Board games have been around for thousands of years. So when a designer comes up with a truly new idea for a game mechanic, the hype train takes off like a rocket. This was the case for deck construction over 10 years ago-and we’ve arrived so far in 2022.
Like many fresh ideas, the concept of a deck-building game is astonishing at its simplicity. Card games that build custom decks before you play have been around for some time.However, in deck building games, you build a deck in the meantime You play. Start with the currency cards in your hand, cash them out for other more interesting cards, and build a deck on the fly that you think is enough to win.
Gamers weren’t the only ones crazy about the concept. It was also a designer. The game quickly flooded with imitation games, with limited interest. Since then, mechanics have seen redeployments into other genres of games, with mixed results. But there are many great examples. These are the best deck building board games.
Dunes: Empire
Dunes: In the Empire, decks represent the resources available to noble homes when seeking power and influence in Frank Herbert’s sci-fi epic world. Each time you play a card, one of the agents is sent to the board space to court the influence of factions such as guilds and flemen, or to the surface of the planet to harvest spices and fight. increase. area. It’s a clever melange of themes and abstract concepts that mesh and create a fascinating whole with many parts to master. Deck building also has a whole new concept called Revere Turn to discard the remaining cards for secondary effects. That is, build and play decks at the same time on two different levels.
Tyrant of darkness
Another game where your deck corresponds to assets belonging to a noble house, but this time it’s a minion that hires a ferocious dark elf from the Dungeons & Dragons.Cardplay spreads influence from your army, assassins, and your city of departure through a network of places of darkness from the famous fantasy novel trilogy. The legend of Drizzt.. It’s really hard to compete with other players for territory, add pieces to the board with cards or counter cards, or remove pieces from the board. Many of the cards represent iconic characters and monsters in role-playing games, with matching art. And there are multiple card sets to combine for new and interesting strategic and tactical options in every play.
Legendary: Marvel Deck Building Game
Legendary does some interesting things using deck building formulas. For starters, it’s cooperative and all players work together to defeat Supervillains, but when you defeat them, you can aggregate points and declare the top legendary player. Second, the villain also has a deck, which acts as a game engine and a scenario that determines the conditions for winning and losing. As you can imagine, instead of playing as individual Marvel heroes, you control them as a group in card play, recruit new cards and attack the villain Henchman. This is a renewable riot with so many different combinations that you can use right out of the box. Plus, it’s fast and smooth with many options for fine-tuning the challenge level to meet the needs of the group. There is a series of legendary games built on the same mechanical engine. Legendary Encounter: Alien Deck Building Game..
Dominion
Alternatively, you can start with a deck-building game that started everything. Not only was Dominion novel, it was simple and had three quick turns. All the complexity lies in the card itself. The goal is to use the first copper card to buy a better card, allow more money and action, and buy a victory loyalty card. The strategy results in polishing your deck to the slimmest card-buying machine you can manage. There are 25 card options, 10 of which are selected for use in each game and are also impressively replayable.Still, it’s so popular that it has produced many extensions, many of which Dominion: Conspiracy Often considered the best.
Ions End
Aeon’s End brings deck building to a popular category of cooperative games. This is a wise move. Deck-based games often have less interaction, and player cooperation is a surefire solution. Here you are all the wizards working together to save the fantastic city from the looting of evil. And there are lots of cards to heal and buff fellow players, so there’s a lot to think about. However, that special genius is not to shuffle when empty, but to flip the waste pile over. This makes the order in which the cards are played important, allowing you to set combos the next time you run through the deck. With other timing-based innovations and tense random turn orders, it’s just as thrilling and challenging. You can now choose between two sets: face the demons in the original box, or face the undead in longer, more complex campaigns in the new box. Cemetery heritage..
crank!
The numbers are at the heart of what makes deck building work, and at the heart of what makes Clank work! special. The player is an adventurer who tries to plunder the dungeon and escape before the dragon wakes up. Each hero’s engine is a deck that allows you to move, fight, open doors, and spend money. These are the abstract numbers used to overcome the challenges. The actual game is a desperate race in and out of the dungeon. There are all the themes and thrills. Crank by separating the strategy from the theme! The winning combination can satisfy the fans of both camps. If you want to incorporate these concepts into a long-form legacy game where the outcome of one game affects the next. Clank Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated This brings the game to the world of Dungeons & Dragons. And check out the best strategy board games for more strategic game ideas.
