What Makes a Great Deckbuilder?
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- čas přidán 13. 06. 2024
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Deckbuilders are the future - from humble beginnings as ugly but promising rougelikes, they've grown to encompass every genre in a million different ways with no sign of stopping. From classic hits like Slay The Spire, to brand new kids on the scene like One Step From Eden and Monster Train, deckbuilders are going from strength to strength, and The Architect has been playing a LOT of them.
But what make a good deckbuilder? What separates one that's fun enough to give you hundreds of hours of experimentation from one that bores you after your first few runs - particularly when they all use the same mechanics? Well, the answer is pretty simple, and it comes in the form of the trifecta that is Identity, Synergy, and Strategy. What does that mean? Watch to find out.
Here's Tom's CZcams Channel: / @angorytom
You Saw:
Dream Quest -2014
Spelunky- 2008
Magic The Gathering: Arena- 2018
Dominion- 2008
Star Realms- 2013
Slay The Spire- 2017
Monster Train- 2020
One Step From Eden- 2020
Gwent: Thronebreaker- 2018
Ratropolis- 2019
Steamworld Quest- 2019
Signs of the Sojourner- 2020
Griftlands- Early Access
Overdungeon- 2019
Nowhere Prophet- 2019
Hearthstone Battlegrounds - Early Access
Dicey Dungeons- 2019
Ascension Deckbuilder: 2010
Journey: 2012 - Hry
Why don't you add me to the randomly drawn selection of pointless twitter posts you can't seem to pull yourself away from in spite of how obviously toxic and shitty it is?: twitter.com/Thefearalcarrot
You Know what I synergise with? Money. *makes finger rubbing together motion whilst raising my eyebrows* : www.patreon.com/ArchitectofGames
Yellow
I like your honesty
Tiny tip, Dont use twitter. I never did and I lost nothing.
Would love to see a ranking of your favourite Deck Builders
A hidden gem deckbuilder for me is Monster Slayers. Each class plays differently and is fun to play. It's inexpensive and available on loads of platforms. I've been playing it more than Slay the Spire or Monster Train lately, which says a lot.
Pinch is the first card players ask about! Thanks for featuring One Step From Eden in your vids now and then, we love to see it!
Thank you for the amazing game!
I saw Pinch and was like '...why?' then i realized 1 damage for no mana doesn't matter and went full viruspell+deck slam with Pinch and a few extras
I’m still playing this game after having it since launch
One of my favourite things about deckbuilder games is the replayability, I'll always end each run having seen new cards that didn't work with my deck but draw me in to make a new deck featuring them.
"Reward is for making dumb things work."
You just described all of my favorite decks I made back when I played ccgs, and the deck I'm planning to make for Dr Strange in Marvel Champions when I get him.
I made a graveyard deck in magic using flashback and a card that let me get my lands on to the board from the graveyard when it died. Let's just say more then one person quit when they realized I got (usually at least) five lands because they attacked with a 3+ damage unit. Having a lot of flashback cards also meant milling my cards basically drew into my hand which is definitely not how those cards were designed to work. Lol
Eventually we'll reach a point where thanking the Patreon supporters is going to take up more time than the actual video and I'm all for it.
He could just call it the merchant's guild and have credits roll on extra content.
@@belldrop7365 hey hey people
"No other card is just a strictly better version of the starter"
Have you seen Good Instincts and Swift Strike?
I'd honestly argue the 0 cost provides a separate value, not just costing less, but synergising well with kunai/shuriken, or allowing pen nib to be charged quicker.
One Step From Eden is a fantastic game. For those that have not played, or even heard of it, I highly recommend looking into it!
It might not appeal to every deck builder gamer. In comparison to most (if not all) deckbuilding games, OSFE needs very twitchy reflexes, pattern recognition (from the bullet hell genre) as well as knowing how to build decks correctly. I say it's a pretty good game for a very specific niche.
Also, Reva OP.
I miss battle network so much and one step from eden scratches that itch and more
I stopped playing it when I realized that a macro just pressing buttons randomly can play the game just as well as a human lol. The game is too fast for human reflexes really
@@FlutterSwag I'm still blue balled... I wanted more story
as someone who is a big fan of crypt of the necrodancer and super hexagon, both reflex taxing games, i know I'll enjoy it, and I've discovered the game since release. thanks for the reminder though
I'm so happy you mentioned Dominion. It's simply amazing, we've played it so often with friends and family and it stays fun every time.
I was really hoping "flex synergy" would just mean some extremely ineffectual joke synergy to use when you're simply too much better than your opponent
The struggle with Hard Synergies in a lot of cases is that the design space in those synergies tend to be very narrow. If you have a Merloc deck, chances are it's going to be a lot like every other Merloc deck. (Maybe this has changed, I haven't played hearthstone since Un'Goro). With something like Magic: The Gathering's Goblins, however, the tribe has been around for so long and has had so many strategies that you can cludge together all kinds of edge-case strategies (like Red-Black-Blue goblin control) and actually be pretty effective and fun. If you're going to have hard synergies, it pays to put in extra work to add in different cards that can work with the core of the strategy in different ways.
