Episode 124 AP Table Talk: Deck, Bag, and Pool Building
AP Table Talk: Deck, Bag, and Pool Building
Episode Summary:
In this episode of AP Table Talk, Brian and Dave Eng discuss the concept of deck, bag, and pool building in board games. They explain that deck building specifically involves players starting with a basic deck of cards, which they enhance throughout the game to achieve specific goals. The episode highlights "Dominion" as a pioneering deck-building game and mentions other notable games such as "Clank! In! Space!" and "Friday." The hosts also share their favorite deck-building games, including "Dune: Imperium" and "The Quacks of Quedlinburg." They conclude by debating the classification of various games and their mechanics, emphasizing the strategic decisions in deck building.
Brian Eng:
Hello, and welcome to AP Table Talk, a podcast where we explore board games and what makes them interesting to us. I'm your host, Brian, and joining me as always, my co-host, who is someone who somehow manages to be both incredibly knowledgeable and perpetually confused. It's the walking contradiction himself, Dave.
Dave Eng:
Hey, I am back. The walking contradiction himself.
Brian Eng:
How's it going?
Dave Eng:
I'm all right. How are you?
Brian Eng:
Yep, things are okay here. Weather is getting warmer here. Kids are outside a lot. Finally, got my gaming group back together.
Dave Eng:
Nice.
Brian Eng:
We're going to start getting some games back to the table. I assume you have your-
Dave Eng:
Got anything good on the table right now?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I might talk about it in this episode, actually. I finally got to play a game I've been wanting to play, so I think it will come up in this episode, so I'll save it.
Dave Eng:
All right, let's save it then.
Brian Eng:
Okay, so this episode, we will be discussing deck building, and so I'm going to refer to everything that we're talking about as deck building, but we mean deck building, bag building, pool building, anything. They're essentially the same, just using different medium. I guess I'll explain what we mean by that. What does deck building mean? When I think of deck building, generally a game where each player is playing. Again, I'm going to just talk about it in terms of cards because I think it's the simplest. Each player has a deck of cards and you're playing through that deck of cards and throughout the game you're trying to improve those cards by adding them through some mechanism or removing them in some games to give you kind of the most efficient deck to use to earn whatever goal it is in the game.
Dave Eng:
I think that is a solid definition. I think that one of those things that people forget is that while it's called deck building, sometimes there could also be unbuilding or deck destruction. Basically, coming from a Board Game Geek, again, the mechanic is deck, bag and pool building. It says that "players play cards out of individual decks seeking to acquire new cards and to play through their decks iteratively improving them over time through card acquisition or card elimination. It may include a random draw to form a hand from the deck from the current round, as in Star Realms, and the deck is automatically reset once the draw pile is exhausted, or it may allow access to all available cards at once, as in Concordia, until the discards are retrieved.
The latter may embody the action retrieval mechanic where the card use activates actions. This category also covers bag building, pool building related mechanisms using chits, dice, et cetera." Dominion pioneered this mechanism, however, the caveat here is collectible card games where the players purchase or provide their own decks to play, such as in Magic: The Gathering, is listed under deck construction. I want to be very clear about that. We're considering Magic: The Gathering, and BGG also considers Magic: The Gathering as deck construction, whereas this episode in this mechanic, we're talking about deck, bag and pool building.
Brian Eng:
I think we may talk about it more later, but essentially, the difference to me is in deck construction, your deck is formed prior to the game, whereas in deck building, you are forming the deck throughout the game.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I call that it's the main action in the game. The construction of it is the main mechanic of the game. You have to do it as part of the game.
Brian Eng:
I was also going to break a little bit from our normal format in this episode because I am almost positive that both of us will be discussing Dominion in this episode. Just to give a better idea of deck building, because Dominion is the game that essentially pioneered deck building, and I just was going to run through the general setup and loop of Dominion to give a better example of the definition of deck building. Generally, in Dominion... if you have no objections, I'm going to do that. Again, I'm sure we will talk about Dominion in this episode. In Dominion, I believe you start with a deck of 10 cards and everyone has the same identical starter deck.
You draw, so that becomes your draw deck. You will draw five cards, which will become your hand, and you play those five cards. Then in each round, you'll play the cards that you draw, and then that becomes a discard and you'll draw five new cards and you'll continue to do that. As your draw deck depletes, once you go to draw and you don't have any cards left in your draw deck, you shuffle your discards and form a new draw deck. That's the general loop of a deck builder, or at least the common deck builder. There's been evolution and some innovation in that, and those cards can be used in different ways depending on the game. In Dominion, I think it's generally you get money, victory points or actions.
Dave Eng:
Yup, and buy. Buy is one of the actions.
Brian Eng:
Yes, right. Again, we talked about adding and removing cards. You start with cards that are very low value and you want to increase those, but you want to remove those low value cards because it becomes difficult to use your other cards because as you grow your deck, you're only drawing five cards. What you want to be able to get those valuable cards more often, so you want to discard or as it's, the term I think that we use is thinning your deck by trashing cards. When we say trash, we mean as opposed to when you play a card, it's discarded into your discard pile. When you trash a card, it's out of the game.
Dave Eng:
That's correct.
Brian Eng:
You remove it completely from your deck and thus leaving hopefully, a more efficient deck.
Dave Eng:
I think that's a really good summary of overall, since Dominion pioneered this mechanic. Like you said before, Bri, other games have iterated on this, but that's generally the gist of how a deck building game works.
Brian Eng:
Even within Dominion, there's caveats. I don't know how many expansions Dominion's had.
Dave Eng:
Too many.
Brian Eng:
There's all kinds of exceptions they've made and interesting things they've done with it. Stripping it down to just the bare bones of the deck building mechanics, I think that's the general gameplay loop of the deck building portion of it.
Dave Eng:
Yep. Cool.
Brian Eng:
Okay, so we can get down to our examples here.
Dave Eng:
Do you want to do our die roll or initiative?
Brian Eng:
Oh, yeah. Right.
Dave Eng:
Here.
Brian Eng:
Let me gran my die here.
Dave Eng:
If you're listening to AP Table Talk for the first time and aren't familiar, Brian and I both have a D20, and we're going to roll it. Whoever rolls the highest is going to have initiative and we'll lead off this section, which is we're going to start out with major example. Brian, when you're ready to roll, I'm ready to go.
Brian Eng:
Major examples, yeah, so I am going to roll. Ready? 3, 2, 1.
Dave Eng:
All right, I got five.
Brian Eng:
Okay, I got 10.
Dave Eng:
All right, so you'll lead.
