For 2026, we wanted Gods Unchained to feel new and refreshed, with a new sense of dynamism to it. We have explored many different paths along the same roads and same archetypes for a while now, and the players have the meta pretty well figured out. We want to find a way to shake it up in a more parallel way than just printing new variations on existing archetypes, and avoid all the trappings of direct powercreep we have seen other games fail into time after time. Roots is our refresh, not just for the cards but for playstyles, set composition, and player expectations.
Introducing the Everborn
The Everborn represent a new threat to all of Faenar. A menagerie of creatures, of all shapes and sizes, with goals and methods that feel alien to the rest of the continent. They are steadfast in their mission, whatever that may be, and their resolve is unshakeable. You can’t call their loyalty into question, because they don’t understand the concept, they may not even think at all. We wanted a tribe like this to feel as different in the game as they do in the story, with mechanics to reflect it.
They are a mostly Neutral tribe
The Everborn are not aligned to any one god. Typically in the past tribes have been assigned to one primary patron, with a few breaking off into the dominion of another. Amazons are Nature through and through. War and Vikings go hand in hand. The Everborn don’t even understand the concept of the Gods, they just do what they need to in order to accomplish their purpose. We reflected this in design by making the core components of the Everborn Neutral. There are some domain-aligned Everborn as well, which add flavor and uniqueness to each God's take on the tribe and the decks within, but we felt like we didn’t need to print several domain specific variants of the same bread and butter cards. Any God can align with the Everborn, and all of them will feel different, leveraging the strengths of that domain.
They come with a cost
The Everborn were designed to be slightly parasitic. While you can still mix and match them like you would any other card, there are tribal and domain specific strategies that really only shine when you pair them with each other. Most gods will have to give up all of their existing creatures and relics in order to see them at their full potential, but by putting this limitation on them it allows us to design cards that are uniquely powerful because we can better understand and control their interaction points with other cards.
We didn’t forget the other decks and strategies though, and we are certain there are plenty of cards in this set that will find their way into other new and existing decks. The everborn have a few mechanics that have not been utilized to any real degree in the past, and we are excited to see what players come up with.
Boost undersupported strategies
One of the key goals of this set was to give strategies that have not been fully realized in the past a chance to flourish. We tried some new stuff in Age of Ascent, but a lot of it simply could not get there in a 24 card set. With the release of Roots we fully expect some strategies like self discard Deception and Fellowship Nature to finally be fully viable and importantly, fun to play.
Think of Age of Ascent to be the prologue to the greater tale we are about to tell, and Roots is the first act of a truly epic tale. We have so much more planned and cannot wait for you all to see it.