My trip to PAX East 2025

The Altered booth at opening hours

I flew into Boston from 5/8 to 5/11 for PAX East, primarily for Altered. The event was an absolute blast - thanks to Equinox and the PAX team for going all-out to make this a special weekend!

Highlights

• Getting to play Altered for four days straight.
• Winning the oversized The Stage (R) Lyra card from Whispers from the Maze in a draft finals that went to double tiebreakers.
• Defeating the Lokinox & Yoh boss, then rolling a six to win the Nevenka graffiti playmat.
• Drafting Justin Parnell’s Altered cube: the higher power level and seeded synergies reaffirmed for me the possibilities of Altered limited.
• Speaking with Loki and Justin about the game and the vision for its future.
• Seeing the demo tables packed with new players getting excited about the game.
• Meeting folks from the Altered community - some new faces and others I’d only run into online. This continues to be one of the friendliest gaming communities I know of.

Draft

Thursday: Bailing from Gulrang to Sigismar

Record: LWW

This was an attempted Gulrang deck that didn’t quite get there. Gulrang needs a quite a few synergy pieces that I should have expected wouldn’t be present in a 4-person draft (the first event of the convention predictably had the lowest turnout).

When I opened a P4p1 Sigismar, I bailed into an generic tempo-aggro deck. The Geyser (C) for ramp and top-end token-makers are vestiges of the Gulrang gameplan. I had zero flexibility during deck construction due to dawdling in Muna and Lyra for too long; Icebound Pass (C) was effectively a Mana Convergence.

I lost in the first match of round-robin against Karifur’s undefeated Basira deck. I couldn’t pull ahead early, and her large, boosted characters like Leshy (C) were too large for me to overcome, especially once we hit tiebreakers. For the other two games, I swapped to each of the other two heroes I had drafted: Gulrang and Kojo.

Geyser (C) underperformed. With Sigismar’s token, it was usually a fine play, but I always seemed to have another play that would put me further ahead on expedition. The ramp really needs to matter for Geyser to be worth it, and this deck’s mana curve is too low to fully take advantage of it.

Friday: Sigismar Nilam

Record: WWWW

This is a Nilam deck that leverages the generic strength of Sigismar to put pressure on while you’re setting up The Nilam. In the late-game it can outresource the opponent with exhaust and overwhelm them with tokens backed by removal.

A weak point of the deck is that it’s slightly low on exhaust triggers. Pamola does the job but has me going down on resources. The cooldown spells proved very valuable, especially Tiny Jail (R).

I was very lucky to see a D2 Nilam in three of my four games.

Saskia, Sly Naturalist (R) was an MVP. Thanks to The Nilam activations and daily Ordis Recruit, there were two games where she provided +8/8/8 in boosts across four characters.

In one of the best games of my convention, I was ahead 1/3 against DarthFumbles’s Fen on 8 mana. Although I would be wasting 2 mana due to a Flutter of Moths (C) dead draw, I was fairly confident two solid characters and a double Nilam activation could win one expedition against just about any hand.

They had two awkward-region 2-drops and a Gericht in reserve. I exhausted their Gericht to elimate max stats, then played a Repotter Otter (C). To my dismay, they put a 2-drop from hand in reserve, then played an Icebound Peak (R). They proceeded to play all three characters out from reserve, trigger the Peak and block on both sides thanks to the Charge! effect.

I was able to narrowly close out the game the following day - the last day I was favored - with a free Pamola exhaust/double Nilam trigger, then double Rallying Call (C) into Flutter of Moths (C) after they had passed.

Saturday: The Nilam in Sierra or Rin?

Record: BLW

This was a draft where I built around early Nilams but couldn’t find a hero to support them: no free Sigismars today. An early speculative pick on a Kelon Heater (R) made it easier to take the first Sierra I saw in P4 and try to scramble into Axiom, despite the faction feeling relatively closed off.

After the draft, I laid out both decks. Sierra is a stronger Nilam hero, but the late pivot attempt would have left me playing several mediocre cards. I settled on Rin for the higher card quality and the still-nice ability to dig through my deck to find my Nilams.

The odds were against me in the match against the eventual winning Sigismar: the first two revealed regions were non-forest regions, and I found my first Nilam on the final day of the game. That said, their deck was very well-tuned, and my exceptionally slow one would have struggled with their aggression regardless.

The rare The Snow Queens are pretty neat here since The Nilam’s passive stat generation mitigates the downside of playing a 7-mana 3/3/3. They would be better if this deck’s early-game was formidable enough that you could reliably be in a solid enough position by the time she comes down.

Sunday: Down-to-business Sigismar

Record: WWW

The draft

My two neighbors were especially strong drafters. I opened a P1p1 The Nilam, Withered Tree (C) but quickly noticed Yzmir was dry and moved out. I split my first pack between Bravos, Muna, and Ordis and let several strong Lyra commons pass by.

In P2, my neighbor to the left passed me a P2p2 Sigismar; they hadn’t taken a single Ordis card (respecting the signals of me and my neighbor to the right) and opted not to pivot or hate-draft. They ended up being a Fen player in Lyra-Axiom-Muna.