Brian Eng:
I will go first. Our first example is the first game that we played. Now, in this case, I did skip Dominion. Again, I think we're going to talk about it a lot, and I wanted to get some other games onto the list here. I do believe that Dominion is probably the first deck building game I played. The only one that might've come close would be Star Realms, but I'm also not going to talk about that one. Before I continue, Dave, me and you have talked about this in the past. I used to feel that I disliked deck builders, and over the course of our years playing board games together, I think I've turned around on that. Instead of talking about my first deck builder, I'm going to talk about the first deck building game that I enjoyed.
Dave Eng:
It converted you?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, that kind of converted me. This goes back to a year that we were at PAX, 2017 PAX East. We actually played a few deck builders. Three in particular come to mind. I won't talk about all three of them, I'll pick one, but the three that we played that year was Doom, the board game, which is kind of a deck builder mixed with a dungeon crawling game, kind of like Descent. Roll for the Galaxy, again, I guess more of a pool builder. That one is I guess the reiteration of Race for the Galaxy. The one that I'm actually going to talk about that I think is actually a pretty big game is the second version of the game, which I like, Clank! In! Space!, which the original clank the adventure game. Clank! In! Space!, I like my sci-fi, and I like some of the changes they made to the gameplay. Clank! In! Space! is I guess a mixture of deck building, and I'm not even sure, it's almost two deck builders in the game.
Dave Eng:
Was playing in space critically different from the original Clank!? Because I don't think I ever played this one.
Brian Eng:
Gameplay-wise, it's very much the same, but there was a few little troll-y things you can do in the original Clank! That I didn't like as much. I'll start off, so in Clank!, you are using your deck building to move your way through, in the original, through a dungeon, or in Clank! In! Space!, through a spaceship. You're trying to essentially loot some stuff off the spaceship and then escape to an escape pod. In the original Clank!, you're getting some loot from a dungeon and escaping the dungeon. In the original Clank!, so the difference that I'm talking about that made me like Clank! In! Space! better was in the original Clank!, as soon as you have any treasure, you can leave the dungeon. Then leaving the dungeon triggers an end state, so if people aren't prepared for that, you can grab a piece of treasure and immediately leave the dungeon, and people are just scrambling at that point.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah, that's right. Because you could awaken the dragon, basically.
Brian Eng:
Whereas Clank! In! Space!, you are required to get two security keys that are buried in the ship in order to get to the escape pod to get out. I think that was done probably on purpose for that reason. Again, other than that, the gameplay is essentially the same, just a different theme. Again, it's your standard deck building mechanic. You have your hand, you're getting items that'll help you traverse the dungeon, fight security that's on the ship. Traverse the dungeon or the ship or whatever. The little twist they did is on your cards, you could get, by the namesake, something called plus clanks. Every time you get a plus clank, you take a cube of your color and you put it into this clank area. I forget what it's called. I'm just going to call it the clank area. Some cards have... Sorry. Every time you play a card that, you put one of your colored cubes into this area.
There's a symbol that can come up on some of the cards as well, and when that symbol comes up, you take all of the cubes that are in that area and they go into a bag. As the game progresses, you draw more and more of these cards. What it does is the clank symbolizes you making noise, so the more noise you make, but generally, there'd be more clank on more powerful cards, so you're trading off. The more noise you make, you draw from that bag, and if your color comes up, you take a hit to your health. The more noise you make, the more chance of your cube coming out of the bag. It's a deck builder in your cards in the hand you form, and it's kind of a bag builder in this damage cube bag that gets made. Not quite a deck builder, but it does use that.
Dave Eng:
It does use the pool, because you're building pool.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, the pool builder.
Dave Eng:
It kind of affects the game.
Brian Eng:
Now, that's like a joint pool. That's the bad guys, the game's bag, they're drawing from when the event occurs. I liked that mechanic of like this gambling on, it's almost like a push-your-luck feel. Whereas yeah, even though you can make a bunch of noise, it doesn't necessarily mean that your cube is going to come out. You are changing the odds, but it doesn't mean that you will get your cube chosen.
Dave Eng:
That's true.
Brian Eng:
It just created this interesting kind of gamble of how much you want to push, do you want to take the noisier cards or the safer cards, and things like that. I really enjoyed that. The theme really clicked for me as well. That one is when I started to realize, "Hey, maybe I do like deck builders." Again, I'll probably talk more about my conversion on deck builders as we go. I would say that, that is the first one where I realized that, "Hey, maybe I don't dislike deck builders as much as I thought I did."
Dave Eng:
All it took was theme, a thematic change for commentary.
Brian Eng:
Some theme and some innovation to the core Dominion loop. I will talk about Dominion later in our episode here.
Dave Eng:
Cool.
Brian Eng:
All right, you can go ahead. Sorry, that was a little long-winded section for me.
Dave Eng:
No, I'm glad that you got Dominion out of the way because I was going to see how long we can go without mentioning Dominion. It was actually six minutes.
Brian Eng:
I think Dominion is going to come up a lot.
Dave Eng:
It pioneered the mechanic, so we have to talk about it.
Brian Eng:
It's talk hard to not talk about Dominion when you talk about deck builders.
Dave Eng:
For me, most noteworthy, again, Dominion was the first deck-
Brian Eng:
Sorry, are you doing most noteworthy or are you doing first game played?
Dave Eng:
I am doing biggest, most noteworthy first. Did you do first?
Brian Eng:
I did. I did first game played, but I did first game that turned me onto deck builders.
Dave Eng:
Oh, I see. For me, technically the first one was Dominion. We're talking about that a lot. What I'm actually going to do, I'm going to augment this. I'm going to change it to the first solo deck builder I played, which is a game called Friday by Friedemann Friese. Friedemann Friese is probably best known for his design of Power Plants? Power Grids.
Brian Eng:
Power Grid, yeah.
Dave Eng:
Power Grid. He also designed this solo deck building game called Friday, which I played. When I first started getting into game space learning, I used it as a sort of interview for some of my student staff. I had them play a solo game of Friday, and I was just evaluating how they played it, how they made decisions, et cetera. I didn't really know about game space learning at the time, but one, I thought it was interesting because one, I didn't really know a lot about solo games.
Brian Eng:
Friday is the solo only game. I think you've recommended it to me. I've never actually had a chance to try it.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, it's a solo only game.
Brian Eng:
That's a solo only game.
Dave Eng:
Where basically you're playing as Friday who's trying to survive on this island, and then he has to protect himself from the elements, protect himself from pirates or other people and animals and not die, basically. Friday was the first solo deck builder I played. Dominion was the first official deck builder I played. That's it for me.
Brian Eng:
We'll move on to our favorite, deck building games.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
I did list two here. My favorite deck building game, I think I would say probably by a lot is a newer game, and it's Dune: Imperium. Now, I think it has been argued on if it's a deck building game or a worker placement game, and I feel it's a strong one as it is the other. Each element relies on the other, so it's a good mix of the two. I mentioned I got a game to the table that my last session, I was finally able to play Dune: Imperium Uprising, which is I guess the second iteration of the game where they've more based on the second movie as opposed to the first movie. They incorporated a lot of the fixes that they had put in through expansions in the original Dune: Imperium.
