Promotional Packs were first seen in March 2022, replacing individual card giveaways with a random selection of cards instead. Here is everything there is to know about them.

Table of Contents

Grand Archive Promotional Pack scan.
Grand Archive Promotional Pack scan.

Introduction

Promotional Packs made their debut appearance on 19th March 2022.

In preparation for the Grand Archive Community Tournament #2, one of the developers shared a cropped image on the Grand Archive Discord server of the back of an empty pack with an identifier code of 17 MAR 2022.

An extended version of this image was shared on 24th March 2022 in Kickstarter update #20.

Promotional Pack image from Kickstarter update #20.
Promotional Pack image from Kickstarter update #20.

Promotional packs were to replace the individual cards the development team had been sending out in giveaways and events (as they had in all previous events).

The 17 MAR 2022 identifier turned out to be just an internal test and was not publicly released. The first promotional packs to make their way out into the public had the code SAMPLE, followed shortly after by SAMPLE2 and SAMPLE3.

This article aims to cover everything known about various Promotional Pack releases.

Distribution

This section provides a brief overview of how many of each of the Grand Archive promotional packs have been produced.

Pack code Population Release date
SAMPLE 21 26th March 2022
SAMPLE2 ≥ 147 15th April 2022
SAMPLE3 ≈ 200 28th May 2022
P22 - 1 1,350 1st July 2022
Clumsy Apprentice 1,600 2nd December 2022
Kickstarter Lorraine, Blademaster Promotional Card 900 January 2023
Kickstarter Game Store Promotional Cards 2,600 January 2023
Kickstarter Promotional Cards 1,500 January 2023
Merchandise Pack 1 6,120 26th August 2023
Dawn of Ashes Event Pack (Silver) ≥ 88,749* January 2023
Dawn of Ashes Event Pack (Gold) ≥ 29,583* January 2023
Fractured Crown Event Pack (Silver) ≥ 103,794* 25th August 2023
Fractured Crown Event Pack (Gold) ≥ 35,258* 25th August 2023
Alchemical Revolution Event Pack (Silver) ≥ 75,824* 26th January 2024
Alchemical Revolution Event Pack (Gold) ≥ 25,274* 26th January 2024
Alchemical Revolution Event Pack (Sapphire)   26th January 2024
SquareLive Collaboration 20,050 1st February 2024

Event Pack populations are derived from the population of the main set booster packs, cross-referenced with the Index card population data.

Black packs (March - November 2022)

All black promotional packs are identical in appearance but with designating identifiers printed on the back. The identifier code denotes the pack’s contents. All black packs contain sample cards with the exception of P22 - 1.

Identifier code: SAMPLE

Also referred to as “SAMPLE1”, this pack was only distributed during a single event, the Grand Archive Community Tournament #2.

Grand Archive <code>SAMPLE</code> Promotional Pack scan.
Grand Archive SAMPLE Promotional Pack scan.

Contents

Note: The foil Lorraine, Wandering Warrior CMT-013 sample has a 50% chance of being either the matte foil or oil foil variants.

Distribution

The SAMPLE code packs had a very small public distribution. On 26th March 2022, 19 packs were awarded in the Grand Archive Community Tournament #2, with a further 2 packs being awarded to the tournament’s organiser.

A further 11 SAMPLE packs were advertised as the reward for the first Friday Night Grand Archive tournament on 15th April 2022, however by then the developers had introduced new SAMPLE2 packs and awarded those instead.

In total, only 21 SAMPLE packs are known to have been distributed.

Identifier code: SAMPLE2

Grand Archive <code>SAMPLE2</code> Promotional Pack scan.
Grand Archive SAMPLE2 Promotional Pack scan.

Contents

Note: The foil Lorraine, Wandering Warrior CMT-013 sample has a 50% chance of being either the matte foil or oil foil variants.