Often it only takes one card to create a strategy like this: Back when I played Hearthstone I had a pirate rogue deck that synergized heavily around Ship's Cannon and the rogue's ability to cheaply return creatures to their hand and cut costs of creatures, meaning that I could build up to a point where I can dump my hand out on the table for massive damage and carnage all in a single turn... but once the cannon was cycled out I completely lost interest in the tribe because it just wasn't "my idea" anymore, it was just another pirate deck like all the others. Not fun.
Murloc*
One way to do 'hard' synergy that isn't limited/monotonous like that is by having multidimensional/multiaxis synergy like in autobattlers e.g. TFT's origins & classes. This enables piecing together several sub-synergies, or making 'lonely' cards still valuable even when you're not playing their vertical axis synergy, because it might add a nice small horizontal synergy, or bridge together two vertical synergies with a horizontal one. It's great design because autobattlers' deckbuilding system mean you might have to improvise & resort to having several sub-synergies rather than a full one
Thankfully with Murlocs there's now the option to use their synergy in paladin to combo for an otk, since there's a spell that summons 7 Murlocs from your deck and another spell that resurrects 7 Murlocs, so if you build your deck right you can have a single spell win you the game (if they don't have too much armor, taunt, etc.)
That "Discard" caught me off guard.
Awesome.
One Step from Eden's mix between bullet hell and deck builder is amazing, especially with how different each character plays just because of their basic ability. You can use any card with any character, but the Gunner's spamming gun that recharges mana has a vastly different playstyle from Shizo's executioner revolver that has its damage based on your money and locks you in place to fire. Just one single ability makes the characters so distinct in their decks because they're built around the central ability in order to reach their full potential.
Hell yeah. Gunner makes Jam decks shine due to mana recharge, allowing you to take more aggressive artifacts instead of pure 0.1 mana regen that, say, Selicy needs. Selicy can be played purely with Frost, but even using a Soul Link on the enemy, then using Zenith to hit a structure and yourself while shielded for 200 makes for some nasty damage, and even the engineer girl can go for the combo, shielding the structure enough to save it
WISHLISTED!
I love Monster Train for the twist it gives on usual boards and deckbuilding, I am glad that it is gaining some TRACK-tion.
I wanted to put in some train puns, but I can't think of any more, sorry.
Man, stop trying to _derail_ the conversation!
It’s ok. All great ideas lose steam in time.
We just need to keep chugging along.
Stop praising it too much, you'll break the hype train.
You just need training!
I do love the deckbuilding genre! I played Dream Quest on mobile wayyyyy back in the day, and was super hyped when I saw Slay the Spire start demo-ing itself because of how cool Dream Quest was. Incidentally, did you know that all the art of monsters and characters was done by the developer's kid? I could forgive the art pretty easily after hearing that adorable fact. :3
My personal fave so far is Monster Train, since it basically does a lot of what StS does well at its core, but also iterates with new stuff in ways that make it more complex and decks more ridiculously powerful, while still feeling earned when your deck does become OP. Deffo one to check out if you find the genre even a little bit interesting at all!
How did you write this on three minutes
One of the best minor design choices monster train made was making your deck start with random starting cards, it fixes the sts problem of every run fweling very samey for the first 2 or 3 fights
@@ladygeneveve3805 that isn't really a problem considering that you'll fight 20+ fights each run, in addition just from hearing this I 100% prefer Slay the Spire's system since you get a pool of cards that are good and form an okay core for every deck. On the other hand it seems like monster train makes you rely on RNG to get a somewhat good "spawn" but this encourages the player to build their deck in a certain way. If you want that thing in sts pick up pandoras box, do a custom run and set it as your starting relic, but I prefer to have a simple base of which I can build my deck and just to get some inspiration I am 100% trying to transform a card from the base deck every run but not all should be random by default
@@guzel9823 Why would the total number fights matter for how boring/predictable first few of them are? Also seems you're misunderstanding, only 1/4 of the starting cards are random and I don't really see how it'd be better if they all were just basic cards that you'd probably rather get rid of.
None of these games are Deckbuilders though. Games like Magic, Monster Train and Slay the Spire are games where you build a deck, but a "Deckbuilder" is a game where part of the deck you build also has a aspect that gains cards usually through a currency system. Games like these are true deckbuilders: Dominion, Ascension, Valley of Kings, Tanto Cuore.
It just confusing calling non deckbuilders, deckbuilders.
I'm on my forth run of Griftlands and I've been obsessed with the game this past week. Maybe its reliance on hard synergies are the reason my decks seem to be very powerful come endgame. That might be bad as a deck builder. But that's ok with me, because Griftlands has blown me away with everything else surrounding its deckbuilding.
I was surprised how the small contextualization between events made me even more engaged in deckbuilding games. In slay the spire you go through several rooms with enemies. In griftlands, each 'room' is a quest with motives, goals and characters.