Anyways, so in Dune: Imperium, yes, it's a mashup of deck building and worker placements. In Dune: Imperium, again, you have your standard setup. Everyone has the same starter deck. You draw your five, and you're able to use resources to buy from the market to increase your deck. There are spaces that allow you to trash cards. The way that they've innovated on deck building is that most of the cards have, so they're multi-use cards, and the cards all have some iconography on the one side, which on your turn, you play a card and they each have these symbols which allow you to go to certain spaces on the board.
That's the worker placement element. They also have a section for if you use the card to place a worker, there's possibly actions in addition to that from that card. Now, each person starts with two workers. You can get a third worker in the game. You draw your five, so you generally will have extra cards left after your workers are placed. Once everyone is placed, or once you've placed all your workers, you do what's called a reveal phase and you actually use the remainder of your cards and they have a second section at the bottom of the card where the cards are worth some type of value when they're not used. That will generally be a combat value, or I forget what the term they use, but essentially, the currency for buying more cards. I don't remember if it was influence or something like that.
Dave Eng:
It's not Solari, right? Because that's the cards in the game.
Brian Eng:
Sorry, so there is an actual currency in the game, but there is a currency used to purchase more cards. I think it's influence, maybe. I can't remember. I know what the symbol looks like, but that doesn't help on a podcast.
Dave Eng:
It's been a while since I played it, so I wish I could tell you, but I thought it was Solari.
Brian Eng:
Solari is the actual money, but that's not what you use to buy cards.
Dave Eng:
I thought Solari was what you used to buy cards.
Brian Eng:
There's three of traditional type of resources in the game. It's the Solari, the spice and the water. Then there's also, I think it's influence, but it's one that does not carry over. You only use it that round in order to purchase more cards.
Dave Eng:
I see.
Brian Eng:
The Dune: Imperium came out in 2020, I think it was supposed to coincide with the movie, and the movie got delayed, so it ended up coming out before the movie. I know it was talked about quite a bit, and I think it's still up there in the BGG list. I know a lot of people enjoy that one a lot. It has everything I liked. It does have a combat element to it. You're putting troops out, so it has that direct conflict. The board is pretty tight, so there's a lot of interaction, and even where you're playing your agents or your workers and whatnot. That, definitely, not just my favorite deck builder, but probably one of my favorite games. Top three, for sure. That is definitely my favorite game.
I do have a second, but why don't you go ahead and then I'll mention my other one briefly.
Dave Eng:
I have two.
Brian Eng:
You have two as well. Perfect.
Dave Eng:
It's a favorite and it's like a runner-up. I'll do my favorite and runner-up and we'll go into your runner-up. My favorite is actually a bag builder, and I think I talked to you about this before. It's a game called Altiplano, which we played at PAX a number of years ago when I was still new to the hobby and I still didn't know what was going on. Altiplano is a bag building game that's kind of the spiritual successor to Orleans, where you're putting different, they call it chits, C-H-I-T-S, into a bag, cardboard chits. Then when you pull them out of your bag, similar to a deck, and then you can pull out so many chits based on how far up you progressed on a place on the board called the road. Then you sign those chits to different places on the board and then you resolve actions on those places. Similar to what you said, Bri, about Dune: Imperium, where you could have chits to resolve for a location, but you also need to be at that location in order to resolve it.
I'd say Altiplano, in my group, I have Altiplano, my friend of mine has Orleans and we've played both of them, but still my favorite is Altiplano. It's rather dry. The last time I got on the table was a few weeks ago, and I just discovered based on my objective and where I was at on the map, I'm like, "I'm just going to spend the next 10 turns going back and forth, turning this into this so I can get victory points to win this particular objective." Despite that, I'd still like Altiplano because it is a game based in Peru, which is a country I visited a number of years ago. I really loved it. I hiked the trail to Machu Picchu and the group I hiked with gave me a little Machu Picchu shot glass, which is what I use now for the first player token in the game.
Brian Eng:
Oh, nice.
Dave Eng:
My number one is going to be Altiplano. My number two, which is my runner-up, and then I'll go to you, Bri.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, go ahead.
Dave Eng:
It is considered a bag building game, but I really consider it a push-your-luck game. Similar to you, Bri, I did not like push-your-luck games until I played this game, which turned me onto it, which is The Quacks of Quedlinburg.
Brian Eng:
You know what? I was going to guess it because I know you like that game and I kind of forgot about it as a bag building game. Because I think about what I think you're going to put on your lists. In case I think we're going to have too many duplicates, I try to have another one ready, but I was like, "Oh, I remembered you like that one." When I got to this point. I was going to guess this. I thought this was going to be your favorite, actually.
Dave Eng:
Oh, really? Quacks? I like Altiplano a lot despite the fact that it's really dry, but I like Quacks.
Brian Eng:
I think we don't talk about Altiplano as much. I do remember playing the game, I don't remember the details, but I remember enjoying that game when we played it.
Dave Eng:
It's basically, it's bag building, resource conversion. I didn't like the fact that I was doing the same thing for 10 turns because that was the most efficient way to gain points. I really like Quacks because there's that whole aspect of should I keep pulling from my bag or do I have the chance to explode? Despite the fact that I probably will explode, I will still take potions in the bag. That is what really made me really like Quacks, even if it's a bag building/push-your-luck game. That is my honorable mention. My number one is Altiplano, honorable mention is Quacks of Quedlinburg. What about you, Bri?
Brian Eng:
I like Quacks as well. I think I generally do like push-your-luck as a mechanic. It's always just an element in the games that me and my brother would kind of create. It's just like, it's that whole no guts, no glory, just keep going. Even games like Can't Stop. Very simple, but I kind of like it. It doesn't mean I'm good at it because I'll just keep going.
Dave Eng:
Keep pushing, yeah.
Brian Eng:
All right, so the second one I wanted to put on my favorites, because I had Dune: Imperium in there, which is like a dual mechanic one. More closer to a pure, I guess in this case, a pure bag builder, is one. I don't think you like this one as much, but I really clicked with this one when we played. Another one we played at PAX together, and it's War Chest. I think we're actually playing it right now on Board Game Arena. In War Chest, you're choosing your troop types and they are represented by poker chips. I think there's four or five of them. You start with two of each of them in your bag.
Each round, or each turn you draw three chips, and each one allows you to do certain actions with that chip. Sorry, the actions are you can use the chip to move that unit. You can use that actual chip and physically put it onto the board to add that unit to the board. Sorry, I should mention the goal is there are a number of spaces on the board. It's like a hex board. There's a number of spaces where you are trying to maneuver and there are forts and you're trying to take the forts. It's an area control, I guess, game. You can place a unit on a fort that you own. If there are unit's already out there, you can use a chip to move the unit. If the unit is already out there, you can, I think it's called reinforce, where you add the chip and stack it on the other one.
