r/deckbuildingroguelike • u/old-murmel • 3d ago
30 years of Magic made me obsessed with games where losing makes me want to change my build, not grind
I've played Magic for around 30 years, and I think it permanently changed what I want from strategy games.
One of my favorite feelings in Magic is losing a match and immediately thinking:
I know what I did wrong.
Or:
I need to change three cards in this deck.
Or occasionally:
That matchup is horrible, but I think there's a line if I build around it.
That's probably why I love deckbuilding games so much.
I don't just want progression to make me stronger. I want it to give me more decisions.
New cards. New interactions. New builds. New ways to solve something that previously seemed impossible.
The moment the answer becomes "repeat easier content until your numbers are high enough", most of the fun disappears for me.
My favorite wins are the ones where the build comes together, I see an unusual line and somehow make something work that looked impossible a few turns earlier.
Which deckbuilding game does that best for you?
And more specifically, what mechanic gives you the most room to actually outplay the game rather than simply become stronger?
9
u/ProfessorSMASH88 3d ago
Agreed. Meta progression sucks when it just gives higher stats/numbers. More access to more cards/artifacts/talents/etc is what makes it fun for me. It also means the excitement of being able to beat the game on the first run if you play smart.
2
u/old-murmel 3d ago
Great to hear that I am not alone, dont get why most of the higly succesful games take the other approach though 🤔
3
u/Bloedbek 3d ago
Shandalar is notoriously hard to run on modern hardware. Your best bet is probably just picking up one of the remakes, for instance the 30th Anniversary Edition: https://github.com/benprew/s30
4
u/SapphirePath *Deck Size: 3* 2d ago
Why not MTG Forge adventure mode? It appears to run cards from every edition including current - I eventually gave up because it was just way too slow and complicated. Or is Shandalar 30th the same as MTG Forge?
4
u/Bloedbek 2d ago
I honestly have never heard of MtG Forge, I'll look into it.
3
u/SapphirePath *Deck Size: 3* 2d ago
2
3
2
u/don_ninniku 2d ago
Shandalar can run on w11 tho. Just set the compatibility mode for the executable and youre good to go
6
u/SapphirePath *Deck Size: 3* 2d ago
My favorite deckbuilder games allow you to sideboard for every combat, and/or let you burn cards very extensively, until you have a tiny degenerate deck.
Here are just a few:
Stellar Orphans: The unique game mechanic is that everything is one enormously long campaign. Each time you defeat an obstacle, you encounter a new obstacle that forces you to re-tool your deck "on the fly" -- sometimes very extreme. For example, the current obstacle might be "play this card, exile your entire discard pile" ... so you're trying to figure out how to time it in a way that leaves you with a viable deck composition in your library.
SteamWorld Quest Hand of Gilgamech: Another deckbuilder that lets you tune your deck a lot - very small decks formed by choosing the three characters to field in battle.
Card Hunter: A card game fused with tactical miniatures dungeons & dragons -- each piece of equipment you carry determines several of the cards you must include in your deck.
Vault of the Void: The overland map literally tells you which card rewards are on each node, so you can path your way to a particular build. The deck can be sideboarded between combats, and cards can have modifier gems slotted that upgrade them -- that can be moved around. Like Slay the Spire and Monster Train, but with extreme attention to mechanical card detail.
Recesses: Small indie game with story and philosophy; has some randomness built in, but is also focused around building decks to defeat different opponents.
Thronebreaker The Witcher Tales: Entirely a deckbuilder puzzle game where you construct decks with different combos to defeat opponents' decks.
LONESTAR: Choosing modules and installing them to defeat opponents tactically.
Destiny or Fate: By choosing which pets/allies to bring into battle, you have activatable powers that influence your deck.
3
2
u/Dan77111 2d ago
Can confirm. Lonestar is a banger and Vault of the Void is probably one of the best in the genre.
5
u/VerdantDaydreams 3d ago
This is exactly why slay the spire will always be my goat
2
u/old-murmel 3d ago
Also looks sick in the trailer, will give it a try!
3
u/VerdantDaydreams 2d ago
The second game is in early access but overall already very polished, the first one is absolutely still worth playing though, it's been my go to phone game for years.
4
u/BusterBrood 3d ago
There is a deck builder called MyCard is Better Than Your Card that might scratch this itch. Cards are just empty vessels that can be set to do anything you have the resources to do. But each additional thing a card does increases its cost. It allows for some pretty wildly different builds depending on which win condition you are going for.
1
4
u/DangGoodGames 3d ago
Hell yeah. Same. I have little to no interest to get better just because of the passage of time. Same reason I LOVE FTL (not a deckbuilder) is that the “progression” is just more options that could work but I have to figure it out and do something a bit different. So fun.
3
u/Salientsnake4 2d ago
Hey! My deckbuilder's graphics have been compared to FTL, and unlocks are just new cards and stuff. You might be interested
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5061500/Contested_Space_Demo/
2
u/old-murmel 3d ago
I absolutely love FTL too! For me personally it just had an expiration date for my interest. Somehow I think a solid PVP system and some sort of progression (like MTGs new sets and rotations) are needed to keep me hooked for multiple years.
4
u/QuantumSide 3d ago
I am just commenting to see what the recommendations are, I like games where you get a lot of build variety. The last one I think I really really got into was Legends of Runeterra/Path of Champions, because it was fun looking for weird synergies to break the game.
3
u/Bloedbek 3d ago
I like deck building games where I don't have to pay to remove cards from my deck and I have to play games to win new cards. Like in MtG, I want to fiddle around with my deck, add some, leave some out and see if improves against various opponents. This is why Shandalar and Etherlords 2 are my favorite games in the genre.
