Historically the issue with Marvel games, and really any game that has an intellectual property (IP) with it, is that they haven’t been good. A game with an IP generally meant that it was a cash grab hoping people would buy a game because they saw that IP on it. I think that has changed, there are some bad games coming out with IPs, but generally you know what companies, if you are a hobby board gamer. All that to say, Marvel Uno won’t be on the list.

Top 5 Marvel Board Games

5. Marvel Legendary

This is a game that I like and dislike all at the same time. The game takes too long to setup and often kind of fizzles at the end. But in it’s a deck building game, and I like deck building. So it is a game that I should like.

I think a lot of people will like Marvel Legendary, though, because you can create a team of characters and combo them together to create an epic turn. If you pull that off, then you can beat down some henchmen or take that main bad guy down a peg.

4. 5 Minute Marvel

5 Minute Marvel is a fast cooperative game where everyone is working to take down a villain. It might not be exactly five minutes, but close. You need to play out cards quickly and work together to take out henchmen, stop schemes, and deal with the big bad villain. This is a good family game.

3. Marvel Remix

Marvel Remix is a reimplementation of Fantasy Realms. The concept of the game is a hand building and management game. You work on getting the right cards out there that will combo off of each other cards you have to give you the most points possible. It’s less Marvel themed than some, but a good, smaller Marvel game.

2. Marvel United

Marvel United is as big or as small as you want it to be. I want it to be huge. I own everything for the game, and I have more coming, in terms of game play. In this game you take some heroes and face off against a bad guy. Everyone working together based off of cards that you play.

It’s a very simple concept. I play out a card and I take the action on it. Then you play as the next player and you can combo off of what I did. You use the actions on my card and your card so you can create powerful turns. All the while the bad guy is trying to make you lose your cards or get to another win condition and is taking it’s turns to mess you up.

The game works so well because you can mix and match any heroes and any villain together. If you grab the hero cards and villains cards, you are basically ready to go. And because it is mainly symbols, it works well for the family to play.

1. Marvel Champions

Finally we have Marvel Champions. Marvel Champions is a living card game. That means compared to a collectible or trading card game, you buy a new pack and you get all of the cards. And Marvel Champions is, I think, the most thematic Marvel game. You take a hero into battle against a villain, sounds like other games. But there are other twists to the game.

The hero has two sides. Their alter ego side, Peter Parker, and their hero side, Spider-Man. When in Spider-Man form they can stop the bad guys plans and beat up the bad guy. But the bad guy knows who they are and will beat them up. So you need to flip back to the alter ego side to heal up, but while you’re doing that, you can’t deal with the threat building up or hit the bad guy. Upside, the bad guy can’t hit you. So it’s about working that balance of doing heroic things but not getting knocked out.

Final Thoughts

Marvel is coming out with a lot ore games. D.A.G.G.E.R. is coming out from Fantasy Flight and I want to check that one out. I own Age of Heroes another one that I can checkout. I think there might be more that I am forgetting about.

Most of them are a lot of fun, some of them don’t work as well. So you do need to figure out which is which. But no longer are Marvel themed games just mass market games, they are actually good hobby games to play as well. Which is your favorite Marvel themed board game?

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2019 Schedule Compared to 2022 Schedule

So, let’s talk a bit about why it is a very light schedule. The main reason is the dealer hall. In the dealer hall there are a ton of games that you can demo, for free. Now, I don’t have an issue paying for events. And I wish I had found a couple more events that interested me. But this year it was a bit lighter, like I said, for games coming in. I had hoped for at least one more on my schedule or even two, but some of the playtests were already full.

Gen Con 2022 Schedule

So I have three events on the schedule, My plan for the first day is to just wander around checking things out. There is the initial mad rush of people going in, but some of the gaming areas and things going on are going to be less busy.

The Dice Tower Gen Con Live

Normally I like my events to be playing games. But often times when you’re wandering around for a while, it is nice to have a chance to sit down and just relax. I enjoy the content that the Dice Tower puts out, and I’m not sure what will be at this event. But it is going to be a Top 10 list of some sort, from the looks of it, so that should be fun.

I know in previous years it has been an event where games were announced or things like that. But you can see here, that during the Summer Spectacular, a lot of that already happened. But a live Top 10 list should be a grand old time. When they do them at a con, I always hope they are recorded and I have a good laugh.

The Batman: Everybody Lies Launch Party

This is a game that I didn’t pre-order, but I wanted to. Mainly because I am trying to be patient and get games more when I can play them. Right now I have a fair amount of this game system sitting on the shelf. The Batman: Everybody Lies is a game based off of the Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game system. Players use a website and cards, and deduction to figure out a crime in that game.

The Batman: Everybody Lies, from Portal Games, is a game set in Batman’s world with that same system. So it is a game that I definitely want to play. I don’t know what this launch event will really be. Looks like maybe tackling the first scenario, which is fun with Ignacy Trzewiczek, president of Portal Games, hosting the event.

Legendary: Marvel – Win-A-Box

Finally, this is a game that I don’t even love. But I picked a slot for it on Sunday because it is a cheap event. But also because on Sunday, last time, no one showed up besides myself and my friend. That meant that we were guaranteed to go home with a box and he collects or has been, a lot of the Marvel Legendary stuff. So, I figured I’d do that again. And I might be the one who doesn’t show up, we will see. But the game is fine and I can sit down and generally play it well, it’s just too long for me.

Final Thoughts

I wish I had another event, I have one for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which means I will have a lot of time to demo. But an early or mid morning game on Thursday would be a lot of fun. However, unless I can find a game with electronic ticketing, which you can’t filter by, that is unlikely to happen. But I am browsing now.

But, like I said before, one of the best parts for me of GenCon is finding games to demo. Sitting down, playing a few rounds or a whole game of something is a blast. It is where I found out about Homebrewers, Deranged: Zona The Secret of Chernobyl and more in 2019. It is also where I found some games that were certainly not my speed.

Are you going to Gen Con 2022? Let me know, walk the halls with me and find some games to demo.

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Cooperative Games Rankings

So just be aware I’m going to talk less about these games because there are a grand total of 52 that I ranked. Expect a sentence or two on each one of them.

52. FUSE

Fast paced game of rolling dice and then using them to try and complete enough cards to diffuse the bomb. I don’t love games that are only real time, and FUSE is only real time. It plays fast, but the game isn’t that interesting the more you play it.

51. Magic Maze

Another real time game, this time taking adventurers through a shopping mall. This one is more interesting because you need to work together more. But it’s going really fast without talking and sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.

50. Forbidden Island

This one is a great introduction to cooperative gaming and gaming in general. It follows the standard, do something and then something bad happens. My issue is that the game is too easy and generally just an okay game.

49. Arkham Horror: Final Hour

Now, on the flip side of Forbidden Island, this game is hard as you try and guess some ruins to be able to stop ritual from happening. It basically takes Arkham Horror and tries to make it shorter. It succeeds on that, but it also just isn’t interesting. The couple clever things it tries to do are just misses.

48. God of War: The Card Game

And another game that was too easy when I played it. I wonder about playing a whole game if that would make it more challenging, but what I played was fairly boring. I also feel like the decisions weren’t that interesting in the game. Most of the time it was do the obvious thing.

47. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

I talked about this yesterday. It’s a fine deck building game. It is just too slow to get to the table and too slow to get to feeling powerful. If they were to come out with a second edition and make the game play ramp up faster, I’d probably like it a lot. But right now, the ramp is just too slow.

46. Forbidden Desert

I like this a fair amount better than Forbidden Island, it offers more to do and a more clever mechanism of figuring out where to get things. It follows that Pandemic formula for things of do good things and then bad things happen. Played it a few times, enjoyed it, and have moved on.

45. The Mind

This one is an interesting one. You try and play cards down in numerical order without talking. The concept is cool, and the game works, but only sometimes. This is one where it really depends on who is in the group. And I had some good times with it but moved on again.

44. Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellow

I need to try this one again, it’s been a little while. The concept isn’t bad, you are basically playing the boss battles from Sword Art Online the show, and it has the main characters. The downside is that the rules aren’t that great, and it’s pretty simple and lucky. That said, it is tiny, so I don’t mind luck as much.

43. Exit Games

Exit Games are fun, but any escape room game is always hard to rank. I’ve played less Exit Games, and I don’t love that you can’t pass it on. Granted, I did see it kind of work with them at Fantasy Flight Game Center (now GameZenter), but I don’t want to buy something I need to then replace.

42. Flash Point: Fire Rescue

This is basically Pandemic but with fires. You haven’t seen Pandemic yet on the list so you know it’s higher. I think that Flash Point: Fire Rescue might end up being one that I get. And that’s because it might replace base Pandemic for me, but we’ll talk about why later. Very standard cooperative game.

41. Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game

On yesterday’s list, it is one that I like the theme of. Firefly was a great show, and the game is playing through the episodes. The game isn’t that easy and the artwork is just okay. Again, the ramp speed doesn’t seem right for the type of game it is, but it’s better than Marvel Legendary.

40. Stuffed Fables

This is one that I had a good time when I played it, but ended up being one that I never wanted to come back to. The game has a cool story about a kid who has a blanket, I believe, stolen, and you play as animals going under the bed with all the broken toys to get it back for her. But the mechanics were not that well taught and things that changed up on each different storybook page were worse taught.

39. Legacy of Dragonholt

Another one that was in my collection and left. When I heard about an RPG in a box, I thought it was going to be great. And in all fairness, it is a fun game with a lot of story in the box. But the story and writing was just okay. The best I can compare it is that it was written like a YA novel, but not one of the great ones. I think the system was very good, but I wanted writing.

38. Marvel Battleworld

This is dumb little game. I know it shouldn’t be this high on my list, though we’re not even half way yet. It is just a game where you roll a die and advance a track. The fun of the game is buying blind packs and getting little Funko figures. So I have it this high because it’s a fun toy with a little game attached to it.

37. Ghostbusters: The Board Game

We’re still in the area of games that are just okay, but we’re soon to games that are still in my collection. I loved the minis in the game, and the translucent ones look cool. But the game play was just okay. While there were different scenarios, they weren’t bad, but it wasn’t all that interesting. I just wished there was more.

36. Elder Sign

Another one that left my collection, some of that was just because I had only the base game. I have heard that the expansions help improve the game, and add more to the story of what you are doing. The base game is basically a Yahtzee type game, and I wish that it played a little bit faster for what it is.

35. Legends of Andor

Story driven puzzle game, Legends of Andor is good. The reason that it left my collection is that I never wanted to just sit down and play through all of it. So when I did want to play it, I’d play through the introductory scenario again and I did that a few times. But I like the story and the mechanics are pretty cool.

34. Sword & Sorcery

I played this one a lot, I got through the base game and one expansion. And I do like this game. Once I played that, though, I got rid of it. Even though I had more characters to play with, I wasn’t interested in going back through. The story doesn’t branch enough for that. And I wish that you could retire characters like in Gloomhaven.

33. Castle Panic

I almost culled this game, and I might, the board is a bit dinged so the FLGS didn’t take it. But the game is still playable. We’re not here to talk about that, though. The game is fun, and it’s a very light tower defense game. I like that I can play it with almost anyone, and while you rarely lose, it feels like you might. If I don’t lose a cooperative game fairly often, though, I will move on from it.

32. Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

This is a fun silly little game. I would say that it’s pretty much a solo game. Because you all play as one character and basically just do a choose your own adventure. You can make decisions as a group and pass around who is reading and rolling a die, but that’s how it’s cooperative. It is fun for that, though, because it’s so silly that everyone is laughing together.

31. Mysterium

Mysterium bounces all over for me. I think it was in my Top 100 games this past year and now with this ranking it wouldn’t be. If and when I play it again, it likely will move up. This is about figuring out who the murderer is. And there are rules about how that all works, but really it’s about giving clues as a ghost to everyone so they can figure theirs out. It’s cool concept that can get in it’s way with how it tries to be a game.

30. Unlock Games

The better escape room style board game. Unlock Games you don’t destroy anything, unless in a fit of rage. And I like how it counts down building up pressure versus Exit which is just see how long it takes you. And there are a lot of these with a lot of different themes. I want to play more, but it’s kind of a lot of a game night and works better with 3-4 people not 6.

29. Arkham Horror

This is the 2nd Edition, I haven’t played my 3rd Edition yet, but I need to. This is a grand epic game that takes forever to play. But it is a lot of fun. I felt like when I’ve played it that I get into what is going on in the game. The story is light, but the longer you play, the more story develops just from what you are doing.

28. Dead Men Tell No Tales

I like pirates, so that helps this game. And the supernatural twist on it is good. It again falls into that category of do some things and then bad things happen. What ended up causing this one to leave my collection is that it is that bit more. There are so many things to keep track of and the game isn’t as familiar, I didn’t pull it out over Pandemic.

27. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Another deck builder on the list, and one that I just got rid of as well. Why, because I own a lot of deck building games. This one I like the theme of it, and the mechanics are fun. The game gets a bit longer as you go, and I wish there were more characters in the base box. It’d be one I’d gladly get back when I have a group to play it.

26. Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

It’s odd how many leave my collection, and this is another. And I actually just realized that I forgot to rank Star Wars: Imperial Assault which also just left. So this counts for both. They are great games, The apps work really well, and you can pick your preferred theme. These are campaign games with a nice sense of adventure, but because they are campaign games, that’s why they left.

25. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

This one is still in my collection, huzzah. And it’s probably surprising because when it came out people didn’t love it. But I really enjoy this game. It is a tough cooperative game where you can play all sorts of one off missions with different focuses. Or you can do a mini campaign. And it has an app, not a great one, to handle a lot of the bad things that happen, which I like.

24. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

I really should buy a copy of this game. I played a few times at Fantasy Flight Game Center and really liked it. But never picked it up, and then played a bunch on the app. There is story, campaign, deck construction, and a lot of cool card play. I prefer the game that this is based off of, but I’d gladly have both in my collection.

23. The Lord of the Rings

While some might argue this game is fairly abstract, where you are pushing up on tracks as you go through the story of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I really enjoy this game. It is a very hard cooperative game, but it gives you rewards at just the right time. It’s one I haven’t played in ages, but now that I’m thinking about it, I want to play it again.

22. Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

My favorite book series in a board game. When talking about this one, I always want to to point out that it is abstracted. And while the theme is there, it is mainly there if you know the books. I love picking out one of the books to play and then characters from that book and trying to beat the game. I like it best, I think at two, though three isn’t bad either.

21. Just One

Party game on the list, Just One is a great game. And I really like that we are getting a number of cooperative party games. Here one person is trying to guess a word, and everyone else gives them a one word clue. But any duplicate words cancel. Simple game, clever idea, don’t need to play for points, and always a blast.

20. Cross Clues

Another party game, I told you there are a few, Cross Clues I like just a little bit better. Though, last time I played it I was so tired that I messed up a few times. Here you are giving a one word clue to get people to guess the intersection of two words. So it might be day and octopus, what word is between those two? Eight might be a good option. Simple and a lot of fun again. You can play real time, 5 minutes, see how well you do, we never do that.

19. Pandemic

Here are all the Pandemic games. And I have to say, I don’t know that I need to play base Pandemic again. Pandemic Legacy games just kind of ruined it for me. Still in my collection, but like I said, I might get Flash Point and replace it. If I want to play Pandemic again, I’ll play legacy, I think.

18. Village Attacks

A bigger tower defense game, I am still waiting for my Kickstarter to come in. It funded in 2019. But I am excited for it when it does. Village Attacks has you playing as the bad guys with the villagers coming with pitch forks and torches. You might be grotesque or horrifying, but the theme is just funny to me, so while it’s a dark game, it doesn’t come across.

17. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

I really need to play more of this game, it’s another one that I just really love. Arkham Horror: The Card Game, is the living card game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight, and it’s so cool how they can do so many different things with the game. Great card play and fun deck construction that I want to do more of. I prefer it two player, I think, but it’s good solo as well.

16. Similo

Final party game on the list, but not final light game. Similo is game where one person is it. That person is giving clues of either a card being like or not like the secret card. Then the rest of the players eliminate cards. Simple concept for a game and a ton of fun, especially to mix decks. How do you tell players that a chicken is or isn’t like a vampire or medusa?

15. Apocrypha Adventure Card Game

This is the game that the Pathfinder Card Game was based on, though the Pathfinder one came out first, it’s confusing. But I like the dark theme of this one, there is warfare going on between supernatural forces, and not everyone can see it, but you can. So how can you stop it in the different scenarios. Good game, great art, and my sort of them. Horrible rule book.

14. Say Bye to the Villains

Definitely the hardest game on the list, at least in terms of winning. The play is simple, spend time to improve your stats, look at what a villain is doing, and hope that you can win when you run out of time. And there isn’t enough time to do everything in the game. I’ve come so close to winning so many times, I’m sure eventually I will.

13. The Reckoners

Pretty high on the list for limited plays, but I love the theme of the game. The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson is a great series. And I love the game play, it’s tough, even on easy, but it has a lot of good choices. And you feel like you can do a lot on your turn as you roll dice and every face on the die is probably something you need.

12. Marvel United

Marvel United is a pretty easy game, but I love it a lot. In the game you are playing down cards to stop a super villain. As superheroes you all work together. So the last card you played, if I’m next to go, I’ll get to use as well. The villains also feel so different in this game, and while I have everything for it, the grab and go get it to the table is great.

11. Letter Jam

A game that just made me realize I forgot to rank Hanabi, I play a lot of cooperative games, Letter Jam is a game where you are trying to guess your word. But you can’t see the letters that make up your word. Only through clues and words given by other players can you infer what your letters are. There is some good strategy in figuring out what are good clues. Loads of fun and one that I think a lot of people will like.

10. TIME Stories

The highest escape room style game on my list, though this one has more going on than that. I really like TIME Stories for the puzzles that it gives. I haven’t played all of them yet, and I have heard that some are weaker than others. But every one that I’ve played thus far I really enjoy.

9. Roll Player Adventures

I’m really excited, I get to play into a campaign of this in February. Roll Player Adventures is my highlight from GenCon in 2019. Getting to playtest it was great. In the Roll Player universe, this takes characters you might have rolled up, or pre-made ones, and lets you take them on adventures. The adventures are fun, and the combat is interesting. It’s a lot of choose your own adventure and so good at that.

8. Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition

Another Lovecraftian game, and another cooperative one. All of Fantasy Flights games in their Arkham Files line are cooperative. Mansions of Madness is app assisted and so much fun. Like Arkham Horror The Card Game, the game can be so different depending upon scenario. Some might have you stopping a ritual in a mansion, others exploring a town. One that I want to play more of to see what else they can do with it.

7. Sleeping Gods

You can watch me play this tonight, Jan 26th, on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is a big adventure game that I’m playing solo right now where you are the Manticore, a ship, and sailing around with crew that go on adventures. The game has an amazing aesthetic and story. Even though the story isn’t linear, it works well. And the world it’s set in is really cool.

6. Marvel Champions

I like Marvel a lot, and for me Marvel Champions is the best Marvel game. The different heroes feel like that hero, and you can take them up against any bad guy. While Marvel United you play as one hero they are a bit more generic. And Marvel Champions gives you that alter ego side, so you push and pull to keep the villain at bay. And there are so many heroes and villains already and there can be so many more.

5. Aeon’s End

Another one I talked about yesterday. Aeon’s End is a cooperative deck building game where you try and stop a nemesis. A great solo and two player game. There are so many set-ups and so many cards for it. Now this does include Legacy as well, which is a great introduction to the game. And I like that the randomness in the game isn’t shuffling your deck, it is turn order and what the monster does.

4. Xenoshyft: Onslaught

Another deck building game, this one is Starship Troopers and tower defense. I like how collaborative the game is. I build my deck, but if I have an extra troop and you need one, I can give it to you to defend your part of the base and it goes into your deck. It allows everyone to really balance out what is going on and have a chance, which is good, because it’s a tough game.

3. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

I feel like this one I talk about and always describe it in a way that doesn’t sound that fun. But in this game, I feel like I am a detective. It’s a bit like a detective TV show, but fun is how I put it. You get into the case and the theme and if you allow yourself to be immersed in figuring out the story going on it is a great time.

2. Tainted Grail

Another one from yesterday, Tainted Grail is an amazing story adventure game. You take these characters and build them up through a grim dark storyline. And the writing on the game is just so well done. In terms of thematic games, I feel like this one might top my list, though, not my favorite cooperative game.

1. Gloomhaven

For my favorite cooperative game, no shock, it’s Gloomhaven. I love this game. I love the leveling in this game and the card play in this game. And I love that you retire characters and get new ones. I think that the mechanics are amazing and the story is interesting. But overall it leads to a great cooperative experience.

Final Thoughts

I’m guessing since I missed Hanabi and Imperial Assault that I likely missed others. And I also found it interesting how many I’ve gotten rid of. I think a lot of that has to do with me having so many I’ve played. It means that they are fighting for playing time. So only the top ones stick around. Especially when you get down to campaign games, for those it’s even a tighter field because of Kickstarter games coming in and time.

What is your favorite cooperative game?

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Deck Building vs Deck Construction

So let’s talk about this really quickly because one game that isn’t on this list is Gloomhaven. Though, you do add cards to your deck throughout the whole of the Gloomhaven campaign. And there is another one on the list, no spoilers, where you do the same thing. But it’s done in a different way.

