With Whispers from the Maze pre-releases just one week away, it's time to explore the different archetypes you'll discover in the set!

Haven't registered yet? Whispers from the Maze pre-releases kick off on May 30, 2025, at your local game store. This is a friendly event open to everyone, perfect for getting your first games in with the new set's cards!

When you attend a pre-release, your store will provide you with a Pre-release Kit. It includes 7 booster packs to build your 30-card deck, plus some extra accessories to help you during the event.

Unlike other Altered formats, pre-releases let you choose up to 3 different factions for your deck. There are also no limits on how many copies of a single card you can have in your deck, or how many rares or uniques you can play. Have fun discovering new interactions and finding your best faction combination!

A quick reminder for stores: only stores hosting pre-release events can sell Whispers from the Maze boosters, displays, and pre-release kits starting May 30, and only in store. All other stores can start selling on the official release date, June 6.

For a pre-release deck, you will need to select up to 3 factions and a Hero among those three. There are two ways to make this choice:

• Either choose the Hero you like the most first, then look for cards that would work well with them and select your two additional factions accordingly.
• Or identify your most powerful or exciting cards you’d like to play. Cool Rare and Unique cards should definitely make your final deck! Then choose the Hero that will work best with those cards and stick to 3 factions maximum.

It is highly recommended you pick a Hero for your deck, but you can choose not to. As such, your deck should be 29 cards + 1 Hero most of the time.

Aiming for exactly 29 cards + 1 Hero will provide you with the best deck, increasing the odds of drawing your key cards. You’re allowed to go over 29 cards if you want, but remember that you can swap cards from your deck and your sealed pool between games if you want to try some new cards.

When building your deck, there is a balance to keep in mind between the different card types you have access to.

Your deck should mostly be composed of Characters, and you should focus on characters with solid statistics, as they will form your deck’s core. Ensure that at least 15 of them cost {3} or less so that you’ll have cards to play in the early game. Prioritize unconditional proactive effects over conditional abilities!

Spells and Gears can have cool effects, but be careful you will need Characters to make good use of your Gears ! Try to include at least 2 or 3 interactive Spells in your deck to deal with your opponent’s threats.

Permanents aren’t essential (depending on your Hero), but a few key picks can go a long way to further your strategy.

Pay attention to the costs of your cards ! Try to have a good spread of costs (especially Hand cost) with a big focus on {2} and {3} mana cards (around half of your deck), as they will be your most flexible cards. Including a few key {6+} mana cards to close the game out can also be a good idea, but keep them to a minimum.

The gameplay in Whispers from the Maze revolves around your Reserve: you’ll be sending scouts to explore the depths of the Underground city, while establishing your camp and building up your resources at the surface.

This set introduces Passive Support Abilities: instead of one-off abilities, some cards now have abilities that can trigger multiple times in Reserve. Most of these abilities give boosts to your Characters in Reserve. If you take the time to trigger them, your Characters will grow stronger, as well as sometimes trigger powerful effects. Each faction has a different passive: keep this in mind during deckbuilding! Yzmir even has some spells that function similarly, gaining additional power from Reserve with Arcane counters.

These passives have a maximum number of counters they can give. A card with an ability that says “up to a max of 3” means that this ability can’t make that card gain its 4th counter. However, this passive ability doesn’t stop the card from gaining additional counters from another source.

Characters with Scout offer you two options when you play them from hand: play them normally, or play them for their cheaper Scout cost. The second option allows you to trigger their [Played from Hand] or [Played from anywhere] abilities, but you will need to send them to Reserve in exchange. Scout Characters give you added flexibility: they can be used similarly to cheap spells in the early game, but also offer powerful stats once you have access to more mana.

Quick note about the rules: when playing a Scout Character, you can choose in which order you resolve the [Played from Hand] / [Played from anywhere] ability or the send to reserve ability. In most cases this doesn’t matter, but for some cards like Swift Jinn, it’s quite relevant!

Augment is a new keyword that allows you to choose a card in play that already has counters, and give it an additional one of the same type. In Whispers from the Maze, there will be many relevant targets: Characters in Reserve that have gained boosts thanks to their passives, boosted Characters in your Expeditions, or the cycle of Landmarks in each faction that gain counters. It’s worth noting that Augment doesn’t work on heroes, however.

Use Subhash or Treyst to quickly put cards in your Reserve, to accelerate their Passive Support abilities and their [Played from Reserve] abilities.

Boost all your Characters with Basira, or activate Atsadi’s ability from the first turn of the game onwards using high mana cost Scout Characters.

Use Fen to set up your Passive Support abilities, or boost your artists with Nevenka to trigger their powerful abilities.

Build around Teija’s boost synergies, or use Rin to perfectly set up your Reserve each turn.

Slow down the game with a combination of Waru’s bureaucrats or Gulrang’s boosted tokens.

Set-up powerful spells with Arcane counters with Afanas, or play the tempo game with Scout Characters using Akesha.

Now that you know everything that awaits you in Whispers from the Maze, all that's left is to find a local game store near you and sign up for an event. See you in-store!