Keyword Highlight - Secret

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 competitively. Firstly though; what does Secret do? Here’s the definition off the Achroma website’s guide:

From the get go you have the choice of using your own Palette, an opponent’s or even a mixture of every players’. From a strategic viewpoint these options can open up several different plans for what you want to achieve.

Achrom or Chroma?

In terms of their alignment and endgoal; the majority of Secret cards currently focus on gaining shards so they are definitely going to get you more Chroma wins if you build something entirely focused on them - however there are a couple of their support cards, namely their Legendary card - Lord Eldrich Willard, which Steal in the resolve. This means you could use them as a means to an end for an Achrom win however you would find this much harder to achieve compared to focusing on getting your shard bank to 30.

Choosing your opponent’s cards

By using your opponent’s Palette you can take it in one of two directions;

Using your opponent’s cards against them; the epitamy of “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!” - sometimes a brilliant strategy, especially if you hit any powerful or key cards like one of their Rares or even their Legendary. This does suffer quite heavily from the randomness factor as, since you can’t look at the Secret card, you may end up wasting your card for a subpar one when you would’ve been better off keeping it hidden and just benefiting off the Keeper’s resolve instead. So, whilst the window of potential of this strategy can go as high as flipping over a game-winning card, it can also go as low as constantly hitting dud cards and therefore inadvertently helping your opponent to find their most powerful cards sooner.

Denying your opponents their resources; by taking your opponents’ cards you’re almost permanently removing them from the game (unless they/you Erase the Keeper and then they’re able Dig for the card that was kept under it) so you can use this to your advantage in a big way. This means that, at its best, you are able to pin your opponent to the point where they have no way to beat you to hitting 30 or draining you to 0. Even in the situation they wrangle the card out from underneath its Keeper, you’re still forcing them to utilise more cards to play it in the first place which can ruin their shard economy and allow you to take the lead and get to the top before them. 

Using your own Palette

Simply put, your most likely aim when playing this way is to use your cheaper cards to then play your more expensive ones on a later turn. For example, as an ideal scenario, you could deploy Luxmorn Villager and take your top card (which would then gain you at least one shard) then, at the start of your next turn, erase the Villager and flip the card beneath it revealing, and deploying for free, a Dark Rainbow which can then potentially gain you a real stack of shards, potentially even winning you the game then and there. 

A special mention

Something interesting for Secret to bring to your attention, when looking at the realmless cards, is one particular Realm Runner who can be a very powerful piece for any Palette looking to focus on this particular keyword and that is Phisto;

Since the ability erases the Keeper, Phisto enables you to get extra value off of them by gaining you the shards you spent to play the cards back as well as drawing you cards every time you reveal a Secret, meaning you can then potentially use your trading to gain more shards or just draw more to find your key pieces faster. The only real drawback with using him over Lord Eldrich Willard is that you would pretty much be fully focused on Chroma wins as you’d lose your, arguably, strongest Achrom resolve card by using him (at least when it comes to Canvas format anyway). However you can no doubt see how much potential Phisto has if you’re planning to flip all those Secrets.

The discussions above are all based on the idea of utilising Secret as the main focus of your Palette; there’s always the option of just teching in cards like Luxmorn Villager or Luxmorn Market to just give it a try and see what you can nab out of your opponents Palettes.

Is it competitively viable?

As a mechanic what makes it so much fun also creates its weakness; it unfortunately suffers heavily from the randomness factor of what cards you actually get plus the fact that you don’t know what card is underneath your Keeper. I’ve often believed the best way of using Secrets is to pin your opponent’s resources down in the hope of locking out their key plays whilst you benefit from having multiple cards hidden on your Canvas, until such a time you can flip them at less of a cost by having a card like Luxmorn Lighthouse in play. 

This card, along with the previously mentioned legendary & Solomon Rift also enable you to repeatedly steal cards from your opponents’ Palettes. As well as this Solomon gives you some control over what cards you have under your Keepers or even allow you to straight up steal an opponent’s card by putting it on your own Palette!

As a competitive strategy I feel this keyword falls a bit below what I would be comfortable labelling ‘consistent’ when compared to already well established keywords like Claim and Squish however it definitely still has the potential to hold its own well. 

Apologies a bit of a long winded one to start with (I forgot how deep you can go with certain keywords!) but I felt it only right to go through it thoroughly and approach it from every aspect.

Cards using the Secret keyword can be found in A Conjuring at Curdle Cove in the Luxmorn Villagers faction who are headed up by Lord Eldrich Willard and Asa (which is a card I’ll be looking at in detail in a future article), links to the set are below if you want to get your hands on them;

First edition Set (2 random pre-built palettes from 2 different factions) - https://shop.achroma.cards/products/achroma-a-conjuring-at-curdle-cove-first-edition?bg_ref=J7ZPKlNvRK

First edition Collection (all 6 pre-built palettes) - https://shop.achroma.cards/products/achroma-a-conjuring-at-curdle-cove-first-edition-collection?bg_ref=J7ZPKlNvRK

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! 

Discord - https://discord.gg/achroma

Achroma online store - https://shop.achroma.cards/antinomy93

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