Crowdfunding

Unlike most previous expansions, the fifth set for the Altered TCG will be available first as part of a Gamefound campaign. The campaign will run from 28th October 2025 until 7th November 2025. The reason for this is that Equinox have decided to end their relationship with Asmodee to distribute the game, and have instead decided to take the distribution in house. The Gamefound campaign can be found here:

https://gamefound.com/en/projects/altered/seeds-of-unity

This time around the expansion will be available in normal booster boxes (containing 24 booster packs instead of the previous 36) and Collector Boosters. If you preorder on the Gamefound campaign then you should get your pledge in early February 2026. If you unfortunately miss the campaign then you can contact your Friendly Local Game Store that sells Altered and they should be able to order some product through them. Retailers will be able to order boxes at a special price during the Gamefound campaign. However the print run for the expansion will be limited, so the packs will not be available forever.

Exalted Rarity Cards

Coming to the game in this expansion is a new rarity called Exalted. Unlike rare and unique cards, these card will NOT be based on a common in the set, but will be slightly more powerful cards which do not have any associated common or rare card. These Exatled cards are said to be somewhere in the power level between rares and uniques. There will be one Exalted card in roughly every 20 boosters, so on average you should get one every box. There will be six different Exalted cards in the set, one for each faction. Exalted cards will be restricted to 3 per deck and will replace 3 commons if used in a deck. There will be a Hexarch for each faction in the expansion, which have a special full art treatment. It was heavily implied on the AMA that Exalted cards might not be restricted to characters going forward.

Collector Boosters

I mentioned Collector Boosters above but didn’t explain it. Collector Boosters are premium boosters that are priced higher than standard boosters, but contain more in terms of value for rare and unique cards. The Collector Booster is an all-foil booster pack containing 15 cards, with 1–3 Heroes, 6 Commons, 3 Rares, 1–3 Uniques, 0–2 Exalted cards. There is a chance to open rare treatments for collectors, including Full-Art Heroes, Alt-Art Emissary Heroes and Exalted, Worlds 2025 Heroes, and even the ultra-rare Serialized Full-Alt-Art Heroes!

Box Toppers

Another new feature in the new expansion is that every booster box will have a one card pack ‘Box Topper’ in it. The box topper for this expansion is one of 24 textless cards from the most played BTGs cards in each faction.

Special Boosters

Once again the booster boxes can contain surprise Special Boosters, akin to the Silver Boosters that were featured in Skybound Odyssey. These Special Boosters can be found in approximately 1 out of every 144 boosters, giving them an expected pull rate of around one every six boxes.

New Heroes

The expansion has three new heroes and mechanics in it. The Axiom hero pair, Della and Bolt, will allow you to exhaust the card to ready a landmark permanent (though if it will cost 2 mana to use if the permanent costs 5 or more). The Muna Hero pair, Turuun and Benih, will allow you to get a gift when your opponent receives one. A gift is when you give your opponent a card draw, a resupply or a token, then you will get the identical thing. The final hero pair, Matz and Hive is the first hero to have at 3 landmark permanent slots. At noon, he can sacrifice a landmark permenent is he has at least three in his landmark zone and then play another landmark permanent for free as long as it costs no more than two more mana than the sacificed one. Two of the heroes will be available in their own pre-built starter decks.

It is assumed that the other three factions will get a new hero in set six and the heroes for their factions in the boosters will be the ones from Skybound Odyssey.

The full details of the expansion and the Gamefound campaign can be found here. Below is a summary of the main points from the AMA held by Equinox on 16th October 2025.

POD

Countries such as those in South America and Switzerland will be added soon to the POD. No date was given on the AMA, but it was implied that the expansion of POD to other countries would be soon. Also they comfirmed that Equinox has made some specific deals with Asmodee partners in some regions, so they may still be on board for some things including parts of organised play there. Some communities are very linked to Asmodee and it didn’t seem a good idea to unlink them from what they were doing. Asmodee Asia and Asmodee Chile are still working with them.

In the AMA it was asked whether we will be able to print on demand old Tumult cards with the corrected (new) back? Equinox replied that alas this would not be possible at the moment and you should instead look for the newer adventure cards. If there is sufficient demand and clamour on the discord they could look at making these available for POD in the future.

