Over the last few months, players have enjoyed a fairly diverse metagame. However, while the options to play Altered competitively are distinct from one another, we acknowledge that the environment itself is perhaps a bit more predictable than we would have liked. Some newer heroes have gained ground, but three strategies still dominate the meta, and even through our previous balance efforts, have done so for quite some time. These are Bravos decks built around a shared core of cards, Sigismar, and Treyst.

These archetypes performed exceptionally well at the Winter Finals 2026 and have remained strong since the early days of Altered. As a result, they now represent a significant portion of competitive play.

At the same time, we have observed that Yzmir — and, to a lesser extent, Muna and Lyra — have been struggling to keep pace with their counterparts. Our goal with this balance patch is to refresh the metagame by reducing overly powerful interactions and improving the overall play experience.

While the three leading strategies remain relatively balanced among themselves, meaningful adjustments are necessary to restore long-term diversity. Our aim is to ensure that players can continue to explore a wide variety of competitive and creative strategies. For this reason, we are proud to present what is likely the most ambitious balance patch in Altered’s history.

At this point, Sigismar is undoubtedly one of the most emblematic heroes in Altered’s competitive scene. Since its introduction in Beyond the Gate, the Ordis hero has been a dominant presence in nearly every metagame. While it has not always been the strongest option, it has never been irrelevant, despite multiple errata and suspensions over the years.

The strength of Sigismar’s ability has been widely acknowledged by the community. In previous patches, we hoped that natural counters and adjustments to other cards would help keep it in check, but the early-game advantage remained difficult for many decks to contest. With this patch, we are taking a direct approach to restore better balance. Until now, we had deliberately avoided modifying its text, in part because of its status as a starter deck hero. With Seeds of Unity introducing a new Ordis starter deck, however, this constraint no longer applies.

As a result, we are issuing an erratum to Sigismar, removing its first token of the game.

ERRATUM

Sigismar will still be able to double advance on Day 1, but doing so will now require a larger investment and have ripple effects throughout the game, making early plays more meaningful while keeping the hero’s signature style intact.

Furthermore, reducing the power of Sigismar’s ability helps relieve design pressure on the Ordis faction as a whole. This creates more space for future card development and may, for example, allow us to unsuspend Baba Yaga in the near future — a change that would benefit every Ordis hero.

SUSPENDED

Tiny Jinn and Haven Seiringar have become the defining pillars of modern Bravos decks. Both cards are the most played of their rarity in Altered, appearing as automatic three-ofs in nearly every competitive list.

Tiny Jinn provides extremely efficient ramp into powerful late-game strategies — often centered around The Hunger — at a very low cost. Similarly, Haven Seiringar generates consistent card advantage while allowing Bravos decks to maintain strong expedition pressure. Together, these effects give Bravos players access to both accelerated development and long-term value with minimal deckbuilding trade-offs.

Although only one version is currently dominant (Rare for Tiny Jinn, Common for Haven Seiringar), suspending the other versions helps ensure the metagame shifts and encourages more variety in Bravos decks.

For these reasons, we have chosen to suspend both Common and Rare Bravos versions of Tiny Jinn and Haven Seiringar.

SUSPENDED

Since the early days of Altered, Treyst has been one of the strongest heroes in competitive play. We appreciate its ability to generate card advantage and to delay its most impactful plays with low-cost cards, as these are key parts of its identity. However, some card combinations — especially with Dr Frankenstein and The Grems — currently allow Axiom decks to gain a lot of power from very little investment. In addition, The Grems put a lot of pressure on Permanents with Cost 3 or less, which can very easily be punished when facing them.

Furthermore, Restocking Station has started to create repetitive and unfun gameplay, even though it is not on our watchlist. This is most noticeable when it is combined with Dr Frankenstein or strong Unique cards. Given its very efficient rate, we believe its impact would only grow as the card pool expands.

For this reason, our changes focus on these specific cards. We are suspending only the Common version of The Grems, as the Rare version requires a real deckbuilding commitment. We are also suspending only the Rare version of Dr Frankenstein, as it is much stronger than its other versions. Finally, both the Common and Out-of-Faction versions of Restocking Station are being suspended, since their one-mana cost makes them easy to play with almost no downside.

With these targeted changes, we aim to keep Treyst’s core playstyle intact while reducing its ability to gain too much power too quickly and repeat the same patterns every game.

SUSPENDED

In recent weeks, Moyo Prison has quickly become a popular deck on the BGA ladder. While we were initially happy to see strong interest in the new hero, we also received a large amount of negative feedback about the experience of playing against this strategy.