The other area that it excels is in the amount of tactical choices it offers. Do I want to spend my health or my resolve 'life bar'? Do I want to buy 'life', cards, 'bonus itens' or social 'bonus itens' to make the next encounter easier? That avaiability of options for how I want to tackle each challenge has been very engaging and rewarding.
Its a different direction of polish from the rest of card games
Thank you for this. I think your comment describes the main reason why Griftlands is the only deckbuilder I engaged with. I though I would really like StS, but it turned out that not getting those soft synergies made it such a slog for me to finish those runs. Then you die halfway through act 3 and don't have anything to show for it, not even a nice "war story" of this sick combo you built.
It seems I much prefer hard synergies, or as I would call it, a "mechanical theme".
And the mini-stories of Griftlands, especially combined with the reputation mechanic, makes me think about how I build my deck in narrative terms.
Also, think the way Griftlands makes cards upgrade by using them is more fun. This way, the cards you like using automatically become stronger as well, thereby giving your deck a certain theme just by playing it, without even adding cards.
@@derdomino828 one-dimensional hard synergies can be frustrating when enough crucial parts keep missing though, since the full synergy can be hard to build especially with a roguelike deckbuilder format. I prefer a multidimensional/multiaxis hard synergy like in autobattlers
Taking a break from playing Sts and monster train to watch videos about Sts and monster train 😅
Relatable
It's particularly enjoyable to me when types of synergies in games are at odds with each other, and you have to make a decision between two things which you really can't compare. For an example, in a few of my favourite RPGs, classes don't completely restrict what abilities you can adopt but give discounts on abilities within the class' domain. So it comes down to the hard synergy of using your class-remit abilities and being far more efficient in your xp spending, or exploring the abilities of other classes for soft synergies, but at a premium.
These “Soft Synergies” remind me of D&D, I remember one session where I used the spell Heat Metal, to do most of the damage on the big bad evil guy, by cooking him with his own armor. The thing about Heat Metal is it has a really high damage potential but using it will make you a massive target, since if you take damage you might lose concentration and be forced to stop casting the spell. So what I did is cast Heat Metal, then transform into an ant (druids can do that) and hide. There was nothing in the rulebook saying these two things have these effects with each other, and in fact if it did it wouldn’t be nearly as fun, I spent most of that game hiding between two flagstones cackling to myself and reaffirming that yes indeed I did want to keep roasting this guy alive, but it didn’t matter because the fun was discovering and using the strategy.
Ah the classic cook and book
What about concentration?
Can you transform and cast at the same time?
@@rodrigonoffs1369 As I remember it, you can’t cast while wildshaped, but you can cast a concentration spell, then transform, and the wildshape won’t break your concentration. Don’t take this as reliable though it was half a year ago.
@@the_kraken6549 yep, that's why the example given for soft synergies is not really a deck building game. Dicey Dungeon is more of a simplified D&D or RPG where we build our strategies through equipment then we pray for having good dice rolls. Even the Joker character who actually makes you build a deck is heavily dependent on dice rolls.
This is the sort of high-quality design discussion that you see in a GDC talk. I hope you keep making videos for a long time.
I play magic physically, and actually finding a good theme for a deck is hard. My most powerful deck at the moment is a three color deck, which means I can pull off some really powerful combos, but I need to luck out on the lands I draw. The deck is based around Nicol Bolas, a super powerful overlord dragon, who does tons of direct damage and destroying cards.
Horace Heinze Coincidentaly, Magic the Gathering isn’t a deck building game like Adam Millard said it was. (Yes, you do build a deck of cards before the game starts, but the fact that you build your ENTIRE deck BEFORE the game starts is why I’m right.
Honestly I wish more deck builders let you be useless like MTG's Commander format does. Like I like to play Riku as a group hug deck.
Throw fabled passage in the deck. When i make multi color decks I typlcy splash green just for cards that produce "one mana of any color" cards like Paradise Druid or Gift of Paradise are good cards for this.
I'm honestly not a fan of Magic TG specifically because of the way it's mana works.
The last time I played it, I was in a hilarious position. I basically said to my opponent, "If the next card I draw is a land, I will be able to do 120~ damage to you the turn after and win." (For those who don't know, in Magic you have 20 health. So this would be a 1 turn kill 6 times over)
If the next card I draw is NOT a land, you're going to finish me off just before I would be able to do that.
The land was the 2nd card down, and I did not win. And it was at that point that I said I'm done with MTG and it's crap mana system.
If you were to ask me what I would replace it with, I would replace it with Duel Masters system, which as far as I can tell, runs almost identically to MTG, except instead of having, for example, a Green Creature, and then Green Lands, which you have to draw, and place, and use to summon that green creature, in Duel Masters, there are no lands. And instead, you can choose to sacrifice a card to gain it's colour as a mana. So you don't draw a forest, you would draw your green 6 mana costing creature, decide that 6 mana is too much and this creature isn't worth having right now, and you instead would put that creature down into your mana area. He is now effectively wasted, and is now what MTG would call a land.
