Topic of the Week - Fixed Market Deckbuilders

I think I am not aboard this train! I’ve never played any of the games people have mentioned here* (except Orléans, which I really like, but which was only mentioned to be excluded), and to be honest I’m not sure I really know what a ‘deckbuilder’ is! I certainly don’t get the difference between deck building and deck construction, which sound to me like the same thing!

Deckbuilding: each player starts with a basically identical deck*, and adds and removes a lot of cards during play (“building” their deck).

Deck construction: create your own deck before the game starts, which usually doesn’t change greatly during the course of a game.

(* there are exceptions, of course, each deck starting with one or more different cards became a thing)

3 Likes

Yes there is. I have never played it, or even seen it being played. :slight_smile:

I don’t really have anything to contribute to this thread, as beyond Quest for El Dorado, which has a revolving fixed market, I don’t think I have played any fixed market deck builders.

Then Quacks as a fixed market bag builder, but that’s a different beast.

2 Likes

Is Concordia a deckbuilder then, or is removing cards a requirement?

(I don’t want to derail the thread - I’m just looking along my shelves for any games that might possibly be called deckbuilders in any way at all!)

1 Like

No, it’s a fair question. And a with all of these (like worker placement) it’s a no and a yes.

Classic deckbuilding would have you acquiring cards into your discard pile, then when your deck is empty you shuffle everything together and start drawing through your new deck. Each turn you draw a hand (5 is the standard established by Dominion and almost every game does that, though El Dorado and GWT set it at 4 and Rococo i think does three?) and you use that hand for your turn, discarding it and any new cards at the end of your turn.

So the fact that Concordia has a hand rather than a deck and there is no drawing or shuffling makes it a stretch. But the way you start with symmetrical hands of comparatively weak cards and then tailor your suitcase of cards throughout the game by investing in new cards is quite deckbuildery.

2 Likes

That makes sense. I suppose not many games are only one thing; and I suspect I’d find them boring if they were.

I’ve finished my look along my shelves and I think the closest to deck building I have are Concordia and Obsession. Unless it’s Orléans.

Is ‘handbuilding’ a thing? If it isn’t, should it be?

1 Like

For me: I have waaaaay too much Aeon’s End and hardly ever play it, largely because it’s become an organisational challenge in its own right. I like Automobiles a great deal even though I’m not terribly good at it

2 Likes