Our data shows that Moyo Prison does not have a strong overall win rate, which is why none of its cards were originally placed on the watchlist. However, despite its average performance, the deck has created many frustrating and repetitive games. Over time, this has had a negative impact on player enjoyment.

In addition, we are also taking action on the Rare Ordis version of Celebration Day. While it is not currently prevalent in the metagame, it presents similar risks, and we prefer to address it proactively rather than wait for the same issues to emerge.

For this reason, we have decided to take action. Celebration Day is now suspended.

The following cards and strategies are currently being monitored. While we are not taking direct action on them in this patch, we want players to be aware of the areas we are watching closely for future updates.

ADDED

Fen and Rin Festival decks have been gaining popularity in recent weeks. While their overall win rate is not especially high, we have received consistent negative feedback about playing against them in their current iteration.

Counting Sheep can create two Asleep characters with a single card, which often feels very strong and frustrating to face when your plan is to use a removal on a Character to interact with the combo.

For now, we prefer to observe how the environment evolves after this patch before making further changes.

ADDED

Ouroboros decks have existed since the Core Set and offer interesting deckbuilding challenges. However, they can also lead to very long turns, sometimes lasting five to ten minutes, which creates a poor play experience.

We believe that the rules update below regarding reshuffling may be enough to reduce these issues. Still, we are placing Ouroboros on the watchlist in case further adjustments are needed in the future.

ADDED

Some Unique cards are able to Anchor several characters on the same day. These cards are among the most powerful Uniques in Altered and have generated a large amount of negative feedback.

Once these Uniques start to snowball, games can quickly feel unwinnable. At the moment, their impact is partly limited by the high play rate of Sigismar and Bravos decks using The Hunger.

With the changes in this patch, we expect these Uniques to become more prominent. We will therefore be monitoring them closely in the coming months.

The Hunger is one of the most emblematic cards in Altered and has always had a strong impact on games. It is a key tool for dedicated ramp and control decks that fall behind early and need powerful late-game options to come back.

We understand that The Hunger can feel oppressive, especially when it is played with very little opportunity cost in Bravos decks that are able to ramp while still keeping up in expeditions. This has been a common concern within the community, and we have been closely monitoring its performance.

However, we believe that The Hunger plays an important role in the overall balance of the game. It helps keep certain strategies in check and gives slower decks a way to compete. In addition, with the suspension of Tiny Jinn, we believe it will come at a much higher cost to commit to the 8 mana play. So far, it has not caused major issues in Yzmir, which suggests that the main problem lies in Bravos’ ability to reach the late game too easily and with very little opportunity cost.

For these reasons, and as we explained in our previous balance update, we are not taking action on The Hunger in this patch. We will continue to monitor its impact and remain open to future adjustments if needed.

In recent months, we have been working internally on ways to reduce the impact of certain combo strategies that have led to frustrating play experiences. In general, any strategy that consistently takes much more clock time than its opponent raises concerns within our team. This includes several multi-resupply strategies, Ouroboros “hyperloop” decks, and prison-style decks — some of which are also addressed in this patch.

While we are happy to see creative and unconventional strategies in Altered, we believe the game is at its best when both players remain actively involved. We prefer gameplay that does not revolve around one player executing a long sequence while the other simply waits.

To improve these play experiences and make sure these strategies are not prevalent, we are changing how decks are reshuffled when players attempt to draw from an empty deck.

“At any time during Morning, a player whose deck is empty may reshuffle their discard pile into their deck. “

NB: This can be done before, after or in between drawing their first and second card, (which would still be considered simultaneous).

This change prevents players from reshuffling their deck multiple times during the same day. At the same time, it has little impact on players who naturally reach the end of their deck during a normal game.

We also chose to make reshuffling optional, in case players need specific cards in their discard pile for synergies.

This change will be included in the Comprehensive Rules 5.0, but it will be effective as of this patch, as well as several other rulings. One of these is the return of The Foundry, Axiom Bastion to its earlier ruling :

Question: If I have several copies of "The Foundry, Axiom Bastion", can I activate the {R} ability of a Character multiple times?
Answer: No, but you can activate the {R} abilities of a different Character on a different turn. (Between January 5. and February 10. 2026, a different ruling stated you could.)

During our playtesting of Della & Bolt, we used this, the original version of the ruling. As we finished putting together the Comprehensive Rules 5.0, allowing a double activation of The Foundry seemed cleaner and more intuitive, but some playtesters and judges alerted us to the unfun pattern that could emerge with some powerful {R} abilities. These drawbacks convinced us to maintain the earlier ruling.

