Can't wait for this game to come out, but I still don't seem to understand the strategy behind the whole archiving mechanic. Anyone care to explain? Thanks.

Archive cards you don't want to play right now but will want to play later to help build a big combo turn. You won't clog up your hand with currently useless cards and will cycle through your deck quicker.

Playing into your archive until you after shuffle for the first time can be used to not just have a good turn with House #1 but will also ensure you are more likely to Draw House #2 and #3 when drawing at random because you have removed House #1 from you draw deck. Thus taking some of the randomness of play and replace in the second pass through of your deck.

Or sometimes, it's just a mechanic that gets in your way... you want to play one card, but have to archive something already in play as one of its effects.