Three Reasons to Play “Star Realms” Deck Building Game.

August 14, 2014 in THE SIMPSONS NEWS

BOARD GAMES – Three Reasons to Play Star Realms Deck Building Game

Three Reasons to Play Star Realms Deck Building Game 05Star Realms is a deck building game that can be played on iOS, Android, and as a physical game over a tabletop. Today I’m going to give you the three reasons why the game is worth playing.

There are a lot of deck building games out there. A deck building game is a card game genre made popular by the card game Dominion.

Deck building games all share one common game mechanic. You start out with a very small deck of cards (about 10 cards or so) and throughout the game you acquire more cards using these starting cards, often from a community pool of cards in the center of the table, thereby “building your deck” as you play the game. This is done to achieve whatever the winning condition of the game is.

This general game mechanic has spawned multiple types of deck building games. One such game is Star Realms.

When Star Realms was published, it became a huge hit. So much so that, the demand out weighted the supplies. It is extremely difficult (as of the time of this writing) to get a tabletop copy of this game.

But that’s okay, if you really want to give it a try, there’s an Android app available and a iOS app as well.

I’ve played a lot of deck building games. I own five tabletop deck builders and have downloaded three other deck building game apps for my iOS device. I didn’t see why I should download, yet another deck builder.

What did this one have to offer that the other ones didn’t already do? But since this one was such a big hit, and since I heard an interview with the designer on the Little Metal Dog show podcast. I thought I’d give it a try.

I downloaded the Android app of the game and boy, am I glad I did. At first, when I played the game I didn’t see how the game was any different from another game app I own called Ascension Chronicle Of The Godslayer. It played almost exactly the same.

But the more I played it, the more I started to see why the game had become so popular.

Below I will give you the three reasons why you should pick up a copy.

(The Amazon links are affiliate links. Thanks for  your support)

It’s Inexpensive

First, as far as tabletop deck building games go, this one is by far the least expensive. For $15.00 you can pick up a copy and you’re ready to play the game against a friend. You only need the one game to play two players. That’s a lot of game for a very low price.

It’s one of the lowest priced deck builders on the market.

Not only that but the Android app is free.

To unlock the higher difficulty modes and all the bells and whistles of the full game, you need to spend $4.99. But if you simply want to, learn to play, try the game out, play against the easy computer AI, and play the first part of the Campaign mode, you can’t go wrong with free.

I’m assuming the iOS app also has the same model.

Even at $4.99, the game is worth the price.

Easy to Learn

Three Reasons to Play Star Realms Deck Building Game 01The game is very easy to pick up and play. The object of the game reduce your opponent’s life points (in game terms, his “authority”) to zero.

As with all deck building games, you start with a small deck of ten cards. You draw five as your starting hand of cards and with it you can either buy cards from the center of the table, attack your opponent’s life points, or do both.

Any cards you purchase go immediately to your discard pile. Once your turn is done, you discard all the cards you played AND the ones in your hand that you didn’t, into the discard pile. Then you draw another hand of five cards from your deck and wait for your next turn.

If you’re deck runs out of cards you shuffle your discard pile (which contains any new cards you bought) and you create your new deck from it.

Rinse repeat, until you opponent is out of the game. Simple.

I happen to own two other deck building game with almost the exact same simple game play as this one. The biggest difference between those games and this one is that, I get this game.

What I mean by this is, I get the way the combos in this game work. There something about the way the cards in this game work together that really makes sense to me.

It’s Deep

Three Reasons to Play Star Realms Deck Building Game 04The game has four factions. Each faction has a theme. One is all about attacking, one is about building currency and life points, one is about getting rid of cards, and one is about building a swarm of ships.

The trick to playing this game is to try to create a synergy of cards that work well together within the limited amount of random cards that are available to purchase.

The designer, who is a Magic the Gathering Hall of Fame inductee, likened the process to drafting Magic cards in a Magic the Gathering draft game.

I’ve only played Magic this way once but I have to say, it resembled that way of playing Magic, quite a bit.

The more you play the game, the more you understand each faction and how it plays. It gives so much replay value to the game knowing how all the cards work, and deciding what the best cards to get are at the right moments.

It’s really fun, and very challenging.

Final Thoughts

Three Reasons to Play Star Realms Deck Building Game 02This game is so worth getting. I didn’t realize how much fun I would have playing it.

It’s also very unique as a deck builder because most deck builders aren’t about directly attacking your opponents.

If you haven’t played a deck building game before, this once is an ideal introduction. It’s also a ton of fun to play.

If you’ve played Magic before and want to play something similar but without the collectible aspect, this is the game to get.

Give it a try.