Following from the previous post, François Jourdain, lead game designer for the Whispers from the Maze set, answered questions at Gen Con 2025. In this post, he talks about the developing WFM meta, community feedback and the upcoming Skybound Odyssey set, releasing Oct. 3. Make sure to check out the previous post, where he goes into WFM’s inspirations and development.

How do you determine what the team feels each faction “needs” going into the design for a set?

We have a lot of internal testing, so we have an idea of what the meta will look like. Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes we miss some stuff, but we have a pretty good idea that some heroes are trailing behind. So far, I don’t think we’ve messed up on that. Like, when we knew that Rin and Arjun weren’t supported enough. The problem is that every card you make for Arjun is just better in Teija. And every time you make a really good Arjun card, Arjun become really, really strong, right? It’s the same with Auraq. When you design a card for Auraq, it’s really hard to give a good card that’s specifically for them, and then at that point, I think it’s too strong because it breaks the chaos and randomness of the work. So it’s really hard to balance.

Do you consider errata for the heroes who aren’t doing well?

We have had a lot of discussions about, “Can we buff a hero? Should we?” And the problem with buffing a hero is that, if it’s not sufficient enough, then why do you do it? So should we take one step and then one step? Also it takes a long time to try out, and we have to design sets in between that. So we have to find time for everything, and it’s hard. We are mostly focused on making sure to bring down the heroes who feel too strong, and the cards that feel too strong, so more globally, the player experience is better than bringing your hero up.

But we’ve had a lot of discussion about it, and we have tons of ideas on how to make that happen on a larger scale. I’m not announcing anything. Maybe at some point we’ll feel confident about the ideas we had to balance heroes at a large scale. But it’s too soon to say, and it takes a lot of time to try everything out. So we’re doing it, but slowly.

We’re trying to use every aspect of the game at our disposal to make sure the experience is the best we can offer. Sometimes we know we have to act upon something. For example, for Afanas, we had a lot of discussion about whether we change the hero or the cards he had at his disposal. At some point, you ask, which is best? Should we change a few cards or change the hero? It’s a case-by-case scenario, because sometimes it’s better to target a really, really good card for that hero, because it feels like it could be enough to bring it to the right level. Or sometimes, just the hero power is too strong, or the card package that he has at his disposal is too vast, too wide, so it would take too much effort to change each card. At that point, we’d say, we should change the hero because it’s just simpler for everyone.

We’re trying not to touch heroes because we are trying to make people invested in heroes that they love and want to have an attachment to them. So we’re trying to change the least possible. But sometimes we say it’s better to change the hero than five cards.

I think once people try to make a new deck list, they’ll see that it’s still really strong and competitive. It’s like the Haven Bastion for Axiom, when we did the errata, people thought we killed the card. We did not, we just brought it down from an awesome power level. But it’s still really useful. It’s still a strong card, it’s just not broken anymore. I think Afanas is the same. It’s still a really strong contender and a really good hero that could take on Worlds. I think many people will find that it’s still really good and enjoyable gameplay, and it doesn’t feel like you can’t do as much against it.

Seeing some of the decks that are coming through competitive play and Qualifiers, what kind of inspiration do you take from that?

There are a lot of things we’re learning. The only problem is that we are working so much in advance. So we can make adjustments, but most of the time, it’s “Oh, they’re playing this. OK, that’s fun. That’s a type of deck we didn’t see coming.” And that’s really great, and we look at “Can we do this, or have that kind of strategy?” Or put one or two cards in some sets to make sure that when they roll out, some of the strategies that have been trying to explode and don’t have the cards to make it will see the light of day further on.

A lot of players talk about how the meta goes toward 1-3 cost cards. How do you feel about that?

I think at some level, Altered will always center mostly around 2-3 cost cards. A lesson we learned is that one-cost cards were too strong in BTG. So we are trying to bring them a bit further down, but you can’t make them so much weaker than the cards from the first set to where it feels bad for players. We are taking steps gradually, and we still want one-mana cost cards to be played because we think they’re great. There’s the After You component to them. You can do things with them, but we are watching them more closely.

For the nature of the game, the way it plays where everything goes back at the start of each turn, players want to be able to play cards. I think the go-back-and-forth component is one of the game’s strengths, and you want to be able to play on that strength. You can play the 4-7 mana cards, and I love those cards, to be honest, but if you’re only playing those every turn and that’s the best way you can play it out, then in some way we’ve failed because you lose the back-and-forth component of the game.

But even with Sol, what’s really interesting with that hero is that you want to finish first, but you still want to see what the other player does and not reveal all your cards during the first turn. If you do that, you’re probably going to lose because they have all the information at their disposal and can easily beat you. So there’s this cool aspect to it where you really want to see if you can take one slow-tempo turn and then finish. There’s this really cool aspect of trying to get in your opponent’s mind.

To go back to the question, we do want our biggest cards to feel like they’re playable, that they’re strong. When you put one down, you want players to go “How am I going to go through this?” but we don’t want to make sure that the late-game always revolves around those cards. It’s a fine balance to achieve and find. I think over time, we are getting better and better at finding those cards, and with each set, I think the more expensive cards will be more playable and have a greater feeling to play. We do love our big-cost cards, but I don’t think we’ll ever see Altered that only revolves around that.

