Voice on Grand Archive from Japan Vol. 1 - The First Tournament in Japan
Preface
I'm Ruy, a Japanese Grand Archive player and a mastermind behind the GA excitement in Japan.
There was a tournament in Japan on June 22, 2024.
Only Starter Decks (no Re:Collection allowed) were available in the tournament, but this was the great step in Japanese GA community I believe, so I took a pen to report how the tournament was (well, no pen was used in the whole text though).
There were 24 players in the whole event, and there were 2 sections: tournament and teaching of the game.
I enjoyed in the tournament side, and became the first champion with Lorraine.
I didn't expect such a honorable result at all, but fortunately achieved it.
But it is not the main topic of this article: the main topic of this article is to tell how Japanese player enjoyed the first tournament and Grand Archive itself in Japan.
Tournament Overview
There were 18 players in the tournament section, and the distribution of the Champions is as following:
4 Lorraine
4 Diana
4 Tonoris
2 Rai
2 Silvie
2 Arisanna
In my opinion, it wasn't a strange distribution; if I have to mention something here, Rai was a little bit fewer than expected and that portion went Diana and Arisanna (I had expected 4 Rai, 3 Diana, 1 Arisanna before the tournament started).
In Japan, Silvie and Arisanna are really fast to be sold out, so I could probably say they could have been more.
Tonoris, oppositely, always stays until last in stores, but there were many players who chose him.
I assume the reason is that his deck is quite easy to understand what to do at the starter level: Activate allies and attack with them until he gets Lv3, while after he gets Lv3 just storm the Automatons and Swords.
Of course, we Japanese players has few access to the shops, so there were probably some players who only had the Champion of their use - during the tournament, I talked with some players who were exactly in such a situation, and only shop we can buy on the day had some Tonoris Decks in their stock - but as long as I noticed, no one complains the restriction of Champions and really enjoyed games.
Tournament had 4 rounds with BO1, 30 minutes time restriction for a game, and Swiss Pairing system (probably) using "Tonamel", the Japanese event supporting website.
As I wasn't a member of organizer team, I only know the standings after 3rd round, but the top 4 Champions after 3rd round are:
1 Lorraine
3 Diana
Not much surprise here too for me, as Diana is a deck of "Good Stuff" among the Starter decks.
So, the top 2 boards in 4th round were:
Lorraine (+3-0) VS Diana (+3-0)
Diana (+2-1) VS Diana (+2-1)
Lorraine won, so 2 Diana players in the 2nd-Xth tied rank, though not sure for other Champions in the tied rank.
Why I used Lorraine Deck?
I will write about my decision in this paragraph: why I decided to play Lorraine Deck.
My understanding of the environment is that once Silvie gets Lv3 with hands she stands slightly better than any of decks and Rai is the only (and definitive) weakness.
Also I assume Rai can do more than even except Lorraine/Tony aggro playing, and Lorraine depends on how well a player plays it.
With the understanding above, my choice was reduced to either Lorraine or Silvie, as I have to unbuild my deck if I use Rai (yes, it was the only reason I didn't use Rai, I'm razy).
The decisive reason I finally decided to use Lorraine Deck is that she doesn't need to level up to Lv3, which the Champions require to be Lv3 take time to play with.
The tournament has only 30 minutes in somewhat "slower" than usual built-deck game, so I hated to use time consuming deck.
Also, as the Japanese community is yet small now, I knew some of players who were highly possibly using Diana or Rai, and there were a few Silvie fans.
To be a good standing among them, I decided to use Lorraine Deck at the final second before the 1st game, which was, as a result, correct.
How's Thoughts After the Tournament
The most important thing at this moment is this tournament is how players in the event think about Grand Archive TCG: I can definitively say it is really and warmly welcomed in the players.
Japanese card gamers play a lot of TCG, so they have plenty of background/knowledge on TCGs.
Some said the impression after playing is similar to "Force of Will" TCG, and I agree with that opinion.
The taste of the arts is similar to it and both game has "Fast Speed" timing ("quick cast" in FoW), which really reminds us context of mind games in TCG.
Also others said similar to "Wixoss", one of Japanese succeeded TCG, which has main deck and additional deck in the game.
Leveling up is familiar concept for the "Wixoss" players, as they experienced leveling up of "Lrig".
In Japan there are also many "Magic: the Gathering" players, and some participated the tournament this time, and confirmed Grand Archive can be a good alternative of immigrating from "MtG".
All of the players had almost no complain and only complain I could hear was that there are few shop/chance to buy cards.
This is the biggest issue we Japanese players face, and I hope more shops are going to treat this game.
So I'll continue promoting the game and will try to hold more events (starting from casual ones).
Fortunately, when the shop we can buy the cards from puts the stock, the cards get sold out so quickly (not sure the amount they get as I'm not a worker there, so I can't write the amount here).
So, if you consider to sell the GA products in an event like "Game Market" or kind of, I would strongly recommend to, and will support as much as I can (no knowledge in wholesale, as I'm not a TCG industry worker now, sorry).
Also, we Japanese Grand Archivists are interested in playing with you in Tokyo if it realizes, so please let me know when you come to Tokyo, I'll bring my stuffs to play with.
Little Note
I write some Japanese instructive articles of Grand Archive at least once in a week: "Starting Out: Grand Archive TCG" series of articles in my "note".
If you are interested in, please have a look (but it is totally in Japanese).
Will continue writing them, so if you find some topics that the newbies should know are missing, please let me know.
Also, I'll accept all of the text-styled or casual-play/non-official tournament styled contribution in Japan/Japanese, so if you have any idea, please let me know as well.
Yes, I'll also write this kind of articles, if there is any topic in Japan (mostly Tokyo area) that should be told to the World GA communities (and that's why the title of the article has "Vol.1", though not sure when Vol.2 comes).
I also run Grand Archive Japanese Discord server, so please join if you are interested in Japanese Community of Grand Archive TCG.
The invitation URL is: https://t.co/gHxduXJqBd
Both Japanese and English are used in the server, so you might be able to enjoy too.
Lastly, I have to mention TCG Cafe&Bar EVO, the only physical shop we can buy cards from.
Not only it is such a shop, the tournament above was totally conducted by them.
No doubt without them we are not able to have such a great tournament, and of course we Japanese still don't know this super exciting and super fun game.
I give my utmost gratitude to EVO, and staffs in the shop.
Let me put my pen on the desk here (still not using a pen though).
See you soon, all the Grand Archivists!!