It creates an interesting risk reward system where you're sacrificing potential later power (due to losing your stronger monsters that you can NOT summon right now) for the ability to continue playing, but at the same time, it means YOU CAN CONTINUE PLAYING. You never have the situation where you draw a hand full of lands, or a hand with NO lands, and you're screwed because you literally can't do anything.
@@SupaDanteX I'd like to make a rebuttal. Sometimes situations, like the one you explained with MTG, show that maybe your deck is flawed. If you constantly have a problem with drawing lands (which on average makes up a third or fourth of the deck), then look into getting cheaper powerful cards. However, I'm going to make an assumption you were playing either a green or black deck because of the high mana cost and even higher damage output. Green decks are extremely easy to get enough lands, due to things like
shane chojnacki mentioned and also enchantments that add more mana output to one land. This doesn't have to change the fact you are not a fan, but take what I said into consideration.
You should have mentioned Magic: Shandalar. It started the concept in 1997. As usual with card games, Magic has done it a long time ago.
Oh, I remember trying to play that a few years ago.
A game that sometimes goes unoticed is Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories for the GBA. Its a realtime hack n slash game with deck building mechanics that has a card for every atack and spell you do. Might be incompatible designs but certenly interesting to look out.
I played Re:Chain of Memories and by end game I remember just having one deck that I could spam in every fight and it was almost an insta win. Though I don't remember what it was.
I loved it... Pity there never was a physical copy to buy in my town...
There was also the PS2 Version of the game, which, frankly, was better than the GBA one. It's not the most popular in the KH series, but it's unique. Also probably one of, if not the Earliest instance of a Video Game based Deckbuilder.
Pvz hero’s is also underrated
@@toastedjam1470 isn pvs heroes more of a ccg with long-term deckbuilding(rather than in-match/in-run)?
The concept of A/B Mechanics (or Enablers and Payoff) would add another layer to the synergy talk. The balance comes form making sure you have a good ratio between those two types of cards. Unplayable cards are the Payoff, discard is the Enabler, etc.
Tom is one of my favorite CZcamsrs. Definitely didn't expect him to be mentioned here of all places!
I really love his sexy, sexy Warhammer streams with Ben.
If anything they're a little bit too sexy...
I haven't even finished the video, but I gotta compliment you for the comb-o pun.
Ascension is one of my all time favorite deck building game. Wish it got more love.
+1
This pairs extremely well with Design Docs' video on Item Hoarding.
One of the reasons that deckbuilders are so good is because they are deeply intertwined with consumables, and because how you change your deck is the main focus, developers are FORCED to improve upon consumables in ways other games don't bother doing. The genre enforces polish on an aspect that you don't see elsewhere, and it sticks to you.
I love how I like KNOW the names of his top donors now. The list pops into my head every so often like a catchy song.
Oddly enough, I just got into deckbuilders and this video just got me way more excited to see what the genre has to offer! So Thanks for the great video!
did really nobody see that we all got rick roled at 14:04
Oh no
I still can't see it.
@@DrPumpkinz inside the O in dominion
Well spotted!
Synergy is why I've grown to love Monster Train so much. Doing stuff like putting Multistrike on a Demon Fiend and absolutely balling out of control is so much fun.
Leaving out the rogue-like bits, Megaman Battle Network and even before that, Metal Gear Acid, were popular games which did the same thing, but even earlier (MGA was 2004), and was probably prior inspiration for all of this. Battle network was obvious inspiration for one step from eden as well, and MGA was a turn based strategy where you used cards to decide your actions.
Thanks for helping me understand and put into words why I gravitate towards games like dominion and draft mtg. And why I found monster train so intriguing over similar games. Great video
Really helpful video! I am making a deck-building card game for a university project and this helped me out a lot!
aw wow angory tom shoutout on a video about my favorite genre of games! amazing video!
The Best Deck Builder is Dominion made by Donald X in 2009 because I'm a board game luddite.
Super interesting video as usual. Deck building games are one genre that I have not really played much of, but they seem pretty fun.
Brilliant video! A valuable resource and super fun 🤩
I would argue that 1997s Magic: The Gathering Shandalar is the first deck builder since basicaly is an rpg with magic as the combat mechanic. You start with a crappy deck and can aquire new cards through winning in combat, finding them , buying them or getting them as rewards for quests
I don't know that game for sure, but I'd be guessing much like Magic that it was more of a deck construction game than a deck building game. If you can edit your deck, then it's a deck construction game. If you build your deck throughout the game and have to use certain spots to thin your deck out, rather than being able to edit it freely before a match, then it's a deckbuilding game. It was coined by the creator of Dominion, who wanted to make a game where you had all the fun of buying synergistic cards, but didn't have to do any of that before playing the game (which is deck construction). Deck Builder video games then of course ran away with it, so now you have games that can go on quite long where you are slowly building this massive deck in a somewhat rogue inspired manner. To me they are quite different genres, I hate deck construction, but I get that others like it. I just wish the game companies themselves were better at separating the two concepts in their marketing talk.
