Tag: Deck Building

Deck Building is a mechanic where players build a deck of resources that is randomly drawn and used for future turns.

Lions of Lydia

Lions of Lydia

Lions of Lydia

The ancient world is changing. The kingdom of Lydia has minted the world’s first gold coin. Bartering and trading will soon be supplanted by coins as the dominant medium of exchange throughout civilization…

Lions of Lydia is a bag-management and engine-building game about the dawn of currency. As an influential leader, you send merchants out to barter for resources and increase your landholdings. When the nobles arrive, they bring their Lydian Lion coins into play—which have unparalleled buying power.

To achieve victory, you must manage the merchants in your bag and complement their abilities with the cards in your tableau. Traditional merchants produce basic resources, which are necessary to build your engine—but if you fail to convert your resources into coins, you will not be able to buy the most valuable cards! Thus, noble Lydian merchants—and their golden Lion coins—are the key to success. When enough properties are developed, the game ends, and a winner is declared!

Will you draft the best merchants to achieve your goals? Will you be the first to gain the most valuable properties? Will you master the new, golden currency: the Lions of Lydia?

Game Mechanics:

  • City Building
  • Deck Building
  • Economic
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 1.92

Legendary: Marvel Deck Building Game

Legendary: Marvel Deck Building Game

Legendary: Marvel Deck Building Game

Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game is set in the Marvel Comics universe. To set up the game, players choose a mastermind villain (Magneto, Loki, Dr. Doom, Red Skull in the base game), stack that particular villain’s attack cards underneath it, then modify the villain deck as needed based on that villain’s particular scheme. Players then choose a number of hero decks – Spider-Man, Hulk, Wolverine, etc. – and shuffle them together; since players use only a handful of hero decks out of the fifteen included, the hero deck can vary widely in terms of what’s available.

Over the course of the game, players will recruit powerful hero cards to add to their deck in order to build a stronger and more resourceful deck. Players need to build both their recruitment powers (to enlist more heroes) and their fighting ability (to combat the villains who keep popping up to cause trouble). Players recruit heroes from an array of five cards, with empty slots refilled as needed. At the start of a player’s turn, he reveals a villain and adds it to the row of villains. This row has a limited number of spaces, and if it fills up, the earliest villain to arrive escapes, possibly punishing the heroes in some way. Some villains also take an action when showing up for the first time, such as kidnapping an innocent bystander. The villain deck also contains “master strike” cards, and whenever one of these shows up, the mastermind villain (controlled by the game) takes a bonus action.

As players fight and defeat villains, they collect those cards, which will be worth points at game’s end. Players can also fight the mastermind; if a player has enough fighting power, he claims one of the attack cards beneath the mastermind, which has a particular effect on the game. If all of these cards are claimed, the game ends and players tally their points to see who wins. If the mastermind completes his scheme, however – having a certain number of villains escape, for example, or imposing a certain number of wounds on the heroes – then the players all lose.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.44

Legendary: James Bond Deck Building Game

Legendary: James Bond Deck Building Game

Legendary: James Bond Deck Building Game

Each player starts with their own deck of basic starting cards. At the start of your turn, play the top card of the Villain Deck which allows Villains and Missions to enter “On Assignment”, acquire Gadgets, and wreak havoc on the players in other nefarious ways. Then play Hero cards from your hand to generate Attack, Recruit Points, and special abilities. You use Attack to defeat your enemies. You use Recruit Points to recruit more powerful Heroes from “Q Branch” for your deck. Whenever your deck runs out of cards, shuffle your discard pile to make a new deck, including all the new Heroes you recruited. This way your deck gets stronger and stronger over time. Build up enough power, and you can defeat the Mastermind! But be careful: If the players fail too many Missions, the Mastermind wins the game!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • ~45 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.29

Legendary Encounters: Firefly Deck Building Game

Legendary Encounters: Firefly Deck Building Game

Legendary Encounters: Firefly Deck Building Game

In Legendary Encounters: Firefly, players take on the roles of characters from the series and work together to complete objectives for episodes from the Firefly TV show. Players each select an Avatar out of the Main Characters of the game. Each game will have 5 Main Characters and 4 Supporting Characters, so all 9 crew members will be part of each game. The 14-card stack for each Supporting Character is shuffled together to form the Crew Deck, which will be used to build up each player’s deck.

Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game is a standalone game in the Legendary Encounters series that utilizes the Legendary Encounters system set in the Firefly universe. Playing with 500 cards and a roll-up playmat, you’ll build up your deck, coordinate with your crew, and upgrade your ship to gain advantages, but be careful that Serenity does not receive too many ship strikes. Get ready to explore the ‘Verse!

