Deck-building games are something of a new trend in tabletop gaming. To the point where their popularity has led to video games that mimic their real-life counterparts: but we think deck-builders are best played in-person with friends. But what are deck-builders? Let’s play:
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If you’ve been around the gaming scene, you may have played a collectible card game at one time or another. And if you haven’t, you probably still know about them. Magic: The Gathering was a cultural phenomenon in the early nineties, and its influence is still felt today. Collectible card games (sometimes abbreviated CCG) and trading card games (TCG) have been a cornerstone of tabletop gaming for years.
If you’re one of the millions who have played Magic: The Gathering, then you know the object of the game is to use your deck of collected cards to beat your opponent on a mythical battlefield. Your deck consists of the cards you collected outside the game to use while you’re playing.
Deck-building games take a slightly different approach to gameplay. Instead of buying packs of randomized cards as you would for Magic, deck-builders include all the cards that are needed for the base game (many deck-builders offer expansion packs) and players build their decks during the course of the game, rather than beforehand.
Magic: The Gathering has been popular since the nineties and still has a following today.
How does that work? Let’s go no further than the first deck-building game: Dominion. In this game, players assume the roles of monarchs who are competing to build the best kingdom: represented by the cards in their hands. At the beginning of the game, the players all have the same 10 cards, but as the game progresses, the monarchs start “buying” different cards which represent different traits, money, properties, and so on. The object of the game is to collect the most “victory” points after certain in-game events have occurred, as measured by the deck the players have built throughout the game. In essence, the players build the best decks to win the game.
As mentioned, Dominion is the first deck-building game, but its popularity created a genre of deck-builders including Thunderstone and Hero Realms, as well as variants based on cartoons, television shows, and comic books.
