Deck-building games are showing up a whole lot more on Kickstarter these days, and are becoming a more popular style of game. The best-known game of this type is Dominion, in which you build up a deck of cards to gain victory points. A lot of these games have similar mechanics to them. You have a system that allows you to buy more cards, play cards, and build your deck while trying to gain victory points one way or another. There are two main different types of deck-building games beyond this. There are games in which you build your deck as you go, and there are games where your deck is pre-built, either built for you or by you.

Since You Are Using a Deck, Does it Play the Same Every Time?

No, it really doesn’t. With some games, like Dominion, you often play with different sets of cards, and each card has different abilities. With the Legendary and Teen Titans deck-building games, you play with certain groups of heroes and villains, so the cards come up differently and are generally randomized as well. And with games where you build your own deck, such as Magic the Gathering or Netrunner, they are coming out with new cards regularly, so once you’ve played with some cards for a while, you get new cards to play with. The downside to this is that every time you want to change up and get some new cards, you have to shell out more money. So any of these games can end up being expensive.

How Much Variety is There Between Deck Building Games?

While they aren’t completely you’ve-seen-one-you’ve-seen-them-all, a number of the games do play pretty similarly. The Teen Titans deck-building game is a simplified, more streamlined version of the Legendary game from Marvel. And Dominion doesn’t fall that much out of line with the rest of them. Magic the Gathering seems like it has limited options, if you look at the competitive players, as there are certain decks that will always be stronger than others, but if you play casually, you have a plethora of cards to chose from and can really flavor the game to your own playing style. That has to be a choice made by all the players whom you are playing with, however, because otherwise, someone can just run away with it.

Which Deck-Building Games Would You Recommend?

I can’t speak to Netrunner, but it is a very popular game that holds tournaments. The nice thing about Netrunner is that it is cheaper to get into than Magic the Gathering, as they don’t make cards rarer than other cards, so no cards have a premium price mark-up. But Magic the Gathering is a great deck-building game to get into for several reasons, the first being that you can really tailor it to how you want to play. A while back, Sam wrote an overview article on the different colors of Magic decks and how they play by themselves. Each of them give you viable routes to win, and each of them have some things they aren’t as good at. So by combining colors and figuring out what aspect of the game you really like, you can build up very interesting decks and do so cheaply. The important thing about keeping Magic the Gathering as a cheaper hobby is to play it casually, because once you start playing seriously, it can drain your wallet fast.

The Teen Titans deck-building game is another I would really recommend. It plays a lot like a comic book, and it keeps it simple. There is a feel to it  (more so than Legendary) of that comic book story as you are playing, which is what you want when dealing with superheroes. It also seems to play faster than the Legendary game, which is nice, as Legendary can really stretch out if you get stuck in a bad spot. An upside that Teen Titans has is that you are playing cooperatively, as with Legendary, and the players try to defeat the villain together, so that is a nice aspect.

Dominion is the real classic of the deck-building games, though. With all of the expansions, you have the ability to never repeat a combination of cards. It plays quickly, the rules and interactions are simple, and it is a lot of fun to play.

But one fun and random game that should not be overlooked is Red Dragon Inn. The best way to describe it is that you are a bunch of D&D-esque adventurers who are between quests. You go into the tavern and decide to gamble and drink the night away with the treasure that you had gotten on your last quest. All of the different characters you can play are absurd, and it is made even more fun if you, in real life, have a drink in your hand and are doing voices for the character that you are playing. The premise is also absurd; you are trying to keep from getting so drunk or having your fortitude drop so much that you eventually fall asleep on the table — because the last one awake is probably going to get all the money from gambling.

What is a deck-building game I’ve missed that you really like?

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