8:57 thanks for shining a spotlight on Ascension
Such a great game with rare dreamlike artwork
You should try out Hades. It's from creators of Transistor and Bastion. Not only does it have an awesome soundtrack and artwork (which is common for this studio), it's also a very cool rogue like game with an interesting plot (and yes, it has a similar deck building mechanics).
I consider this studio to be one of the best if not the best indie developer out there and this game is just another masterpiece from them.
Was this before it blew up?
@@danka1167 yeah. Always hoped that the studio will get the recognition it deserves.
Let's hope that the fame won't blind them
@@BoxCox it’s hades very hard? I’m thinking of getting it after Celeste and that Ori collection and if it’s too hard, I’ll wait to play it. The last 3 games I played were Cuphead, Enter + Exit the Gungeon and Hollow Knight. I’m a bit tired of very hard games for now
@@danka1167 uhm... I think somewhere in the middle. It's definitely harder than Ori, although that's not really an achievement. I would say it's easier than Gungeon. I thought hollow knight was pretty easy (except the fucking white palace) when I played it but it's hard to compare them since the challenges are different. I would say, in terms of difficulty it's like a bit subdued gungeon. The skill plays a great role but the game is rather forgiving. Your luck matters quite a bit but not so much since the rarity of a boon doesn't really mean anything except improved stats (if we are not talking legendary builds and duo ones, but if you are making them, chances are your skill is already good) . But the build also won't necessarily carry you. I've had godlike runs that failed dramatically because I was so absorbed in trying to outdamage the boss.
The great thing about the game is the fact that it encourages you to die. Almost all the story progression revolves around the main game loop. You go fight, find an npc, talk to them, die, return talk to the npcs about your encounters in the Tartarus they tell you something about that npc, you go there again, don't find the npc, die, repeat.
The coolest in my opinion aspect of the game. The plot literally is embedded in the game loop
@@danka1167 also props for Ori. The most fun and pleasure I've had in platformers in years. Very fast very crunchy gameplay, visuals and music are outstanding. The blind forest is very good but the sequel Will of the wisps is just amazing both in gameplay and in art.
This is really insightful! Thank you!
I love how Ive memorized all your patreons lol. Great video like always dude
14:04 you sneaky bastard
Excellent presentation and points :D
*soft jazz playing*
Me: *enter bedroom* Hey baby... I got a synergy for you... a HARD synergy
Her: *facepalms* I am leaving you
Her: Is that soft synergy i'm seeing? You can't even flex synergy it!
**
Too early? Imma see myself out.
Love your content, keep up the great work man
I was just thinking earlier about how I wanted to play more StP-type games, so this is perfect timing.
Another deckbuilding roguelike is Blood Card. It's pretty similar to Slay the Spire, but I think it has enough of its own mechanics that it stands on its own. For one, your deck is also your health, and when you run out of card to draw, you die. For another, the Grim Reaper appears after a few turns to attack both you and your enemy.
The art style is rather gloomy, but the characters you play as all have their own quirks to make them different, and I've been really enjoying it.
Great video. I was going to make a comment saying that even if sometimes it feels unfair dream quest it's actually really fun then I got to the end haha. It's my second favourite roguelite deckbuilder.
I wish I could like this video twice. I’ve certainly watched it more than twice. As a game designer, I thank you!
Seriously love your channel.
My favorite run of Slay the Spire was the most ridiculous thing I've ever experienced in this sort of genre.
It was on IronClad... I picked up an effect which causes you to do damage to all enemies whenever you draw a Curse card (dud-cards which usually have no effect or even sometimes harmful effects)... The rest of my deck was entirely focused around stacking as many of these self-destructive cards into the deck as possible and cards which draw more cards so that I could constantly draw more.
Towards the end of the run I was cycling through drawing cards from my entire deck multiple times per turn.
What was so fun about it was that every time an effect was supposed to be a negative tradeoff for doing something good (You get to draw a card... BUT An eeeevil CURSE gets shuffled into your deck Ohhh noooo!) I picked it up for that negative tradoff more than I did the positive...
Firebreathing may be my favorite card in Slay The Spire. Suddenly things that are usually bad for you become good. It's great.
Great video! Thanks!
I'm making a card game ATM, this video really gave me confidence in my game choices. Thanks for that
Was anyone else unable to hear the music in the background? I kept seeing the little pop-ups saying what track was on but didn't hear anything behind the voiceover and occasional sound effect.
