Alchemical Revolution hits stores on January 26th, so make sure you hit your LGS for presales and events. If your LGS doesn’t carry Grand Archive, get your product or preorders at TCG PLayer! I’ll leave links to singles for those who trickle onto this post after release.

Alchemical Revolution will introduce three new classes and mechanics to the format which I’m sure will excite some players. I am a huge fan of the art, and what I’ve seen so far from the set has me excited. I am also a huge fan of the flavor that goes into the mechanics. Let’s go through the spoilers and get hyped together!

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Guardian

Champion

Guardian is the game’s tank. They are thick champions with mechanics focusing on defending the field. The premier Guardian champion is Tonoris, and his cards are sick. The Tonoris starter deck is up on TCG Player, but I’d wait till after release to see if the price goes down.

The art is just so good with these cards, but the flavor text suggests a neat story of redemption. I am curious to see what the back story is going to be like, but that will be for another day. The important bit is that taunt ability. All units must attack Tonoris first, and with that HP, he’s going to be a huge help in setting up smaller allies. That +3 attack he gets from his level 2 is a nice touch to get rid of some nasty threats. The trick with this class is deciding when to attack, and when to leave it awake to help defend your allies.

Weapon

Guardians hit hard, but it takes more resources to do so. This means players will have to decide how aggressive they want to be in a turn, otherwise they leave themselves defenseless. I am not a tank main, but I can appreciate the fantastic flavor.

Actions

Guardian actions focus on protecting your allies with skills like Taunt and Retaliation to mitigate the oncoming damage. What I like is this Floating Memory ability that lets players sacrifice cards to cast actions cheaply, which is almost emblematic of how a Guardian would sacrifice everything to keep their allies safe.

Allies

Alchemical Revolution introduces Foster ability, which states:

At the beginning of your recollection phase, if an ally with Foster has not taken damage since the end of your previous turn, that ally becomes fostered.

Fostered allies receive stat bonuses or activate abilities. For example:

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Cleric

Champion

Clerics are spell casters whose focus is on defensive and preventative spells. This sounds like a more control-style deck style, and I already know I am not smart enough for it. But at least the Arisanna is the premier champion for the class, and she’s cute! The Arisanna starter deck is up on TCG Player, but I’d wait for after release to see if it goes down.

Gather Mechanic

Arisanna introduces the gather mechanic, which makes her my favorite champion from those revealed. Gather lets you summon a random herb each turn. You sacrifice these herbs to brew potions or cast abilities. To gather an herb you roll a D6 and summon the corresponding plant (herbs are numbered 1-6). The starter deck will include a special-themed dice, but you can always use a regular D6.

Potions

Saving Potions

There is also intensive to hold onto your potions and enhance them with other abilities later on. Some potions get stronger the longer they sit. Arisanna gameplay will have this interesting loop of brewing potions, and knowing when to use them.

Memory Manipulation

The last bit of Arisanna’s kit is memory manipulation. Special abilities and bonuses will activate based on how the memory zone is set up. I don’t think I’m smart enough for Cleric, but I am all in!

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Ranger

Champion

Last but not least we have the Ranger class, and Ranger uses guns! Diana is the premier champion and she seems like a lot of fun. She doesn’t do much at level 1, but at level 2 you can summon a gun and bullet, and that could swing things in your favor. Obviously the art is fantastic, but the flavor is so good! The Diana starter deck is up on TCG Player, but I would wait till after release.

Bullets and Guns

Guns need to be loaded to attack. You won’t be able to use regular attack cards with your guns, but it doesn’t matter because bullets seem to have unique abilities and stats anyway. I am very interested to see how this reload mechanic works.

Allies

Ranger introduces the new mechanic Distant state which gives allies buffs until the end of their controller’s turn. Many Ranger units have the Ranged X keyword, which gives that unit’s attack +X power as long as they’re distant. There are cards that can make units distant, and being distant activate effects.

Reload!

Guns will take longer to set up, but that’s why you’re playing Ranger. The class will feature abilities that will get your guns loaded quickly: