Competitive Talk - Custom Palette Building

November 21, 2023

Hello to you all Realm Runners, hope everyone is doing well!

Today, with the Spirata Fall Grand Tournament less than a month away, I thought I’d take a dive into an aspect of the game that I’ve seen quite a few people struggle with and it’s something that will always bring out the strongest palettes in tournaments. So let’s have a look at the process behind building your own custom palettes and what you need to take into account to make it as strong as possible.

Overall strategy

First thing you need to decide on is what do you want your palette to do? Do you want it to focus on a particular keyword or strategy like controlling your opponent, or do you want to base it round a particular card as your legendary? Do you want it to be super-competitive or just focus on a combo or theme that you just really like?

By extension you then need to consider if your palette is going to be trying to achieve a Chroma or Achrom win or if it’ll be more of a hybrid. Generally a focused win condition is better than hybrid however it pays to have a back-up plan to be able to win by the other condition if the opportunity arises; best ways of doing this are by adding in some stealing cards to Chroma decks or utilising high gain cards, such as Detective Huxon or Wincey Rustwhether, in Achrom decks who also serve as good sources of shards.

Balancing your costs

Once you’ve got your strategy all planned out you want to then pay attention to what sort of costs your cards take to deploy or trade.

In Chroma decks you want to focus on trying to get a net gain of shards every turn so you want to make sure your cards either pay for themselves as soon as possible or, if they don’t, are high impact ones that are worth their cost. Of course trading is also an option to gain you shards so it helps to include a few higher costing cards, especially if they happen to reduce their own costs to deploy or even pay for themselves at times like Advanced Scouting Party of Dark Rainbow.

In Achrom decks you’ll need to be extra careful how many high cost cards you use in as you’ll generally struggle to keep your shard bank in double digits. However it’s still good to include some as potential trade fodder, if it’s not worth deploying them, to help you play other cards as well. Best example of a card for this role is HAIM Shard Cache which I wrote a whole article about here, it’s definitely a card you’ll want for the vast majority of your palettes whether they’re Chroma or Achrom focused.

‘Staples’ and interaction

The last thing to think about, in terms of cards to include, is some form of interaction so that you have the ability to disrupt your opponent’s plays and get them on the back foot while you continue with your strategy.

On top of this each realm will have cards that are great addition to every palette, for those of you not as familiar with card games, these are commonly referred to as ‘staples’. Examples of these cards, from each of the realms, can be found below.

It also pays to have a card in your palette that’s devoted to being a net gain of shards to help give you a good injection to then play more or possibly even get in a surprise Chroma win as well. Some may be more conditional than others to get their full benefit but they are all cheap to deploy.

Testing upon testing

Once you’ve assembled what you believe are the optimal 30 cards then take it for a good amount of test plays. This doesn’t just mean test hands either; to thoroughly test it you want to put it in multiple real game situations and see how it deals with them or whether it struggles vs certain matchups and what cards might help you in those situations. Remember one of the great things about Achroma is that there are no completely dead cards because you can always trade them to gain some shards, so even the most specific removal cards, like Dragon Defences or Drake Ambush, can be considered if you’re struggling to find answers to those sorts of palettes.

There are plenty of times you’ll find that what you thought was good in theory isn’t that great in actual gameplay for a plethora of reasons so don’t let this dishearten you; sometimes it’s best to scrap an idea and start again if its not working how you’d hoped. We all have different play styles and preferences and not every potential palette will be suited to yours.

Just remember no palette is perfect; there will always be some matchups that are harder than others and you won’t always win every match but as long as you gave it your best shot and there was some good back-and-forth gameplay then it was a great game no matter the result! Some of the best games I’ve played have switched who’s in control several times before someone’s come out on top.

Bear all this in mind and you’ll be in a great position for the Spirata Fall Grand Tournament! For more info keep an eye out for my Custom Palette Showcases where I talk about everything I’ve made myself and reasonings behind the cards I include.

Just a quick reminder for you all - we are currently in Spirata Fall Season! That means any purchase of £30 or more made on the Achroma Store will automatically have the new promo card included with their order!

There’s currently a huge Black Friday sale ongoing until Mon 27th November! The biggest discount Achroma has ever had! Get all their products now at 30% off on the online store linked below! (Excludes charity card Dexter)