Loved the episode though, deckbuilders are so addictively delicious and it's really interesting to learn about the three kinds of synergy, I think I'll go play some more Steamworld Quest and StS to try and classify some cards myself. (My favorite are Flex Synergies, I tend to overdo it and end up with a deck that *could* do a bunch of things but doesn't end up doing anything.) :P
Autobattlers actually present a solution to 'hard' synergy's weakness: having multiple axes/dimensions e.g. TFT's origins and classes. This means that each card has a better chance at filling a synergy, and prevents that 'samey' feeling by opening up lots of variations of synergy building, such as having various interconnected sub-synergies, collecting all cards of the same axis, playing two vertical axes and bridging them with one or more horizontals, etc.
Deck builders are built around the fun part of ccgs for me.
If they could better capture the thrill of opening packs (let's be honest, the loot box thrill) and maybe have a "collection room" or gallery of some sort, they'd have a chance to rival the larger tcg/ccg scene.
Other deckbuilding games include:
Splendor (tabletop)
Hand of Fate
Night of the Full Moon (hopeful spiritual successor to Dream Quest)
Light of Lophis
Rogue Adventure
Tavern Rumble
Honestly, I don't understand how is Splendor a deckbuilder.
A little sad that Shadowverse never get's mentioned. That game have some crazy strategies that come from various card synergies.
Take the card "Lord Atomy" for instance. It is a follower for the Shadowcraft class that is a powerful beat-stick offset by it's steep cost. However it also has the effect that it can be summoned for free if you control 4 other cards on the board and then have those cards destroyed. This means that you could get a really powerful follower very early if you try to flood your board as quickly as possible.
Yet, one of the biggest quirks of the card is that people have managed to turn the supposed downside of losing the rest of your board into an advantage. You see, the Shadowcraft class loves to have it's followers destroyed as it can trigger so called Last Words effects so they would use Atomy's effect for that purpose. This became especially true of the release of the card "Thoth" which grands a Last Word effect to all allied followers that are played after it to deal damage to the opponent. Suffice to say, people were quick to combo it with Atomy's destruction effect for some rather ridiculous plays.
Great deck builders dont hard nerf good cards and combos or limit you in arbitrary ways, but in fact ENCOURAGE you to break their game and reward you for doing so.
Dominion is an almost perfect game. It’s components are relatively simple on their own, but together they form these huge machines. I remember one time being able to get through my entire deck in one hand with clever use of villages and council rooms. The options you have before play even starts makes every game unique. Such an amazing game.
Also luck be a landlord, a deckbuilding slots game where you pay rent by spinning a slot machine that you can decide the tiles of, it's surprisingly fun
I think a big appeal of the genre is that it reduces decision making at any given time down to a manageable number of options in the form of cards.
top tier video as always. Keep it up!
Funny thing I noticed in the physical tabletop space games like magic are not considered deck builders (AFAICT) sure you construct a deck but do so before the main action (the actual game), in that space deckbuilders are when you construct a deck during the main game (Dominion being the both the most famous and one of the first) i.e. you start of with a limited set of cards and over the course of the match/game you build up your deck. A mechanic that is common in deckbuilders but absent in other card games is the concept of 'polluting' a deck, meaning adding card that are just dead weight during the game, why would this happen? Well in Dominion for example these 'pollution' cards are the victory point cards, so you need to have them to win the game even though during the game they are just a hindrance meaning that you need to balance acquiring them with acquiring other cards.
Translating this to video games is probably a bit harder since many games do use this kind of mechanic as for example the combat mechanic so you want to keep cards from one match to the next (something that normally wouldn't happen in a deckbuilder), one idea is to make damage part of the deck pollution and then have a way to reset that but have you go back to basic cards. A way to keep progress is to be able to select what your starting deck looks like and the ability to customize the tableau of available cards.
Yeah, games like Magic, Hearthstone, and Gwent are called CCG (Card Collection Game) where you build your deck between matches, and you earn more cards by either grinding or spending RL money.
In Deck-Building, however: the process of building your deck is part of the gameplay itself, and adding/removing cards is something you do during your playthrough.
I wish that people would stop mixing between those two!
A few years back I picked up Hand of Fate for free on XBox Live Gold. It, like many other random downloads through that service, blew me away with how fun it was.
The cards represent everything in the game: what kinds of monsters or traps you will face, what treasure items are up for grabs, which non-combat encounters you will have, etc. But at the start of each match, your deck and the AI's deck are shuffled together so you don't necessarily know which of the cards you want to bring each time will make it into the drawpile.
The world itself that the game takes place in doesn't even exist until you draw the first card, because the cards also determine whether you walk down a tunnel, or try to cross a bridge in a forest, or whatever.
Small world. Never expected to hear my boy Tom shouted out in one of these videos. I will say, however; he's lovely on his own, but he's even better with other people. I recommend checking him out on various Yogs streams and videos! He's a favourite of mine.
4:40 funny, when I played as him I almost always went Leap.
I would like to point out that slay the spire is technically all just four hard synergies. The character you play determines your card pool in a very similar way to deciding to play morloc in hearthstone. I find that interesting. They basically made a gigantic card pool for StS, then limited it to not be too overwhelming by grouping the majority of those cards into three (originally) tribes and letting players go from there.
