotS). It officially launched in April 2023 after a very successful kickstarter campaign beginning in November 2021 with just over $947,000 being pledged across 1,500+ people! From launch to time of writing this article there have been 4 sets released, with two main sets with an expansion set following it: Dawn of Ashes and Fractured Crown, Alchemical Revolution and Mercurial Heart. From each main set we received 3 starter decks, one for each element that introduced a Champion to us, and with the release of Mercurial Heart we got the 2 Re:Collection decks that were designed not to be a starter deck but a pre-constructed competitive deck!

One of the strongest aspects of GA is the artwork, with many talented artists across the world being commissioned to grant us the gorgeous cards we see with all sides of the scale being appreciated, from the super cute to the more risqué! The official Grand Archive social media accounts have Artist Highlights to help promote these incredible artists! The design of Grand Archive functionally is described as  “An anime TCG with western game design” by Weebs of the Shore themselves, as a Magic: The Gathering player originally I found key aspects of the game translated over, such as the effects stack, and the way we read a card. However there’s much inspired by other TCGs to create a unique way of playing! An example is like One Piece, and Flesh and Blood, we have a Champion (Leader/Hero respectively) that determines our game plan as there’s 7 classes (Assassin, Cleric, Guardian, Mage, Ranger, Tamer, and Warrior), as well as 3 basic elements (Fire, Water, and Wind) to build our “Campion Lineage”. A common question that stumps a GA player is “what is this game closest to?”, and to be completely honest, I love that we tend to struggle to find an answer to that question! That’s because it shows Grand Archive is going its own way, and being inspired by the major TCGs, taking an aspect but giving it a new direction.

So how do we play? We have 2 decks, a Main Deck, and a Material Deck. The Material Deck contains 12 cards with the Champion Lineage as well as any special unique items, or weapons to be used throughout the game, however cards from here only come out once a turn, this deck can viewed by its owner at any time, and isn’t shuffled. The Main Deck is a minimum of 60 cards that is shuffled and contains Allies, Attacks, Actions, and other interesting types of cards!

Many Trading Card Gamess nowadays have a foil in each pack, however WotS wanted us to be excited to see foils again, so they reduced foils down to 1 in 8 packs, and didn’t want to hide special treatments behind premium products, so 1 in 15 boosters boxes contains what we call a CSR (Collector Super Rare), a signed foil full art version of a card within the set!

While the game has earned a reputation internationally as being a competitive game I have found many players enjoy exploring the casual side of this game as well. We’re in waiting in anticipation of the third main set, Mortal Ambition (releasing 11 October 2024), at this point we have quite literally hundreds of Champion lineage variations! The best part of this game is the exploration and deck building! 

It’s a game I’ve fallen in love with since I was introduced to it in October 2023, and it has grown to become my primary TCG. I’ve found this game attracts some of the loveliest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and has a strong culture of supporting one another. It really brings home the aspect I love most of TCGs, which is community, people of drastically different backgrounds, creeds, and positions coming together for the game we love! This is also something WotS values highly, as seen through the Special Packs, which are packs of alternate artworks sold by WotS which has all profits go towards the organised play side of things and through this they were able to cover the travel/accommodation costs for the 16 World Championship competitors in 2024. Those competitors included 4 Kiwis, with Glen Williams from Wellington coming out on top!

Your local Hobby Lords league nights are always willing to have new players join in, no matter your experience level! Head on into your local Hobby Lords to have a chat to us about trying out this incredible game!

 

Sapphire Ruthven

Store Specialist

Hobby Lords