That allows it to, basically allow it to take a hit without dying. Then each unit has different movement and different special attack and whatever. I think cavalry can move and attack once or move twice. I can't remember what it is. They're asymmetric units, so you're trying to figure out the combo. What I found very interesting was that decision between do I want to use the chip? If you use the chip to reinforce and make your unit stronger, it means that you have less of those chips to draw from the bag. That means that, that unit will come up less. You'll be able to use the unit less, statistically. Sorry, the other, you can also discard a chip to take another chip and put it and add it to your bag. That is the bag building part of it.
Dave Eng:
You were playing that on Board Game Arena, and I kind of shot myself in the foot because I have four chips per unit, I think.
Brian Eng:
I think you used all of them in one of them and then now you can't draw that unit anymore.
Dave Eng:
I was like, "I had to keep passing every turn now because I can't move this unit anymore." It's a super unit, but I can't move.
Brian Eng:
I think we've made that mistake when we were first playing it too, and that's when it clicked as like, "Oh, you have to balance off because there's a limited number of the chips." Because when you attack a unit and that chip comes off, it's out of the game. You only have so many. It's a relatively short game once you know the rules. I think it's first to six, you're trying to capture six forts first or whatever. I just found that very interesting. It has a few expansions, which essentially, just gives you more units. I like to play with drafting the units, so you get four different units and that becomes your... You take your two of each and the rest become where you can add to your bag if you want to use it, you turn that way. Again, it's only three chips a turn, so it moves pretty quickly. The rules are relatively simple. I really enjoy that one. I guess it's kind of an abstract.
Dave Eng:
I guess it's not necessarily bad, but I think that it's just elegantly designed.
Brian Eng:
The poker chips, I mean they're not high-end poker chip, but they have a nice feel to play that type of game with as well.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, exactly.
Brian Eng:
That was also up there as one of my favorites. I wouldn't put it higher than Dune: Imperium, for sure. It's more of a pure deck builder.
Dave Eng:
All right, can we go into our next section?
Brian Eng:
All right, we'll move on to the most noteworthy or the biggest game. We've already talked about Dominion, and it's hard to really say that anything is more noteworthy in deck building. What I decided I would do instead, so again, I talked about how I didn't really like deck building, and will I say that Dominion is one of the games that started me on that. Well, this is definitely, I don't really like it. Now, that is not to say that I think Dominion is a bad game. It just doesn't work for me. All the evidence shows that Dominion is a great game because people love that game. I tried to look into why I don't like Dominion. I talked about Star Realms very briefly, and I did Star Realms a little better, so I compared it. It's not one of my favorites, but I just compared it and thought about why I like Star Realms better because I would consider them both pure deck builders and they're both early in deck building evolution.
Some of the elements that I found that just didn't click with me was I found that in Dominion, even though we've talked about other pure bag builders, it became very, for me, once you figure out the combo you want, you're just repeating that, it felt like to me. Again, it made the game almost very front-loaded. You're making all your decisions early and those early decisions that you make and whether you're able to do them, if you had a better understanding of that game state of the combination of cards that were out there, if all the players are equal, it's a coin flip as whoever can pull off the first cards first and then you're just going through the motions after that.
Dave Eng:
It reminds me of Altiplano where I discovered, oh, I just have to go between these two places to turn these items into victory points, which it could be some people's, like that's their jam, that's what they want to do.
Brian Eng:
Exactly. Again, I don't think it's a bad game by any means. It just didn't click for me. I do find it a bit dry, thematically, as well. I don't know. It never clicked with me. Even through all the expansions, not that I've played all the expansions, but I'm sure I know I've seen cards that sound interesting to me, but it ended there. I was like, "Okay, that's an interesting card," but it didn't really turn me around to the game. I always just had a bad taste in my mouth on that game since I originally played it.
Whereas, I found with something like Star Realms, it felt a little more strategic. There was more variety in the cards. It doesn't technically have more variety, but it just felt that way in the game. They're both lacking in player interaction I think is what I felt as well, which is something that I think that both Dune and War Chest have plenty of as their direct conflict games. Also, just the pacing, I think, of Dominion. I guess if you're with people who play, it goes quickly, but because it felt monotonous to me, maybe it just felt slow to me. That's my delve into why it never clicked for me.
Dave Eng:
For my most noteworthy and biggest one, like you, I think it's really hard to talk about this mechanic without also mentioning Dominion. Technically, it is my first, it is my most noteworthy. The other ones I had on the list here was, I talked about Quacks because that was my runner-up for favorite. I think that's what turned me onto bag building and push-your-luck games. I also had Clank! on here because I thought that was one of the first times when I saw deck building really mashed up with a different mechanic, like point-to-point movement on the map and all of that. It wasn't just to build your deck, it was to build your deck to move around the map, to gather things that could get points. Then there was the whole thing with the bag and the dragon and all that.
Brian Eng:
I think Clank! did get really popular because it has acquisitions incorporated version, like legacy versions and a bunch of expansions. I think it did click with a lot of people.
Dave Eng:
For me, I'm going to have to go with the biggest most noteworthy, is going to be Dominion. Because the first time I played it, I remember it was truly, like I was trying to learn a new game for the first time. It was like when I was learning how to play trick-taking games, like with Spades, I had to create the pathway in my head for how you play this game. Dominion, it was completely different from anything I'd ever played. I had to relearn how to play this game from the ground up.
Brian Eng:
It's hard to really say that anything could be more noteworthy than it at this point because it's a relatively newer mechanic. If you were to compare it to trick-taking for example, that's been around for ages. One that just came to mind thinking about Dune, the same year that Dune: Imperium came out, there was another game that people liked to compare, although I did feel they felt very different to me. I understand why the comparison was there, was Lost Ruins of Arnak. That was another one that people really enjoy that one. I think the difference in the people that liked one over the other is, I mean I thought Dune: Imperium was far superior, or maybe not far superior, but I definitely preferred a lot more was the player conflict. Lost Ruins of Arnak, I don't think has any, other than because it has the same mix, which is where the comparison comes of worker placement and deck building. I don't think other than interfering indirect conflict.
Dave Eng:
You just draft against other players.
Brian Eng:
There's not really any take that in it, which as we've discussed in many episodes, I liked that.
Dave Eng:
You have to have that impact. It's not fun unless you're making someone else lose.
Brian Eng:
That was just another one that came to mind, that it was another one that was very popular. I think that in the long run, I definitely hear more about Dune: Imperium than I do about Lost Ruins now. All right, so I think that wraps up our major examples.