I have a Yu-gi-oh! deck lying around that has some cool synergies too.
The deck itself is a 'chaos' deck, which means it's filled to the brim with Dark and Light monsters and has a lot of effects based on banishing cards and milling (emptying your deck into your graveyard).
A hard synergy: the spell card Chaos seed lets you take a banished Light or Dark Warrior-type monster into your hand. This is a contingency in case I mill or lose my Black Luster Soldier, which is one of the aces of my deck.
A soft synergy: Lightpulsar dragon lets me summon a lvl5 or higher Dark Dragon-type monster from the grave whenever it's sent to the grave from the field. I have 3 different cards which fit the bill (one of which can even retrieve Lightpulsar in the same turn).
A flex synergy: The act of milling and discarding. Of the 45 cards in my deck:
-9 cards that mill as part of their effect (usually 3, sometimes more)
-3 cards that require you to discard a card (2 of which requiring you to discard themselves)
While this sounds like a cost to activate their other effects, the milling is the actual feature I use (most effects are simple ATK buffs, or destroying an enemy card).
My deck is further made up of:
-8 cards that are mainly in there to be sent to the grave and fuel my banishing summons (15 if you include the milling and self-discarding monsters)
-3 cards that explicitly need to be sent to the grave to use their effects (and are pretty lackluster as summoned cards anyway)
-16 cards which I will actually lose if sent to the grave (of which only 12 can't serve to be banished)
-9 cards which I can get back from the grave with relative ease
-2 two cards I can get back from getting banished (Black Luster Soldier through Chaos seed, and another monster through a special spell card)
In total I have 13 cards that don't benefit me AT ALL from the graveyard. For all the rest, even if they serve me better on the field, they can be used to summon big hitters quickly, and for some, I even have contingencies to get more use out of them.
A friend of mine made actually the deck for me, and I've had my fun tweaking it to my liking, like adding Dark monsters to balance out the predominantly Light line-up, adding support cards such as Chaos Seed and Different Dimension Reincarnation, and expanding it with a small extra deck, which feeds surprisingly well into the grand strategy of the deck.
Love rouge likes and deck building!
Nowhere Prophet is an amazing game. Great gameplay and one of my favorite aesthetics in these types of games.
I am unsure if you know about this game, but you should check Siralim.
Is a dungeon crawling monster collecting game with roguelike and classic JRPG elements. The game is all about finding synergies between monsters to defeat the stronger enemies. And every monster on your team can have 1 innate skill they will always have, 1 item that will increase it's stats and give him a new skill from another monster, gems that give them magic spells and many other personalization aspects to make your own team.
Another deck builder I like is Stormbound, it’s quite simple and has its play stiles very clear, being divided on play stiles (aggressive, farming, structures and poison)
I had a lot of fun with Dream Quest, such a great game!
I just started playing an inmo pretty good deckbuilder and i got this video recomended how is this possible?
Good video! Thanks for sharing!
I totally agree, that was a very good dog.
great review
I love my deckbuilders...in physical and digital form. In the last months i finished Thronebreaker (which i really Liked) and Steamworld Quest (which was good but i had a few problems with it...enemies with immunities and Phase 3 of the Endboss f.e.). Now i will start a new campaign in Arkham Horror the Card Game (physical)
Synergies are neat. In other games I've thought of them as coded and emergent (basically hard and soft, but referring to how they're made). For example: Enter the Gungeon. A coded synergy is like the synergy system where having x and y gives z effect. A small arrow appears above your head and you get a hard-coded bonus.
Emergent synergies on the other hand are like the soft synergies mentioned here, where independent factors work together. For example, there is an item that doubles the damage of the last shot of each clip, so it synergises with weapons that have a small clip size, peaking at a clip of 1 bullet. It can also work with another item that reloads a single bullet when you roll, to get reliable double damage on more guns.
I much prefer emergent synergies, they're the same kind of thing that makes games like Breath of the Wild so interesting with how you can use the various tools you have to manipulate the game's systems to do things that might never have been specifically written in the code (even if they're completely deliberate).
What about legends of Runeterra?
I'm not a hard TCG guy yet I enjoy and regularly play then.
I've been playing since beta launch and completely fallen in love for its simplicity/depth
What you guys think?
It is a good game, but it is not a Deckbuilder, at least not in the common way. In a Deckbuilder you always start with a basic deck and build your deck in your walkthrough. In LoF and Magic you pre-build your deck.
@@randothomas3733 Yup. I blame marketing. They've long mixed up Deck Construction and Deck Building in both video and board games, despite them being fairly different.
Poxnora would have been a novel addition to the deck builder argument - for future reference.
Didn't expect to hear about Lord Chompy Bits in this video.
yeah it really caught me of guard, i mean toms a great you tuber and ive watched all his content religiously but i did not expect to hear him shouted out on a non yogscast channel
Dicey Dungeons is the only one of these I have tried, and it's great. The cards all feel unique, and the soundtrack and humour is brilliant.
