Games played on tables (and sometimes floors, ottomans and parking lots).
Deck Building Games, Cryptozoic (DC, Middle Earth) & Upper Deck (Marvel)
The Lord of the Rings - LotR & Hobbit Deck Building Games
On-topic and slightly off-topic depending on your point of view, but I am going to write about a fun Deck Building Game based on Middle Earth. I stumbled across the Hobbit Deck Building Game at a loca...
I am not sure the best or most appropriate way to cross-post something here on Imzy, but linked is a post I wrote over on Lord of the Rings about Cryptozoic's Deck Building Games for Middle Earth.
Additionally, my son is into DC, so we picked up a number of the DC DBG as well. While I don't feel the DC games are as deep or that I don't feel as connected to them, I do have a lot of fun with them. I don't mind destroying cards as much, for instance, as it is just a game and not characters or objects I'd really want to have (vs. I cannot bear to destroy certain heroes, artifacts or maneuvers in the Middle Earth games).
One problem with the DC universe is that it doesn't seem anywhere near as deep as the Marvel universe, or at least not in what I recognize in the lesser-known enemies and arch-enemies and heroes. That is ok, and I just play it for the fun of building up what makes the most effective deck, but I wish Cryptozoic had the rights to do Marvel as well.
The said, I also like the the Cryptozoic Cerberus game engine is rather easy to learn, even if each base game or add-on pack may have some extra rule twists. Like playing as the bad guys in the Forever Evil base game and trying to defeat the Superheroes.
There is a DBG by Upper Deck called Legendary for the Marvel universe, but right now I am not wanting to check it out (far from bored with the DC and Middle Earth games). I am sure at some point we will move over to the Marvel game, which is much more complex, and will probably be more enjoyable long-term. One upside to playing "less-popular"(?) DBGs is that they are much cheaper to pick up on Amazon. $10-25 each for Cryptozoic vs. $25-$60 for Legendary. The expansion's and add-ons are much cheaper with Cryptozoic as well, running about half the cost.
If nothing else, I am betting when we do move on to Legendary, that we will be glad we experienced DBGs in that order. We might not have picked up and gotten very into a more complex DBG system if it has been our first. Plus, having the "simpler" ones will be great to introduce friends to the DBG genre of tabletop games.
What are your thoughts? Do you play any Deck Building Games? If so, what are your favorite DBGs?
If you have never played one, here is a great demo of how the gameplay goes from a reviewer I enjoy watching. You can jump to about 4 minutes into to get right to the game play. https://youtu.be/PhBb0zJOnas




Ascension is fantastic. The expansions really add depth and new strategies to the experience. One downside is that player interaction ia fairly low. The Legendary games are great. There is a co-op aspect that works very well for family time, but you can play competitively at the same time..trying to score the most victory points. If your kid likes superheros, Dice Masters is an inexpensive and quite fantastic game. There is a collectable aspect as well. There are multiple dc, marvel, and other property sets available. Most starter kits run aprox. 15-20 bucks and have everything two people need to play. Booster packs are only $1 each.
Thanks, we'll give a few of these a try: Spiderman and the Light rings one as each kid likes one of those series. It is cool to be able to mix and match the Marvel and DC worlds. Too bad it is only 2 players, but it is a good filler game, and plenty of times only two want to play. Also, we could have two side-by-side 2-player matches going at the same time. I am betting we could make up some rules to even allow it to have some teaming up and swapping of dice or something between the matches. We love coming up with our own family rules to improve gameplay.
For sure! A friend of mine plays with heavily modified rules with his young kids.
One other thing of note: the rule books included in some of the dice masters sets can be a tad vauge. I suggest watching the tutorial on youtube by the "watch it played" guys. They explain things mich clearer than most rulebooks. Happy gaming!
Yes, that is great advice. We found watching a YouTube how to on DBG very helpful to get up to speed faster than the ruled as well, especially as the Level 1+ loot cards were not kept separate and we didn't notice the small text which showed they special. We thought we'd been shorted those cards at first.
After watching the video, I re-read the rules and it all makes much more sense.
Rule books seem to always be one of the main things most games could improve upon. That being said, its fun to come up with house rules as well :) also the spiderman set is my favorite! We buy most of the sets as they come out..for DC the war of light set has some very cool strategies..my gf usually beats me with her latlntern decks!!