Most games treat turn order and resources as separate systems. You roll for initiative, then you spend your mana. The Energy Gambit collapses both into one card, played face down, with consequences that land two rounds apart.
Here is exactly how it works, round by round.
The mat
Your champion is piloted by a three-slot action mat. Three action cards sit on it at any time, and they move.
At the start of each round, the three cards slide one space to the right. The card sliding off the far end pays you energy equal to its energy gain, the number printed on the card. That energy goes onto your energy track.
That leaves the leftmost slot empty.
The commitment
Every player now takes one card from their hand and places it face down in that empty slot. Nobody has seen anyone else’s choice.
All players reveal at once.
The two consequences
The number on the card you just revealed does two separate jobs, and this is the whole idea behind the Energy Gambit.
Now: it sets your initiative. The lower the energy gain, the earlier you act this round. Reveal a low number and you move first, while your opponents are still holding position.
Later: it becomes your energy. That same card will spend two rounds sliding across your mat. When it falls off the far end, it pays you energy equal to that same number.
So a low card buys you the initiative this round and gives you very little to spend in two rounds’ time. A high card gives up the initiative and funds a large turn later.
You are making that trade blind, simultaneously, against opponents making the same call.
Why it produces good decisions
Three things fall out of this structure.
It forces planning across rounds. The card you commit now is a resource arriving later, so you are always managing two timelines. Big Boss Battle described this as the system’s central strength, calling the sliding energy and action card system intuitive and logical.
It makes prediction the skill. You are not hoping for a good draw, you are guessing whether the person across from you needs tempo or is banking for something. That gets harder as they accumulate energy.
It stays fast. One card, one number, two effects. What Board Game found the card play “varied, exciting and surprisingly quick” despite the number of options on the table.
Spending what you banked
Energy is your currency for everything else. On your turn you spend it to activate any of the three cards on your mat, taking their actions in whatever order you like: Move, Attack, Defend, Draw, Push or Pull. Once you move on to a second card, you are committed to that choice and cannot return to unfinished actions on the first, which turns each turn into a sequencing puzzle.
Charging all three cards costs real energy, so there is a constant pull between small efficient turns and saving for something bigger.
Cards also carry effects gated by timing windows. On Arrival triggers when the card is revealed. On Exit triggers as it slides off. Others fire at the start or end of your turn, once per turn, or sit passive while the card is on the mat. Because a card lives on the mat for three rounds, what you played two rounds ago is still shaping what you can do now.
In context
The Energy Gambit is the core of the Trials Game System, the engine underneath Trials of MAYA.
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. It launches on Gamefound on September 8, 2026.
Rulebooks and public metadata are on BoardGameGeek, the full breakdown is on the official page, and there is a Tabletop Simulator build if you want to feel the trade rather than read about it.
Follow or back Trials of MAYA on Gamefound.