Trial by Frost has been out for almost two months now and we’re thrilled with how well it’s been received. Many cards have found their way into existing decklists, leading to the rise of new strategies. Competitive events both online and in stores are showcasing a wide variety of factions and heroes.

To give you a snapshot into today’s metagame, we’ve pulled a few numbers from the current Season 2 on Board Game Arena.

• The most played faction is Yzmir at 20.3 %, while the least played is Axiom at 11.4 %

• Each faction is represented in the Top 6 most played heroes of the season with:

  • Sigismar & Wingspan at 14.2 %

  • Teija & Nauraa at 10.8 %

  • Afanas & Senka at 10.3 %

  • Kojo & Booda at 10.3 %

  • Fen & Crowbar at 8.1 %

  • Sierra & Oddball at 7 %

• Two cards from Trial by Frost have joined the ranks of the most-played card in their faction:

  • AX Frozen Delivery COMMON

  • BR Haven Seiringar COMMON

  • LY Hathor COMMON

  • MU Muna Druid COMMON

  • OR Teamwork Training COMMON

  • YZ Off you go! COMMON

With a diverse spread among the most played decks, we’re satisfied with the current state of the metagame. Here’s a word from Trial by Frost Lead Game Designer Charles Wickham on the matter:

The bar was set high when we started working on Trial by Frost. As the first set following Beyond the Gates, we knew we wanted to offer players something new while keeping the aspects of the game they love. Overall, we’re very satisfied with how Trial by Frost has shaken things up! The set has brought noticeable changes to decklists and opened up a host of new strategies. At the same time, new players who are just discovering the game now can still jump in easily without feeling lost or left behind.

We believe that the metagame is in a solid place right now. We've seen the rise of Afanas and Sigismar decks as the current dominant decks of the format, but their prevalence hasn’t pushed other strategies out of the picture. There’s a healthy balance, with many players opting for different strategies and achieving great results.

Actually, the current state of the metagame doesn’t require any intervention, and there are no new suspensions in this mid-season patch!

We were concerned with Axiom decks’ underaverage performances in tournaments following the suspension of Haven, Bravos Bastion’s. We anticipate that the return of Haven will help rebalance things. Additionally, we hope that the return of Ozma will bring more variety to Ordis’ deck-building options. Stay tuned for more on this later in the article!

While Trial by Frost and the previous Season Patch have brought satisfying balance to the current metagame, we still aim to improve some aspects of our communication with the community. Here’s one of the improvements we’ve been working on.

We understand the impact that suspensions and errata can have on player’s collections and competitive play. To minimize unexpected surprises when you read our announcements, we’re introducing a Watchlist. We aim for transparency in all of our communication, so letting you know which cards and decks we’re monitoring feels like the right thing to do.

The Watchlist is simply a list of common, rare and unique cards. While discussions around the Watchlist may reference certain heroes or deck archetypes, only those heroes whose abilities are at the center of our concerns will be included. Therefore, if a deck or archetype is under review, we will focus on the specific cards driving that archetype’s dominance and will add them to the Watchlist if necessary.

When a card joins the Watchlist, it doesn’t mean that it will be suspended or receive an erratum. It simply means we’re aware of its performance in the current metagame and are monitoring it to determine if it’s causing any issues.

A card can be added to the Watchlist for several reasons:

• It undermines the gameplay experience we want for our players.

• It’s a crucial part of an archetype that’s too dominant in competitive play.

• The card has a win rate that’s too high without an adequate counter in the current metagame.

• It becomes an auto-include in many decks, narrowing deck-building strategies.

To learn more about our philosophy on card design and balancing, you can read our article about Robin’s Hood gameplay experience, where we explain our approach to problematic cards.

Cards on the Watchlist are closely monitored by our Game Design and Playtest teams. We’ll continue working on them until we decide to take action or conclude that they aren’t creating an issue. Our playtests also consider upcoming sets to ensure we stay ahead of the curve. As a quick disclaimer, a card we’ve previously discussed as not needing to be on the Watchlist in one of our communications or AMAs may be added to the Watchlist if we find it has a greater impact on the meta than originally anticipated.

The possible outcomes for a card on the Watchlist are:

• Suspension while we work on an erratum.

• Receiving an erratum in a future Season Patch.

• Being removed from the Watchlist without any changes

Note that we may reserve the right to suspend a card in an emergency patch if we believe the situation calls for it. However, the Watchlist system is designed to help us avoid this as much as possible, and this will only be used as a last resort.

