Altered is the best game you’ve not played, a brilliant TCG which completely reinvents the format. You can check my previous article here, but here’s a brief rundown:
You play as one of 3 heroes for your faction (each with a different playstyle), using cards from hand as resources to pay for your characters, spells etc, to bolster 1 or both of your two Expeditions, as you explore the Tumult, the path of cards that stretches between the players: each round, the strongest Expedition overall advances, and when they meet, you win – or, if both players meet at the same time, it goes down to highest total. It’s not directly confrontational, more a card-based Duel board game than conventional battler, whilst still being highly interactive.
It’s also only as collectable as you want it to be, as all commons and rares are available Print on Demand (PoD), with added twist of truly, singular Unique cards (if I own a Unique, no one else in the world has that exact card). Cards you own can be scanned (they all have QR Codes) and played on BGA also, meaning collections are easy to manage whilst being fully digital also. In this set, the token unit cards also have the foiler QRs on the back (rather than being separate cards), and again as part of the PoD process you can use these to get foil versions of favourites. We also get a whole new set of Tumult cards to collect, again with beautiful, thematic art.
6 distinct factions now gather to make fresh expeditions to explore the depths of the Maze:
AXIOM are Steampunk inventors, generating bug bots with the likes of Lovelace and Babbage. Axiom have had a real boost (ha) this set, having languished in last place in the global Trial by Frost season. They see a lot of the new Augment keyword, which allows you to add counter to any card with a counter, and cards like Bug Fix which turn ANY counter into a Brass Bug. Swarms of Brass Bugs ahoy! There’s a lot of new ways to manipulate tokens and counters this set, and it makes loads of sense that manipulating the game engine itself falls to the most overtly engineering-themed faction.
BRAVOS use speed and force, to race to the finish, with everything from Djinn to Monkey spirits in their arsenal – oh, and heroes of myth such as the mighty Theseus (complete with Macho Man Randy Savage glasses in Unique form!) Bravos see a lot of the new Scout keyword, which allows you to play characters for less from hand but sending them straight to reserve, delaying their abilities a turn (however, that’s going to create some interesting interactions with cards that remove Fleeting).
LYRA sing songs, play tricks and roll dice: if you’re into pushing your luck, then Loki, Asmodeus and the Lyra are for you. My favourite card from the set is in Lyra (and I don’t even play them), the Contortionist: they don’t take up a Reserve slot, which is a genius bit of card design – they squeeze into the gap!
MUNA is about nature, and transforming the board into lush forest – with mushrooms and otters! And, because this is the Maze, they are headed up by the Minotaur this time. This set leans heavily into the cute, and is less about turning the whole Tumult into a forest (though that’s still a very valid strategy) and more about building your reserves. It’s almost like this summery set is building for autumn and beyond. Indeed, Food and Harvest are very much part of this set’s theme as a whole, with lots of ways of generating food tokens to heal, remove Asleep, Fleeting or add Anchored.
ORDIS Swarm soldiers, defending slowing yourself down to tie your opponent up in endless bureaucracy, led by the likes Jeanne D’Arc and ancient Egyptian gods. Now, Ordis have always
punched above their weight, meta speaking, and though some steps have been taken to counter this (banning the Rare colour-swapped Baba Yaga, boooooo), what’s noticeable is that there is very little in the way of Bureaucrats and even less Asleep manipulation in this set, which seem to be a very fair way of addressing it. On the other hand, they do gain access to Eternal which is like Anchored, but more so: the character just doesn’t go away. Which, frankly, is terrifying. We shall see how the meta evolves as a response.
YZMIR use ancient magic and mysticism, slowly building, generating illusions and sacrificing themselves to generate more power. Whilst it pops up all over the place, the new ∞ icon can most commonly be found on their cards, triggering every time the conditions are met, which feels very on-theme; given that they came second in the previous cycle, it makes that their gains are… measured.
I could go on about how great this game is, but head over to altered.gg , download the decks and try for yourself – then sort yourself out with the physical copies right here on Zatu! Enter the maze if you dare, find its treasures… and then, join us for a Skybound Odyssey later this year!