Dave Eng:
We covered all three there. Should we go to our next section?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, move on to our beyond the basics. Sure.
Dave Eng:
For beyond the basics, we're going to do what we did before. We're going to roll our D20 to see who's going to lead off on this section. Brian, ready to roll when you are.
Brian Eng:
Yep. Ready, 3, 2, 1.
Dave Eng:
3, 2, 1. All right, I have 11.
Brian Eng:
Okay, I got five.
Dave Eng:
All right, I will lead off. All right, so we're going to start off here according to my notes with integration on theme. The questions that we're going to lead off this section with is, is the mechanic flexible enough to fit different themes, game worlds and stories? Then the follow-up question, can it help create a cohesive and immersive experience? My opinion is that I can't say that there's a huge integration in theme with most of these games. Because, again, the most important, and I think the most interesting decision here is how you build your deck, how you cull or thin your deck, and then how you play with your deck throughout the game. I can't really think about a lot of other analogies to other things that the game's theme might be connected to. It's really up to the designer to connect them. However, if I went through my list, I was considering a deck bag and a pool building game, and I think that these are the ones that are closest to theme for me.
Number one would be Arctic Scavengers, and that's a game we played on Board Game Arena. That's another game that has a lot of expansions, not as much as Dominion, but the overall theme for Arctic Scavengers is that you're playing as a band of survivors and as arctic wasteland and you're trying to build a deck that allows you to scavenge for supplies, find other survivors, fight other bands of survivors. I like that game. I got a hard copy. I haven't played my hard copy yet, but I played a lot of it on Board Game Arena. I like the fact that the thematic connection for me is that you are playing in this arctic wasteland and it is like no-holds-barred. You may not always win every "round," but you just try to do the best of what you can. I think the thematic connection for me is the actual scavenging component, which is the part of the title for Arctic Scavengers. What about you, Bri, on integration with theme?
Brian Eng:
I think I agree with most of what you said. I think it is, not that it can't be done, but is one, when you're talking specifically about the deck building mechanic, it's one that's a little more difficult to tie it directly to a theme. We talked about Clank!, and that is one where I like the way they integrated the noise into the value of items that you get and integrated that into the deck building portion of it in order to create that tension. Another one that is a similar idea is a game that I really enjoy, which is Heat. That is one where again, so the namesake card in that is heat and you have a certain amount of heat in your deck and you're not necessarily wanting to get rid of it out of your engine. It's a resource that you have to strategically have it either in your engine or out of your engine in order to use it the best. In a lot of deck builders you have these cards that clog up your deck. For example, I think in Dominion it was curses.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, curses. Curses was one of them at least.
Brian Eng:
I think it was curses. I think Lost Ruins of Arnak also had curses. Essentially, there're cards that either are detrimental or do nothing, so that when you draw, you're essentially wasting your hand, so Heat.
Dave Eng:
Because you could only draw a limited number of cards.
Brian Eng:
Heat serves that role in the heat cards, serves that role in the heat game where you need to have heat in what they call the engine pile. Then certain maneuvers can spend that heat and put it into your deck where you draw it, and then you have to try and have cards that can get it back in. If you're unable to do that, you take in certain cases, or if you are doing certain maneuvers, you're taking also stress cards. I like the way they did stress cards. One of the mechanics, or one of the rules I guess in Heat is that as you take turns, there is a speed value. You're flipping cards over that have certain numbers on them and you need to decide how fast, and essentially, how many spaces you're going to go and certain turns. It's like you can't go more than six spaces around this turn because again, whether it's a sharp turn or a slower turn or whatever.
That's to give you that theme, and you can push faster than that rating at the cost of heat. One of the things that certain maneuvers add stress to your deck, and when you play stress cards, once you reveal the numbers that you have, including your stress cards, you have to draw cards from your deck, unknown until you get another speed. You know that your speed cards are generally one to four, so you can gamble and say, "Okay, well, I'm playing four and a stress card to go around this six turn." You can try and remember how many cards are in your deck. Do you have a lot of ones and twos left? I found that, that gave me that tension that felt like it was tying in with the theme of this race, Formula One racing kind of thing.
Dave Eng:
I think it's a really good game. I don't know if it's the one that I would play. We'll talk about a different one later. I appreciate the design though. I think that's one of the things that I really like about Heat in general. That and the fact that it's a really sought-after game.
Brian Eng:
Have you played that one in person or only on BGA with me?
Dave Eng:
I haven't had a chance to play it in person. No.
Brian Eng:
I think that playing it, that game works well with a large group because a lot of the turn can be done simultaneously. I think that game shines at six or seven people, even. Because you start to really get a crowded track and people are drafting and there's a lot of cheering and stuff like that and something that's happen in the turns and stuff. I think that, that really helps the enjoyment of that game. Because I would say, yeah, I don't think I'll play it too much on Board Game Arena, but playing it in person with a bunch of people is really fun. All right, we'll move on to depth and strategy.
Dave Eng:
I'm leading off on this one?
Brian Eng:
Sure.
Dave Eng:
All right, so for this one on depth and strategic options, we're considering the following questions. Does the mechanic offer meaningful choices and decisions for players? Does it create interesting decisions and trade-offs? Is there room for different strategies to emerge and compete? Mechanics that too simple can be repetitive while one that's overly complex might be daunting to newcomers. I will be hopefully the first one to say it, I think that deck bag and pool building, it has a lot of depth for this mechanic. I say that because if you've played it enough, you know what cards or chits or dice or whatever you need to get. Then there's that whole, I think, very strategic element about how and when to cull your pool. Remove cards from your deck, remove chits from your bag, remove other components from the pool, et cetera.
Then what I like about that is that you are only playing with the changes in the frequency in which things that can come up. You can never really decide that like, okay, on the next turn these cards are going to come up. You just know that by doing this, by buying new cards, by removing some cards or chits or anything else, you can just make it so that your next turn or future turn is going to be a little bit better than what's happening right now. I think that offers a lot of really great decision space.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I agree. I think that it's an interesting balance too. In some games when you know the cards, it creates that learning curve for a new player if they don't know the cards. You could also, if your market, your variety of cards is so large, that can balance that off a bit. Because yeah, you might know the cards, but those cards may never even come up at this game. Again, I'll think of like, Clank! has a huge bank of cards. As long as you know the possibilities I guess, of what types of cards can come up, it evens the playing field there a little bit.
The other side of that, knowing when you need to add or when you need to thin, I think the term in Dominion is when to start going green. That term is, in Dominion, the green cards are the victory points. It's how you win the game, but they also don't do anything for you. They clog your deck, but you need them to win. Also, I think it's one of the victory, or sorry, what's one of the end game conditions is to buy up all the six-point cards or something like that.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, that's the strategy always gone to.
