Keyword Highlight - Guard

 Welcome, once again, realmrunners to another breakdown of one of the new Keywords that’s coming from The Monsters Norso. Today we’re looking at the Chroma-aligned faction’s one; the mysterious Guard that appeared on the rules document all that time ago with no explanation. Well now we finally have a definition.


At first glance this might just appear to be a rework of Protection, however there are some significant differences. Firstly, and most obviously, it’s a one-time thing; once it gets hit by some form Shard Drain it is removed from the card. There’s also the fact that there’s no stipulation of where the Shard Drain comes from in order for Guard to work, meaning old work-arounds for Protection, like Impius Drake and Sorrono, won’t work the same versus any card with Guard as it protects cards from your own abilities as well as your opponent’s.

Before we go any further you may be wondering what I mean by referring to Shard Drain; well this is a minor update to make it clear what we describe ‘damage’ as in the game of Achroma. The full description is ‘The act of reducing a card’s Shards in its Hex through attacking, erasure, or ‘Draining Shards’ through abilities. Not to be confused with reducing a card’s Shard Value’. So there is no real mechanical change to what it describes; its just been tidied up so certain Keywords, like this one and the last, which I’ll follow up with soon, can be more easily explained. 

So what else is there to Guard as a Keyword? Well…. not a huge amount more so far but we’ve only seen 2 of the main cards utilising this keyword so far; King Orus and Queen Flora.


This shows that both their Guard abilities and their other abilities are completely separate so there's no requirement as such; it's just an extra benefit to the card. One thing that has become apparent is that the Keyword can be applied to any card by other cards' effects, even if it doesn’t have Guard originally printed on it as shown by The Lake of Reflection. This, however, is something you’ll have to head over to Echo’s site at Draco Temple to see, as it’s one of his exclusive sneak peek cards, which he discusses here.


That's all from me for now guys - if you want to pick up any of the Achroma product currently available on the Five Realms website, don't forget to use the code ACHROMACRAIG10 when you checkout for 10% off your purchase! Don’t forget to grab yourself some of the upcoming set, The Monsters of Norso, to get your hands on these incredible cards!


See ya real soon folks! 

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