There was a question on the AMA as to whether there would be another event where you get free bonus uniques for ordering POD packs. The inital offer was made as a thank you to Altered players for their patience in waiting for the feature to arrive. It is not planned to do it again for now, but it could possibly come back in the future if the audience asks enough and a suitable reason existed.

Changes to Adventure Pass

Starting with set five, players will be able to earn Adventure pass levels by playing on BGA as well as in person. Players will earn one level of Adventure pass for playing 15 games on BGA. There will now only be 9 levels for each faction’s pass and you can fill up more than 1 faction, potentially eventually filling up all factions to unlock all the available adventure pass cards each season. The levels will only unlock special art cards and there will no longer be any levels with foilers. This change was a result of feedback from players.

Products Going Forward

First Player Token and Pre-release kits

The first player token will not be in Pre-release kit this time around, but Equinox will try and make it available some other way later on, possibly as part of the Tumults. All the other contents of the Pre-release kits will be available for stores to order during the Gamefound campaign.

Acrylic Standees

On the AMA, Equinox were asked it we would be getting acrylic standees for new heroes. There was too short a turnaround time for this after the decision was made to move away from Asmodee (who owns Gamegenic). Equinox are discussing with other alternative suppliers at the moment and they might be think about doing them for another campaign in the future, but alas not for this one.

Written Media

Are there any plans to introduce comics or books to the line? It’s still too early in the game too do these tie-ins, but Equinox would eventually like to do books, roleplaying games, etc. They would need to have the time, money and partners to do it first.

Serialised Cards

Equinox were asked how players could get serialised cards? These cards are only available in collector boosters. There are 30 different cards and 108 of them each. When you reprint a serialised card through POD you will get the same card but without the serial number on it to keep the value of the serialised card.

Starter Decks

In the AMA there was a query about whether the Unique that you get in the starter deck will match with the theme of the starter deck. Alas the unique cards are randomly generated and it’s not possible for them to be made to match the starter decks. The family of uniques though will only be found in the starter decks, such that those families will only be in starters and not boosters (and vice versa).

A Player vs Environment Solo Product

The Equinox team (including Hank-2 the Woollyback) were asked if a Player versus Environment solo product was in the wings? The answer alas was that it was not planned for now.

Gamefound Campaign

The fundamental question of why Equinox is doing a Gamefound campaign instead of just replacing Asmodee with another distributor was asked. The response was because there are so many TCGs out there, and going through distribution means that they also have thousands of other rival products to deal with. It’s therefore hard to compete when you have so many different products on the shelf. For Equinox they are better off doing it themself, as it has better margins, and they have more control on what is going on. This model is a shorter circuit and they really want to make it work.

The Gamefound campaign is only a short ten-day campaign. It was asked why this was going to be so short? Equinox answered that this was based on retailer experience, but it was an estimation which could change in the future. Secondly it was asked if there would be any stretch goals for the campaign. As it’s a pre-order campaign not a launch campaign, there would not be any stretch goals. Maybe Equinox might do it in the future, but they decided not to for this short campaign. Equinox are going to give players more information as the  campaign moves forwards, but it will be more about lore and gameplay details than stretch goals.

There was a question aked about how soon after receive Seeds of Unity would the set six Gamefound be launched. The next campaign for set six will likely be launched 2-4 weeks after the release of  Seeds of Unity, similar to the timescale of this Gamefound campaign after Skybound Odyssey was released. This campaign may be open a bit longer than the set five campaign, but that has not been decided.

Promises / Help for Stores

How does selling on Gamefound square with the initial promise Equinox made during the Beyond the Gates Kickstarter not to sell directly to consumers in the future? On the initial Kickstarter when they made the promise, they did not know that they would need to change their business strategy later down the line. Hence the promise at the time was sincere, but there were factors that they didn’t know then. Equinox are trying to remain as close to retailers as possible with this Gamefound campaign to try and make the transition easier where possible and stores will be able to order the same products as the Gamefound but at a better retailer price.