Distribution

On 1st April 2022 the first Friday Night Grand Archive tournament was announced with 8 SAMPLE code packs advertised as the reward. However by 15th April when the event went ahead, SAMPLE2 packs had been introduced by the developers and they instead awarded those. In total, 8 SAMPLE2 packs were awarded at this event, with a further 10 SAMPLE2 packs given as a surprise reward to the participants.

50 SAMPLE2 packs were awarded on 30th April 2022 randomly on Discord to people who had left comments on cards featured on Grand Archive Index.

20 SAMPLE2 packs were awarded on 8th May 2022 to winners of a Guess the Art event on Discord.

8 SAMPLE2 packs were awarded on 13th May 2022 during the second Friday Night Grand Archive tournament, with 3 packs going to the winner, 2 packs to 2nd place, 1 pack for 3rd and 4th place and 1 pack randomly awarded to a participant outside of the top 4.

16 SAMPLE2 packs were given out at Collect-a-Con on 29th May 2022 during a live stream event hosted by TofusTrading.

15 SAMPLE2 packs were given out over a 3 week period from 20th June 2022 by Maindeck during a Grand Archive league on their Discord server sponsored by the developers.

20 SAMPLE2 packs were awarded on 28th June 2022 randomly during a Silvie Emote event on Discord.

Identifier code: SAMPLE3

Grand Archive <code>SAMPLE3</code> Promotional Pack scan.
Grand Archive SAMPLE3 Promotional Pack scan.

Contents

Distribution

Approximately 200 SAMPLE3 packs were given out at Collect-a-Con in May 2022.

Identifier code: P22 - 1

P22 - 1 was the first time Promotional Packs had been used to distribute non-sample cards. The cards in SAMPLE, SAMPLE2 and SAMPLE3 are not legal for play, but the cards awarded from P22 - 1 packs are printed on finalized card stock and - despite being released a couple of months before the Dawn of Ashes First Edition set was distributed - are legal for play and not regarded as samples.

Grand Archive Clumsy Apprentice Promotional Pack scan.
Grand Archive Clumsy Apprentice Promotional Pack scan.

Contents

Distribution

The developers stated publicly that the Dungeon Guide promo would have 2,100 non-foil and 300 foil copies, however only 1,200 non-foil and 150 foil were eventually distributed. This results in a total of 1,350 P22 - 1 code packs in circulation.

Approximately 480 packs were distributed at Anime Expo in July 2022, with the remainder distributed at Anime Matsuri, Anime Houston and Collect-A-Con Long Beach throughout summer 2022, and as part of separate Discord chat bot and merchandise events.

Promotional packs

In December 2022 the Grand Archive developers moved away from the black pack with identifier code design and introduced a new silver pack design which clearly denotes the packs contents on the front.

Clumsy Apprentice

An article published on the Grand Archive website on 14th October 2022 listed 4 upcoming promotional cards in the P22 set. For the Clumsy Apprentice card, they alluded to the changed pack design without revealing any more:

You will be able to find Clumsy Apprentice promotional packs at our upcoming event, Anime Frontier! These promotional packs will be replacing the previous Dungeon Guide packs we have been including with merch sales.

It was during Anime Frontier on 2nd December when these packs started to be handed out that we saw what these new packs looked like.

Grand Archive Clumsy Apprentice Promotional Pack scan.
Grand Archive Clumsy Apprentice Promotional Pack scan.

Contents

Distribution

Packs were originally distributed at Anime Frontier between 2nd and 4th December 2022 to anyone who spent $40 or more on merchandise. Every $40 spent would result in a Clumsy Apprentice pack being thrown in for free.

This merchandise event extended to Discord in January 2023, similarly to the previous P22 - 1 packs, for anyone to participate in during a 36 hour window.

Two packs were also bundled in with Grand Archive Ambassador Bundles for anyone lucky enough to receive one of those.

Kickstarter Lorraine, Blademaster Promotional Card

Contents

Kickstarter Game Store Promotional Cards

Contents

These packs contain all of the above cards.

Kickstarter Promotional Cards

Contents

These packs contain all of the above cards.