Then there are a lot of great deckbuilderst you have yet to try :D Monster Train, One Step from Eden, Steamworld Quest and Slay the Spire are all amazing in their own right
@@Kejosruler I'm defiantly interested in trying slay the spire next, it sounds right up my alley. The other ones I'll look at more sometime, but probably not for a while.
@@joxteoz1753 Fair enough! I am not sure if it still is, but Slay the Spire was on sale on Steam recently... I think
Another great video.
great video!
0:50 that looks just like just one boss a cool math game
You guys should check out RUFF GHANOR... amazing deckbuilder with beuatiful art and story
If the OP of this video reads this, there was a game missing in your description named "Inscryption" 2:20. I forgot what the name of it was so I needed to do some digging but found it eventually :-).
They manage to make standard attack options interesting. And hotswappable. That's revolutionary somehow :D
I love deckbuilders, but it shows that we have still sooo much to learn in game design where this random concept is somehow new and vastly more interesting than systems before it. This pattern will repeat another couple dozen times before we barely get to "having a full palette". We then need to learn and - crucially - teach how to use it. Game design is in its infancy still. Use that knowledge to transcend what came before!
I'll have to thank you for introducing me to Monster train, which looks a bit similar to Final Fantasy: Crystal Chonicles: My Life As a Darklord which I loved
Wow there are much more deckbuilding games than I thought there were
One game that is kinda obscure but with a religiously dedicated fanbase is the fighting game Absolver. Not really roguelike, but youve still gotta build a deck that flows properly. The pvp scene is barely hanging on by a few threads, but those few threads will keep fighting each other forever until the servers turn off. Hugely underrated game, really scratches the I Want To Be A Warrior Monk itch in a way no other game really can, with its hyper-modular moveset editor. There's like 100+ moves, each with their own properties, and even sword-based moves.
Highly recommend this game.
SOMEBODY TELL ME IF THIS GAME EXISTS
a deck builder where you scan legal documents to build a case and look for key phrases and similarities to build a deck of facts that you lay down in combination to win a legal case.
I had that idea and wanted to see if a game has already done that idea.
That's called a job mate.
Seriously though i've never heard of that idea although I know a lot of word focused games use a similar kind of join the dots system. So it's possible there's something out there that's similar but it's not a genre i'm familiar with.
@@Madhattersinjeans It might have to be like a papers please or a obra dinn type niche video game.
@@checkmate058 Sounds interesting. I haven't heard of that and I think this concept is great.
That’s a really cool idea
I know it's not quite what you're looking for, but have you played any of the Ace Attorney games?
Hey Adam, while watching the vid and thinking a little I noticed how many RPGs put the player on the left side (Undertale, Paper Mario, etc.) but there are also some where you attack from the right (Earthbound, Steamworld Quest, etc.) Maybe you could make a vid about that and its implications on the human brain?
Well Americans read from left to right, so starting at the left just makes sense.
@@nickwilson3499 but why do rpgs exist where the two fractions switched sides?
The obvious would be that it depends on the region the game comes from (western games have the protagonist and friends on the left and eastern countries on the right, but that doesn't work seeing as paper mario was developed in the eastern region
@@krenze1164 That's not the reason as even Japanese games usually moves from left to right. Even if the traditional vertical writing of Japanese (inherited from medieval Chinese) is in right to left columns (the only reason why manga books are drawn and printed in "reverse", whereas manwha and manhua are in the conventional direction), the usual horizontal writing is left to right like almost East-Asian languages so a lot of the modern pictural art is based on that and rejoin the majority of the world, including the West. And this is simply because it's easier to write/draw (by hand) from left to right except for a few percentage of left-handed people.
So inverting the player side or the path of a side scroller by facing the left can be a visual trick to make the player feel unconsciously uncomfortable… or when it's not justified by the ambiance/tension it's just devs and artists feeling "original" by not understanding why right to left is an (almost) worldwide convention code.
Steam World Heist was mainly a left to right level design though, I don't know why they broke this convention in Quest.
leap is actually a card I go for often, because I tend to bias toward offensive orbs.
Deckbuilder game design can also be found in a lot of other games, although then it's usually loadout strategies.
In my opinion the feel of games such as Wizard of Legend is rather similar to deckbuilding games.
Wizard of legend is an incredibly fun game, i just wish the 2 player camera was any amount of sane. Getting slapped from offscreen stuff is awful. 1-player, though, its a beautiful experience, with a really high skill ceiling. Really makes you feel like the action-wizard we've all wanted to be.
@@almond5284 Yeah I agree.
Just as I was getting back into yugioh haha
Great video!
For me, the cool thing about deckbuilding games is that if know How to play Magic, you basically know how to play any deckbuilder game hahaha
*If you play limited*
Constructed can give a lot of insights but there are also a lot of very different considerations in constructed vs limited(and deckbuilders by extension)
bro the flavour in slay the spire comes from playing with the playtester art on kek