NadirM of the Altered Aces competitive team, with Afanas, is our newest qualifier for the Altered World Championship Finals 2025 after winning the Qualifier event in Essen, Germany, July 26. He faced Klaze and Afanas in the final, earning a ticket to the Finals in Paris, France.

A near-capacity group played matches in Essen, Germany. Photos by White Rabbit.

The near-capacity 123-player event, organized through White Rabbit Community Game Store, went for eight rounds of Swiss play, followed by a Top 8 single-elimination running best of 3. It was streamed with English commentary by Paandyandy, Fre3loder and Runefolk. Pierre and Cédric Leblanc, Equinox organized play director, ran boss battles during the top cut segment.

Sigismar took the lead in hero distribution, with 27 players total choosing him. Afanas, in one of his last competitive showings before the Whispers from the Maze midseason patch goes into effect, wasn’t far behind with 22 decklists to his name. A steep drop then leads down to Kojo in third with 11 decklists, followed by Teija with 10. Only Arjun was fully unrepresented among the heroes. Among the cards in the Top 32, a total of 61% came from Beyond the Gates, with 21% from Trial by Frost and 18% from WFM, exactly matching the breakdown from the Qualifier in Lille, France.

NadirM’s Afanas deck leans into what made the hero such a formidable threat before the midseason patch, running only 13 characters and 3 landmarks, compared to 23 spells. Five of those spells, including two rare Joyrides, one rare Sleight of Hand, three rare Magical Training, three common Rime Frost and two rare Beauty Sleep all cost 1 mana to play from hand (which would give them fleeting on play with Afanas’s post-patch ability). The rest of the deck’s rares are covered by characters, with two rare Spindle Harvesters, two rare Sneezer Shrooms and three rare Kadigiran Mage-Dancers (which remain on the watchlist in the midseason patch). All three of the deck’s uniques, a 2/1 Spindle Harvester, a 2/1 Muna Caregiver and a 2/2 Yzmir Stargazer, return a spell or card from reserve back to the player’s hand at dusk.

Prizing

The Top 8 players took home an exclusive playmat, among other prizes.

NadirM joins the other finalists heading with travel and accommodation paid to Paris for the World Championship Finals later this year. The first place prize at Essen included a trophy, a Top 8 World Championship Qualifier playmat, four hero boosters, eight organized play boosters, one set of foil adventure track cards and one WFM booster display. Second through eighth place received the playmat, the foil adventure cards and a distribution of hero, organized play and WFM boosters. All participating players received at least one hero booster and two organized play boosters. The top player for each faction also received the exclusive Faction Champion card.