Deck Building allows you to add cards to your deck when you can purchase them. And while you might be able to do things to manipulate how many cards you have in your deck, those rules aren’t as in place. In some of them you might need a lot of cards in your deck.

Deck Construction, on the other hand, allows you to focus your deck. You decide what you want to put into your deck and keep in your deck. Often times there are rules as to how you can even construct your deck. Gloomhaven only allows you to have a set number of cards. Or Magic: The Gathering, in standard, you can have a 60 card deck, no more, no less.

The Rankings

14. Dominion

I know that Dominion would top a lot of people’s lists. But for me, Dominion is not that interesting a game. The mechanics are perfectly fine, but it’s just deck building for the sake of deck building. It is just the mechanic for the sake of the mechanic. And it doesn’t look good on the table. Plus, Dominion misses on one big thing for me. A person who can look at all the cards and figure out the best strategy before the game starts will win. I like a bit more randomness in my deck building so it’s more on the fly decisions versus from the very start.

13. DC Comics Deck-Building Game

This one I haven’t played in so long. I remember it being perfectly fine but nothing really stood out to me. Add in the fact that DC Comics don’t interest me that much, mainly because there are too many comics overall to keep up on, and it is low for me. I would play this one again, but it is mainly a forgettable experience.

12. God or War: The Card Game

Another one that falls into this category, God of War was just a dud when I played it at GenCon. The game play seemed too easy and the decision making space was so limited. I get that it was a demo scenario, and maybe the game is more challenging, but I like a cooperative game challenging. This I felt like I’d win 75% or more of the time, and that doesn’t interest me. Plus, how you got the cards was just okay. You divided them amongst the group, and did it cooperative, but the choices were limited. It barely, if at all, qualifies as a deck building game.

11. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

Now to a theme that I love, but one that is really low on the list. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game should work for me, but it misses on three things. Firstly, the game set-up is way too long. Some of that is too much stuff for the game. The other part is just it’s too complex with it’s set-up. Then the game takes too long. You take forever to start being able to hit the boss. Finally, the theme is missing for me. I want it to feel like a super hero team-up. But when you have cards of five heroes, and I have cards of those five heroes as well, it doesn’t feel like that.

10. Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game

Another Legendary game from Upper Deck, and this one I like a bit better. Mainly because the balance feels better. The scenarios, different episodes, are fun to play through. And while it does have the same thing as Marvel version where we are all playing all the characters, it just works smoother. I think having less stuff makes it play faster and be faster to get to the table.

9. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

This is one that I’m bummed I never got to play through the whole game. I could have kept Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle in my collection. And it might come back to my collection later. But it wasn’t getting played, and in terms of campaign games, I felt like it wasn’t going to be one that I came back to any time soon. The game is fun in that you unlock things as you go along. So not a legacy game, but a resettable campaign which is cool. And it took you through the books.

8. Cry Havoc

Another one that left my collection, and this one it is because I have Root. Cry Havoc and Root do different things, but I’d prefer to teach and play Root if I’m going to play an asymmetric game. Combat is really cool where you put your troops on a track to determine how it goes and then manipulate it with cards. And the deck building is interesting as you use them in combat, for powers, or to do basic actions. So card uses were really cool in the game.

7. Clank!: A Deck-Building Game

Now we start to get into the heavy hitters and games still in my collection. Clank! A Deck-Building Game is a wonderful time. It is a nice light deck builder, but one that isn’t only deck building. You build up your deck as you adventure down into a dungeon. All the time you are trying to do it as quietly as you can so the dragon doesn’t find you. But some of the better cards make you go clank. It’s a great push your luck game with a nice theme.

6. Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

Ascension goes back to being a pure deck building game. But I like this one so much better than Dominion. Firstly, there isn’t a fixed market. That means that I need to think about and adjust my strategy on the fly. And there is fighting monsters. Yes, everything can give you points. But in Dominion, everyone works towards the same points, here, someone can focus on getting cards for points or for combat, or do both.

5. Aeon’s End: Legacy

This is almost cheating, because it maybe should be combined with an entry coming up. But I do think that Aeon’s End Legacy and Aeon’s End are two different games. At least until the legacy experience is done. I really enjoyed my time with Aeon’s End: Legacy, and I do think it’s a great game. If you want to learn Aeon’s End, I would recommend you play this before you dive into the base game. But once you are done and you play against other nemesis, the game will seem easy.

4. Clank! In! Space!: A Deck-Building Game

Another Clank! game on the list. I prefer Clank! In! Space!, because it is even goofier than regular Clank!. And I do think that I like the space theme better. Plus, the game play is better for me. It adds in two changes. Firstly, how the game ends, there is no longer a timer, it is just until the players all get out, or Lord Eradikus takes them down. In Clank! it is a set number of rounds. And I like that you need to unlock the treasure room. It means there is more than just rush in grab treasure and rush out.

3. Aeon’s End

Later this year when I do my Top 100 Games (of All Time) 2022 Edition, I might combine this with Legacy. But I do think that the base game, or any of the expansions are better. Aeon’s End is a great cooperative deck building game. I like that you don’t shuffle, if you are good, it adds to the challenge. I also like how different the breach mages are and how different the nemesis are. It gives the game a lot of good challenges. Plus there is so much content to dig into.

2. Xenoshyft: Onslaught

I’m trying to remember, I’m not sure I’ve ever beat Xenoshyft: Onslaught. I think maybe one time. But I have come close a lot of times. This is another cooperative game, and you defend a base from waves after waves of bugs. Yes, this might sound like Starship Troopers the board game. I would say it is, but maybe slightly more serious. I love the challenge, and I like how each different area you can play has different powers and abilities.

What pushes this game ahead of Aeon’s End for me is how you can help others. I might draw a hand where I hold three weapons. But I only need two. I can give you that card to equip to one of your guys. Your line of defense getting weak, I can drop a paratrooper in. I’m getting some tough monsters, you can throw a grenade. It is highly cooperative and I love it for that.

1. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Finally, this is the one I was talking about when I was talking about deck building versus deck construction. And in all fairness, I don’t play this for deck building. I play Tainted Grail for the story. But you do deck building, spending XP to get random card draw and then picking between them to add to your deck. And while you can remove cards from your deck whenever, there aren’t a lot of limits on how many you can have, just how few you can have. It’s a small part of the game, but making a great combat deck can be a challenge.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of deck building games that I still want to play. In particular, I want to play Clank! Legacy because I love the theme for that one. And I know there are more deck building games out there to try. It is a mechanic that I really love, like roll and writes, so I don’t think I will ever complain about finding new favorites to work into the rotation. I’ll probably do deck construction games here soon, because I do like them as well, though I own and have played fewer.

What are your favorite deck building games? If you’ve played Tainted Grail, would you consider it one? Let me know in the comments below.

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What is a Board Game?

A board game is any game that uses cards, or a board, or dice that you play. There are sub genres of games out there such as dice games, or card games, but they are all board games, just like we have roll and write games, dungeon crawl games, deck building, and more. Something like Uno is just as much of a board game as Monopoly, even though only Monopoly has a board. Farkle or Yahtzee is just as much of a board game as Monoploy as well and they are dice primarily.

