Antinomy93 -

 Hello there Realm Runners! Welcome back to another Keyword Highlights! This time, to keep in touch with the spirit of Halloween, I’ll be going into Curse. As always let’s begin with the definition from the website.  This might seem like a very vague description but Curse is intended as a means to an end rather than an ability which does things by itself. To start with you’ll need to use your cards to Curse your opponent’s; this can be done by certain characters, locations, objects and actions, all found in the Moonveil Coven faction’s palettes from A Conjuring at Curdle Cove, as well as some characters and locations that are already Cursed (stated in their description at the top of the card next to their card type) so there’s plenty of opportunity to do it. Then there are several cards that interact with Cursed cards such as those below. On top of this there are some cards that have abilities tied to Cursed cards that get more powerful the more of them there are. Dark Ra...

 Good day to you Realm Runners! Welcome to another of my Card Highlights series where I look in detail at a card from Achroma. Now that The Last Snow Dragons of Altari has been out for a good length of time I think it’s right to shine a light on arguably the biggest impact card from the set, which also uses the new keyword Freeze , and that’s Harusk. This Rare heroic character has been talk of the town ever since it first got revealed as it’s arguably the best card in a Freeze focused palette but it goes beyond that as there’s yet more synergy it has with an older card. Back in Rise of the Realm Runners a card called Materno’s Egg was released. This lets you, if you’ve built your palette to allow for it, guarantee that you’ll be able to get Harusk meaning that you’re effectively running 3 copies of it (provided you have a character to put Materno’s Egg on of course). Also, the fact that the secondary ability is a  Dispose  ability means you can deploy Harusk during the o...

 Hello there Realm Runners! With me going on holiday this week I thought I’d use my travel time to put some thoughts out there on a general topic that’s geared towards those who think more competitively about the game. One of the most unique aspects of Achroma is that your resource that you use to play your cards is directly tied to the win condition of the game; your shard bank. This is quite different to most games, like Magic: the Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh!, where your life total is effectively just a number and as long as you have some it makes no real difference to the state of the game as a whole. With this said, one of the most difficult things to grasp in the game, in a competitive sense, is how to best manage your shard bank to get the most value out of every card you play and get to your victory condition faster. If you’re too cautious you may not have enough gain or drain and your opponent will overtake you. Be too rash and overspend on your cards too soon and you could end ...

Hello there Realm Runners, hope you’re all doing well! Welcome to the second instalment of my Card Highlights series where I look at a card from the world of Achroma and highlight its possible uses and benefits in different scenarios. This time, with it being Spirata season, I thought I’d take a look at a card from that realm that’s a bit of a dark horse in my mind that I’d love to see in more palettes; Sprat Marail. At a glance it’s hard to imagine why this guy wouldn’t be a lot of people’s choice; a respectable 4 strength with a steal 2 and splat which makes him effectively only cost 1 on the turn he’s played (as long as you have another card on the canvas), however he’s up against stiff competition with fan favourites Copper Joss and Spiral also being in the same card pool as him! So let’s look at where Sprat stands out compared to those other legendaries and that’s his ability; During your End Step you may both Draw and Trade.  The flexibility this legendary painter offers is f...

 Good day Realm Runners and hello to you all! Welcome to the second instalment of my Keyword Highlight articles! Today I thought I’d cover something that’s a little more complicated for newer players to card games in general and the only way you can currently play during your opponent’s turn and that is Dispose. As before, let’s start with the definition direct from the Achroma site; For anyone familiar with other card games, like Magic: The Gathering or Yu-Gi-Oh!, this is the nearest thing Achroma has to the ‘Stack’ or ‘Chain’. Generally speaking, the game tries to avoid creating overly complicated situations with mechanics like those in other games, but having a one-shot response as an option to give you some ability to react to your opponent’s plays sooner is a good middle ground, even if it does come with restrictions attached. So, to word it slightly differently, the moment your opponent deploys a card, activates an ability or attacks, you are able to respond with one Dispose ...

 Hello to all you Realm Runners and welcome! Today I'm going to be showing the first attempt I've made deckbuilding with the newer cards released in The Last Snow Dragons of Altari - a Hunt focused palette; I decided to go for an Achrom focus on this build, which might seem a little unusual as the actual Legendary that has the Hunt keyword, Bugir of Snivari , is more of a Chroma oriented card. However it's Achrometer season so.... got to represent the side! The initial difficulty of Hunt is that it's a delayed action with a pretty strict condition - you select their character and at the start of your next turn, if both characters are still there, you resolve the effect. This means that, as a priority, you need to be able to protect and keep your characters on the Canvas to even get their ability to go off and then even longer if you want to repeatedly capitalise off of it. Let's look at the cards and why they're in here; Kocora Bri   - Legendary for the deck a...

Welcome to all you Realm Runners!  As a competitive-minded player I’ve always looked at the keywords of Achroma and found myself analysing how they can work, how I could make the most use out of them and, ultimately, are they an effective win condition?  With that in mind I thought it would be interesting to start a semi-regular series to share my analysis of keywords with you guys as well since it may help new players understand it better or shed light on a strategy that not everyone is familiar with.  So I decided I’d start it off with something of a dark horse keyword from the more recent set A Conjuring at Curdle Cove; Secret.  What is Secret ? Released in Salum Planum’s Second Chronicle - A Conjuring at Curdle Cove, the Keyword Secret has a variety of functions depending how you want to approach it. In this article I’ll look at the different ways they can be used and the pros and cons for each method and then sum up how I feel they are able to perform competitiv...

Welcome, Realm Runners, to the first of what I’m planning on making a rolling series looking at specific cards of note in the world of Achroma - some will be Realmless while others will be generically powerful within their realms. The aim will be to highlight what might not be immediately obvious about the utility of them so I won’t be looking at commonly used ‘staples’ like Fireball  as it’s no secret why those are widely played.  So, with the general introduction out of the way, let’s look at the card which mostly inspired me to start working on this idea - HAIM Shard Cache; Whilst it might seem a little underwhelming to pay 5 just to steal 3 back as a one off play (when I first got into Achroma, I didn’t see the initial potential in this card especially as it was a separate purchase single card) there are multiple reasons this card sees play in a lot of Palettes and I don’t just mean the fact that scanning the card’s code on the app gets you 500 shards either! (Although tha...