On January 12th, we introduced two new game modes, available in the deckbuilding section of the Altered website and on Board Game Arena.

Many of you have asked us questions about the future of these formats. We wanted to reiterate that our priority remains to create different gameplay experiences that allow players to enjoy Altered in new ways.

Therefore, finding perfect balance in these alternative modes has a lower priority to us than Standard constructed.

In this Patch, we will not be making any changes to the number of unique playable versions per hero. We are waiting to see how the format evolves and to monitor the impact of the release of Seeds of Unity.

However, with the suspension of the common and rare versions of Tiny Jinn and Haven Seiringar, we expect that Bravos decks, which were very popular in the first few weeks of Singleton's existence, will be less effective and allow the metagame to diversify.

During the Seeds of Unity Gamefound campaign, many players discussed the possibility of card rotation, a change in current set legality, similar to what exists in other trading card games. As Altered continues to grow, we are now reaching a point where older sets need to make room for newer releases.

Rotations helps keep the Standard format healthy by reducing complexity, refreshing the metagame, and allowing a wider range of power levels and strategies to shine. It also helps make competitive play more accessible for newer players who may not own older or harder-to-find cards.

With the release of Set 7, following Roots of Corruption, the following sets will rotate out of the Standard format:

• Beyond the Gates
• Beyond the Gates KS Edition
• Trial by Frost
• Whispers from the Maze

This rotation includes heroes, commons, rares, out-of-faction cards, and Uniques.

At the same time, the release of Set 7 will introduce a new Eternal format, which we will present in more detail soon. This format will allow players to continue using their favorite heroes and Uniques in a more powerful and open environment. We know that many players have strong connections to these cards, and we want to make sure they continue to have a meaningful place in Altered.

The Eternal format will also be integrated into the official competitive circuit, alongside Standard and Limited.

We have also implemented several functional errata and visual adjustments on specific cards.

• Lady of the Lake (Beyond the Gates and KS Edition Uniques)
  These Uniques now use their correct Unique illustration instead of the Rare artwork.

• Phileas Fogg (Axiom Uniques)
  The effect
  “You may pass. If you do: The next Permanent you play this Afternoon costs {2} less to play.”
  has been updated to:
  “You may pass. If you do: You may immediately play a Permanent for {2} less.”

  This change affects 189 cards.

• New: Tiny Jinn (Bravos, Common and Rare)

• New: Haven Seiringar (Bravos, Common and Rare)

• New: Dr. Frankenstein (Axiom, Rare)

• New: The Grems (Axiom, Common)

• New: Restocking Station (Axiom, Common & Bravos, OOF Rare)

• New: Celebration Day (Yzmir, Rare & Ordis, OOF Rare)

• No changes: Baba Yaga (Ordis, Rare)

• No changes: Botfix

• No changes: Moonlight Jellyfish (All Uniques)

• New : Counting Sheep (All Versions)

• New : Ouroboros, Lyra Bastion (Axiom, OOF Rare)

• New : Multi-Anchoring Uniques

• Removal : Sigismar & Wingspan

• Removal : Dr. Frankenstein (Axiom, Rare)

• Removal : The Grems (Axiom, Common and Rare & Bravos, OOF Rare)

• Removal : Tiny Jinn (Bravos, Rare)

• Removal : Haven Seiringar (Bravos, Common)

• No changes : Treyst & Rossum

These changes will apply to all formats (Standard, NUC, and Singleton) starting Thursday, February 12, 2026 on Board Game Arena and in your local game stores.

This update includes many important changes, and we are excited to share them with you. With this patch, we chose to accelerate our schedule in order to offer a fresh and engaging inter-season before the arrival of Seeds of Unity.

Our goal remains the same: to support a healthy, diverse, and enjoyable competitive environment for both new and veteran players. Whether through balance adjustments, rules updates, or the introduction of rotation, each change is designed to improve long-term gameplay and player experience.

As always, we would like to thank the community for its continued feedback and passion. Your discussions, reports, and ideas play a key role in shaping the future of Altered.

We look forward to seeing how this new environment develops and hope you enjoy exploring the possibilities it brings.

Don’t miss our AMA with Cédric (Director of Organized Play) and Charles (Game Designer) on Wednesday, February 11th at 6PM (UTC+1) on YouTube! Tune in here: https://www.youtube.com/@Altered_TCG/streams.