The following changes are effective starting March 21, 2025 on Board Game Arena and in-store and competitive play. The website will be updated to reflect these changes shortly.

Players may still use pre-errata versions of their cards, provided they disclose any changes to their opponents and allow them to access the relevant information by scanning the card.

In our last Season Patch, we suspended Ozma because it provided easy access to card advantage in Ordis strategies, allowing the creation of very low-curve decks without significant trade-offs. At its mana cost of {2}, being able to draw a card twice was simply too powerful.

When working on Ozma’s erratum, we aimed to maintain its core identity of providing card advantage, while adjusting its power level with minimal changes. For Ozma, that meant keeping the Ordis identity of requiring three or more other Characters.

We aimed to limit changes to just one aspect of the card—whether its mana cost, stats, or effect. By replacing 'draw a card' with 'resupply', we maintained access to card advantage, but at a significantly reduced power level. Resupply also requires players to be more strategic in managing their Reserve to avoid discarding excess cards at Night.

Haven was one of the most powerful Rare cards in Beyond the Gates. It provided both early-game advantage with Resupply and exponential late-game power when combined with Characters that are cheap from the Reserve. While we liked Haven as a build-around card, we didn’t like how it forced players playing against it to discard it with removal to stand a chance.

We believe that the updated version of Haven will still be a strong tool for Axiom Reserve strategies in the early to mid-game, but its late-game impact will be much less overwhelming.

With the introduction of more Reserve-interaction via card exhaustion in Trial by Frost, we think there are now a variety of answers to manage these kinds of strategies and they should now find a healthy place in the metagame.

We’ve found errata for most of the unique cards currently suspended (Foundry Armorer and Gericht, Revered Duelist). Moonlight Jellyfish is still being worked on. We are now thoroughly testing the errata to ensure their integration into upcoming sets and their proper deployment on our digital platform.

Foundry Armorer (all Uniques, Bravos), Moonlight Jellyfish (all Uniques, both factions) and Gericht, Revered Duelist (all Uniques, both factions) are still suspended.

Small Steps, Giant Leap is a powerful card in the metagame, warping a lot of Yzmir decks around the ability to close out the game in a trivial manner on the last day. It’s an iconic card and ability, but it is frustrating to play against due to the lack of interaction. Furthermore, Small Steps proves to be very prominent and unfun in our 2v2 game mode.

We also believe that Small Step plays a key part in Afanas’ current performance. Combined with the noninteractive gameplay experience it can create, we’ve decided to add the card to the Watchlist.

Helping Hand is a very powerful spell in Afanas decks: for the cost of one mana, it gives players an ‘after you’, 2 boosts on a Character, and the ability to remove Fleeting. While it proves powerful with Seasoned Characters as observed in Bravos decks, Helping Hand also synergizes with Kadigiran Mage-Dancer in Yzmir decks, drawing cards with its Rare variant and offering even more card advantage with its Unique variants.

The card also allows Afanas players to continually replay powerful uniques over multiple turns. This is further enhanced by the ability ‘Return a spell from your Reserve to your hand’ that is present on a variety of Yzmir uniques. This ability allows the player to loop Helping Hand and the unique, creating a gameplay pattern that can be frustrating and hard to interact with.

Kadigiran Mage-Dancer, especially in its Rare form, is versatile, offering stats, card advantage, and priority passing at low cost. Combined with Afanas and Helping Hand, even its Common version can repeatedly output huge amounts of stats at low mana costs.

Despite Ozma’s suspension, Sigismar decks are still able to play a very low curve thanks to powerful draw engines such as Baba Yaga and Ordis Attorney. While these cards are less powerful than Ozma was, they still display high winrates and are included in almost all Ordis decks, narrowing deckbuilding strategies.

Some Uniques have abilities that are very easy to repeatedly trigger. This isn’t always an issue, but some can lead to unhealthy gameplay patterns. The ones we have identified are:

• Token Producing—Uniques with the ability to repeatedly produce tokens over the course of the day, for example whenever you play another Character.

• Multi Anchoring—Uniques with the ability to repeatedly Anchor Characters over the course of the day, for example whenever you play or boost another Character.

• Resupplying Loop—Uniques with the ability to repeatedly Resupply over the course of the day, for example whenever you play another Character or Spell.

These uniques combine with cheap cards to create insurmountable amounts of statistics, cards played or card advantage. This isn’t fun to play against, and therefore these cards are added to the Watchlist.

We are still working on the compensation system and will provide updates as soon as possible. Any solution we come to will be retroactive.