How much does the feedback from the community influence what the team is working on?

We work in advance, so making adjustments right away is hard, but when we can, we are looking at feedback and trying to adjust according to that, seeing what we’re missing, what players are complaining about, and trying to fix it later down the line. When we feel we don’t have to act right away, we are keeping it for later. When we feel like we do need to, we are.

When the community brings cards that are really strong or oppressive, we often look to BGA to see, is it truly, from a numbers standpoint? There are two aspects to it. There is the emotional aspect that feels really bad, and yes, that’s something we take into consideration. I think a great example of that is Small Step, Giant Leap. Because looking at the numbers, Small Step wasn’t an awesome card winning all the time. But I think it was mostly the feeling of, “I have a fighting chance,” and it’s the last turn, and then it ends like this. I think that was the real problem with Small Step. So we look at that from an emotional center, and on the other side of this is statistics. We see cards that are doing really, really great. That was the case with Helping Hand, where you had a huge win rate for Afanas. That is the more mathematical approach to it. We have a lot of discussion about this, like Scholar’s Vault in Bravos. We are watching Scholar’s Vault, we are watching Bugfix, obviously. And we’re trying to say, “Is it a mathematical problem? Is it an emotional problem?” In both of those cases, I think we are closer to the emotional problem than the mathematical one, but we’re still looking into it and watching closely. We also want to see how people adapt after a few weeks and months. Sometimes we need to wait a bit to see how the meta shifts, and whether it will still be a problem in a few weeks.

How does that affect the design of upcoming cards?

We are always trying to be conscious of both of those aspects when we design cards. We always try to say, “On an emotional level, is that OK? Is it too strong? Is it too weak?” We’re always trying to get it right. I think that most of the time we’re getting it right because there are so many cards in the game and only a few are a problem.

All right, hard questions out of the way: Fun questions now. As a Bravos player, I have to ask, why is there so much Ordis love in this set?

You have to give cards that are exciting and strong to every factor. I can honestly say, I think in the team on Whispers is probably the team that did not play Ordis. I’m not an Ordis player, Merlin is not an Ordis player. Léa is probably the one that played Ordis the most. So we don’t have an Ordis bias, at least not in Whispers, and I don’t think we have one on the team because I think Ordis is like every other faction. We play it, we love what it represents, what it plays like. But there’s not bias, to be honest.

I’m always surprised about these comments, because I really don’t think it’s true. We are just making good, cool cards for each faction, or at least we’re trying to. Maybe there’s something about the Ordis faction being what it is feeling like it has straight lines, that it’s pretty rigid in terms of design, makes it feel like we are creating better cards for them. Maybe we are, I can’t say we are not. But I think we are not trying to, to be honest, and there’s no Ordis bias.

What are the things you’re most excited about for Skybound Odyssey?

The leviathans, and Kauri. I love the Woollybacks. I think it’s the best thing SKY has done because they are so cute and stupid. I fell in love with them even before they were Woollybacks and we had some weird token for them. I loved putting stupid things on my opponent’s side and making it work. I’ve played Muna a lot throughout the game and I’ve never considered myself a Muna player. And when I started to test SKY, I was like, “OK, I think I’m going to play a Muna deck for SKY,” because I love those guys so much, it’s so fun. Also, I’m a big social “group-hug” player, I love that component aspect to this. Yeah, I’m kind, but I also can do this. So I love Kauri, I love Muna in this set, probably my favorite faction of the set. And as I say, I love big cards, the leviathan – I’ll stop, yeah.

It looks like the Defender archetype is one goal for Muna in SKY. Are there other archetypes that are really being developed for the new heroes?

There are, and I think it’s a matter of time, as we see players take up on those archetypes. Making cards that nobody will play or be excited about is not the greatest thing we can do. So I think most of the time we are trying to put some cards in and see what players take on, how they take that card and try things. Like, even though they don’t have the complete package, are they trying? If they’re trying, if there’s something happening, then it becomes a question of when should we give them the package, for which hero, which faction?

We learned early on that most heroes need a good package to work. So I think with SKY you’ll discover a first take on that package, and with a few adjustments, a few exceptions, mostly through rares and out-of-factions, trying to show something else that the hero can do. And later down the line, it’ll build out. Either we will build it out, or if we see players take up on it, we will come back to it.

What’s your favorite character in SKY?

My favorite character is the Muna Leviathan. I think it’s the greatest. He hasn’t been spoiled yet, so I won’t say anything. But I love that character for different reasons. But I think my favorite card in SKY is a landmark, also in Muna, and it has “Woolly” in its name. It’s my favorite card in the set, far above the others. I think I’m not going to be the only one who will fall in love with it when they see it.

Read the earlier interview with François where we talk about the inspirations and development for WFM, and don’t miss our other exclusive Gen Con Q&A interview with Justin Parnell, Equinox sales and marketing director, Americas, discussing lessons learned in Altered’s first year.