A number of people on the AMA were worried about shops going forward. They asked whether stores would have a way to resupply somehow after the initial campaign. The answer was that it was hard in the model to pay once and then be able to resupply so for now this was not really an option. The minimum supply for stores would be one case (six booster displays), which should hopefully be small enough for even a small store to be able to afford.

They were also asked whether there are plans on increased store engagement outside EU? Equinox is a French company, but they are not forgetting about anyone and are trying to get play in as many places as possible; they had World Championships Qualifiers in many places around the world. The offering would be the same to all players around the world. Equinox know that the USA is a big place and it is hard to get complete coverage across the nation. There are spots where people play, but they may be far from your local area. The best way to make the USA a centre for Altered is to recruit more players locally – hence the Hive initiative to try and get people to help do this. If we as players want to support our local store, we should purchse through the store to help support them. Equinox have given the stores the tools to help them and they will try to deliver to stores a little in advance of player deliveries if things work out as they hope.

A question was asked about why retailer margins are lower now than they were with Asmodee? This was not something Eric could answer directly on stream, but it comes to discussing margins, concerned retailers should contact retailers@altered.gg.

Other Language Boosters

The question was asked about whether there were any plans to make Collector boosters in other languages other than English. Equinox replied that this was a new product and they didn’t yet know how many to order. They need to have a minimum order quantity to make it viable and they chose to just make it English for this set. They need a metric to understand where the demand is, and it’s possible that they could make it work in the future if demand is sufficient.

A releated question was asked as to why the Collector Boosters were not available in French as they are the majority of the community. They decided to skip it for this campaign as it’s a lot of work in translating and fitting things onto the card frames. They wanted to simplify the campaign as it was such a short time span to get all the campaign together. Equinox will probably change this in future and for now players can use the POD to print their Collector cards in French should they wish. Alas serialised cards will only be printable in English.

It was also noted that the Discovery pack has only boosters in English and the questioner asked whether we could expect these in other languages. Equinox replied that because they are changing the distribution model, they can’t use Asmodee to store stocks and it was diffcult to ship the small stocks they had of other language boosters into a central hub. The only boosters that they had with enough quantity were English boosters, so Equinox decided to go with those for this campaign.

New Rarities

The question of whether Equinox thinks that adding rarities to the game would attract new players was asked on the AMA. Equinox answered that this was not the effect they are trying to achieve with this part of the campaign. They are trying to answer community requests to make booster opening a better, more exciting experience. Uniques were intended to be the main suprise in boosters, but in BTG they were sometimes too strong and sometimes too weak, meaning they were not always exciting. Equinox have been correcting Unique power levels over the subsequent sets, but they needed a new way to make booster opening more exciting. Also the game isn’t just a faction game, it’s more of an archetype in a faction game. Some heroes really need cards that are good for them (Arjun I’m looking at you) and these one-off powerful cards can be designed for the need of these archetypal heroes. This solves two different problems for Equinox.

New Player Catch up

Having the set not being reprinted may see a lot of FOMO on getting as much of the set as possible. How can you help players coming new to the game to catch up with getting cards for previous Gamefound campaigns which are not being reprinted? Equinox answered that this would be retailer dependent. In the scenario where few retailers have product, they would see that extra demand and they don’t have the  product and would order more next time. The law of supply and demand would correct the problem in the future (though I’m not sure it answers the problem for past underprinted sets). Equinox need this campaign to help them understand how much retailers will likely order going forward.

Pre-Release Packs

There was a question as to whether the pre-release packs / boxes would be available on Gamefound campaign, and this was given a definitive no in answer. Products for pre-releases (except the token) will be all be available through the retailer portal and given to the stores for the pre-release. Consumers will only be able to acquire these products from game stores.

Foilers

It was asked why foilers are not inside boosters this time around? Equinox stated that there would be no more foilers in packs. It was a cool idea at the start, but they may have overestimated the quantities needed for these. Prices on foilers (even the unique ones) in the marketplace are terrible and they have decided to do away with them from set five, which will simplify the process. Going forward any card in your collection can now be foiled, though there was no date given when this new policy would be applied and if it would apply to previous sets or only set five and on. It was asked if there would be compensation for people who owned a lot of foilers, but Equinox did not yet have an answer to give on this subject yet.