Brian Eng:
Generally, the way the games end, once people have played the game a few times, you get to the point where it's like, okay, now you're just buying as many of the six-point cards as you can so that you can end the game.
Dave Eng:
The strategy is the Big Money strategy. You read about that one?
Brian Eng:
No, I don't think, or at least I don't remember.
Dave Eng:
Big Money is where you're just spending your turns to get the biggest money cards you can get so that you can trade those biggest money cards for the biggest point cards, and that's all you do on your turn.
Brian Eng:
Right, exactly. It's that knowing the game well enough to know when do you switch over, when do you make that switch from buying cards that are more utility into cards that will help you win the game. Different games have different things that kind of muddy the water a little bit there.
Dave Eng:
Then I had some games I didn't mention here, Bri, but did you have any games that you wanted to mention for strategic options?
Brian Eng:
I already spoke about it, so I'll just note it again here. One of my favorite decisions that I really enjoyed is in War Chest, that kind of decision of strengthening a unit versus, or strengthening the unit at the cost of decreasing how many times you can use that unit. I always thought that was a really interesting decision space.
Dave Eng:
For me, and I think that War Chest is really good at reducing that into strategic choice, that's relatively elegantly placed. I think that some of the heavier games that includes some depth and strategic options that also include deck building, Great Western Trail is one of them.
Brian Eng:
That's right. I kind of forgot about that one.
Dave Eng:
Because again, deck building is only part of the game. You're also resolving those cards to take actions in the game. I don't know if you consider this, Bri, because we played it on BGA a lot, was Obsession. You remember Obsession?
Brian Eng:
Oh, the Pride and Prejudice. The game
Dave Eng:
Yeah, where you are building a deck of cards in Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice kind of era. Again, I wouldn't say it's the main mechanic, but it's one of the ways in which you get victory points and progress throughout the game.
Brian Eng:
I joke about that game, but I actually really like that game a lot. Shall we move on to balance and fairness?
Dave Eng:
I'll lead off.
Brian Eng:
Do you want to keep going? Do you want me to lead or it doesn't matter?
Dave Eng:
What if you lead off on this one.
Brian Eng:
Okay, sure. When we're talking again about the deck building mechanic, I think when you have that element of randomness when you draw a random draw, there's always going to be the possibility that you're going to draw a bad hand or whatever. I feel what deck building excels at with randomness is at least allowing you to feel like you have some control in mitigating that as you sculpt your deck. I think that's why it doesn't feel as random as it might be because you do have control in, okay, well, I'm going to get rid of these cards. I'm going to add more of these cards in and allow you to sculpt those chances.
There's definitely randomness, which is always going to play with the balance and fairness. It never feels that unfair when you draw a bad hand, especially in games that can do it well. One of the things I think that something that uses, I'll use Dune again, because those cards are multi-use, if the situation comes up and the card is not useful as an activation card, then using it in the reveal phase might be useful. You even have more opportunities to mitigate drawing cards that you didn't need at the time. I would say, again, randomness is never going to be perfectly balanced, but it doesn't feel that way in deck builders, to me.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, that's true. I think that because it's random, you're never going to get a "fair draw." I think the most fair you can get is like, with Dominion, when you start at the very beginning, everyone has got the same 10 cards and you're going to get a random combination of five of those 10 cards.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, exactly.
Dave Eng:
I think what is appealing about deck bag and pool building games is that the randomness is based on input, which means you're going to get a random number of cards that come into your hand or into your pool or whatever you're building, but the output is not random. You can choose how and when to use those cards to accomplish X, Y, and Z in the game. I think that's an important consideration. Because an example of output randomness is whenever you, for Monopoly, you roll 2D sixes and then you've got to move those spaces. You don't have any other choice. With input randomness, like with deck builders, you're going to get a random number of cards based on how you've constructed your deck, and then you get to choose how you use it. I think that a really good way I would summarize it is that deck building games, and some other games, they can be both high luck and high skill, and that's okay. I think those are actually some of the most engaging games that people still play nowadays.
Brian Eng:
People argue Euro versus Ameritrash, and I don't think I generally favor pure Euro game. I like a little bit of chaos, a little bit of luck, as long as I feel like I can mitigate it somehow, or at least push things into my favor some more. It just creates more interesting situations, I think. All right, player engagement and fun.
Dave Eng:
I'll lead off this one.
Brian Eng:
Sure, go ahead.
Dave Eng:
All right, so for play engagement and fun, we're considering, does the mechanic create interesting and engaging moments for players? Does it lead to exciting turns and dramatic reveals and satisfying payoffs? Is it enjoyable to interact with and learn? Even the most strategic mechanic can fall flat if it is not fun to play. I do think it is incredibly fun to play when you get the right pull, draw or take, like I used Quacks of Quedlinburg before. I think that when you think you're going to explode but you don't, it's a really great feeling, and that's one of the reasons I really like that game. I think that there's a really fun cerebral aspect of building your bag or the deck the way that you want it to be and you need it to be.
It's also really fun when you get the draw to come out based on the work that you put into it. Some examples I like is we're playing Automobiles right now on Board Game Arena, which is a bag building game, Quacks of Quedlinburg. I really like that game of After Us we played on Board Game Arena because it combines deck building, but also tableau building. You're going to draw those cards, but you get to arrange how those cards fit into your tableau so that you can generate some resources for the game. I think that this is probably one of the most engaging and fun mechanics that I know of.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I agree. That good feeling of being able to pull off some combo that you planned as you were picking out those cards that you wanted to add to your deck. It's like, "Oh, I remember I had this other card." Some card comes on the market, it's like, "Oh, if I can get these two cards together, then I'll be able to do this and then this." Just being able to successfully do that is fantastic. You mentioned Automobiles, and again, I mean Heat I think has the same feeling of just like, oh, when the right cards come up at the right time, it's great. I don't know if you've played a game that Automobiles, it kind of reminded me of, I've only played it once and I've actually been looking for it because I think it'd be a good one to play with my kids. Have you ever played Cubitos?
Dave Eng:
Yes, I have.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, so another racing game. In that one, there are different colored dice that have varying faces and number of symbols that are on each different face. In each game, I guess you randomly pick the powers that each of the different colors have and you are moving through this kind of almost free-form race board and collecting coins to get more dice to add. Again, I like it because it adds in also the push-your-luck because you get to roll the dice, I think you pick seven dice or something like that. I can't remember what the number is. You pick seven dice or something, you roll them and every time a face comes up, you put it into your active area and you can continue to roll.
Whatever dice are remaining, as long as you don't roll all blanks, you can just continue to roll. It's not even Yahtzee rolls, you can just roll and roll. If you ever roll all blanks in the dice you rolled, then you bust and you're out. I think they give you a reward, not a reward, but a compensation when you bust too. Even that, it's like, okay, well, you push-your-luck, you push-your-luck, but at least you move up on this other thing that I think it can increase your hand size and things like this. That's another one where it's like, it just feels good when you can keep getting those rolls and different dice give you different powers and how they move and getting at the right time. It's just fun. It's just really fun.
