Card Highlight - HAIM Shard Cache

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 that is a nice little bonus to getting this card I must admit whether you’re a Heroes player, play a lot of Adventure games or just like a lot of the Avatars on the app)

Achrom

Pretty simple one to understand really - it steals as an Action so Achrom-based Palettes will obviously find a use for this. As well as that, it also makes fantastic trade fodder giving you a nice 5 shard boost to pay for your big plays. It also has a pretty neat interaction if you play Cintimani Stone after you traded HAIM as you’ll not only have given yourself the shards to play Cintimani but you’ll Steal a net of 5 shards between the two cards as well, once you go to your Resolve, meaning you’ve actually gained shards in the process whilst hitting your opponent’s bank pretty hard. It also has similar synergy with Asa where she also steals 1 when you deploy an action meaning that, after you go to your resolve, you end up netting yourself a shard when you use HAIM with her on your Canvas.


Although you’re not really deploying this card a lot by itself, unless it’s contributing to you winning that turn or you have a way to mitigate the cost for you, for Achrom palettes this card is incredibly valuable and you’ll find very few of them don’t play in their lists.

Chroma

Now for Chroma decks HAIM is often less important; your palette naturally is focused on gaining and therefore, unless you have a Trading theme going on like Rayders or the Norso faction, you’ll generally find other cards that give you more value and this alone is never going to get you a Chroma win by itself anyway. 



This card can, however, provide you the ability to keep your opponent’s shard bank down a bit or even surprise them with Achrom wins against decks that leave themselves low on shards thinking you’re not going to touch their shard bank which can, in turn, give your deck some flexibility in that respect. The main issue with this is you’ll find that more experienced players will leave themselves on higher totals so you’ll need to combine this with more Drain & Steal abilities to whittle them down which means you almost then end up turning it into an Achrom based palette. That being said you can always incorporate more cards that steal as a way of gaining shards for yourself anyway! (I’ve had several accidental Chroma wins in my Achrom palettes when the opponent hasn’t been able to hit me hard but has kept their shard bank high themselves!)



Overall, HAIM is an absolutely amazing card for its flexibility and is arguably a staple in any Achrom palette or any Chroma palette which focuses on trading to win! Whilst it still has applications in Chroma decks that put more weight on their cards’ resolves, the fact that it ultimately costs you shards to deploy means that you’ll often find other cards that will get you better value over it.

That’s all from me for now guys. Hopefully, for some of you, this allowed you to see why HAIM Shard Cache can be an absolutely fantastic card in the right circumstances. It’s available to purchase, as a single card, on the Achroma store or in the Five Realms Gaming Lounge.

As stated at the beginning I am looking to make this a semi-regular post so if there is any particular card you’d like me to look into don’t hesitate to message me the Discord or comment on here!

If you do wish to purchase product from the Achroma website I’ve now set up an affiliate link that will get you 5% off your purchases. Simply follow the link below or use the code ‘antinomy93’ when you checkout.

See ya real soon folks! 




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