Games Like Guards of Atlantis II: Roster Breadth or Champion Depth

Guards of Atlantis II is the benchmark tabletop MOBA, and it earned that position honestly. No dice, a large hero roster, real lane pressure, and a design refined across two editions. If you want games like Guards of Atlantis II, you are starting from a high bar.

The interesting thing is that the alternatives mostly differ on one axis: whether they give you more heroes to learn, or more to learn about each hero.

What Guards of Atlantis II does well

Determinism, first. Removing dice means a lost fight is a lost decision, which is exactly what a competitive MOBA player wants.

Scale, second. It handles a wide range of player counts, which is rare in this genre and genuinely useful for a group of six who all want to play.

Roster, third. A large cast of heroes, each with a distinct deck, and mastery comes from working through them and learning how they interact.

The shape of the experience is breadth. You meet a lot of heroes, and the depth accumulates across the roster rather than inside any one of them.

More breadth

Skytear is the closest structural sibling. Card-driven miniatures, four asymmetric factions, 32 heroes, lanes leading to an enemy Nexus, and a central Dome with a large neutral Outsider you can tame and point at your opponent. It is diceless too, using Power Cards that can be played even on your opponent’s turn. Three victory conditions are drawn at the start, so feinting toward one while pursuing another is a live tactic.

Aristeia is smaller in scope, framing hero combat as a televised sport with control zones.

Super Fantasy Brawl is the light, fast option when you want hero kits without an economy.

More depth per champion

The other direction keeps the cast small and gives each champion more to work with. That is where Trials of MAYA sits, out on Gamefound September 8, 2026.

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.

Player Elimination, writing after multiple plays of both, framed the split usefully: Guards of Atlantis II offers a wider cast you meet briefly, while Trials of MAYA offers a smaller cast you court more intimately, each with many upgrade paths and a lot of detail. That reviewer rated the Trials 2v2 above the four-player Guards experience.

Three layers create that depth. Each champion has passive abilities, stats you upgrade mid-match through open objectives that pay XP, and a deck constructed before play from a card pool gated by its species and two classes. Decks run 24 to 40 cards from a shared pool of 340-plus.

The minion economy also differs. In Guards of Atlantis II the minion wave is a strategic object you push. In Trials of MAYA minions start hostile and can be captured: 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 turn order is bought rather than assigned. Each round players commit a card face down onto a three-slot action mat and reveal simultaneously, with the number setting initiative now and returning as energy two rounds later.

Rulebooks and public metadata are on BoardGameGeek, the full breakdown is on the official page, and there is a Tabletop Simulator build.

Choosing

If your group is five or more and you want a refined, deterministic team game with a big roster, Guards of Atlantis II is still the answer and probably will be for a while.

If you are two or four, and what you want is to pick a champion and work on it for months rather than sample a cast, games like Guards of Atlantis II with a construction and progression layer are the better fit.

Follow or back Trials of MAYA on Gamefound.