Don’t be afraid: Normandy
Deck building has proven to be an amazing substitute for war in some games. Using the flow of cards from the deck as a way to simulate casualties and command confusion on the battlefield, Undaunted is their best. This is perfect and gives the player a real sense of running an infantry platoon from simple rules. On top of the deck building strategy is the extra dimension of moving pieces on the map. This isn’t very realistic, but it still has a lot of fun as it uses tactics and dice to mess up the tiles. Choosing a scenario and unit type ensures that you have a lot of replay puzzles when you control the layers of the game to gain an edge. You can choose from two editions of the game. Don’t be afraid: Normandy Focusing on squad-level combat in France Don’t be afraid: North Africa Move the action to a single soldier special forces and add vehicle rules. Check out the list of the best warboard games for other ideas in this space.
Orleans
One of the greatest pleasures of building a deck is having to make a new plan each turn based on what fate has given you. Bag builder Orleans is the absolute epitome of that joy. The tokens drawn represent the French farmers who need to be set up to tackle the selected task. From wall construction to beer brewing, there’s a dizzying series of tasks they have to do, each of which gives you some reward. It’s all about balancing rewards like new workers and special buildings with promises of points later. But unlike most building games, Orleans has many ways to win, so all the options blend into a delicious, rich strategic soup.
Mage Night
Many games add one or two boards to the deck build, but Mage Knight adds the entire kitchen sink. This is a vast and complex fantasy adventure to explore, recruit troops and plunder dungeons. Most notable of all is to provide a deep reserve for both story and strategy, which is rare in game design. Deck construction is the foundation on which the entire huge building is laid. Your deck initially represents your heroic abilities. As you explore and grow, you will find spells, followers, magical treasures, and much more. Mage Knight tries to offer everything to all gamers and succeeds in several scenarios and styles, including competitive, collaborative, solo.
paper bag
Paperbacks take a completely different approach to diversifying deck builders. Instead of trying to evoke a theme, give up and create an abstract word game. Each card is a letter or wildcard, and the task of each turn is to use your hands to create the highest scoring word possible. To ensure that the game isn’t just card-based scrabble (see, for example, the best classic board games), most paperback letter cards have specials such as additional draws. There are also various functions. Being both an efficiency engine and a voice puzzle, it combines the best challenges of the two worlds. At the same time, it provides more general game fans with a great entry point into deck building.
Electric train
It turns out that as easy as adding a board adds a tremendous amount of fun to building a deck. The best example is the train. On the train, players compete to build railroad routes throughout the map. It has the same compelling simplicity as Dominion and focuses on cards, but with two important innovations. First, building on a map adds a number of spatial and time-based considerations that don’t exist on the card alone. Second, it adds a waste card, which is the thematic way to clog your deck with trash that you need to manage effectively to do well. The entire package adds a lot of fun to the deck building concept, especially when the number of players is small.
Automobile
Inevitably, the Trains publisher has another game called Planes and a third game called Automobiles. In this game, instead of building a deck, it looks like you’re building a bag by filling it with colored cubes. Each cube represents one of the cards used in the game, so when you pull it out of the bag, you basically play that card. This is much faster and less annoying than most deck builders’ endless effect checks and shuffles. Its speed is a one-minute track-based racing game that’s perfect for this thrill, but it still offers players a strategic option for Smörgåsboard.
Shard of Infinity
At first, Shards Of Infinity looks like a classic example of this genre. Use currency cards to buy additional cards and use one weapon to damage your opponent. But it has two breathtaking new tricks on its sleeves. The first is that you can spend the rest of your currency on the mastery. Mastery accumulates slowly and improves the functionality of certain cards. Then you can use it immediately and discard it instead of adding it to your deck when you buy it. These two aspects give the game impressive depth and flexibility. In addition, there is an exciting level of interaction that most buddies lack, as the goal is to eliminate other players.
If you like these, check out our overall board game recommendations to play in 2022.