Dave Eng:
I played Cubitos a few times. It wasn't really the game for me, but I do appreciate that whole like, yeah, you're building your pool of dice essentially, and you don't want to roll blanks.
Brian Eng:
We'll move on to variety and replayability.
Dave Eng:
You want to lead off on this one?
Brian Eng:
Sure. Again, I don't have much to say, but I will say, again, because you are creating this deck with however many different types of cards, it just creates a huge variability, which to me adds just almost an immense amount of replayability as far as combinations of cards that you can go and how you build your hand. Because it's generally very situational onto what comes up in the market or in Dominion, which cards you choose to play with as your market. I feel like it just gives you limitless options and directions you can go to build the strategy that you want or towards whatever gameplay style you prefer or whatever it is.
Dave Eng:
I think that you mentioned it before, but I actually put it in this category for variety and replayability, is that the elegance of choice and your favorite game was War Chest and I listed here as variety and replayability. Because once you know what you can do when you pull these chips from the bag, it's like, oh, okay, well, then really the change is just what chips are in the bag based on what units you're ever going to play with in the game. I ranked variety and replayability high with War Chest and Star Realms. Because Star Realms is a two-player game, there's only so many cards that you can put in your deck and play with during your game. I think that it has a lot of the positives of Dominion, but it doesn't have any of the negatives with downtime in between turns.
Brian Eng:
Moving on to innovation and originality.
Dave Eng:
I will lead off on this one?
Brian Eng:
You can go ahead. Yeah.
Dave Eng:
This one we're considering, does the mechanic offer something new and interesting or is it just a rehash of existing ideas? Because there's a game that pioneered it, Dominion, I think that it's considered new, although I would argue that every game mechanic has been new at some point when the first game used it. I think that this one is relatively innovative. There's still new games that are coming out that use the mechanic in different ways. I like to see some innovation when different game mechanics are mashed together. Specifically, Bri, you talked about Dune: Imperium, which I really like because it mashes up deck building with also worker placement, which are two really popular mechanics. I like that combination, and I think that another honorable mention out here goes to games like Hardback, because Hardback is a deck building game for a word game.
Brian Eng:
It's another one I forgot though, yeah.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, we played that on Board Game Arena too. If you like word games, if you like deck building games, Hardback, or its predecessor, Paperback, are good options to consider.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, Paperback was... Because I'm not big on, well, I mean, I guess when you say word games, most people think of Scrabble, and then my brother and my sister-in-Law got really into Bananagrams for a bit, but neither of them really clicked with me. I am not the greatest. My vocabulary is not fantastic. I would argue-
Dave Eng:
Your mom plays a lot of Boggle. That's a word game.
Brian Eng:
When Paperback came, I think that ability to essentially make letters wild, you're really only looking at what, five-letter words at most kind of thing. I enjoyed it much more than I had any previous word game that I had played. I agree though that a lot of the innovation that we see that I think I enjoy is using deck builder with another mechanic. I think one that I guess I was going to talk about a little bit in the bonus round, but I can touch on it here, is like a mechanic that's very close to deck building would be hand management.
I would say something like Century Spice Road I would argue is both. I think that some people might argue whether that's a deck building game or not, but I still would classify it a deck building game, still adding cards to your deck throughout the game. Because it strays from the Dominion style, drawing your hand and playing it, whereas you have access to your whole hand, and it's more hand management in the sense that you're choosing the order. Again, you are still building that deck. There's another game, Concordia. Concordia does that as well, right?
Dave Eng:
Yeah. Both Concordia and-
Brian Eng:
Where you're building the hand, you're playing it, and then you use that action retrieval mechanic.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, to bring them all back to you.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, right. Expeditions is another one that does that.
Dave Eng:
Oh, I haven't played that yet.
Brian Eng:
That's the sequel to, I think both of our top games, Scythe.
Dave Eng:
Yep.
Brian Eng:
That one innovates a little bit in that your hand, not only do you have access to your hand, your hand is open knowledge. Actually, it's innovative, it's also one of my few criticisms of that game is the terminology. In that game, you have what they call your hand, but it's open and it's beside your player mat, and it's very confusing. I really dislike when designers use a term that is very established and use it for something else. If I were going to criticize something in Expeditions, is that the fact that they called it the hand, but you're not holding it, it's on the table.
I think it's very confusing, especially if teaching to non-gamers because they already, maybe already have, and generally people have played cards and they know what a hand is. They're already learning something new and now you're changing terminology on them. I feel like they could've called it supply or something else. Anyways, you have access to that. You're moving cards from your hand into your active area, which is on the right side of your player mat. Throughout the game, you're acquiring more cards to put into your hand. Again, so I would call it deck building, but very, very different. I could see people arguing whether or not that is deck building or not.
Dave Eng:
I was actually going to ask that in my bonus round question, but you've just defined it, so there you go.
Brian Eng:
Why don't we move to that now then, unless you have anything else to talk about with innovation.
Dave Eng:
No, I covered all of that. We're in our bonus round now.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, so go ahead and whatever. We can formalize your question here.
Dave Eng:
Sure. My question was going to be, Century Spice Road for you, is that a deck building game for you? I would say that on BGG, it is listed as a deck building game because technically you are building a deck. The definition according to BGG is like Concordia where you can build a deck, you can build a hand of cards, basically, but you can choose when to play them and when to use them, which I think is significantly different if you're comparing it to Dominion, because in Dominion, you're getting that randomizer. The randomization is that you don't know when they'll come out. Whereas in games like Century Spice Road, what's really randomizes the auction of cards, when they come out, because you don't know if a card will come out or when it'll come out into an order, which you could potentially afford it based on what spices you have.
Brian Eng:
I guess when we defined it, to me, the most important factor when I consider what is a deck building game is do you construct your deck during gameplay? That's why I would call Century Spice Road a deck builder, whereas I don't necessarily group in the mechanic or the part of the mechanic where you draw and how you play them. That can vary to me. As long as you're constructing the deck during gameplay, I consider it a deck builder. I don't know if that is necessarily, I'm just saying that's how I would define it.
Dave Eng:
Well, I mean with any definition, you have to define limits for what falls within it. Because my second question was going to be the definition that we're pulling from here is deck bag and pool building. I wanted to jump deeper into what was meant by pool, and I want to know what you thought about this, Bri. I have a game that I have in my collection that I've kept because I think it's rather unique called Richard the Lionheart. In Richard the Lionheart, you're playing in generally, teams, but you have an allegiance to... The theme of the game is you're playing as England and King Richard, or you're playing for the Sheriff of Nottingham, and you have different motivations.
