The best board games for deck construction
The best board games for deck construction
The best board deck board games allow players to use supply decks to make their own personal decks throughout the game. Each game inevitably leads to a whole new deck for each player.
Deck-building games are a relatively new genre, and although there may have been games with similar mechanics, Dominion is generally considered to be the first real (and best) board-building board game.
Our best selections for the best board deck board games
Are you in a hurry? Check out our favorites below.
The best crossbreed
Best player for two players
Best overall
How deck building games work
Before we decide on the best deck building games, let’s talk about how these types of games work.
All players start the game with the same cards, and by the end they have a completely unique deck. The mechanic is simple, but has countless options for variations of the theme. Maybe that’s why the market is overflowing with new deck-building games, both clean and non-traditional. They all have their own view on this flexible genre and have creatively created different options for each player.
Today, we take a look at some of the best board deck board games on the market to find out what it’s all about.
1. Dominion (the best deck building game)
Dominion was the first game of its kind and the original deck-building game.
There is something to be said about being the first. That's why I still call it a "rifle!" when running to the car.
Dominion is one of my favorite deck building games. If you haven’t played a deck-building game yet and want to have a feeling that doesn’t require collecting cards and is easy to learn, I highly recommend starting with Dominion.
We take an in-depth look at Dominion here , and all the extensions here .
- The 2nd edition contains updated cards, artwork and simplified rules
- Tactical game for 2-4 players
- 30 minute playing time
2. Ascension: Chronicle of the Godfather
The Ascension was designed by three (yes, three) of the Magic: The Gathering world champions. They wanted to create a game that was less intense and easier to enter than Magic, but still had the same elements.
Regular price:
- Ascension: Deck-Building Game - Originally released as Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer, it was conceived by Magic: The Gathering Pro Tour champions Justin Gary, Rob Dougherty and Brian Kibler, with works of art by Eric Sabee.
- Available as a computer game on Steam .
Game mechanics
Ascension is a fantasy deck building style game where you gather your forces (deck) to kill monsters to gain fame. It’s pretty simple knowledge and strategy. This is good when playing the game. All the mechanics are very simplified and very easy to set up, learn and get started.
Players have only three things to worry about:
- Runes (money)
- Power (to kill monsters)
- Glory (victory points)
Unlike other deck-building games, there are only three regular cards that are always available for purchase, and then there is a total set of six cards. When you buy tickets, new tickets are pulled out of the deck and replaced.
A random shopping pool can really change the strategies in the deck building game. With the first enlargement, everything seems very fluid and it is difficult to determine the actual strategy. However, with the first extensions, it seems much more sophisticated and complete.
- An urgent construction game with over 50,000 copies sold worldwide
- Designed by Magic: Gathering Pro Tour Champions Justin Gary, ...
- Combined with all other Ascension kits for unlimited ...
The final thoughts
This is a great starting game for players who are brand new to building decks. It’s easy to install with simple rules, but it has some strategy. If you have experience with deck builders and are just looking for something different, this may be what Ascension is looking for, but if you are looking for something harder, you may want to check out some others on this list. .
Some versions and extensions
3. Star Kingdoms
There is a digital version on Steam and in mobile apps if you want to test yourself before you determine the shelf space.
Star Realms is one of the easiest deck building games to play and is incredibly fun. It’s a simplified mix of deck building and CCG (collector’s card game) duel . In fact, I first tried Star Realms through their free electronic version of the game on Steam .
Yeah, you heard me. Simple.
Of course, publishers lock up multiplayer options and extensions, but for free taste of what the game is like, you can’t beat it.
Regular price:
- Star Realms is a spaceship game to build a deck of Magic: The Gathering Hall of Famers Darwin Kastle and Rob Dougherty.
Game mechanics
In such a small package, quite a few strategies need to be devised. The overall deck is small compared to what you would see in other deck building games. Players draw cards from a joint lineup and buy cards that increase their purchasing power or attack power.
With the power of attack you can directly attack the life points of opponents and the last standing player wins. Players can also buy space station cards that give bonuses and serve as a buffer for your life points. Players must all destroy the space of the station you control if they want to attack your life points.
There are several factions in the Star Kingdom that have their own advantages.
Trade Federation: The Trade Federation seeks to subdue the Gungan race on Naboo.
Wait, sorry. Wrong world.
The Trade Federation generates a huge income and has cards that increase your life points.
