Anime trading card battler
Collect the Queens.
Rule the hive.
Nineteen hexagons, a few of them caved in. Cards with no keywords to memorise — only raw value and the swarm you build around them. Hold the most tiles when a board fills; take two boards out of three and the hive is yours.
The stores are not open yet. No mailing list, no dark pattern — just come back, or follow the release on the community server.
- 189
- cards in season
- 3
- hives in season
- 19
- hexagons per board
- 7
- languages
What you actually do
Four things, done properly.
Win by influence, not by killing
Every card radiates its power onto its own tile and its six neighbours. The colour with the most power around a tile owns it. Nothing is ever destroyed — so a lost early trade never snowballs the match.
Grow a swarm, not a pile
A card gains a bonus for every friendly neighbour that matches it — same hive, same element, same rarity, same shiny. Six matching neighbours turn a plain card into the centre of the board.
Sixty-three cards per hive
Twenty-four Common workers, eighteen Uncommon scouts, twelve Rare soldiers, six Epic guardians, two Princesses and one Queen. Hand-crafted anime art on every single one — and the Princesses and the Queen are Royal: collection and prestige, never deck cards.
A new hive every season
Each season introduces a tribe with its own Queen, palette, lore and story campaign. Past hives stay collectible and replayable — nothing is ever taken away from you.
The board
Nineteen tiles, three rounds, one hive.
One hexagon of radius two: seven central tiles with six neighbours each, twelve border tiles with fewer. Owning a tile is not the same as standing on it — surround the centre and it turns your colour even with an enemy card sitting on it. A match is the best of three boards: first to two takes it.
- Both players commit a card each turn, revealed one after the other so you see your own move land before theirs answers it.
- Five turns a round, eleven seconds a turn, a deck of twelve and a hand of four.
- Leaving a tile empty is a real move: the ring around it still decides who owns it.
- Up to three cells of the comb are caved in before the first card is played — unplayable, unownable, and identical on all three rounds.
The game itself
Not a mock-up. The game.
2 screens captured from a build of Hive TCG running against the same published content this website reads. Nothing here is a render or a concept.
A round in progress. Every card radiates onto its tile and its six neighbours; the number on each hexagon is who currently owns it.
The collection wall. Sealed cells are the cards you have not pulled yet — and the Queen sits at the top of her set.
Beyond the match
Reasons to come back.
Story campaign
Play as the hive against a rival tribe across chapters of battles, dialogues and events, with rewards that grow chapter after chapter. The story is never gated behind a paywall.
Weekly leagues
Each week you are placed in a league pool of a hundred. You play your own matches against the AI, and League Points rank you against the ninety-nine other seats. Climb from Wood to the Royal Hive, take your chest on Monday: the top twelve promote, the bottom eighteen drop, and the race restarts from zero.
Forge & shiny
Break duplicates into Pollen and craft the exact card you were missing — including its shiny variant. A duplicate is never a dead pull.
Boosters
Every hive comes in its own pack.
Each hive is illustrated end to end: its own booster art, its own Home scene, its own palette. Open packs, chase shiny variants, break the duplicates into Pollen and craft what is missing.
The roster
Every hive, and where it stands.
In season now
3 hives, playable the moment you install. 189 cards, complete sets, Queen included.
Announced
3 more hives, already drawn and published here. 189 cards, not open in the game yet — this page will not pretend otherwise.
FAQ
Straight answers.
What is Hive TCG?
A mobile trading card game where you collect seasonal tribes of anime characters — hives — and play them on a nineteen-tile hexagonal board. Cards have no keyword text: a card is a number, and its real power comes from the friendly cards you place next to it.
Is it free?
Yes. Hive TCG is free to play on iOS and Android. Daily rewards, first-win chests and the whole story campaign are available without spending. Amber and the Mega Pass are optional purchases for players who want to go faster or collect more.
Who do you play against?
An AI. Hive TCG is single-player: the story campaign, the ladder and the weekly leagues are all played against bots that field a deck at your level and adapt to how you played the previous round. A league pool of a hundred is a ranking cohort, not a matchmaking queue: you are ranked against ninety-nine other seats and never wait for one. Those seats are AI-controlled too — they play their own week, and their scores move the standings around you.
How many cards does a hive have?
Sixty-three: twenty-four Common workers, eighteen Uncommon scouts, twelve Rare soldiers, six Epic guardians, two Princesses and the Queen. The Princesses and the Queen are Royal.
Can you play the Queen?
Not in a match. Queens and Princesses are Royal, which is the collection and prestige tier: they are not deck-legal in this version. Decks are built from Common, Uncommon, Rare and Epic cards — collection numbers 1 to 60.
How do you win a match?
By taking two boards out of three. On each board, every card radiates its effective power onto its tile and the six around it, and a tile belongs to whoever has the most power surrounding it. Cards are never destroyed, so a board stays open until it is full — and what your opponent showed you in round one is knowledge you carry into rounds two and three.
What makes a good deck?
Adjacency. A card gets a bonus for every neighbouring friendly card sharing its hive, its element, its rarity or its shiny finish, so a tight mono-hive swarm beats a scattered pile of expensive cards. Matching only the element pays less than matching the hive, which is exactly what makes a themed cross-hive deck a real alternative instead of a downgrade. It is also why a focused free-to-play collection can beat a spread-out one.
What happens to old hives?
Nothing is removed. A hive leaves the spotlight when the next season starts, but its cards stay collectible, its campaign stays replayable, and it keeps working in your decks.
Is the art AI-generated?
Yes. The card illustrations, the hive decors, the music and sound, and the written lore and campaign text are produced with generative AI, then reviewed and selected before a release. It is the same content for every player: nothing is generated on your device, and nothing you type goes to an AI. The rules, the board and the card values are designed by hand.
Which languages are supported?
The game and this site are available in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Japanese.
Which platforms?
iOS and Android. The game is portrait-only and plays with one hand.