If you're playing for the Sheriff in Nottingham, you want King Richard to die in the Crusades. If you're playing as King Richard, you want him to succeed. As the game goes on, you're building a pool of cards in order to affect the outcome of the crusades that's happening in the Middle East. As you build it, you take worker spots and actions in order to put cards into the deck. That deck gets shuffled, and then at the end of each round, you draw X number of cards, and then the balance of those cards determine if King Richard is winning or losing in the crusades battle. That is what I define as pool, but I don't know if you consider that as part of the pool building mechanic.
Brian Eng:
Is this a common pool of cards then?
Dave Eng:
It's a common pool of cards.
Brian Eng:
People are adding or removing cards or just adding?
Dave Eng:
Just adding cards.
Brian Eng:
I mean, it doesn't matter, but everybody has the opportunity to add to this pool od cards?
Dave Eng:
If they can resolve an action on an appropriate worker space, yeah, they can add cards on the pool.
Brian Eng:
Again, if we're going strictly by what I think I would consider that, that's almost like the second deck building that I called in Clank!, where you're taking those Clank! Cubes and they go into that bag for the enemy. Again, it's another deck building or bag building element in this case within a deck building game. I would say, yeah, that is pool building, or again, I just call everything deck building. It's the same idea, it's just different pieces.
Dave Eng:
Because then I feel like if you consider games with social deduction, like the Resistance where you're building a deck of cards based on what you want the outcome to be for a particular mission. Because again, if you're on the red team, you want the mission to fail. If you're on the good team, you want the mission to succeed, and you can throw cards into the common pool to affect the outcome there. I don't know if people would, like I don't know if you would build the Resistance as a deck building game, but it does have that component where you're throwing cards into that common pool.
Brian Eng:
Now I'm trying to push my definition out to the extreme, now that we're... Maybe the caveat then is that while you can add and remove, construct your deck during the game, what you do with that deck is essentially, there has to be actions involved with playing those cards. If you are creating a deck that is just a tally, essentially, so I'm thinking of again, something like Battlestar Galactica. Everyone throws in their cards because you need a certain number of blue and a certain number yellow. Everyone is throwing in to create that deck, but that deck isn't actually, the cards in that deck are not performing any actions, it's just a tally. It's just a vote.
That's essentially just voting, to me. I wouldn't consider that portion deck building because the construction of that deck is not being used for any actions. The individual cards are not being used for actions. Yes, the outcome might be an action, but the cards themselves are not being used for resources or taking an action or whatnot. Whereas even in Century Spice Road, yes, you have access to them all, they're not random. When you pull them, you construct them, but each one is your trades or your upgrades to your cubes or whatever.
Dave Eng:
That sounds pretty reasonable, but I think that when we're considering the entire mechanic as a whole, those are those edge cases that fit into it.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, absolutely.
Dave Eng:
May not be part of the popular zeitgeist for people who would consider that deck building.
Brian Eng:
Exactly. I would think that there were definitely... I'm sure that people would argue whether, okay, sorry, I'm not sure that people argue this. People like us might argue it, but I'm sure most people don't care. People would argue whether or not Century Spice Road is a deck building game.
Dave Eng:
I think that would be a pretty divisive question if you ask the deck building.
Brian Eng:
That's a good example as one that rides the edge there, whereas I consider it both. It's a hand management game in the sense that you have access to the whole deck. I consider hand management where you have access to deck and it's more about the order that you're playing the cards in, but because you're still constructing that deck through the game, I think it's both.
Dave Eng:
How about you, Bri, do you have anything else for bonus round?
Brian Eng:
Again, I was just going to talk about those same things. We already talked about also deck construction versus deck building, but I think that's a little more clear cut. Again, I think most CCGs and stuff like that fall into deck construction. Actually, the BGG definition also clarified that they consider that deck construction because your deck is done before the game, or not during gameplay or whatever.
Dave Eng:
One thing I wanted to bring up that we actually, I didn't list it at all here, and I think I should, is deck destruction with Flamme Rouge. Remember when we played Flamme Rouge?
Brian Eng:
Yes.
Dave Eng:
It's not about building your deck, it's about playing the cards at the right time. Flamme Rouge is another racing game, and it's a bike racing game. As you play cards from your deck, you're losing them so that as you go along further in the race, each card is considered stamina or energy. If you use up all your early energy, at the end of the race, you have nothing left to cross the finish line. I think that's another game that's worth a mention, but it's the opposite. You're not building a deck, you are slowly whittling away it to the game.
Brian Eng:
You know what? I thought of another example that I don't think I would consider it deck building, but when I'm talking about each individual element that we are using to determine a game that we used to play a lot, you actually got it for me, a physical copy for me. We used to play it a lot digitally. Do you know which game I'm talking about? Two-player game.
Dave Eng:
Two-player game that we played a lot?
Brian Eng:
Yeah. We played digitally a lot.
Dave Eng:
There's so many. I don't know what it is.
Brian Eng:
Strictly two-player game. You purchased the physical copy for me.
Dave Eng:
I don't know.
Brian Eng:
Dave Eng:
Oh, that's right. Twilight Struggle.
Brian Eng:
You don't construct the deck in the sense that you don't draft any cards or purchase cards or whatever, but there are cards that when you use them, they change hands and things like that. Again, I would consider that game a hand management game. I would not consider that one a deck construction, a deck building game.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I would agree with that opinion as well. Oh, man, it's been a while since we played that.
Brian Eng:
I guess you have no agency in when the cards change. It's the other player is spending a card and giving it to you kind of thing. That is up there. I mean, yeah, it has been a long time, but I really enjoyed our games. I think that is one of those ones where if you have played that game a lot, or if you have never played and you play against someone who plays that game, you're going to get destroyed.
Dave Eng:
You're going to get wrecked.
Brian Eng:
Because knowing what cards can come up and things like that, it makes a huge difference in that game.
Dave Eng:
That one is a high learning curve, I would say.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, for sure. I'm sure we'll talk about that one a lot whenever we get to our hand management or area control, I guess, episode.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, that's true.
Brian Eng:
Whichever one comes first.
Dave Eng:
All right.
Brian Eng:
I guess that wraps up our deck building episode of AP Table Talk. If you'd like to hear more content like this, please be sure to subscribe. You can also check out more of our content, projects and other information about us at www.universityxp.com.
Dave Eng:
Thanks for joining us. We'd love it if you took some time to rate the show. We live to lift others with learning, so if you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could also benefit. Until next time, game on.
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Cite this Episode :
Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2024, November 3). AP Table Talk: Deck, Bag, and Pool Building. (No. 124) [Audio podcast episode]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/podcast/124
Internal Ref: UXP9Y9HDGDJO