Should You Back the Trials of MAYA Board Game? A Decision Guide

If you have seen the Trials of MAYA board game and are trying to work out whether it belongs on your table, this is the short version of everything you need to decide. The campaign is live on Gamefound.

What is Trials of MAYA?

Trials of MAYA is an expandable card-driven arena combat game. It combines three genres: MOBAs, classic 90s tactics games, and TCGs without booster packs. It plays 1 to 4 players in 60 to 180 minutes for ages 14 and up, with nine asymmetric champions across five game modes and 340-plus cards. Published by Department of Lore, it launches on Gamefound on September 8, 2026.

How the Trials of MAYA board game plays

Your champion is piloted by a three-slot action mat. Each round the cards slide one space right, the card falling off pays you energy equal to its energy gain, and you commit a new card face down into the emptied slot before everyone reveals simultaneously. That revealed number sets your initiative for the round, with lower acting earlier, and returns as your energy two rounds later.

That single decision is the Energy Gambit, and it is the game’s signature. You spend the energy it produces on Move, Attack, Defend, Draw, Push and Pull across a grid arena with walls, spikes, high and low ground and voids.

Two systems build on top of it. Minions start hostile: damage one and its health chips bank into your pool, land the kill and you can spend from that pool to respawn it under your control. And objectives stay open all game, paying XP toward maximum health, permanent energy income, extra trait symbols and skills that branch into one of two second-level versions.

Decks are constructed before play. Each champion has one species and two classes, and any card sharing one of those traits, plus signature cards naming it, is legal in a 24 to 40 card list.

What the reviewers say

Preview coverage has been consistent about where the strength lies. Charlie Theel at Player Elimination, who takes no publisher money and runs no ads, called it “a true MOBA experience” and singled out the minion capture system as its most impressive concept. What Board Game headlined its preview Big Box, Big Ideas, Big Potential and put the card system at the top of its list of strengths. Big Boss Battle described the sliding energy and action card system as intuitive and logical.

Who it is for

Yes, if: you like tactical positioning on a grid, you enjoy predicting an opponent more than rolling for outcomes, you want to build something before you play, and you have three hours available for a game you intend to learn properly.

Probably yes, if: you play MOBAs and have wanted the strategy without the reflexes, or you have played competitive card games and want the construction without the pack-opening.

Look elsewhere, if: your group prefers games that finish in forty minutes, or you want something you can teach a mixed table on a weeknight. This one rewards commitment.

What you are buying

Full card lists are published before preorder, contents are fixed at print, and there are no booster packs, no random pulls and no crowdfunding-exclusive gameplay cards. Backer promos are cosmetic only. Expansions are optional and the core box is a complete competitive game.

Designers Zain Memon and Anand Gandhi previously made SHASN: AZADI, which won Best Board or Tabletop Game for Impact at the 2023 Games for Change Awards.

Try it first

This is the part worth doing. There is a Tabletop Simulator build with both Siege modes and all the rulebooks integrated. Thirty minutes with the 1v1 will tell you more than any article, including this one.

Public metadata and rulebooks are on BoardGameGeek, and the full spec is on the official page.

Follow or back Trials of MAYA on Gamefound.