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 5 Players
  • 45 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.59

The Hunger

The Hunger

The Hunger

The Hunger is a race in which each vampiric player must optimize their card deck, hunt humans to gain victory points, fulfill secret missions, and eventually acquire a rose and return to the castle before sunrise. The more you hunt, the slower both you and your deck become, which will make it harder and harder to get back before daybreak. Can you become the most notorious vampire without burning to ashes at sunrise?

During the game, players spend “speed” to move their vampires around the map, hunt humans worth victory points, and add new cards to their deck.

The game ends at dawn, after which the surviving player with the most victory points on their cards wins!

Game Mechanics:

  • Action Points
  • Deck Building
  • Open Drafting
  • Push Your Luck
  • Set Collection

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • ~60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.24

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Based on simple and intuitive hand management, Heat: Pedal to the Metal puts players in the driver’s seat of intense car races, jockeying for position to cross the finish line first, while managing their car’s speed if they don’t want to overheat. Selecting the right upgrades for their car will help them hug the curves and keep their engine cool enough to maintain top speeds. Ultimately, their driving skills will be the key to victory!

Drivers can compete in a single race or use the “Championship System” to play a whole season in one game night, customizing their car before each race to claim the top spot of the podium. They have to be careful as the weather, road conditions, and events will change every race to spice up their championship. Players can also enjoy a solo mode with the Legends Module or add automated drivers as additional opponents in multiplayer games.

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 6 Players
  • 30 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.16

G.I. Joe Deck Building Game

In G.I. JOE Deck-Building Game, you and your fellow players will lead teams of G.I. JOE soldiers on missions to stop Cobra’s dastardly plans! Each player starts the game with a meager deck that will grow more powerful as you recruit veterans from the G.I. JOE team, requisition gear, and field new vehicles. This fully co-operative game pits you against increasingly dangerous missions to save the world. This core set begins your journey with everything needed to play, but be prepared for more JOEs and missions to come!

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 70 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.88

Few and Cursed, the

The Few and Cursed is a deck-building adventure game based on the Comic Series of the same name. It takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth where most of the water on the planet has been gone for seventy years.

Even though what was left of mankind found a way to adapt using water, the most valuable asset on the planet, as currency, survival turned the world into a wicked wasteland where it’s either kill or be killed. And evil not only endured, it won.

People turned to dark arts, old tales of mischief and curses to survive. Death is everywhere. But for every darkness there is light – and among the few and cursed are those willing to fight to bring balance to the land: the Curse Chasers.

In the game, players take on the role of a “Curse Chaser” looking to make a name for themselves by searching for supernatural artifacts, completing jobs, or bounty hunting. Players traverse the desert of the Pacific Ocean as they improvise and acquire new cards for their deck on their quest for fame or infamy.

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 60 – 120 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.64

Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates

While playing Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates, you become a pirate captain sailing three ships through the Caribbean in search of rich merchants to plunder and friendly ports in which to trade your booty for riches.

In more detail, you have one ship on each of the three “tracks”, i.e., pathways through the Caribbean Sea. On each turn, you play three cards from your hand to move your ships. Your cards have a basic movement number, and often a secondary action. You may use one or the other to move your ships down the track or gain special advantages.

Each of the three tracks winds through the Caribbean islands toward your ultimate goal: the Spanish Treasure Galleon at Trinidad. Along the way, there will be detours that lead to merchant ships that may be plundered, and towns that may be visited to cash in your plunder for treasure. Plundering merchant ships and visiting towns also allows you to recruit more crewmen (cards) for your crew (deck). The better your deck is, the faster that your ships are able to move, so deciding when to take detours for plunder and recruiting and when to sail on toward your ultimate goal is an important decision that every pirate captain must make.

The first pirate captain to reach the Treasure Galleon at the end of any track ends the game. Each pirate ship scores points based on what place they finished on each track, as well as for the treasures earned by selling plunder. The richest captain goes down in history as the Pirate King!

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 6 Players
  • 45 – 60 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.18

Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Annihilageddon Deck-Building Game

Revisit the world of Epic Spell Wars. Mercilessly attack your foes and kill them over, and over, ah-and over! Take advantage of your wizard’s special ability tile and familiar card that only you can buy!

It’s an all-out battle to the death for the Annihilageddon trophy in the crazy world of Epic Spell Wars! While fully compatible with other Cerberus Engine releases, Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Annihilageddon Deck-Building Game features a whole new world of mayhem…literally.

Mayhem Events, Familiars, Past Champions, Wizards, Spells, Creatures, Treasure, and Wild Magic. It all adds up to an Epic Spell Wars experience unlike anything you’ve seen before. And fans of the series have seen a lot. Yeesh.

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 5 Players
  • 60 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.08