Origins TCG locations: how the three lanes change every game

Why locations matter more than they look

Origins TCG is played across three locations, and each one carries a rule that applies to that lane for the whole game. It is the part of the game that a decklist cannot control: two players can sit down with the same twenty-five cards and get two completely different games, because one board doubles damage and the other makes everything cost one less.

OriginsMeta has recorded 44 locations so far. The official Steam page, read on 28 October 2026, speaks of "a pool of 100+ rotating locations". The complete list with every effect is on the locations page, searchable and filterable; this guide is about what to do with them.

How they arrive

The three locations are revealed one per round over the first three rounds. The first is on the table from the start, the second appears in round two, the third in round three. From round four on, nothing more is hidden and you are playing a board you can see entirely.

That schedule is the reason the early rounds are not just about curve: on round one you are committing cards to a lane whose two neighbours you do not know yet. Holding a character for one round to see where it belongs is often worth more than playing it on curve into the wrong lane.

How often they turn up

Since patch 0.7 of 29 September 2026 every location has a rarity: common, rare, very rare or ultra rare. The rarity decides how often a location shows up. The team puts it this way: expect the familiar ones in most matches, and a few you'll only see "once in a blue moon". The patch notes don't say which location has which rarity: we will add it to the locations page as soon as we know it.

The families of effects

On our list the locations are grouped by what they do to the game, and the groups are worth knowing because they ask for different answers.

• Damage. Amplifying Amphitheatre doubles all damage there, Burnturn Arena chips every character after combat, Soul Artillery hits both barriers whenever something dies. Small bodies stop being safe.
• Mana and costs. Gold Spinning Wheel takes one off everything, Castle in the Clouds only off cards that cost seven or more, Treasurer's Office adds one, Mana Battery lets you keep what you did not spend. These decide who gets ahead on tempo.
• Draw and discard. The Sultan's Court gives a card each round that you must spend, Knowledge Vault rewards whoever fills the lane first, Junkyard takes one from both players, Nostradamus' Call destroys both decks at the start of round six.
• Movement. Conveyor Belt slides everyone right after combat, Ballroom sends a random character back to hand, Open Meadow grants Move.
• Summons and copies. Cloning Lab fills your spaces with copies of what you just played, Reflecting Pool copies it in another location, Sherwood Forest keeps producing Merry Men, Hundred Acre Woods puts a Christopher Robin on both sides.
• Granted keywords. Stomping Grounds gives Trample, The Colosseum Double Attack, Windmill Ridge Defender, Poison Grounds gives Deathtouch to Evil characters, Blessed Grounds gives Shield to Good ones.
• Abilities. Mirror Dimension repeats On Reveal, Burial Grounds repeats On Death, Anti-Magic Vault strips abilities entirely, Wonderland reverses the attack order.
• Destruction and barriers. The Gallows destroys the enemy across from anything that lands there, The Hill kills everything tied for the lowest power after combat, Wall of Dumpty eats the first character you play, Broken Gate makes barriers come back with 10 health instead of 40.

The locations that decide games

A few of them are worth recognising the moment they turn up, because they change what you should do with your hand.

• Cloning Lab. Whatever you play there gets copied into your free spaces in that lane. A cheap body with a good On Reveal becomes three, and the lane is decided in one turn.
• Mirror Dimension. Every On Reveal happens twice. It does for a whole lane what Mulan does for a deck, and it stacks with her.
• The Gallows. Anything that enters play there destroys the enemy across from it. It turns your cheapest character into removal, and it punishes whoever commits first.
• Anti-Magic Vault. Characters lose all abilities. A deck built on triggers has nothing to do there; a deck of plain bodies is suddenly at home.
• Amplifying Amphitheatre. All damage doubled, both ways. A Trample finisher like Ellen Trechend ends the game through the barrier; so does theirs.
• Nostradamus' Call. Both decks are destroyed at the start of round six. Whatever your plan is, it has to be done by round five.

Building with locations in mind

You cannot choose the board, but you can build a deck that is rarely helpless on it.

1. Do not put everything on one trigger. A deck that only works through On Reveal is a deck that loses a lane to Anti-Magic Vault. Keep a few cards that are good as plain bodies.
2. Keep a reach card. Locations that hit barriers (Overloaded Circuit, "Human" Cannon, Soul Artillery) reward decks that can finish a lane from a distance instead of grinding it.
3. Cheap characters gain the most. Every location that grants a keyword or copies a body pays more on a two-drop than on a seven-drop: the location is doing the expensive part.
4. Watch the lanes that punish committing. The Hill, Wall of Dumpty and The Gallows all punish the player who fills a lane first. Against an unknown board, the second card into a lane is often safer than the first.

What we still want to check

This list holds the 44 locations recorded so far. We have not yet gone through the locations one by one inside the game, as we did with the 122 cards on 22 September 2026: when we do, the locations page will say so, with the date and the count.