Deck Building Games

1. Nightfall
2. Ascension

1. LEGENDARY (Marvel)
2. Core Worlds
3. Ascension
4. Nightfall

Blood Bowl Team Manager is either the best deckbuilding game, or it isn't a deckbuilder at all. Because I usually hate deckbuilding games but I really like Blood Bowl Team Manager. Usually the deckbuilding aspect doesn't fit the theme of a game at all, and feels contrived. But it's a very good thematic match for a really violent sport, where athletes might understandably need to sit out the next game or two while recuperating.

Slapshot might be one of the first deckbuilding games, and also is a good match of theme and mechanic. It doesn't offer as many tactical choices as Blood Bowl Team Manager, but is certainly a lot more fun than playing War.

1. Dominion: Simple, brilliant, addictive, and more thematic than people give it credit for (not in a narrative or setting kind of way, but the card effects are very thematic, moreso than many card games). It's a classic and incredibly popular for a reason.

2. Shadowrift: A great co-op deck-builder with a really good thematic structure.

3. Legendary: The difficulty sways quite a bit, depending on what mastermind/scheme you're playing against, but it's pretty solid, in general.

4. Thunderstone: Clunky and long, but still decent. Haven't played "advance," yet, and that probably improves it.

5. Acsension: If for nothing else than the iOS version. I'm not sure I'd be that crazy about it, otherwise, though.

Others I've played like Nightfall, Penny Arcade, Rune Age, the DC Comics game and the Star Trek DBG are all kind of "meh." I still haven't played Core Worlds, Eminent Domain, Puzzle Strike, Quarriors or A Few Acres of Snow. I've heard good things about Fantastiqa. Btw, the creators of Sentinels of the Multiverse are coming out this year with a co-op deckbuilder called Galactic Strike Force that sounds like it might be good.

The best game that includes some hint of deck-building would have to be Mage Knight.

(I exclude Mage Knight. I like it, but it's not really a deck-building game.)

1. Rune Age (It has exactly that freestyle tactical card combat I was waiting for in a game, ever since I learned about Dominion.)
2. Thunderstone (It was far from love at the first sight. In fact, first I hated it, it felt like a less interesting variant of Dominion. Once I have played it enough online though, I really got to love it.)
3. Dominion (When it comes to variety of combos, it's still the best out there, but I kind of burned out on it after playing too much on Brettspielwelt and against the AI of the unofficial PC version.)

...
Ascension, Nightfall, Core Worlds. I don't really like these.

I would love to try A Few Acres of Snow and StarCraft, maybe Arcana as well.

If we can vote for Slapshot that's my #1. I don't think Team Manager is a DBG that's why I didn't include it.

1. Ascension
2. Penny Arcade
3. Legendary
4. Thunderstone
5. Rune Age

-382. Dominion

Deckbuilders- card games in which the collating of an individual deck of cards is the central mechanic and process of play. Board games may employ deckbuilding techniques, but are not considered to be deckbuilder genre games as established by Dominion.

So no Mage Knight or Starcraft. Yggdrasil, not sure how that got in there.

I don't know, playing Dominion recently I still feel the same way about it as I did back when it came out (great mechanic in search of a game) but it almost feels irresponsible to NOT list it as the best, even though I like others better. It's really become an important, resonant game. Big enough to reside along the likes of Settlers, Carcassonne, Ticket to Ride, and Puerto Rico. It's just shy of being a tentpole brand. And it DOES get better when you bring in a larger field of cards.

But I'd still probably go with Ascension on top.

Rest would be Thunderstone Advance, Resident Evil, Nightfall, and Arctic Scavengers in any order. Puzzle Strike is cool, but for some reason, it doesn't really compel me. Haven't tried Core Worlds, that's the main one I'd like to play.

Really would like to see the new Arctic Scavengers...damn shame it's taken so long.

Trains looks awesome.

Ascension is just Fluxx with nice artwork.

YOU are just Fluxx with nice artwork.

Bull Nakano wrote: Ascension is just Fluxx with nice artwork.

Ascension has nice artwork??

Ascension is decent. I like that there's some more interaction to it, and the way that VPs are drained from a collective pool. But there are important decisions to make, and better players will win, so nothing like Fluxx.

Before I played the ios version, the artwork was the only thing I liked about it. As an ios game, it's excellent. The ability to play 30 seconds at a time is the perfect length to play the game before my interest drops off.

I still feel it's similar in feel to Fluxx. Of course, it's deeper, but if you try to dive in you'll still crack your skull. Much of the challenge of the game amounts to playing your cards in the right order. You can explore a strategy if it presents itself to you, but if it doesn't, you cant. There are times you want to buy two cards but have to choose between them, but usually you just 'do your best' and see which player was allowed by the game to do better. There's skill in recognising opportunities presented to you and more importantly, avoiding cards you CAN buy but would ruin your deck.

There's two types of Ascension players, those that buy that 1 mana lifebound faerie and those that don't.

Bull Nakano wrote: Ascension is just Fluxx with nice artwork.

Horseshit is just that post.

They have zero similarities. Oh, wait — they both use cards. They have one similarity.

Michael Barnes wrote: YOU are just Fluxx with nice artwork.

I hope that came from this:



I pull that all the time with my wife.