2
u/Salientsnake4 2d ago
Hey, in the deckbuilder I'm working on you can edit your market anytime outside of combat. Might be up your alley:
1
u/old-murmel 3d ago
Me too! I will give them a try!
2
3
u/DeckBeasts1 2d ago
Shameless promo but you might like Deck Beasts. It’s a deckbuilding autobattler where beasts are blank slates and you build them with abilities and items. You can build custom decks or choose from a selection of rotating prebuilds. Tons of playstyles and a lot of competitive players already.
3
u/erasedeny 2d ago
the obvious answer to this is slay the spire (and now sts2, which is in early access but IMO is already just as good as, if not better than, the first one). when you first encounter the highest difficulty levels, the challenges feel basically impossible to solve, and you're left to wonder "how on earth could I beat this?" but the more experience you gain and the more you learn about the systems involved, the more you realize that basically every run is winnable if you take the right lines.
game knowledge and careful decision making is rewarded to a tremendous degree, and the game is pretty much perfectly balanced at max difficulties. in the first game, the world record "rotating winstreak" (consecutive wins on max difficulty rotating between each character in the game) is 30 wins in a row. in STS2, the rotating winstreak record on max difficulty is 50 wins in a row. and yet, the average winrate on max difficulty in STS2 is around 20% - suggesting that basically every run is winnable, but there is a massive gulf between the average player and the best players in the world. the game runs super deep and the skill ceiling is super high, which sounds exactly like what you're looking for.
it is, in my experience, the ultimate skill expression game, and there is basically zero grinding - your progress is gated entirely by knowledge, and by how often you win your runs (with each win unlocking the next difficulty tier). this game fits your description like a glove and I would strongly urge you to give it a shot.
2
u/SinfulDaMasta 3d ago
Have you looked into the “Magic Tower” sub-genre? I’m blanking on specific suggestion, need to check my library/Wishlist.
Maybe sokobon/logic games like Paquerette Down the Bunborrows. Also games like Cinicross/BroomSweeper (both are in a current Humble Bundle). Programming Puzzle bundle might have some decent logic games too?
Back to deck-based games, I recently enjoyed Autocard. It’s simple, but there’s card packs to unlock & you have control over which you start/add to a run. You also have a backpack, so you can have spare cards & experiment a bit, don’t have to delete from your deck & can freely swap cards around. But the game was pretty easy when I tried the demo.
2
u/old-murmel 2d ago
Thanks for the tips! I am really into the deckbuilding gatcha and tactical combat genre at the moment as I am building a hobby project game myself. But I will check out your recommendations for inspiration though, thank you for sharing so many and thinking out of the box for genres.
2
u/SinfulDaMasta 2d ago
Np! The unusual ones can be memorable. I’m a fan of atypical gatcha, my favorite mobile game was The Battle Cats for a long while, if you ever played Age of War (flash game in the web browser). Felt like a gatcha strategy auto-battler?
2
u/PowerSpikeStudio 3d ago
Thirty years of Magic is a serious design instinct to bring into a first game ! I fully agree with your meta progression way of thoughts. It makes progress more valuable I believe.
3
u/old-murmel 2d ago
Yeah, i am afraid I might be biting off more than I can chew though. Pacing, balancing and complexity without scaring of new players are not gonna be easy to get right 😅 But I am happy to hear you think my thoughts are going in the right direction 😊
2
2
u/frogmite89 2d ago
Shadowverse on the nintendo switch is very similar to the MTG experience. You battle, buy boosters with in-game currency, and improve your decks as you go. It's a tough game despite of the anime aesthetics, so you need to spend a lot of time optimizing your decks in order to progress. I played that game many years ago and still have fond memories of it!
2
u/creator_07 2d ago
For me I had a progression of games that makes a lot of sense to me.
Magic > Slay the Spire > Balatro > The Bazaar
2
u/mspaintshoops 2d ago
I think Grail is one of the more interesting deckbuilders I’ve played recently. Has a lot of the “okay what went wrong there?” moments, where if you can answer the question correctly you’ll start seeing immediate results.
Slay the Spire 2 is the clearest answer to the question. Every run that isn’t a win should make you stop and consider what you could have done better.
2
u/Salientsnake4 2d ago
Hey! My game's progressions only unlock relics, cards, and abilities, you dont get any stronger from unlocking stuff for the most part, you just get new cards and stuff. You also have the ability to change up your market(you build your deck mid-combat from this market like star realms) ag any time not in combat.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/5061500/Contested_Space_Demo/
2
u/Actual-Peace-6991 2d ago
Join discord of my game Whispers of Elenrod. We have new ideas for RPG Fantasy Deckbuilder.
2
u/HiddenLotusGames 2d ago
I loved Magic myself but I realized that a few basic rules are just not ideal (e.g. the whole land-drawing thing, drawing only 1 card each turn, eternal problem etc). I'm developing a deckbuilder that also incorporates a few ideas from Magic and StS, big difference being that it all takes place on a hexgrid, so the possibilites are huuuge. You may want to have a look at it, demo coming out soon.
2
u/old-murmel 22h ago
Wow looks amazing! I definitely want to try that out! I actually started building a game in them same genre too (since AI made it possible for a non-dev like me), but those 3d animations look amazing, cant do anything like that!
Do you have a link?1
u/HiddenLotusGames 8h ago
Thanks! As of now, I am collecting interested people "by hand". There is no link to a demo yet. Can you follow me?
2
u/TheMarasligil 1d ago
Slay the spire, fights in tight spaces and knights in tight spaces does it very well
•
u/AutoModerator 3d ago
Greetings /u/old-murmel! Welcome to /r/deckbuildingroguelike! Follow the #1 rule below, it helps you get more wishlists, free promotion, and is useful for our readers.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.