Discover our available formats on BGA

Learn about the Altered formats that will be available on Board Game Arena when Altered Re:Union takes over management of the game May 20.

New formats will be introduced in the future and others will change over time, but these four are where we’re starting this new chapter in our adventure.

A few notes for deckbuilding:

• All commons, rares and Exalted cards will be available to all players, regardless of which cards they owned digitally at any time. Feel free to get creative with your new deck ideas!
• Most Alt arts are not supported yet on BGA.
• Available sets on BGA currently include: Beyond the Gates, Trial by Frost, Whispers from the Maze, Skybound Odyssey and Seeds of Unity. Roots of Corruption and Neverending Journey have not yet been implemented on BGA. All sets are available in the deckbuilder.

“Standard No Unique” format

This format follows all Standard rules, with the exception that no unique cards are allowed in your deck. This will be your Arena ranking format, replacing the current BGA option. We’re continuing to discuss this with the community, but we have a few reasons for this choice. First, unique ownership isn’t ready yet within our platform. We’re also aware that some players have concerns about how an open pool of uniques might affect competitive play. For the time being, we’re choosing to be cautious. This keeps the playing field familiar and competitive for everyone without ownership.

We expect this to be temporary. We want to explore formats that integrate uniques in a fair way without ownership (which you can help with by participating in the ongoing Format Contest, open until May 24!). Those formats will be tested within the community. Over time, unique ownership will be an option, naturally opening up even more possibilities for the Arena format.

This format follows all Standard rules with the entire unique pool open. This is a temporary solution (we’re expecting it to last about two weeks). It may feel a little chaotic, but we decided that it was an option to ease the transition to newer formats, giving players a space to continue to enjoy their imported Standard decks that include uniques. 

It will be replaced once the results of the Formats Contest are in and two new formats integrating Uniques fairly without ownership are ready.

This format follows the popular Singleton guidelines, but without uniques. We heard the community's wish to keep Singleton alive, and we wanted to honor that. However, the same concerns around open access to all Uniques apply here, especially for heroes that can use more than three uniques under the original guidelines. We chose this option for now, keeping the format fun and accessible for everyone while we work toward ways to integrate Uniques.

This format will allow the community to test and experiment freely. Decks used here have no restrictions or limits. It's a space designed to try out new format ideas and explore what's possible before anything is considered for official formats. Tournaments with special rulesets could also use this for play!

Please note: This format is intended for experimentation and is not suited for casual play. As it operates without restrictions, bugs and unexpected behaviour will happen. Dive in with that spirit of exploration in mind!

These four formats represent the starting point for the new future of online play for Altered on BGA, and we’ll share more of our plans for the platform soon.

Please be patient with us in the meantime! As a fully volunteer team, Altered Re:Union want to continue to preserve the future of Altered’s gameplay, making it accessible and open to as many players as possible.

Help us out by sharing your talents and volunteering!

Join our Discord to connect with the community and show your support.