Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game

D. Clair has travelled far enough through deckbuilding to know that each new design needs a mechanism of its own, even if the destination is not invariably perfect. Here that mechanism fits Mistborn unusually well: the heroes, and the notion of people swallowing metals for distinct magical effects, are not decorative wrapping but the foundation of the game.

The broad structure recalls Ashes of the Singularity. Each player begins with a hero, a different starting arrangement, and particular abilities; over the course of the game, you build your deck and pursue victory either by defeating an opponent or by getting ahead on the various experience tracks. It is a tidy double pressure, with the attacking and developmental plans sitting alongside one another without being quite the same plan.

The substantial twist is that cards are not simply played for free: they require tokens of metal, and those tokens are limited. The interesting decision is which metals to keep available and how to spread your deck across them, because the game pushes you towards several different colours rather than letting you serenely farm the affinity bonuses of one colour, as Ashes or Ascension can. This is not Concordia's hand wearing different overalls; the resource pressure genuinely changes the deckbuilding.

It is a very good example of its type, and I liked it a great deal. I would keep it to three players at most, because it stretches as the table grows, but at that scale it is a deckbuilder that finds a thematic reason to exist and uses it to quietly excellent effect.