I Took Fire Zander and had a Blast, but it Needs Some Tweaks

I came into Grand Archive with the intention of being a collector because the art for the game is beautiful. After watching a few competitive streams, I decided to build a deck and head to locals. After my first bout, I was hooked. Over the weekend, I went to my second event with a better understanding and a better deck. While I didn’t perform as well as I could have, I am getting better and can’t wait to go back for more.

The Deck

After a bit of research, I decided to go with an Agro Fire Zander deck because I had most of the cards and I thought the added card draw was nice. You can find all the lists to Ascent Taipei on the official Omnidex event page. The list is as follows (I’ll leave affiliate links to the singles for those who need them):

Main Deck

Main Deck
1 Spirit of Fire
1 Zander, Prepared Scout
1 Zander, Deft Executor
1 Assassin's Ripper
1 Blinding Orb
1 Quicksilver Grail (Original Deck uses Grand Crusader's Ring) 
1 Mercenary's Blade
1 Poisoned Dagger
1 Backup Charger (Original uses Safeguard Amulet)
1 Smoke Bombs
1 Tariff Ring
1 Varuckan Soulknife

What I learned

While I did like the original list, most people run Quicksliver Grail as their divine relic. You want your turn one to be Quicksilver Grail to hide Poison Dagger so you can have it ready for your big wombo combo. The idea is to pop the grail at your opponent’s end phase so you can use the dagger on your turn. Instead of the GCR, I opted for Backup Charger. Poping the charger before recollection means you get a GCR and get to scoop up the cost.

After playing my matches, the deck felt very slow with too much drawing power. Oftentimes, I was left with a hand that was too big to use up my Rococos, or it took too long to set up my combo. This deck needs to win by turn 5 or else it becomes a very steep uphill battle. Some of the changes I’ll be making for the future of this deck:

Removing Gawain. She did nothing. My opponent rarely had cards they needed in their memory and often I was sacrificing for no reason. She felt like a waste of resources.

Removing Kingdom Informant. I love the permanent stealth and floating memory, but it didn’t have enough of an impact. I would have like something like a Lurking Assasin instead for my stealth.

Removing Stalward Shieldmate. I like Shieldmate in slower decks, but she slowed the deck down a little too much for my liking. The floating memory is nice and I guess she could attack with Arthur in later turns, but it doesn’t fit the playstyle I am looking for.

Creative Shock/Cremation Ritual. Unfortunately, this deck ended up having too much draw power. I did prefer Creative Shock to Cremation Ritual because it let me discard fire cards for Veruckan Soulknife,

but the deck already has better options. I definitely don’t want Cremation Ritual in this deck. It was never useful because there was never a moment I wanted to sacrifice an ally.

This isn’t a bad deck, it made it to top 32, but it didn’t vibe with my play style. While I definitely lack the experience to effectively pilot this deck, it wasn’t aggressive enough for my tastes. I like the deck and will continue to make my tweaks. I have a few ideas I want to try. Unfortunately, everyone at my locals seems to know how to counter this deck. While I don’t think I’ll be taking top spots at any events, everyone was nice enough to give me tips and pointers on how to make it better.

Conclusion

If you want to get into Grand Archive, you should do it. You should note that this is an awkward time in the game’s history because the cost of singles is expensive. There will be reprints and the market will cool, but entering the scene now means you’re buying expensive singles. I would argue that you don’t need a meta deck to have fun, but you will need a meta deck if you want to do well. My local scene is very competitive and anything that isn’t meta isn’t placing. That said, the player base is full of passionate fans who want to see the game grow and will help you out when you need it.

I didn’t do as well as I would have liked, but I was getting better as the day progressed. I liked that my opponents and players around me would stop to give me tips and pointers, even during a match. I appreciate that my opponents would give me the chance to undo a move when I made a mistake, even if I never took them on it. They were more than happy to help me out because they want to see their hobby grow. The community is the reason I’ve gotten so invested in the hobby, and it should be the reason you start it as well. Till next time, thanks for reading!