Haven't gotten to play yet and I'm trying to wrap my mind around Archiving. What's it for? What's the strategy? Why should I do it other than a card tells me to?

It is helpful when you can put several cards from one house in the archive, then pull them on another turn. Its possible you could play 8 or 9 cards (or more) in a turn even though you only have 6 in hand to start.

it's basically to fill your hand with cards in a massive turn.

say you keep archiving mars creatures, you eventually have 10 mars creatures in the archive.

then you declare your active house as mars, you may pick up all the mars creature cards in addition to your hand (normally 6 cards).

this could create a huge power play

It basically ensures a bigger hand on a future turn.

There are two main ways to use Archives.

First, you can use it to thin down your deck, Archiving less useful cards, and making it more likely to get the cards you really want after shuffling.

Second, at the start of your turn, you can take your entire Archive into your hand. So you can Archive a bunch of cards you'll want later, and have a monster turn.

There's one Sanctum artifact -- Epic Quest -- that archives all your Knights in play when you play it, then triggers forging a key for free if you played seven or more Sanctum cards that turn.

Ok. I think I see all that. Thank you.

One subtlety of the game that is not immediately apparent, is that a big element is the ‘hand crafting’ aspect. Throughout the game you are managing your cards and trying to craft a hand for different situations.

Archiving cards is useful because you can set aside cards you want for later,and draw more cards in the meantime because you hand is now smaller.

And you can play stuff that generates amber, then archive it and play it again for more

6 hours ago, Poposhka said:

it's basically to fill your hand with cards in a massive turn.

say you keep archiving mars creatures, you eventually have 10 mars creatures in the archive.

then you declare your active house as mars, you may pick up all the mars creature cards in addition to your hand (normally 6 cards).

this could create a huge power play

To clarify, when you pick up the archive, you must take the whole thing. So if you also archived some enemy creatures, those would get returned.

6 hours ago, Derrault said:

To clarify, when you pick up the archive, you must take the whole thing. So if you also archived some enemy creatures, those would get returned.

That doesn't have to be negative, though. If you captured creatures from the different houses in your opponents deck, you clog their hand for 1-2 turns.

My favourite archive type is to archive a 'useless' card that is situational. Say Bait and Switch when you have 6 aember and your opponent none. Archive it and wait until it is needed. That way you dont discard it (as otherwsie it fills up a useful card slot or worse keep it in hand lowering your options).

1 hour ago, Matrim said:

My favourite archive type is to archive a 'useless' card that is situational. Say Bait and Switch when you have 6 aember and your opponent none. Archive it and wait until it is needed. That way you dont discard it (as otherwsie it fills up a useful card slot or worse keep it in hand lowering your options).

This... Not that it isn't nice to have a huge draw on a later turn, it's a huge benefit, but there are cards that can wreck your archive and ruin your big turn. Situational cards find a good home in the archive. Bait and Switch and certain other cards can be brutal at the appropriate time, but a lot of times, they just clog your hand.

I have a deck (Parellel Dasher of the Harbor, https://www.keyforgegame.com/deck-details/73803ee1-a6b2-45c5-a918-894d36fb2498 ) that uses my archive almost exclusively as a prison for wounded creatures through Mass Abduction. Effectively purging up to 6 of your opponents creatures with a little bit of setup is pretty rad.

And be totally hilarious when you capture a bunch of horseman and watch their world fall apart..