Hello everyone, welcome. Today I am going to talk about another superhero Deckbuilding Game I had occasion to play recently. This time it is the DC Deckbuilding Game. I don’t own this game and understand there are multiple ways to play, however I was only able to play the version where you play as mainline heroes. Each player takes a named hero card to be their character (I got Cyborg but swapped with the player who got Aquaman as they didn’t want Aquaman.)
I was happy having one of the toughest and strongest heroes in the DC universe, who happens to have a beautiful wife, magical trident and an army. Not sure why the other player didn’t want to play him…) We were then each dealt our basic hand of cards which included punch cards and vulnerability cards. A deck of hero cards was place in front of us, and a deck of villain cards to the side with the first one flipped over (We got Ra’s Al Ghul). 4 hero cards were placed in front of us available for recruitment and play started, the object being to defeat all the villains in the villain pile and have the most points at the end.
Players take it in turns to play cards from their hand using the attack power located bottom left of the card to fight villains or to recruit hero/powers. Vulnerability cards often appear, particularly early on during the game taking up space in your hand limiting your capability on any given turn, however, as the game progresses your deck grows in size with super heroes, powers and villain cards which work for you once defeated.
There are also various headquarters cards that can be recruited the same way as powers etc. The advantage to recruiting HQ cards, they become permanent effects once played giving a persistent bonus.
As play progresses the players will build up powerful decks, powerful enough to deal with the various villain cards and ultimately, powerful enough to end the game.
Despite being my first try at this game, the simple mechanics and the fact that I have played many similar games allowed me to grasp it relatively quickly and build up some really useful cards early on (see above).
Pros and Cons
I am going to compare this game to Marvel Legendary Deckbuilder game as it is the one I have most experience with.
Pros
Fast setup and takedown time
Quicker paced early on, even with 5 players
Same trait used to fight villains as recruit powers (probably largely responsible for quicker pace)
You get a starter named character with a unique ability
Good Production Quality/Art
Competitive
Cons
For a superhero game, with villains to be defeated, they are not a huge problem – they feel more like expensive allies to recruit
In the version I played there was no “scheme” mechanic as with the marvel game, which I feel added challenge and theme to Legendary
The ability to recruit defeated villains, including the main villains, makes it almost too easy.
It is very easy for one person to rapidly outpace the other players
Competitive
Conclusion
The DC Deckbuilding game is a simple superhero card game that seems to scale well, in terms of pace, regardless of the number of players, providing fun even in larger groups. I particularly like the HQ ability in this game as the persistent bonus is incredibly helpful.
I feel this is probably the simplest deck builder game that I have played, which makes it accessible to more people, though I personally prefer Marvel Legendary and Sentinels of the Multiverse as, whilst they can be harder, players succeed or fail together. And that feels more thematic. But, that doesn’t detract from the fact tht this game is fast paced, simple and fun.