I was going to write about Altered’s game mechanics last week, but the announcement kind of put a bit of a damper on things. Instead I’m going to combine that article into a more widespread article about all the reasons that I love Altered TCG. I’m going to break it down into sections, so let me start with game mechanics.

Game Mechanics

After I gave up playing Magic the Gathering in about 2016, I decided that I wasn’t going to get into another TCG. Most of the games around had anime artwork (that I’m not a massive fan of) and their game mechanics were really derivative. I think there were so many ‘near-Magic’ clones around, all wanting you to beat your opponent to death. I’d been there and done that for the best part of 22 years with Magic and I didn’t need another game of that ilk.

However I chanced upon Maindeck Dan’s review of the Best new Gencon TCGs he’d played in 2023 and Altered TCG came top of that roundup. I loved the style of the artwork I was seeing, was curious and soon after the Equinox team released the six demo decks for people to print and play. I printed out four of the decks (Bravos, Axiom, Muna, and Ordis) and taught myself to play. I loved the gameplay. Specifically:

• Whilst playing a card face down had been done in TCGs before (World of Warcraft TCG was the first I remember), the fact that you drew 2 cards and had a choice which card to put into mana each turn (should you want to) made it an interesting choice each turn.
• Having an open second hand (the reserve – which was originally called memory) was an interesting concept that I’d not seen before. Whilst Magic played cards extensively from the discard pile, this proved to be abusive and broken in places. Being able to use the card twice, but only twice was a nice restriction that meant there was strategy from leaving the card in your open hand that could be sabotaged.
• The idea of your hero and companion meeting was a positive thing and (as I hinted above) made a wonderful change from beating each other up. This was a positive thing that all the family could embrace. This has given rise to interesting mechanics such as ‘In Contact’ and moving expeditions back and forward, that I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere else in trading card cards.
• Most games revolve around having a complete turn and then your opponent has a complete turn. Altered breaks that down to have the start (Morning) and the end (Dusk) that both players do in order and then the afternoon is a back and forth between the players. This makes the turn more layered between players and gets rid of the whole idea of instants / interrupts from the game. This makes it a lot more accessible.
• The last thing I really love about the mechanics is the things that the design team chose to leave out / keep to a minimum. These include:
  • Not having hand destruction (except for a single card).
  • Not having any mana orb destruction (except for an extra cost you do yourself)
  • Not having any tutoring from your deck
  • Keeping a balance between mass removal and cost so that playing creatures still means something.

The Art

I honestly love the art that Altered has had throughout the game. There’s only been a couple of pieces I’ve not loved, but in general the art has been clear and largely positive. The people displayed on the cards has shown a great variety of ethnicities as well as showing positive representations of disabled characters as heroes. The artwork has displayed so much community and hope in it that I feel that it has shown such a positive message of inclusion. On top of that, the foiling by Queen Sweorkie was top notch and I honestly love my collection of Bravos Unique foils. Every set I would get, I would think that the art team couldn’t top the last set, and then they would do just that.

The Lore

The lore of the game has been a real blast to follow along with. It took me a little while to get my head around all the unusual concepts involved in the world, but it all made sense. I can’t believe what a spectacular job that Yoshi did with all the lore articles as well as all the clues and snippets hidden on all the card lore that you can access on the website. I truly felt engaged with the characters and the world and I’m still not sure whether the Perjurers are the bad guys or not. I really would have loved an Altered RPG and it would be fantastic if Yoshi could get permission to kickstart it.

The Community

Honestly another thing that I have found is that Altered has (for the most part) attracted the best people in the community. I have made so many online friends in the community who are all such great, talented people who have so much love for the game. I’d like to give a special shout out to Lokinox who I feel has helped glue the community together and made the experience of being part of the game so bright. I seriously feel that without Loki the community would not have had the cohesiveness that it has and I know that many of us hope that we can still carry on the game in some form or another.

Uniques

The last thing that really attracted me to the game is the Uniques. Now I know that not everyone loves them, but to me they provide a way to give your deck a unique character to it. Most TCGs get stuck with net decks where people just copied whatever the winning deck was. With Uniques in the midst, you are forced to evaluate the cards you have and build around them. This has led to some truly creative decks including the fabulous Auraq deck that won the UK Worlds qualifier last year. I know the initial implementation of Uniques was a little wonky, but the Equinox team were just getting them balanced correctly as we lost the game.

I truly hope that the team can still find some way forward (as a digital game maybe?) but I will always have so many happy memories of the game.