How Do People Gatekeep Themselves?

So the most common way, and I touch on it above, is thinking that board games need to have a board. I would say that this isn’t quite how it works, it’s more comes down to three main statements.

It just has cards, it’s going to be a simple game or lucky.

That game is just a bunch of minis, I’m sure the they didn’t put effort into the game play itself.

It has an app, that’s not a real board game.

These three mindsets are really bad to have. They cut out so many games that you can play. Let me tackle each of them here.

The Card Game Argument

I can get where people are coming from with this one, a little bit. A lot of people are coming from the mindset that card games are like Exploding Kittens and Uno. There’s not much depth there, and if there is more going on than just playing cards, it’s a party game like Cards Against Humanity which is also extremely simple. And I do think for a while, 90’s and before, card games often were made to be simpler. Now, that excludes games that were played with a deck of cards which a lot of them have great depth and strategy to them. But people can often have the mindset that less stuff in a game means a worse game.

I recently came across this where someone was saying that they wanted the best superhero board game. They dismissed Marvel Champions and Sentinels of the Multiverse immediately because they are just cards. In terms of superhero themed board games where you are playing the good superheroes, they are two of the top ones. Marvel Legendary is up there as well, which has a board, but is primarily cards as it’s a deck building game. So the person who asked that question limited away the best superhero games because they thought card games would be too simple or too lucky. But those games have a lot more strategy than board games with an actual board a lot of the time.

The Minis Problem

This one I get more than the card game aspect. There are a lot of games out there that show up on Kickstarter, they show 200 cool looking minis and when you finally get down to the part where they talk about the game, you find that the game is a simple roll and move game and most of the minis never do anything, they just sit on a space. Now, that example is a bit absurd but I’ve seen things to around those levels.

But just rejecting a game because it has a lot of minis out of hand is also a problem and causes people to miss out on a lot of good games. Lords of Hellas has a lot of minis and even some pretty giant minis with the god statues that are built up throughout the game, but it is an extremely interesting game with a ton of choices. It can be considered to be rough around the edges, but it a way that enhances the experience, not detracts from it. Mansions of Madness is another game that has a lot of minis with the monsters, but again offers some of the best gaming experiences with an app to generate the story for you. Are minis needed in every game, certainly not, and minis can push games to a point where the price becomes a barrier to entry, but the argument about game play cannot be a blanket statement and will keep people from playing a lot of fun and very deep games.

The App Argument

This one is one that crops up somewhat often now. And when someone says that they don’t want a game with an app because they don’t want screens at the table. I can kind of get that. They might be looking for a way to keep their kids away from screens for a time, they might be someone who will default to just watching TV so they push for no screens and it’s a way to stretch themselves. But then others say no screens because that makes it a video game or why isn’t it just a video game at that point.

However, that mindset limits you and keeps you away from a lot of great games. Mansions of Madness, 2nd Edition, is a great game. The app makes it so no one needs to keep track of every piece of the game. There is no one who runs the whole game. The first edition had someone running everything and that kept it from being cooperative. One side played the game while there was one person who just administered it. Being the person who administered the game isn’t that fun. The app takes that away from anyone needing to do it.

And other games, like Chronicles of Crime benefits greatly with an app, it’d be impossible to do without one. Now, could it be just a video game, maybe, but Chronicles of Crimes uses the tactile aspect and moving pieces around to create a map of the crime that’d be harder to do in a video game.

How to Break Free

Now, that’s been fairly negative, I won’t lie. I don’t love being negative, and when people gatekeep themselves from a game because of preconceived notions, it can have a negative affect on the whole community of board gaming. Too often people feel the need to share their opinion or create a blocker for people playing those games. How can we as a community help our hobby grow and try and break free.

– Be willing to try

Every game will not be for everyone. If you are a hard core Amerthrash gamer, give a card game a try if someone says they think you’ll like it. Be open to trying new things, for a lot of gamers, we can find more that we love.

– Don’t Belittle or Discourage

Even if you don’t want to play a game, if someone is excited about a game, don’t thumb your nose at it. Just because a game isn’t your cup of tea doesn’t mean that it won’t be good for someone else. And just because maybe it is legitimately too light a game for you to enjoy, don’t pretend like your games are better. The first step of a gamer to playing heavier games is often through lighter games.

– Politely decline

And honestly, all games aren’t for everyone. This goes along with the previous point, be polite when you decline. It’s fine to be not interested in something. It’s fine to know that you like a certain type of game, but we want everyone in our hobby to play games. Decline and encourage the gamer in finding people to play with.

What Hang-ups Do You Have or I Have?

I wrote all of this and I reference a lot of games that I love. However, every player, every person, is going to have a blind spot. We don’t want to keep ourselves from playing fun games. I know that I don’t love Euro games generally, so I need to keep myself from being negative about them. Playing a Euro game won’t kill me, and I might find some that I like. Or declining a game is also what I can do, but I need to not look down on people who do like them.

What are your favorite games that are only card games, have a ton of minis, or use an app?

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I am not going to tell you everything that I got, only that it was a lot. I know the number, it was 18 different expansions for Sentinels of the Multiverse. A lot of them being smaller little character packs like for Ambuscade, Chokepoint, and Miss Information. Those smaller character packs, $1.25 each. But there are other expansions as well like Shattered Timelines & Wrath of the Cosmos or Oblivaeon that are discounted a ton as well.

Sentinels of the Multiverse is a superhero game where you take on the role of superheroes to defeat a supervillain and their schemes. From the nefarious Baron Blade and on. Unlike games like Marvel Champions, Marvel Legendary, DC Deck Builder, etc. this is not a standard comic IP game, this game was created with it’s all new and “unique” characters for the world. In the game you use your deck of cards to get abilities into play to be able to handle bad guys and other threats as well as take down the main villain. Now, this sounds a bit like Marvel Champions, but each characters deck is set, so you aren’t doing the deck crafting like in Marvel Champions. This means that everything is going to be on theme or the character you are playing, versus the aspects in Marvel Champions.

That’s all that I picked up, but I do want to point out a few games that Greater Than Games has. The first is Lazer Ryderz. This is a silly little game that is basically the light bikes from Tron, but you aren’t just trying to crash the other person. Though, that can be some of your strategy. It’s a fun and light game and on a super good sale at $15. Another is Homebrewers, this game is one of my favorite games. It is a fun little engine building game where you are competing to become the best homebrewer. It has a great theme and plays really fast. It gives you room to come up with a strategy, but also keeps you thinking on your feet. And finally is Medium. This one is a little party game where the players are trying to connect the two words on their cards by saying a word and hoping to match the other person. If they don’t they try again with the words that they just said. It’s a fun concept for a game that can lead to a lot of laughs.

What good Black Friday game deals have you found?

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Legos

Now, Legos might seem like a kids thing, but speaking as an adult who has several Lego sets, though not currently out, Legos are awesome. And Lego is no longer just a bunch of random bricks to build houses with, or some castle sets, both Marvel and DC have Lego sets. I have the Milano from Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, that I need to get on display. But you can get Dr. Strange’s Sanctum, Avengers Mansion, Green Lantern vs Sinestro, or a very detailed Batwing. These can make awesome display pieces for a nerdy room. I have a gaming room, but I have action figures and trade paperbacks in this room as well. So Legos are always fun display pieces.