Blobs: Think swarm. Blob cards increase your attack and allow you to discard cards in the buy line.
Empire: Empire gives you access to a lot of combat power very quickly. Their cards also force other players to discard them. Taxes, amirit?
Machine Cult: Machine machine cards are full of basics and allow you to trash in your board.
Each faction plays its own power, but you are never limited to one faction. You can buy tickets at any faction that is in the purchase line. However, some cards give combined bonuses if you play multiple cards from the same deck, which encourages you to specialize in only one or two decks.
- Fun Incredibly rich yet easy to learn to play games
- Portable The entire game is in a box that fits your ...
- Expandable One copy supports 2 players Add additional copies for ...
The final thoughts
The basic game easily fits a small box of cards and is perfect for travel, but the game is perfectly fine if you play it with only two players.
Kendra and I played a lot of games while wandering around the new cities. One of our favorite things is that people watch and play games at a local bar or cafe, and Star Realms is very easy to travel with. I’m a huge sci-fi fan and it’s nice to see this theme so good in this game. This is a nice change of pace from all the fantasy themed games out there.
Star Realms is one of the best deck building games. It is compact, easy to play, easy to learn , wonderful artwork and full of strategies.
Some versions and extensions
4. Thunderstone Quest
Thunderstone Quest (not to be confused with Thunderstone) is a caterpillar caterpillar game to build a deck. If you’ve only played the original Thunderstone, but if you loved or hated it, I highly recommend you take a look at Thunderstone Quest.
There are several things that make Thunderstone Quest different from other deck manufacturers. For one, there are several locations where the characters can go and perform actions in turn. If players go to the city, they can buy tickets, greet and obtain several different sources, or go to jail and try to kill monsters for winning points.
The most important difference between Thunderstone Quest and other deck builders is the huge amount of themed elements that come with the gameplay.
Game mechanics
In the city, players can buy several types of cards. Players can upgrade the heroes to strengthen them, or add cards that bring them bonuses in combat, and even weapons that the heroes can equip while crawling around the dungeon.
To actually dig deeper into the dungeon , the players will need a light. After all, it’s a dungeon and dungeons are dark. Some maps give light points, but torches can also be picked up in the city. Each section of the dungeon now has a board that sometimes awards different bonuses for defeating monsters in this room and the longer you go to the dungeon, the better the bonuses and the more light points you will actually have to get there.
When the monsters are defeated, new monsters are pulled out of the deck to replace them, and several keys are hidden in the monster decks. When the 4 keys are drawn, the game is over and players have the opportunity to remove the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) for some serious bonus points.
- Thunderstone Quest is a powerful hit umbrella dungeon game ...
- Explore the dungeon, fight monsters, collect treasure, complete ...
- 2-4 players
The final thoughts
I didn't like Thunderstone (the original game). Some preferred it to Dominion, but it seemed like someone at Dominion just hit the fantasy theme and called it day. Thunderstone Quest is a completely different beast. Everything in the game has evolved and is a completely different game from Dominion now. The city mechanics and dungeons have all been upgraded and it looks great. Instead of having a bunch of cards and pretending to be a dungeon and a city, Quest now has boards for everyone that look fantastic and work incredibly well.
Speaking of boards, Thunderstone Quest has fully increased its production value to 11. The box is huge (space for extensions) and has a very clean card tray with which you can easily organize and store everything.
I didn't like Thunderstone. I love Thunderstone Quest. Give it a try and see what you think, but if you like deck builders, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
5. Marvel Legendary
Legendary is probably one of the most recognizable and best deck building games right after Dominion . One of the best things that happens to it is that it is manufactured and licensed by the Upper Deck , a trading card. This is a logical choice for a company that has basically been producing trading cards since I was born (we both originated in 1988).
I know the inner hipster in all of us whispers in our ears, "Why buy at a big corporation when there are so many great indie games out there?" I can also play Monopoly .
Well, the answer is simple. A big corporation became a big corporation because something worked right, and Legendary is a fantastic example of a deck-building game. They built a unique version that is also a cooperative . All players must prepare the cards in their deck together to beat the board.
This brings us to the next reason why it makes sense that the upper deck made the deck. They have the resources to make an exceptionally finished product and have the capital to license your favorite versions. The playing mats that come with the game are beautiful and add to the game experience while keeping all the cards in order.
Upper Deck also has secured licenses to produce tons of different themes and versions for their legendary system.
