Strategy
Hive TCG tier list & meta guide
There are no published win rates in Hive TCG yet, so this page ranks nothing it cannot justify. What follows is a tier list of the things the rules actually decide: which castes carry a deck, what a tile is worth, and where the free wins are. Two facts frame everything below — a match is the best of three boards, and Royal cards (the Queen and the two Princesses) are collection only, so they never enter a deck.
Why there is no hive-vs-hive ranking here
Hives are built to the same skeleton — the same sixty-three-card curve, the same value range — so no hive is mechanically stronger than another. A per-hive ranking would have to come from real league results, and those are not public yet. When they are, this page will rank hives from that data and say so.
Caste tier list
Every hive is built to the same curve, so a caste is worth the same whichever hive it comes from. The counts and collection numbers below are read off the sets the game is serving right now, never typed into this page.
Queen
The highest number in the game, and one you will never place. Royal is the collection and prestige tier in this version: the Queen is what completing a hive is for, not a card you open a match with.
The one who rules. One per hive.
Royal1 per hiveNumbers 63–63Collection onlyPrincess
Awarded for completing a set rather than pulled from a pack. Like the Queen, she sits outside the deck in this version.
The one you earn: never from a booster, only from completion.
Royal2 per hiveNumbers 61–62Collection onlyTier S — Guardian
The highest value you can actually field. The best value per slot on the border ring, where a single card decides two or three cells at once.
The one who holds.
Epic6 per hiveNumbers 55–60Tier A — Soldier
Filler that stops being filler the moment two of them sit next to each other.
The one who strikes.
Rare12 per hiveNumbers 43–54Tier B — Scout
The cheap glue of a mono-hive deck. Beatable alone, and never meant to be alone.
The one who sees it coming.
Uncommon18 per hiveNumbers 25–42Tier B — Worker
The mass of the game, and the reason mono-hive decks work: six matching neighbours multiply a low number into a board-winning one.
The one who builds. The bulk of the game.
Common24 per hiveNumbers 1–24
Where the score really comes from
A card's printed number is only its starting point. Each adjacent friendly card that matches it on one of four axes adds a bonus; the bonuses sum, then multiply. This is the whole of the scoring system — there is nothing else.
| The four axes | Per matching neighbour |
|---|---|
| Same hiveTwo cards from the same hive, side by side. | +25% |
| Same elementTwo cards of the same element, from different hives. | +15% |
| Same rarityTwo cards of the same rarity. | +12% |
| Same finishTwo cards of the same finish. | +8% |
Hive and element never stack: between two neighbours the game pays one or the other — and the hive, worth more, wins.
Five rules that decide more games than your rarest card
The centre ring double-dips
Surrounding the central tile takes it and radiates onto the outer circle at the same time. One ring, two rewards.
Empty tiles still belong to someone
A tile with no card on it goes to whoever has the most power around it. Filling every hexagon is not the goal.
Owning is not occupying
Your card standing on a tile is only one neighbour among seven. The board is decided by the ring, not by the seat.
The element is a cheaper second hive
A friendly neighbour from another hive but the same element still pays a bonus — a smaller one than a neighbour from your own hive. Mixing costs you power on purpose, which is what makes a themed three-hive Fire deck a real deck instead of a mistake.
The comb has holes, and they never move
Up to three cells are caved in before the match starts: nobody plays on them, nobody scores them. They are drawn once and replayed identically on all three rounds, so reading the map beats memorising an opening.
Guide written from the game's design rules. It will be revised when league data becomes public.