Meanwhile, my neighbor to the right ended up in an Akesha Nilam build out of Yzmir-Ordis-Axiom, ending up with three copies of The Nilam themselves.

The deck

This is a very aggressive Sigismar deck that abuses the daily Ordis Recruit and goes wide with overstatted low-to-medium-cost characters. If regions line up in the late-game, it can drop a Demeter opposite the Ordis Recruit and force the opponent into blocking the Recruit or preventing her from becoming eternal.

Saskia, Sly Naturalist (C/F) is an incredible D1 play, generating 4/4/4 worth of distributed stats since the Ordis Recruit in the starting region is always in forest. Haven Seiringar keeps the resources flowing so that there’s always more gas despite the low-to-medium curve.

The deck has a lot of 3-drops and 2-drops that cost 3 from reserve, which can result in an awkward D2 and/or D3. A D1 card that costs 3 from reserve means you’re either replaying it on D2 and wasting 1 mana or playing two 2-drops from hand and letting your reserve overflow. A couple more 1-drops would have significantly smoothed things out.

I would have given an arm and a leg for another copy of Magic Beans (C), or even a Persephone; I was thrilled to P4p2 the Magic Beans I did get. Between 3x Saskia, 2x Demeter, 3x Haven Seiringar, and an honorary Saskia in the Repotter Otter (U), there’s a real risk of having a hand full of cards at half-power if neither expedition is in forest.

Uniques

Repotter Otter: 3/7

In constructed, the 3+ characters condition on the Saskia, Sly Naturalist (C) effect isn’t worth the slight bump in stats.

In limited, however, where this can be played in Sigismar, you just need one more character to fulfill the condition. Then you’re rewarded with a buffed Saskia, one of Sigismar’s best cards, though this one can’t be played for its trigger on D1.

With respect to the card draw ability from reserve, this deck is probably less likely to go low on resources than a random opponent, but it can get more value by putting a card like Haven Seiringar (C) or Break the Ice (F) into reserve (this did come up).

The games

Against Fen, I had a gross start of D1 Saskia, D2 Geyser on their 2-counter Icebound Hollow (C), into a D3 eternal-threat Demeter that was blocked but let the uncontested Ordis Recruit win.

The finals match was my favorite game of the convention: a Sigismar mirror that went into double tiebreakers.

I was happy with my Saskia start, but my opponent had a back-breaking opener of Chrysalis (C) into Mobile Armory (R) to 1-1 and set them up with a free Mana Moth on the following two days. Their aggressive start put them slightly low on resources, but with a massive 3 (or 4?) expedition lead by the mid-game.

I had to delay Demeter several days due to unfortunate timing with regions but eventually got her down in a winning region with two forest regions upcoming. Unfortunately, the other side was stuck in two consecutive non-forest regions, and I had been pressured to use my 1-of Magic Beans (C) as an after-you to not fall even further behind.

This meant my Seiringars were ineffective, my Lost in the Woods (C) was useless, and my Saskias could only boost into the expedition that my opponent was already ignoring. On two consecutive days, my opponent was 1 expedition from victory but could at best tie in the companion expedition.

My opponent Geyser-ed the replayed Demeter to prevent her from becoming eternal in the Arena. At least all regions being active meant Lost in the Woods (C) would be turned on. Unfortunately, so too were my opponent’s Sunisa and Chrysalis, which took us to 10-9-7 vs 10-8-8 for a second round of tiebreakers.

Here Jack Frost (C) provided the game-winning exhaust, leaving my opponent unable to play the Nyala that would have won the game. Their last undrawn card in the deck was another Sunisa, which could also have pushed them over the edge.

Cube

Thursday: Anchored Treyst

Record: WL

This Treyst deck can turbo out Scrap counters thanks to cheap cards, plentiful resupply, and an abundance of support abilities. The two copies of Hathor can provide two counters at once for no mana: Hathor leaving due to the support ability usage gets one, and the card you return gets another.

Once Treyst is online, 8 of the 29 cards in the deck have an “anchor 3-cost” support ability, so you can reliably stick one into reserve each turn and reanchor the best character in play. Quetzalcóatl (F) and Anansi (C) are nice, but the highlights are the two rare copies of Aloe Vera.

The draft started in the forest-matters space before Treyst came along, so there’s a small package of Persephone (R), Demeter, Magic Beans, and Lost in the Woods.

The deck went 1-1, losing to Simon’s stellar Sigismar aggro deck out of Bravos-Muna-Ordis. The winning play after I had set up Hathor + A Cappella Training in reserve was when he dropped The Spindle, Muna Bastion (R). I had the Lost in the Woods ready for it, but it let him land characters in reserve and massively slowed down my Scrap counter progress.

Saturday: Gulrang ramp-and-stall

Record: LWL

Gulrang can become extremely dangerous when she gets access to ramp. While I’d prefer Bravos as the ramp faction, Muna provides Mana Channeling (F) and, even better, Aja (R), which can singlehandedly get to 8 mana by D4 if you luck into drawing her early.

