Having recently been introduced to the Marvel superhero deck building game, Legendary (you can read my review here), I was chomping at the bit to try out the DC deck building game and I have to admit that I like DC’s offering just a tad bit more than the Marvel game. Like Legendary, in this game you control a group of heroes in their quest to defeat the super villains that are menacing the city. Like Legendary, you accomplish this by buying heroes and abilities from the supply and then adding them to your deck. And that’s where the similarities end for the most part.
Each player begins the game with a ten card deck that is comprised of 7 Punch cards and 3 vulnerability cards. The vulnerability cards do not actually do anything other than take up room in your deck and muddle your hand with useless junk. Punch cards are the cards that you will use to purchase cards in this game. They are worth 1 power apiece and, to simplify things a bit, I will simply refer to power as dollars and refer to a card’s cost as its dollar amount. Hence, a Punch card is worth $1. After the players have been dealt their starting hands, they are then dealt a random large superhero card. Depending on the superhero they are dealt, they will obtain some extra benefit for as long as they control this superhero. In the game that I played, I was dealt Aquaman. His ability gave me the ability to place any card that I purchased during the round with a cost of $5 or less on top of my deck instead of into my discard pile. The significance of this will become clear shortly. For now, just file it away and don’t worry about it.
Once the players have been dealt their hands and superhero cards, seven super villains are chosen at random and placed into a separate pile face down with Ra’s al Ghul placed on top of the pile face up. Then the main card deck is shuffled and placed face down. Five cards are then drawn from this deck and placed face up into the Line-Up. These are the cards that players will buy to add to their decks. Then all that needs to be done is to place the Kick pile face up along with the Weakness pile. The Kick pile is comprised of nothing but Kick cards. These function much like the Punch cards, but they cost $3 to buy and provide purchasing power worth $2 each. After everything is set up, a person is chosen to go first and the game begins.
Each player will draw 5 cards from the top of their deck and add these cards to their hand. If there aren’t 5 cards to draw in subsequent turns, the player draws what they can, shuffles their discard pile which then becomes their deck, and draws the remaining cards. Each card in the game has several components in common with every other card in the game. First, each card has its purchasing power displayed on the card inside of a star. Secondly, each card has its victory point total displayed inside of a circle at the bottom of the card. Thirdly, each card has text on it that explains what the card can do. The vulnerability cards in your starter deck have $0 purchasing power and are worth 0 victory points. The Punch cards have a purchasing power of $1 and are worth 1 victory point each. The goal of the game is to have the most victory points at the end of the game.
So, you’ve drawn your 5 starting cards and you’ve got the following hand:
-2 vulnerability
-3 Punches
This gives you an effective purchasing power of $3. Looking at the Line-Up, you see cards that all cost more than $3, so you purchase a Kick from the Kick pile. Like me, you also control Aquaman. So you add your newly purchased card to the top of your deck instead of your discard pile. Once you have made your purchase, you place all the cards from your play area into the discard pile along with the remaining cards from your hand. On your next turn, you draw these cards:
-Kick
-3 Punches
-1 vulnerability
You now have a purchasing power of $5 to work with. This time you can buy a card from the supply, so you do. It is a villain card that costs $4 and gives you an additional $2 purchasing power. Since it cost you less than $5, you place it on top of your deck (which still has 1 single card in it) because you want to know that you’ve got a guaranteed $3 purchasing power next turn ($2 from the card that you just bought and $1 from the Punch remaining in your deck). Once you have made your purchases, you discard the remaining cards in your hand and the cards from your play area. The top card of the main card deck is flipped over and used to replace the card that you just purchased. Then you draw 5 new cards. First, you draw the 2 remaining cards from your deck. Then you shuffle your discard pile and place it face down on the table and draw 3 cards from it.
Play continues in this fashion as the players each add to and improve their decks until eventually one of them has enough power to defeat a super villain. The super villains, when defeated, are added to your deck. Each super villain has an effect on it just like the cards purchased from the line-up. In addition to this effect, they also have a first time appearance attack. Once a player has defeated a super villain and added it to their deck and clean up has been performed (i.e. - discarding unused cards, replacing purchased cards, etc.), the next face down villain is flipped face up and its first time appearance attack happens. These attacks often have negative consequences. Some will knock your superhero card out of commission for a while while others will add weakness cards to your deck. Weakness cards, much like vulnerability cards, waste room in your deck and, unlike vulnerability cards, are also worth -1 victory point at the end of the game. These negative effects are just a couple of examples.
Once there are no more super villain cards to flip over or there are no more cards from the main deck to flip over, the game ends. Players then add up all of their victory points. The player with the most wins. If there is a tie, the player with the most super villain cards wins.
What I really liked about this game was its simplicity. It was easy for the person that was hosting it to set up. It was easy for him to explain and it was simple to play. My wife and I caught on very quickly. We have played many games where the rules are so long-winded and complicated that our eyes just sort of glaze over after a while. This was not one of those games and I really liked that about it. Legendary had a lot of components and there was a lot to go over and a lot to take in and that kind of detracted from my overall enjoyment of that game.
This is not to say that DC’s deck building offering is perfect, however. In Legendary, you felt like you were in the middle of a narrative recruiting superheroes to defeat whatever scheme the evil mastermind had come up with. This game doesn’t draw you in like that. The whole process of purchasing and then adding villains to your deck kind of destroys any illusion that you are constructing a team of superheroes to fight for justice. This doesn’t feel like a deck building game in which you are a participant in the pages of a comic book. It feels like a deck building game that has pictures of comic book characters on the cards. While the game is a very enjoyable experience, I feel that DC really missed the mark on that. If I were recommending one of these two games based on the ease of learning and playing, I’d recommend the DC deck building game. If I were recommending a game based upon the story and the narrative, I’d recommend Legendary hands down. In the end, even though I wasn’t drawn into the narrative, I still had a great time and I recommend this game highly for that alone if for nothing else.
