Collection ownership is coming to Altered Re:Union

Players can now import their altered.gg collections to their Altered Re:Union accounts, marking another milestone on the project’s Roadmap in April. By taking the encrypted file received from Equinox to the Altered Ownership Collection Importer tool, players’ alternate arts and uniques will appear in their digital ownership collections.

In May, Equinox released a tool found in each user’s account settings that creates an encrypted file taking a snapshot of the user’s collection as it stood when card transfers, scanning and selling services were ended. They provided this option in compliance with legal obligations that restrict them from sharing personal information about the owners of those digital files. Re:Union has received from Equinox the key to unlock those files.

Players can download that file and use it with the Altered Ownership Collection Importer tool to bring their alternate art and unique cards that were scanned before services closed. Once services on altered.gg shut down sometime after mid-June, players can email support@altered.gg to receive their files.

You need to do this even if you have already imported your physical collection from Equinox. Your physical collection is self-declared, meaning you can add cards and adjust their quantities to keep track of what you own at home. The Equinox export tool simply made it easier to start this process. Digital ownership, on the other hand, is what validates your cards for the use cases described in this article.

Incorporating ownership gives Re:Union more options to offer alternate art prizes for online play, either in tournaments or some form of an Adventure Pass in the future. It also allows for formats where card ownership is required for uniques. If you already had a collection, we want to make sure you can use it while we create ways to build on that.

As our importer tool goes live, there are a few important notes to remember. First, we don’t grant you ownership of the cards in the way Equinox did. On the Re:Union platform, it’s only a list of cards that are available in your digital ownership collection that can be played in certain formats limiting uniques to ownership. Also, in formats where uniques are selected in rotation or are fully open for use, even uniques that are listed in a collection are available for those specific options. 

Also, because scanning services have ended, physical packs being opened now cannot be scanned or claimed digitally in any form. You may obviously still use the cards for in-person play, or add the uniques to your decks for BGA in the allowed formats, but they will not be a part of your specific digital ownership collection.

Re:Union does not plan to create a way to scan physical cards to add them to a digital ownership collection. If we allow scanning of currently existing printed/opened cards (even if they haven’t been scanned before), then we can’t give out any uniques ever as rewards or prizes because they might be someday opened by someone. There are also many duplicated uniques in circulation, which would require Re:Union to make a decision about which was scanned earlier without any uniques that are able to be given out as compensation (as they might then be later opened by someone else). Alternatively, if we allowed multiple versions of the same unique, that would mean that any card with it’s QR code shared online could be redeemed by anyone, which runs counter to the idea of a digital ownership collection. Managing these issues would require significant resources in support and development. We simply do not have capacity for this.

Common, rare and exalted cards won’t be added through the tool because they are already accessible to every account in any quantity.

We’re looking at ways to add more cards to your digital ownership collection and show them off, and we hope to have some additional updates on those before long. We’re working on allowing players’ owned alternate art cards in Board Game Arena, for example. Near the top of our list are a gifting/trading system, an Adventure Pass and tournament rewards. If you have ideas about other options or ways we can build collections to bring in new players and encourage current players to stay involved with tournaments and online play, please share them in our Discord! 

Even as this tool and ownership become active, there is still a complex and ongoing discussion in the community regarding how they’re used in play on BGA. As explained in the April Roadmap, there are questions of fairness and accessibility for legacy and new players alike, who will have differing levels of uniques available with no way to add new ones for the foreseeable future. We encourage you to share your thoughts with us. Please understand, both the conversation surrounding this and our efforts are ongoing.

If you can lend a hand with bringing any of these efforts together more quickly, please join us on the Re:Union Discord and share your skills. We need everyone’s help, even as supporters, to continue to write the next chapter in the Altered adventure.