Trade Paperbacks

Speaking of trade paperbacks, for someone who loves the movies, a good move would be to get them some trade paperbacks of the comic runs of their favorite characters, or upcoming films. If someone is interested in the Eternals, grab Neil Gaiman’s run of that, or if someone loved the Infinity saga, you could get them The Infinity Gauntlet. There are a ton of stories out there like that, but you can also just get a comic run for a character like Batman, Spider-Man, or Thor, really tailoring it to the character that they like. Or a more general team-up one like Avengers, Justice League, or Teen Titans. What’s so nice about this is that you will be able to find arcs within those as well. The past couple of weeks I’d talked about Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, those both can be found in trade paperbacks.

Board Games

Yes, there are board games, but I’m keeping this a bit more generalized. I’m going to rattle off a number of them here, and you can fit what might be right for you. Marvel Battleworld, this is a super simple game that has a very high toy factor to it. You collect little Marvel figures and take them to battle locations. There are Thanos Stones (not a thing that I know of in the comics) which are basically just the packs you get the characters in, so you can open up more blind packs in hopes you’ll get who you want. Then Marvel Legendary an the DC Deck Building Game, more complicated games, but still pretty straight forward. In these are you start out with some generic cards, but you add in superheroes to your deck of cards as you go to do cool combos. There is a ton out for both of these games, but they are a bit random. Marvel Champions is another option, this one has you taking a team of heroes up against a villain in a very complex strategy game where you are balancing out use of cards to stop the villains scheming and beat them up. Two more to go, first is Sentinels of the Multiverse. This one is not based off of any IP, intellectual property, but is it’s own super hero world. The cool thing about that is that they do a great job of world building themselves. There is a ton for this game, but just the base game will have a lot to play, another card based super hero game. Finally, Marvel United, this one is new this year, and one that I’d highly recommend. It is a fairly simple game, so good for a non gamer of all ages. The minis in this game are amazing, and the game play is fun, definitely worth checking out and probably the best option for the largest crowd.

Action Figures

I’ve touched on them briefly when I talked about Legos, but action figures are another great option. And you can find them in a wide range of detail and prices. I personally have enjoyed the Marvel Diamond Select ones, a bit more expensive, but come with great backdrops. But I have simpler Marvel ones and DC ones as well. Plus you can get the person their favorite character again. Almost every character has had an action figure come out of it. And if an action figure isn’t quite right, you can always look for something like Funko Pops as well. A bit more limited, kind of, in characters that they have, they make a good thing for someone to show off their nerdiness just a little bit as something to display in a cubicle at work, or maybe where you are working from home from.

Now, normally I do five different things, but I’ve covered more than that already with the different games, types of action figures, and more. Obviously, there are going to be things like the movies that you could get someone as well, or with Wandavision coming out January 15th, you could gift someone a subscription for the year to Disney+. So there are a lot of things that you can consider for gifts when it comes to super heroes, it’ll be down to what you think is best for the person you are giving the gift to.

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The Premise

The Characters

The Bosses

The Guilds

The Levels

The Boards

Cards vs Dice

Character Leveling

One of the big things with a video game RPG, MMO or otherwise, or playing a pen and paper RPG like Dungeons and Dragons, or even playing a board game like Gloomhaven is that your character levels up and gets better. This can be done in a few ways depending on the system.

In all cases there are a few things that I would generally consider to be normal. The biggest thing is that when you go up a level, you get more health. Even within this, there can be some variability. It can be that you go up by a fixed number, or go up to a fixed number, or it can be variable. Let’s talk about a few of the different ways and how they work. Gloomhaven has the easiest one to explain. In that game you start out with a fixed number of healthy, every level your health goes up to another fixed number. Now Dungeons and Dragons covers most of the rest of the ways. You can either get a variable number, based off of a die roll or something like that, or you can go up by a fixed number. In either case in Dungeons and Dragons, that number is modified by your constitution modifier. For my game, I’m leaning towards the latter. I think that the characters will go up in health by a fixed number modified by a vitality stat or a fixed number based off of their vitality stat, more likely.

And talking about stats, what are stats that would make sense. I could use what Dungeons and Dragons have and go with Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. But for this game, I don’t think that makes that much sense. In Dungeons and Dragons you are playing another character completely in that world. In this game, you are playing as a person trapped in a video game. You are going to have your mental faculties still, so stuff like Intelligence and Wisdom are going to only be useful character stats for interacting with an NPC, maybe, more likely that’d be charisma.

Before I’d referred to the base stats as:  strength, agility, guile, toughness, intelligence, and allure. This is fairly close to mirroring what D&D has. However, I think I’m going to change that up slightly. We are going to still have Strength and Agility. Those are going to be the stats that influence your combat the most. Instead of Toughness, we are going to have vitality. Your HP, your ability to shake off poison or stun effects and stuff like that. I’m also going to keep Allure and Guile as stats. These will be important for influencing NPC’s, negotiating, seducing, intimidating, or whatever it might be that a player decides to use them for. But intelligence is going to go away. Storywise, maybe that was a part of the game before, but now it’s gone, and even before, it was probably just a rolodex of knowledge that your player could look up things in, versus a stat that was used to influence anyone.

So, when you level up, you have those five stats. How do you improve them, do they improve at a fixed rate, most certainly not. Instead, you’ll end up having a ability pool or points that you can put into a stat or stats as you see fit. You can bump up your strength as fast as you want, but you’ll have a harder time negotiating with NPC’s and probably even getting some of the quests that they might have to offer. But they’ll be much better at fighting.

Even at the beginning when building your character, you’ll have a few basic skills you can pick from, but you’ll also have a point pool for your base stats and you can assign them as you want. I’d probably do a base 5 points in every stat but then give an additional 10 points, or maybe even 15 points to add to customize your character. The reason for doing this is that I want character creation to be part of the game, and I also want characters and play styles to feel different from the very beginning. If everyone starts out as a level 1 commoner, that’s boring. You aren’t a commoner NPC level character at the start, you start as a hero.

One thing I haven’t mentioned are skills and how they’ll work. There’s a reason for that, I want skills not be something that you just get. Sure you’ll have “skill trees” to some extent, but I want skills be things that you to have to find. That can be from buying skills at certain shops, but they’ll be more generic skills to going on quests and getting skills. When you’re buying skills, they’ll be a bit more generic but you’ll have a larger variety of them that you can grab. The ones in quests, they’ll be better, and my current plan is that you’ll pick a skill pile and draw that type of skill. That skill will have a number that will modify the quests difficulty, but you can pick that from the start and you’ll know how much more challenging it’ll be, the better the skill the more challenging. I also want skills to be able to grow with the player. They are going to be based off of the base stats some, modifying how much they do with how good the player is in that stat or that combination of stats. I want something you grab at level one if you happen to get lucky, to be worth playing late into the game. Now, since skills with have cooldowns related to them you’ll want to have several.