Just a few of the versions you find are:
Game mechanics
It legendarily changes the mechanics of deck construction in several ways. Most notably, it is truly a cooperative game. All the players work against the board to defeat any criminal you choose. I personally chose the ALIENS version.
Players have a common set of cards from which to buy. When they buy cards, they replace them from the shuffled deck of all available cards. There is no separate fund. It’s all shuffled together, so if you really like some kind of card, you’ll have to hope you get lucky.
As you progress through the game, enemy cards turn and move slowly along the track. If they go down to the bottom, bad things will start happening. The game is confused with players trying to secure cards for their deck, prevent enemies from reaching the end of the track and prepare for the last boss fight at the end of the game.
This can be quite difficult and my first twice playing the ALIENS version of my character died from an alien that erupted from my chest. Great fun for the whole family.
- Easy to learn with fast play
- It contains an amazing original work of art by Marvel heroes and ...
- The game consists of almost 600 cards, colored game boards and colors ...
The final thoughts
The legendary certainly takes care of his fandom, but that’s not really a bad thing!
I love collaborative games and I really enjoyed Legendary. The game is tough and the moving parts are many, but I still managed to hold my attention. One of the obvious flaws I’ve seen in this game is the box. They didn’t really intend to put up any dealers or organizers for the card-based game.
There are only a few rows of card inserts and a few random squares of foam that don’t fit. It’s totally hellish to set up and find all the cards. The game itself is fantastic, but its setup shouldn’t take longer than the game.
6. DC-roofing game
Cryptozoic is one of the companies I absolutely adore. They make me one of my favorite card games ( Epic Wizarding Wars ) and are also the creators of the Cerberus Deck Building System .
If you know deck builders or are new to the concept, Cerberus Engine will be relatively easy to pick up and play.
Regular price:
- Cerberus Engine Games is the generic name for the Cryptozoic Entertainment series of games and board extensions, which began in 2012 with DC Comics and continue to be licensed!
Game mechanics
Each player chooses (or is randomly split) a heroic character that gives him a specific starting hand or a special ability that he can use throughout the game.
Composition of cards is a place where all players can buy cards that give them abilities: Attacks, Purchasing Power, Defense or any other common cards you find in the deck widget.
Players then gain winning points by raising certain cards or by defeating enemies from a separate pile of enemy cards.
The game ends when the main draw pile is empty or when the enemy pile is emptied.
- Play as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, Green ...
- Each Super Hero has a unique special ability that will open ...
- When the new Super Villains arrives, it hits all the players with ...
The final thoughts
Now, if you’ve read so far, you know how incredibly vague I was about the games themselves, and there’s a reason for that. Because Cryptozoic has crafted a gameplay mechanism that can work with many different systems, all they have to do is change the cards and adapt them to the new theme, and boy, or satisfy their audience.
Where Marvel went with the Legendary system for its deck-building game, and DC Comics with the Cerberus engine. Basically, anything and everything in the DC universe can be found in Cryptozoic deck building games.
You don't like comics?
What about…
- Rick and Morty
- naruto
- Lord of the Rings
- Attack on Titan
- NHL hockey ???
Much of their system is that it can be easily adapted to other features and you can easily play some of your favorite characters in a board game that you would not otherwise see.
Interested in DC Comics Deck Building Game? Check out our Full Review Before You Buy!
Other versions
7. Empty!
With the increasing popularity in board games, we have an even greater advantage of increased innovation. Although Clank! can be defined as a game to build a deck, it really is much more than that.
In the Article! the actors take on the role of an adventurer who delves into the dragon's lair in search of treasure. Players must press their luck to get deeper into the lair and plunder the prized treasure deep within themselves. But if they are not careful or make too much noise, there is a high probability that they will wake up the dragon and become just another skull surrounding the cave.
Regular price:
- Empty! is a dragon's den game that is partly deck building and partly adventure.
Game mechanics
Each player designs their deck with standard deck construction mechanics. The cards in their deck will determine what the player can actually do in the dungeon.
As an actor, all your actions come from your deck, so you need to plan carefully for what happens. It doesn’t make sense to be the strongest adventurer on the board if you can only move one space every other turn. Believe me, nothing is as angry as stepping out of the exit and eating a dragon.
- For 2-4 players
- Fast and intense dungeon deepening experience!
- Push your luck to collect more treasure, but watch out for ...