Game Going Forward

It was asked on the AMA whether there is a rotation system planned for the game. The answer was that this will not happen before next year or the year after, but it will happen eventually. Equinox hopes to give information by the end of the year on this. When a set rotates out, the uniques would be rotated from those sets as well.

Will a hero be available to one of the other Factions? The question was essentially asking if Matz would be available to be played in Axiom, but the answer was a definitive no! You have to play Ordis if you want to play Matz.

Online Tools and Play

BGA

BGA is made to play 1 v 1. They would need to redo UI on BGA to make other formats (such as 2 v 2). They would do formats with a 1 v 1 board on there first as it’s easier.

Other Platforms

Is it an option to bring Altered to Steam or another platform? No plan outside for BGA for now, but they have wishes. First they need to understand how much they can invest and where. A standalone version would be awesome but it is a large budget to do it. They may be able to answer this again in 5-6 months.

Event Manager

A lot of work would need to be done on an Event Manager and Equinox still needs to decide when and where they are going to put resources into this area. They only have so much coding time and they need to prioritise what areas they are going to do first.

Marketplace

It was asked on the AMA when we might be able make an offer for a card on Marketplace. This alongside the event manager and other things would be part of the digital discussion on which areas to focus on next, as are plans to be able to lend a card to a friend. Both are things that they would like to do, but they are currently in the pot of ideas to do in the future.

Organised Play

Set 4 and 5 Organised Play

It was asked on the AMA whther there would be Tumult events for set 4. The answer was that there was no special tumult kit for Skybound Odyssey. The logistical approach shifted when they made the decision on the Gamefound and they decided not to do it so that they could focuse on other priorities. Also these Tumult events would be around Christmas, so stores said that they would need the space in stores for Christmas product, and also less organised play goes on during that time. They will come back for set 5 and 6.

The question was asked around what would be the Organised Play (OP) programme for Seeds of Unity season? OP will be improved on BGA, but they also want to put local gamestores at front and centre. Equinox are going to allow stores to be at front and centre of the play experience with players trying to achieve qualification progress in stores. They want stores to allow players to qualify for a monthly in-store final, which would give them the ability to qualify for a cross store seasonal final and qualify for worlds this way. They want for you to be attracted to play in stores.

It was asked whether Equinox could share any OP events for European live events in early 2026? Equinox want to make them and they have been in touch with various Tournament Organisers. They know there are some TOs out there who want to do it, but they don’t have anything that they can announce yet.

Promo Packs

A question was asked on the AMA about what was happening with promo packs for retailers. The query was about both whether they would be available and whether they would still contain a unique or not? Equinox answered that they are being replaced with something else for in store play. They are being replaced by six special treatment cards (one for each faction) which you can only collect through weekly play in store. These six cards will be chosen from some of the top playable cards in the meta.

Worlds

Can you obtain Skybound Mana Orb sleeves without going to Worlds? Equinox answered that you will need to be at Worlds to get them as they are exclusive to that event.

It was asked on the AMA why are the shop products restricted to players in the tournaments at Worlds and not available to those with “visitor” badges? The answer was that they had to sort logistics out months in advance and they only have a limited stock, hence why there are restrictions as they can’t predict demand. They didn’t want a situation where all of the product sold out on the first day to a few people who were purchasing multiple products.

Woollyback Plushes – the Important facts!

And now we go over to our special correspondent Hank-2 who will answer all your questions on Woollyback Plushes.

Q. Is there a limit on Woollyback plushes that you can buy?

A. Ewe can buy as many as you want.

Q. Will Woollyback plushes come with their own name?

A. No, but there will be ramifications if you give them the wrong name when you rehome them.

Q. Will the Woollyback feel lonely if you only buy one, so will you have to buy two?

A. When you are a shepherd you need many Woollybacks. 

Q. What is the best feature of the Woollyback plush?

A. We are very woolly and soft and loveable.

Other Highlights on Altered TCG to look at:

Set 5 – Seeds of Unity Announcement and Spoilers

Out of Faction Build – Jinn Rushy

Competitive Play Snapshot in Spetmeber