I also want skills to do better when played in “sequence”. I don’t mean that you have to play Skill A1 before Skill A2 and then Skill A3 is better, and they always have to be in that order. I want to borrow from games like Marvel Legendary and Clank! In! Space! where you have factions of cards, so a card might be an Avengers card, and if you play that card before you play another card, that card might have an ability that triggers off of an Avengers card having been played. I’ve talked about keywords before, I want to do that with skills, if you’ve used a skill and it’s cooling down and it has a keyword on it that matches one for an additional ability on your next skill you play, boom, added benefit and power. This is kind of like the comboing between character with the modifier deck draw, but for yourself, so you can set-up turns. Granted, you still have to do that to match what the boss monster is doing as well.

Anyways, that got a little off track for the main topic, but I think that it’s important to add in when talking about leveling. You are basically just increasing your health and base stats when you level. Skills will increase based off of those stats, but you won’t get a new skill for hitting level milestones or just because you leveled up.

What are your thoughts on that, should you get skills when you level up, or should they be rewards for completing missions in the game, defeating bosses, and maybe even being something that you can buy?

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This first list is going to be Deck Building Games, now on BGG, they combine pool and bag building games as well, but I’m only going to do deck building. However, it is going to include deck construction games as well. Because you are technically constructing the deck, it is just prior to the game, but it is also a large part of the game. I will call out those games. In deck building, you are constructing the deck to do something in the game, it might be getting victory points, it might be for buying more cards, fighting or many other things. Let’s see what my list looks like.

The List

10 – The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth
It’s a long title and an interesting game, a deck construction game, you start out with an archetype and some character cards. But you can play against type, so maybe Gimli as a leader and Aragorn as a tank, and between scenarios you can spend experience to level up the deck and get better cards. How you use the cards is interesting, most of the time you are looking for successes on cards, but you can also use cards for a more permanent ability, but the better the ability, more likely it’s to have successes on it, which means you want it in the deck for your challenges so that you can pass them. It’s a good mechanic because it makes so many decisions tough. Plus, there’s a campaign for it, and an app driven story, this is weaker than Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition for that, but the app helps so much, if you’re a Lord of the Rings fan, it’s definitely a game to check out.

9 – Dragonfire
I haven’t played this game as much as I’d like though I have played both Dragonfire and Shadowrun: Crossfire, which are both built off of the same system. I’m going with Dragonfire because that’s the one that I own. The game offers interesting scenarios and challenges for the players to defeat, and you start out with your class which means that you are a little bit better at something than others. You get to purchase cards to improve your deck, but at the same time, you’re trying to deal with monsters and avoid becoming exhausted or taken out. It’s a tough game that I don’t feel like I fully have a grasp on the strategy for it yet, but I like the deck building aspect and I think that it does some interesting things with leveling up your characters. Definitely a fun time to play, and while I like the Shadowrun RPG theme better than the D&D RPG theme, I think that both are fun, so either works, just depends if you want fantasy or cyberpunk.

8 – Magic: The Gathering
MtG was a game that I loved and I’d play all the time for a while, but unfortunately I don’t have a group anymore for it. But I still love it for the deck construction aspect of it. You could build all sorts of crazy decks, and I think, almost as much as playing it, I loved finding an odd card that didn’t have an obvious way for it to work, but I would figure out a way to create a deck around it. Sometimes they were cool decks, and sometimes they failed horribly, but it was always fun to experiment. And then we got into commander which adds a challenge of only having a single copy of a card in the deck and a 100 yard deck, so there was always something new to try and build. I miss playing it as often sometimes, but it’s a classic and extremely popular game for a reason. It’s also addictive to open packs once you get into it.

7 – Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
This is just a fun game as you get to play through the books, getting further in your education and improving your deck. You get to sling spells, get friends to help you and try and defeat everyone. The game starts out pretty simple, and I like that, because it can continue to add in mechanics and rules and cards for each book that you go to, which makes it more thematic. It does get longer the further in you go because, while you are theoretically getting better cards the longer it goes, in the later chapters, you’re dealing with the villains from the first books as well as the ones from the later books so that number always increases. But Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is just a good deck building game and a good theme that will draw people in.

6 – Ascension
This is the most generic deck building game on the list. In it, you have a basic starting deck, you get to buy more cards that allow you to buy more cards or fight monsters that show up. You can combo things together with card draw and constructs, and that’s probably the only unique bit is that you have constructs that you can play out and they stay out while heroes go into the discard at the end of the turn. So you can vary your strategy by either going construct heavy or maybe hero and attack heavy or buy heavy. Each of them gives you a chance to win because you get points for killing monsters, but you can also get points for getting cards and some constructs are worth a lot of points. This is my preferred introduction to deck building.

5 – Clank! In! Space!
Some games take themselves seriously, but Clank! In! Space! is not one of those games. You’re an adventurer/thief, stumbling around Lord Eradikus’s spaceship, trying not to make too much clank so that you don’t get tracked down and knocked out. The cards are all references to other sci-fi things, and it just works really well. It’s a deck builder where you have a few different types of cards that can combo together to create some epic turns, if it shuffles out right, plus it’s push your luck with deck building as well, because you can go further into the spaceship to get a better treasure, but it’ll take you longer to get out and Lord Eradikus might get you before that happens. But if he doesn’t, you’ll be in a much better spot to win. The game is light fun with good replayability.

4 – Aeon’s End: War Eternal
Aeon’s End: War Eternal is such an interesting deck building game that gives you a chance to not have to worry about the randomness of your deck. When you buy cards, they go into the discard, when you spend your cards on a turn, they go to the discard, but cards that you spend on a turn, you can sort those. That’s not a big deal if you’re shuffling the deck, but you’re not, when you run out of cards, you just flip your deck, so it gives you the ability to potentially set-up hands. Add in the game play, which has an interesting spell casting mechanic where you need to prep them, tough monsters to fight, and a town to defend, the game gives you so much replayability just out of the base box and then there is more in expansions and other editions. It’s just a nice twist on deck building that works really well for my style of play, plus it’s cooperative.

3 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game
Another deck contrusction game on the list, Arkham Horror: The Card Game is a great experience creating your character so that they can investigate, attack, or deal with whatever might come up better for a given story. And then you get to take them through a campaign, so it’s not just a one off game, so between games you get to improve your deck so that you’re more prepared for the next part of the story. And characters, depending on their skills will be able to use certain types of cards better or will need help on some skills, so will need more of those cards in their decks, you can really tailor your investigator how you want.

2 – Marvel Champions
It was hard to know where to slot this one in, it’s deck construction, so you build your deck before the game, but it is so much fun. I’ve been writing about it a bunch recently, and it just works for me, all it’s missing is a campaign, which we’re getting. In it, you play as a superhero who is taking on the likes of Rhino, Ultron, or Green Goblin. What makes this work and be an interesting deck construction game is the different archetypes. So you could play someone like Spider-Man with defensive cards in his deck to keep him standing longer without having to flip back to the Peter Parker side, or you could be aggressive hoping to end the game faster. It gives you so many options when you’re constructing your deck. It just feels like taking your superhero up against a villain who has some grand or small scheme.

1 – Xenoshyft: Onslaught
Why is this my favorite, it’s actually fairly low rank on BGG, but the game is just a ton of fun, and I think it does some interesting things for a deck builder. You are never short money, which is nice, but when you buy cards and you are creating your defenses to stop an alien bug attack on your mining base, you can help other people as well. So you build up your defenses, but you can also help build up others, so even if someone has a bad card draw, you’ll be able to help them, or vice-a-versa. It’s just an interesting thing that makes the game feel even more cooperative in it’s nature and not something that you can do in many other deck building games. Plus, you’re blasting alien bug monsters, and I’m always down for that.