Merchandise Pack 1

Contents

Event packs

Event packs - as their name implies - are distributed at in-person and online events at the discretion of the event host.

Most of them contain a single Rare (R) or Super Rare (SR) non-foil or any rarity foil from the main set that was the current meta during the pack’s release. They have a rare chance of instead containing a Collector Promo Rare (CPR) from the Event Packs (EVP) set.

Dawn of Ashes Event Pack (Silver)

Contents

Dawn of Ashes Event Pack (Gold)

Contents

Fractured Crown Event Pack (Silver)

Contents

Fractured Crown Event Pack (Gold)

Contents

Alchemical Revolution Event Pack (Silver)

Contents

Alchemical Revolution Event Pack (Gold)

Contents

Alchemical Revolution Event Pack (Sapphire)

Contents

* Contains 1 card at random from P24 001 through 041, excluding the ALC Launch Kit promos 007, 012 and 018. Works out at ~2.63% chance of pulling each foil.

Collaboration packs

SquareLive Collaboration

Contents

Each pack has roughly 1 in 50 chance of containing one of the four Collector Promo Rare cards the set has to offer, whilst foils are roughly 1 in 10 chance.

Other packs

Unreleased packs

Mar 17 2022

This pack is mentioned in the Introduction, but is included here for quick reference.

‘Not Intended for Resale’ Dawn of Ashes Event Packs

The Dawn of Ashes Event Packs article on the Grand Archive website includes a scan of silver and gold Dawn of Ashes Event Packs, however unlike the ones mentioned earlier these feature the “Not Intended for Resale” label instead of “For Events Only”.

'Not Intended for Resale' Dawn of Ashes Event Packs.
'Not Intended for Resale' Dawn of Ashes Event Packs.

One of the game developers clarified that the pack designs were modified to their updated state before production began.

Personalized packs

On 22nd April 2022 in Kickstarter update #21 it was announced that personalized Promotional Packs were awarded as an appreciation to valuable community members. The members listed in this update were:

  • Red Zone Rogue (code RZR) for helping promote Grand Archive on YouTube;
  • Dan Green (code DAN GREEN) for helping promote Grand Archive and organising fan tournaments on Maindeck;
  • Citsacras (code CITSACRAS) for helping with Discord moderation, gameplay and organising Grand Archive community tournaments;
  • PichuFan (code PICHUFAN) for creating Silvie, Discord Bot;
  • davidmfinol (code DAVID*) for making Grand Archive available on Card Game Simulator;
  • Akumas (Chris) for making Grand Archive available on Tabletop Simulator.
Grand Archive personalized <code>PICHUFAN</code> Promotional Pack photo.
Grand Archive personalized PICHUFAN Promotional Pack photo.

Red Zone Rogue and Dan Green opened their packs in videos uploaded to YouTube (RZR; DAN GREEN), whilst Citsacras and PichuFan shared images of their pack openings on the Grand Archive Discord server (CITSACRAS; PICHUFAN).

* davidmfinol confirmed for this article that he also opened his personalized pack but couldn’t fully remember what the pack’s code was, stating that he was certain it contained “DAVID” but wasn’t sure if there was any more to it.

* Akumas (Chris) also confirmed for this article that he had opened his personalized pack and also couldn’t remember what the code was, confirming that all 6 packs announced in Kickstarter update #21 were opened.

All of these packs contained all 3 of the cards awarded by SAMPLE3 packs: Lorraine, Wandering Warrior DOAp 1st · EN-000 C foil sample, Lorraine, Blademaster DOAp 1st · EN-000 C foil sample and Lorraine, Crux Knight DOAp 1st · EN-000 C foil sample.

On 23rd May 2022 content creator Tyler Lee (@onceinluv) also revealed that they had been sent a personalized pack with code ONCEINLUV along with some 7th iteration samples to be destroyed on video.

Grand Archive personalized <code>ONCEINLUV</code> Promotional Pack photo.
Grand Archive personalized ONCEINLUV Promotional Pack photo.