Competitive Talk - Palette Archetypes

Hello realm runners and welcome!

It’s been a hot minute since I did any competitive-based articles; since before the last GT actually, so thought it was about time to revisit them.

As Achroma’s card-pool expands we start to see palettes across every realm that have similar playstyles or gameplans in how they are going to hit 30 shards or drain their opponents down to 0. For anyone already involved in the competitive scene of card gaming this topic is already a known thing; Archetypes.

Generally speaking, when it comes to most card games, there are three main branches of Archetypes; Aggro, Combo & Control. So let's give a general idea of what each one is for those not so familiar with them.

Aggro - Arguably the most simplistic Archetype and very newbie-friendly; put out a lot of threats quickly so you're opponent is unlikely to be able to deal with everything and win through sheer force.

Combo - Using your cards in a way that they all synergise with each other to get the best chain of abilities. This can be deliberately designed into the game through having cards that share types or overlapping abilities, or it can be purely coincidental.

Control - Getting the best value out of your abilities and generally trying to keep your opponent down or making them waste their resources; this is often one of the more difficult Archetypes to play as it needs a combination of good threat assessment and some knowledge of what your opponent's palette is capable of to get the maximum value out of your cards as well as a fair amount of patience as the games can often get grindy, especially if you go against another Control player.

Each Archetype will usually have an advantage against the next due to the nature of how they work; Aggro normally throws out too many threats for Control to get a good enough hit on; Control will often just have to hit one or two key pieces to break the general plan of Combo; the consistency and synergies behind Combo strategies generally outdoes the hard-and-fast plays of Aggro strategies.

In relation to Achroma, the very nature of the shard bank system and resolve effects being the win condition means that these Archetypes may not appear as obvious as other games where attacking your opponent is the standard method of winning & there's more interaction you can use during your opponent's turn, but they are still arguably present in the game.

Aggro - In the world of Achroma this is probably mostly related to trade-focused palettes as they race to 30 as quickly as possible and give you very little time to react, especially ones, such as the infamous Rayders palette, that has some high resolves at minimal cost, alongside their higher costing cards. On the flip side, for an Achrom based palette, you could also categorise a Pixie palette based around Achrom Breach as an Aggro one since it aims to hit the opponent's shard bank hard and fast to prevent them from being able to develop their canvas, although with the inclusion of cards from the recent release of Secrets of Spirata it has leaned more towards a Combo palette to maximise its power.

Combo - Despite the 3 card deployment per turn limit in Achroma, correctly sequencing your cards can sometimes get you some powerful resolve effects. Some examples of more combo-based builds include my Occultists, as they rely on having several cards out to maximise the power of some resolves & Actions, or those focused on Asa, in particular, as they’re built to get the most value possible out of the cards in them and, without some of their key pieces, will often fall behind Aggro or Control palettes.

Control - Generally seen in palettes based around the Keywords Claim; Restrain; Sacrifice; Freeze and Infest as these naturally focus on controlling the opponent’s plays and limiting their effectiveness. Best example from my currently published custom palettes is probably my Hunt one, although this is arguably slower than the one based on the Keywords listed above.

At the time of writing this, the differences are generally quite minimal between the general Archetypes but, as the cardpool expands with each set release and the game picks up more of a following, it will become more apparent what fits into which category, so if you're looking to get the competitive edge going into any events and tournaments, it'll pay off in dividends to have a good idea of what the 'strongest' palettes are ahead of time, what category they fall into, and what answers you have for those matchups you might find difficult.

That's all from me for now guys!

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