I’ve left a few games off of here that do have deck construction or deck building in them because I think that, while it’s important for those games, t here are other things that are also as big a part. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon is one of them, but that one is a story driven survival game with deck construction being part of how you level up. The same goes for Gloomhaven, you can improve your hand of cards versus a deck there, but you can improve your modifier deck as you level up. I wanted to go with games where the deck construction is a huge part of the game. I think with the exception of Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth, though you are using the deck for everything, you do need to really focus on the deck building part of the game.

There are a couple of notable deck building games that aren’t on the list. First, Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game, I just find that game to be okay. I think that there’s so much in the game now that it can be hard to keep track of everything and you can pretty easily end up with a less than ideal combo of heroes that don’t synergize as well as they could. If that happens, you just get stomped, and I feel like that is pretty common for that game. Dominion also didn’t make my list, and while I know that some of these games, if not all, wouldn’t have existed without Dominion, it doesn’t make Dominion a good game. It’s a pure deck building game, I’ll give it that, but it’s not thematic and it’s not nice to look at, and because it has a static market, someone who has played it more or played with a certain combo is going to be at an advantage because they know what to build immediately, and there’s always an optimal strategy. I like games that make me adjust as I go and stretch me that way, and I don’t think Dominion does that.

What are some of your favorite deck building games? Are there any, based off of what I like, that you think I should check out?

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There’s plenty of reason that people compared the two. Both of them are card games with deck building elements, though with one you build the deck ahead of time and one you build it through in game purchase of cards. The other obvious thing is that they are both Marvel themed. I could have added some more contenders if I had opened this up to the DC deck building game as well, but I wanted to keep it focused on Marvel, especially with Marvel Champions being a newer game. Both still have a lot of expansions and Champions is getting a regular flow of new heroes and bad guys to add into the game. Generally what you’re trying to do is similar as well, there is a villain who has their own scheme that they are trying to do and as players in the game, you are trying to defeat that villain, though, what that means in the games can be different. Let’s take a closer look at both competitors.

Marvel Legendary

The older of the two games, it has a ton of content. The content that it has dwarfs that of Champions at this point, though Champions will slowly start to catch up as it is releases more expansions on a more regular basis. In Marvel Legendary you put together a team of heroes and shuffle them together to create your hero deck that you’ll be able to purchase characters from. Each player starts with a basic deck of a few SHIELD agents, some that give you purchasing (recruiting) power to get hero cards into your deck, and some that give you attack power. When you purchase these cards they go into your discard pile, and once you’ve drawn all the cards from your deck, you shuffle up and use the deck with the new cards added to it to try and stop the mastermind and the other villains showing up in town. One thing that I think works well in the game is that you can’t sit back in your deck building and only focus on purchase power until you can really buy a lot of attack power. Because there are always villains coming out, that can mean that you’d potentially screw yourself over with villains escaping town before you’d be able to really deal well with them as you can lose if the hero deck is gone through. Now, there are some downsides, because you are getting a mix of heroes, it’s possible that they won’t synergize that well and you won’t be able to build up the combos that quickly that you need. In fact, I feel like this is very common with the game when I’ve played it.

Marvel Champions

Whereas you are building your deck in game, in Marvel Champions you are building the deck you’ll play with before the game. Each deck you build is going to be specific to a character, and just out of the base box, you could build a deck for Iron Man, Black Panther, She-Hulk, Captain Marvel, or Spider-Man. Then you can send that hero up against the likes of Rhino or Ultron. Beyond just a basic deck construction of it being, for example, just a Spider-Man deck, you can give them a fighting style. You could make Captain Marvel Aggressive style if you want her to deal a lot of damage, on the other hand, you could give her Leader or Defensive for a build that would be less focused on combat. And while certain styles will synergize better with her cards than other styles might, you’ll basically always be able to make a deck that works with any style. Beyond that, your hero deck is going to have a single hero in it, you aren’t going to be combining in a single deck Spider-Man and Iron Man cards, it’s going to be either Spider-Man or Iron Man. There are sidekicks to help that you can call in, like Nick Fury or Hercules, but they aren’t as powerful as your character. Another cool thing is how the characters work, in the comics, you have T’Challa and Black Panther, the alter-ego and the superhero identities. So, in the game, they mimic that and you can flip between the two. When you are the hero, the villain is going to be scheming on their master plan a little bit but mainly going after the hero to knock them out. But if you flip over to alter-ego, the villain won’t be able to attack you, because they don’t know that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, but instead they’ll scheme more. There’s a downside to being flipped in alter-ego form, though, you aren’t able to attack them or thwart their scheme as that might reveal to them who you are. It’s a very clever little thing in the game, but it gives it a good comic book feel. The biggest issue with Marvel Champions right now is keeping up with it and finding what’s already been released. We know that we have Black Widow, Doctor Strange and Hulk being added as characters soon, but I haven’t been able to get my hands on Ms Marvel or Captain America yet, or the Green Goblin villain pack.

Let’s get ready to rumble……..

Ding

This is almost a mirror match, but Marvel Champions gets out to quick advantage where it is younger and doesn’t carry around as much baggage as Marvel Legendary does. But Legendary is able to fight back as it has a weight advantage and tries to bully Champions into a corner with all the different characters that it has. But it’s moves are too slow and lumbering, Champions escapes the corner and is picking up new moves all of the time. It uses the agility of Black Widow to get behind and Hulk smashes Legendary down to the mat. Thor drops Mjolnir on Legendary.

1…. 2…. 3

We have a winnter:

Marvel Champions

For me, this isn’t all that close, Marvel Champions is a better game, and I was even worried about picking up Marvel Champions because I wasn’t sure I was going to like it. But the game just works better, you don’t end up having combos that don’t work that well, which you do in Marvel Legendary, and the game plays a lot faster. While with more players Champions will add time to it’s game, you are immediately doing something and immersed into the comic book nature of the game as compared to Legendary where you might spend half the game getting to the point where you are able to pull off a combo and that might never happen just because of a shuffle. In Champions, you’re able to play good cards right from the beginning. And I think because of that, you always feel like you have a chance in the game, even though my playing Spider-Man solo against Rhino has been a resounding defeat both times, I always felt like, because I was learning, I knew where I had gone wrong, as compared to Legendary where there are so many variables that it might just be nothing that I did wrong, and I still get stomped. I think that Legendary is fine and I’m willing to play it, but I’d always prefer to play Marvel Champions.

I do want to think about, if you already own Legendary, does Champions do enough different for you to add it to your collection? For me, I’d say yes. I think being able to focus on a single hero and play that hero, plus the superhero and alter-ego sides, it makes the game feel different enough. The deck building and management during the game feels different as well, because you might want to get some powerful cards, but those might also cause you to go through your deck faster, which is a negative in the game but not a negative to the game. If it’s the other way around, I think that maybe the Legendary core set, but if you were to get expansions for one of the games, definitely Champions as with it, it feels like it’s giving you more options versus Legendary where it feels like bloat at times.

Which do you prefer?

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