Each player begins the game with a ten card deck that is comprised of 7 Punch cards and 3 vulnerability cards. The vulnerability cards do not actually do anything other than take up room in your deck and muddle your hand with useless junk. Punch cards are the cards that you will use to purchase cards in this game. They are worth 1 power apiece and, to simplify things a bit, I will simply refer to power as dollars and refer to a card’s cost as its dollar amount. Hence, a Punch card is worth $1. After the players have been dealt their starting hands, they are then dealt a random large superhero card. Depending on the superhero they are dealt, they will obtain some extra benefit for as long as they control this superhero. In the game that I played, I was dealt Aquaman. His ability gave me the ability to place any card that I purchased during the round with a cost of $5 or less on top of my deck instead of into my discard pile. The significance of this will become clear shortly. For now, just file it away and don’t worry about it.
Once the players have been dealt their hands and superhero cards, seven super villains are chosen at random and placed into a separate pile face down with Ra’s al Ghul placed on top of the pile face up. Then the main card deck is shuffled and placed face down. Five cards are then drawn from this deck and placed face up into the Line-Up. These are the cards that players will buy to add to their decks. Then all that needs to be done is to place the Kick pile face up along with the Weakness pile. The Kick pile is comprised of nothing but Kick cards. These function much like the Punch cards, but they cost $3 to buy and provide purchasing power worth $2 each. After everything is set up, a person is chosen to go first and the game begins.
Each player will draw 5 cards from the top of their deck and add these cards to their hand. If there aren’t 5 cards to draw in subsequent turns, the player draws what they can, shuffles their discard pile which then becomes their deck, and draws the remaining cards. Each card in the game has several components in common with every other card in the game. First, each card has its purchasing power displayed on the card inside of a star. Secondly, each card has its victory point total displayed inside of a circle at the bottom of the card. Thirdly, each card has text on it that explains what the card can do. The vulnerability cards in your starter deck have $0 purchasing power and are worth 0 victory points. The Punch cards have a purchasing power of $1 and are worth 1 victory point each. The goal of the game is to have the most victory points at the end of the game.
So, you’ve drawn your 5 starting cards and you’ve got the following hand:
-2 vulnerability
-3 Punches
This gives you an effective purchasing power of $3. Looking at the Line-Up, you see cards that all cost more than $3, so you purchase a Kick from the Kick pile. Like me, you also control Aquaman. So you add your newly purchased card to the top of your deck instead of your discard pile. Once you have made your purchase, you place all the cards from your play area into the discard pile along with the remaining cards from your hand. On your next turn, you draw these cards:
-Kick
-3 Punches
-1 vulnerability
You now have a purchasing power of $5 to work with. This time you can buy a card from the supply, so you do. It is a villain card that costs $4 and gives you an additional $2 purchasing power. Since it cost you less than $5, you place it on top of your deck (which still has 1 single card in it) because you want to know that you’ve got a guaranteed $3 purchasing power next turn ($2 from the card that you just bought and $1 from the Punch remaining in your deck). Once you have made your purchases, you discard the remaining cards in your hand and the cards from your play area. The top card of the main card deck is flipped over and used to replace the card that you just purchased. Then you draw 5 new cards. First, you draw the 2 remaining cards from your deck. Then you shuffle your discard pile and place it face down on the table and draw 3 cards from it.
Play continues in this fashion as the players each add to and improve their decks until eventually one of them has enough power to defeat a super villain. The super villains, when defeated, are added to your deck. Each super villain has an effect on it just like the cards purchased from the line-up. In addition to this effect, they also have a first time appearance attack. Once a player has defeated a super villain and added it to their deck and clean up has been performed (i.e. - discarding unused cards, replacing purchased cards, etc.), the next face down villain is flipped face up and its first time appearance attack happens. These attacks often have negative consequences. Some will knock your superhero card out of commission for a while while others will add weakness cards to your deck. Weakness cards, much like vulnerability cards, waste room in your deck and, unlike vulnerability cards, are also worth -1 victory point at the end of the game. These negative effects are just a couple of examples.
Once there are no more super villain cards to flip over or there are no more cards from the main deck to flip over, the game ends. Players then add up all of their victory points. The player with the most wins. If there is a tie, the player with the most super villain cards wins.
What I really liked about this game was its simplicity. It was easy for the person that was hosting it to set up. It was easy for him to explain and it was simple to play. My wife and I caught on very quickly. We have played many games where the rules are so long-winded and complicated that our eyes just sort of glaze over after a while. This was not one of those games and I really liked that about it. Legendary had a lot of components and there was a lot to go over and a lot to take in and that kind of detracted from my overall enjoyment of that game.
This is not to say that DC’s deck building offering is perfect, however. In Legendary, you felt like you were in the middle of a narrative recruiting superheroes to defeat whatever scheme the evil mastermind had come up with. This game doesn’t draw you in like that. The whole process of purchasing and then adding villains to your deck kind of destroys any illusion that you are constructing a team of superheroes to fight for justice. This doesn’t feel like a deck building game in which you are a participant in the pages of a comic book. It feels like a deck building game that has pictures of comic book characters on the cards. While the game is a very enjoyable experience, I feel that DC really missed the mark on that. If I were recommending one of these two games based on the ease of learning and playing, I’d recommend the DC deck building game. If I were recommending a game based upon the story and the narrative, I’d recommend Legendary hands down. In the end, even though I wasn’t drawn into the narrative, I still had a great time and I recommend this game highly for that alone if for nothing else.