The hope for the deck during the draft was to use generically strong 3-drops to efficiently trade in the early game, ramp to 8 mana, then overwhelm with boosted token generation and impactful abilities in a late-game the opponent isn’t prepared for. Grand Endeavor (R) with ramp can be terrifying, even more so alongside Sakarabru and Issitoq.

This deck fell short in several places:

• Lack of actual token-generation
• Not enough sources of ramp in Muna alone
• Too many early-game cards means the late-game isn’t actually amazing

The deck lost to a great Sigismar deck: a Brassbug Hive (R) let them keep pace into the late-game and a Hooked (R) made excellent use of Aja (R)’s symmetrical ramp. Sadly, Aja turned both Flutter of Moths (R) and Winter Nova (R) into mana this game.

In another game, I pulled off ramping with Aja (R) into Grand Endeavor (R) followed up by Sakarabru.

In the third game, I got extraordinarily greedy and held onto Grand Endeavor (R) and Sakarabru (R) from the opener along with a Haven Warrior (R). The Haven Warrior got sabotaged and my D2 was The Nilam. Then on D3, I drew into Winter Nova (R) and Flutter of Moths (R) and had to sheepishly pass on 5 mana…

Constructed

Thursday: Fen & Crowbar

Record: WWW

I brought the Fen deck I’ve been playing recently, minus one unique I don’t have the physical for.

The finals match was a tight one against a strong Sigismar opponent. I was on the back foot early due to an opening hand of only 0-stat characters and my opponent’s arrow card draw Monolith Legate (U). Thankfully I had Magical Training (F) and Hathor (C) from D1, which went on to let me play a Magical Training (F) every single day of the game.

Magpeng Hoarder (F) was very impressive this game; the stat boost over the common was the difference between a 1-0 and a 1-1.

Friday: Nevenka & Blotch

Record: WWL

The finals match against Afanas & Senka ended in a spectacular after-you battle. With me ahead 1/2 on expeditions, they fired off 1-drops while I replayed a Magical Training (F) three times. After finding my 1-of Small Step, Giant Leap (F) 2 mana too late, I had to start sleeping their characters earlier than I would have liked. They played Sleight of Hand (F) purely as an after-you and forced me to deploy The Sandman (C) first. With 1 mana left, they had the Beauty Sleep (F) that put them exactly one stat ahead after the Afanas boost.

Saturday: Teija & Nauraa

Record: WWWW

I brought a slightly modified version of the Teija deck I brought to AQZ. The deck applies the changes I suggested and adds Sow (R). I was really happy with the rare to ensure your Spindle Harvesters (R) get the second boost and also reanchor them. Upping the anchor support ability density is very valuable.

A D1 and D2 The Spindle, Muna Bastion (R) won the game against Sigismar and Afanas due to protecting my Sneezer Shroom (U) once it came down.

In the finals match against Sigismar, keeping Lost in the Woods (C) from the opener was a mistake, despite - or perhaps because of - the fact that it was a particularly weak hand. They didn’t draw their Monolith, Ordis Bastion (C)s, so it sat dead in hand until tiebreakers. It was particularly painful on the day I drew no characters and had to play out Coppélia (U) purely as a 2/2/2.

With my opponent one expedition from victory, I decided after a minute in the tank that it would be extremely unlikely for me to be able to beat them on stats with the characters in my hand. The only possible winning line would be to not mana my Floral Tent (C) and instead pray that it resupplied into exactly one of the two Lyra Thespian (F)s. Lo and behold, Lyra Thespian was the resupply, and I survived that day to go on to win in tiebreakers when, as predicted, I wouldn’t have with the cards in hand. Always play to your outs, however miniscule!

Sunday: Fen & Crowbar

Record: WLW

I ran back the same Fen deck on the final day of the convention.

The game I lost was a very tense one against Sigismar in R2. It’s worth highlighting because it’s the first time I’ve felt I’ve been punished by including so many potentially dead cards in my list. My first two resupplies were Small Step and Off You Go!. I drew all three Cloth Cocoons. The only Magical Training (F) I saw was resupplied in tiebreakers.

Despite constantly being close to empty-handed, I was able to fight tooth-and-nail into tiebreakers, where I lost decisively.

My biggest mistake in retrospect was on the day we were at 1/1. I could use the resupplied Amahle to go up two cards but then leave myself unable to use my discard-from-reserve-as-cost Cernunnos (U). I determined that drawing two cards would leave me safe to anything except for exactly The Sandman (F) and, even then, only if neither of the two drawn cards were the Magical Training (F)s left in deck, 2/12. However, I paid a high price to take the line with a 0% chance of failure: playing Cernunnos (U) and spending my last card in reserve to discard the lone Ordis Recruit facing Amahle.

I tend to play too conservatively, and this is the perfect example. I sacrificed far too much to play around a very specific loss-condition. It would have been much better to accept losing to exactly one card. Especially, in this instance, because them being able to hold onto The Sandman would have meant bad news for me in tiebreakers anyway; I’m not really even winning in the scenario I’m playing around.

I still stand behind 3x Cloth Cocoon (C) and Small Step, Giant Leap (F) given the current top decks, but this game’s fail-case is an important data point.

Photos