Tag: Deck Building

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

Helionox: Deluxe Edition

| OTSG Staff
Helionox: Deluxe Edition

Helionox: Deluxe Edition

Helionox is a movement based deck building board game where great leaders vie for control in a shattered solar system. One to four players can attempt mastery over competitive, cooperative, and solo modes. Designed to play fast with a quick setup and an imminent ending, Helionox has tension to spare from the first turn to the last.


The Deluxe Edition of Helionox brings together the original core set of Helionox: The Last Sunset and incorporates it with a brand new expansion called Mercury Protocol. The Kickstarter will offer a full sized box and game board along with the expansion and can be purchased via Kickstarter with or without the original core set.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Worker Placement

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 30 – 90 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.59

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

| OTSG Staff
Heat: Pedal to the Metal

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 Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Racing

Game Specifications:

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

God of War: The Card Game

| OTSG Staff
God of War: The Card Game

God of War: The Card Game

Ragnarök is coming. The fate of all existence is at stake. Is destruction inevitable, or are there ways to avoid ultimate cataclysm? The Norns, mystical beings of great power, have decided they will not go quietly into oblivion and have turned their attention to the well of Fate, Urðr, in order to find any possible way to stop Ragnarök. Looking deep into the swirling waters, they can foresee which potential combination of heroes, villains, battles, victories, and defeats might stop the end of all that is known — but will they find the right combination in time? Is there any true path to salvation at all? They must hurry and seek the true way through, before all is lost.

In God of War: The Card Game, players take on the role of the Norns as they try different combinations of heroes and events in order to stop Ragnarök. Each game is a new attempt to find the right key to saving Midgard from destruction. Players must work together, embodying mighty heroes such as Kratos, Mimir, Atreus, Brok and Sindri, and Freya. They will fight enemies and bosses from the popular God of War video game, but combined and remixed in exciting new ways, creating unique “What if…?” scenarios each time they play. If they succeed, the way forward has been secured and Ragnarök can be halted. Failure means the Norns will have to try again as only death and destruction lay along that particular path.

Each quest in God of War: The Card Game is made up of a mosaic of cards that recreate monsters and locations from the video game. Each quest’s mosaic is different, and each card is double-sided, depending on whether a section has been destroyed or not, and each has special rules that go into effect when it is face up on the tabletop. Learning how each quest is won, as well as what strategy to employ, is key to victory.

As players progress, earlier quests have an effect on what comes after them. At certain points along their path, players must choose which quest they will complete. Completing one might grant a bonus, but quests left untouched result in dire permanent consequences as the players move forward. These choices and challenges lead to new strategies, making it so no two games of God of War: The Card Game are alike.

Heroes in the game have several elements that make them unique. Each comes with their own dashboard that explains their special abilities and health totals, in addition to tracking the number of cards a player can keep in their hand from round to round. Tokens are used to keep everything clear as heroes gain and lose health and build up their power so they can unleash a mighty special attack. Heroes begin the game with a unique starting deck of cards that will be augmented from additional decks as the game progresses. Players can construct their deck to focus on their strengths or look for ways to generalize their approach, preparing for future quests that lie ahead. Each hero also has a unique standee that indicates which portion of the mosaic they are facing. With multiple heroes from which to choose, numerous ways to build their deck, and various different quests to attempt, each game of God of War: The Card Game will be a new experience that will echo throughout eternity.

Game Mechanics:

  • Cooperative
  • Deck Building

Game Specifications:

  • 1 – 4 Players
  • 90 – 180 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.57

G.I. Joe Deck Building Game

| OTSG Staff

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 Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

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

Few and Cursed, the

| OTSG Staff

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 Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

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

Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates

| OTSG Staff

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 Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

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

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

| OTSG Staff

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 Mechanics:

Game Specifications:

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

Dominion: Seaside

| OTSG Staff

All you ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by. And someone who knows how to steer ships using stars. You finally got some of those rivers you’d wanted, and they led to the sea. These are dangerous, pirate-infested waters, and you cautiously send rat-infested ships across them, to establish lucrative trade at far-off merchant-infested ports. First, you will take over some islands, as a foothold. The natives seem friendly enough, crying their peace cries, and giving you spears and poison darts before you are even close enough to accept them properly. When you finally reach those ports you will conquer them, and from there you will look for more rivers.
One day, all the rivers will be yours.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.49

Dominion: Prosperity

| OTSG Staff

Released in late 2010, Prosperity is the 4th addition to the Dominion game family. It adds 25 new Kingdom cards to Dominion, plus 2 new Basic cards that let players keep building up past Gold and Province. The central theme is wealth; there are treasures with abilities, cards that interact with treasures, and powerful expensive cards.

From the back of the box: “Ah, money. There’s nothing like the sound of coins clinking in your hands. You vastly prefer it to the sound of coins clinking in someone else’s hands, or the sound of coins just sitting there in a pile that no-one can quite reach without getting up. Getting up, that’s all behind you now. Life has been good to you. Just ten years ago, you were tilling your own fields in a simple straw hat. Today, your kingdom stretches from sea to sea, and your straw hat is the largest the world has ever known. You also have the world’s smallest dog, and a life-sized statue of yourself made out of baklava. Sure, money can’t buy happiness, but it can buy envy, anger, and also this kind of blank feeling. You still have problems – troublesome neighbours that must be conquered.
But this time, you’ll conquer them in style.”

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.47

Dominion: Plunder

| OTSG Staff

Across the sea, they have so much stuff. And it’s so much better than your stuff. Finer craftsmanship. Better quality materials. Shinier. They have crowns, tiaras, and diadems — and that’s just the hats. It’s time to get some of that stuff. You want an easy life, and you’re prepared to work hard for it, so you’ve rounded up some old salty dogs, plus a sourpuss and a bitter goldfish. And set sail. The sea is a harsh mistress, but a good cook, at least if you like everything really salty. There are red skies tonight, so they’ll be making a batch of Sailor’s Delight, which you understand to have tuna fish in it. And soon you’ll be attacking merchant ships and taking their treasure. But the real treasure is the happy memories you’ll be making.

Dominion: Plunder is the 15th expansion to Dominion. It has 500 cards, with 40 new Kingdom cards. It has lots of Treasures and Durations, with cards that give you Loot, and Traits that modify piles. Events return.

Game Mechanics:

  • Deck Building
  • Hand Management
  • Open Drafting

Game Specifications:

  • 2 – 4 Players
  • ~30 Minutes
  • Difficulty Weight 2.33