How to Play · Grand Archive
How to Play Grand Archive TCG
Grand Archive is a strategy-first TCG built around levelling your Champion through a separate Material deck. Expect tight resource management, deep combat math, and a long-game payoff as your Champion grows over the match.
I Game Objective
Reduce your opponent's Champion to 0 life.
II Building Your Deck
Deck size
A 60-card Main deck plus a Material deck of up to 12 cards (which includes your starting Champion at Level 0).
Card types
- Champion
- Your hero. You start with a Level 0 Champion in play and level them up over the game by materialising higher-level versions from your Material deck.
- Ally
- Persistent units summoned to your field to attack, block, and use abilities.
- Action
- One-shot effects. Some are slow (sorcery-speed); others are fast (instant-speed).
- Item / Weapon / Armor
- Equipment that attaches to your Champion to give stats or abilities.
- Domain
- Persistent location cards with ongoing effects.
- Phantasia & Regalia
- Specialised card types — Phantasia for unique effects, Regalia for powerful once-per-game plays.
Deck restrictions
- Maximum 4 copies of any card with the same name across your Main + Material decks combined.
- Cards must respect your starting Champion's element and lineage requirements.
- Main deck must be exactly 60 cards. Material deck is up to 12 cards (Champion progression plus other materialisable cards).
III Setting Up the Game
- Shuffle your Main deck and present it to your opponent for a cut.
- Place your starting Level 0 Champion from your Material deck face-up in the Champion zone.
- Place the rest of your Material deck face-down in the Material zone.
- Determine the first player.
- Draw 5 cards for your opening hand.
Starting hand
5 cards.
Mulligan
Each player, in turn order, may shuffle their entire hand back into their Main deck and draw a new hand with one fewer card. You may repeat this as many times as you like — but every mulligan costs another card.
IV Turn Flow
- Wake Up
- Ready all your rested cards.
- Materialize
- Reveal the top card of your Material deck. If it's a valid level-up for your Champion, you may level up; otherwise, you may pay its memory cost to bring it into play.
- Recollection
- Resolve any "at the start of your turn" effects.
- Draw
- Draw 1 card. The first player skips Draw on their first turn.
- Main
- Play Allies, cast Actions, attach Items/Weapons/Armor to your Champion, attack with your Champion and rested Allies, and use abilities.
- End
- Resolve end-of-turn effects, then pass play.
V Good to Know
- Your Champion gains new stats, abilities, and often a new specialisation each time they level up.
- Memory is a shared, on-board resource — cards spent from hand to "memory" can be recalled later.
- Combat uses an attack/defense structure with both players able to play fast cards in response.