The final thoughts
Empty! is much more than a simple deck building game. It’s a new approach to the genre and brings tremendous tension to the game. You’ve invested a lot more in making your little meeple run away from the scary dragon meeple (Dreeple ??).
I’m sure some of you won’t agree with me, such as purists who claim to be too far removed from the traditional deck builder, but I thought it was fresh air and a lot of fun.
Variations and extensions
8. The Vikings went wild
Here at Game Cows, we move on and on about how Kickstarter games breathe new life into the board game industry. Well, here’s a great example of one such crowd-funded game.
In Vikings Gone Wild, players join a huge brawl with all the other players.
Your resource cards are Gold, Fight and Beer. What could be better?
Regular price:
- Vikings Gone Wild is a deck building and resource management game based on a real-time online strategy game.
Game mechanics
When building a deck, Vikings Gone Wild decides on an interesting twist by building your deck while also building your own little town. Your buildings draw on resources to use throughout the game, but ...
If we know anything about the Vikings, we know they loved to invade and plunder.
The cute little town house that you have been upgrading all the time could be attacked by other players at any time. Your perfectly arranged collection of drinking horns is available.
To help with the defense (or attack) you can prepare special maps of heroes based on Norwegian mythology , such as Odin, Freya or Thor.
- Vikings wild wild is a board game, resource management ...
- The only way to win is to successfully attack each other, each ...
- 45 - 70 minutes of average playing time
The final thoughts
Vikings Gone Wild does a lot of things right. The Vikings ’simplistic assumption of drinking and fighting combined with rules that are easy to learn seems a little too one-dimensional, but the game also has a surprising amount of strategy.
The game is not taken too seriously. All the cards are extremely well made and the artwork is beautiful. It’s such a sleek game that it definitely deserves a place on your gaming shelf.
Curiosity: The Nordic gods are still appearing in our daily lives.
- Tuesday - Old English "Tiwesdæg" or Tiw's Day, from Týr, the Norwegian god of war.
- Wednesday - Woden Day, Woden / Odin, king of the Nordic gods, god of poetry, battle and death.
- Thursday - Thor's Day, the Nordic god of thunder, sky and fertility.
- Friday - Frey's Day, Queen Valkyrie, Nordic goddess warrior of wisdom and magic.
Variations and extensions
9. Harry Potter: The Battle of Hogwarts
Harry Potter fans will absolutely love this game, but by no means will only hard fans like it. The Harry Potter: Hogwarts battle deck building game isn’t just a general reskin for quick earnings; he really did make some unique novelties that I think the game really shines.
The first thing you will notice when you open the box is that there are seven marked boxes in it, 1st year - 7th year.
My first reaction was, "Oh yeah! That's going to be great." Let’s be honest, if you’re a Harry Potter fan, you imagined at some point getting an owl and going to Hogwarts to learn magic. We all do that. There is no judgment here.
Regular price:
- Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a joint deck-building game where Hogwarts students confront villains to protect the castle from the forces of evil.
Game mechanics
With the Harry Potter deck building game, you start at Year 1 and don’t progress to Year 2 until you beat the current year’s bad guys.
Each actor takes on the role of one of Hogwarts ’iconic students and together defeats the villains. Among the villains are an accidental death victim, monsters residing in a castle, or the most vicious thief of all time, Professor Umbridge. Voldemort is also in the game.
Like most deck makers, it works by preparing your decks and buying tickets and skills with your influence. All the cards are strongly related to books and movies, so my fellow booksellers will be able to pick up references that are only shown in print.
With each successive game, the game evolves. At the beginning, the characters may not have any abilities or special powers, but by the age of 7, like our favorite characters, they are all mature and this is reflected in their own character abilities.
The game gets exponentially harder as you move on. Every boss reappears in every game, so when you reach 7, you have to beat every boss before you get to Voldemort. It may be a bit challenging, but who said a wizard can?
- Play as your favorite character to defend the wizarding world ...
- Gain influence to control strong spells, recruit allies and ...
- Improve your skills with more than 140 cards
The final thoughts
Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is a fantastic deck building game. Using books and movies, they created a fun game with great cards. The annual system is especially cool. It gives the feeling of a legacy of the game without having to destroy it. This game is sure to please both Harry Potter fans and board game fans.
Expansion
- Expansion for Hogwarts Battle, hit the Harry Potter building ...
- Head to the Forbidden Forest when you come across creatures!
- 4 more boxes that you can add to the base game, plus now play as Luna ...
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