by Hank34
"Complex, fiddly boardgames make my beard angry."- Abe LincolnWell said Abe, well said.
Deckbuilders... the ubiquitous genre these days. If it has a large enough following there is probably a deckbuilder for it. From OG Star Trek to Tentacle Bento... er ok wait maybe you don't even have to have a following to make a deck builder. Regardless, DC does have a following and a deckbuilding game so here are my thoughts.
For those unfamiliar, deckbuilding games are games where you build your own personal deck of cards. Each player starts with the same starting deck, but will end up with a much different deck than the other players. There is usually a "market" where players can buy more cards on their turn. The cards that are bought on your turn go into your discard pile along with you hand, you draw a new hand and wait for your next turn. Cards are worth victory points, and whoever has the most victory points in their deck at the end wins. Simple right?
DC Deckbuilder does not stray from this tried and true formula, at all. There is only one "resource" to collect which you can buy other cards with, which is "power". You check your hand to see if you have enough power to buy that card you want, and if you do, you buy it. Some cards have attacks that can mess with your opponents, or abilities that allow you to break some game rules, like drawing extra cards or looking at the top of your deck.
Where DC deckbuilder does change things up a bit, are the over-sized superhero cards every player is given at the beginning of the game. Each superhero, all DC stalwarts, has a different ability which will grant you more power that turn if you meet a criteria, or allow you to draw more cards. So those are the pretty simplified basics. The real question you are probably asking yourself is, is this game any good and how does it stack up against the other deckbuilders out there?
In one word, yes, it is a good game. Nothing genre defining, but a good, fun game nonetheless. Like Abe said, sometimes a game can be too complex for its own good. Take Thunderstone Advance for example. A fun game, but sometimes I feel like it can drag on a bit too long. DC Deckbuilder, once you get that first play under your belt, is over in 30-45 minutes. Want a quick, fun deckbuilder to play before the main gaming course that evening? DC deckbuilder is your cocktail weenie before the Thanksgiving dinner. Short, enjoyable, and has that delicious red sauce...
The best part of DC Deckbuilder has to be the art on the cards. The color on the cards pop and generally are all well done. There are multiple copies of the same card that have the same art, but the Man of Steel card has different art than the Heat Vision card. This is the main reason I stayed away from Marvel's deckbuilder Legendary. Every card has the same art on it, and while the art is still of great quality, this seems very lazy and like a missed opportunity on Upper Decks part. Legendary does seem to have deeper gameplay (very similar to Thunderstone), but the same art on every card was the breaking point for me.
Another deckbuilder that DC is compared to often is Ascension. They have very similar mechanics (Ascension does have more than one resource though), but I very much prefer DC. As I said earlier, the art is great with DC. Ascension could win awards for ugliest game of all time. The art is horrible (just my opinion of course) and hurts my eyes to look at. I mean, who would you rather look at, Wonder Woman in all her colorful, chesty glory, or some hideous, green-brown blob of a goblin?
What about Dominion, you say? How does it compare there? Again, the theme of DC goes a long way for me personally. I'd much rather be building decks with Green Lantern, Superman, and Batman, with all their powers, and gadgets accounted for than buying duchies and Moats. I do prefer how the "market" is in Dominion though. In Dominion, the cards you can buy are all out on the table at once. You could buy the same card each turn in Dominion. Not true with DC though because it is very much like Ascension in that the "market" is different each turn. Because of this difference, I think there is room in everyone's collection for DC and Dominion. DC and Ascension? Not so much...
As for the whole, "I'm playing as Batman, but using Heat Vision" complaint, I didn't like the idea at all when I first heard of it. In fact, I held off on buying DC because of it. But it really doesn't hurt the game because you aren't playing the game "as the hero" you are given at the beginning, rather, you are just using the ability of that hero, just like using the heat vision ability of Superman for a turn.
So that's my 2 cents. DC Deckbuilder is a fun, fast, fantastically- drawn, deckbuilder. Is it a game changer? No, but it does add a theme that will resonate with a lot of people. Dominion, Thunderstone Advance, and DC deckbuilder are different enough from each other to each warrant a spot in your collection and each are great games. Give Ascension back to the Kindergarden class where the art was drawn and go buy DC.