Summary
- Strategy card games like Gwent, Legends of Runeterra, and Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel offer unique gameplay experiences with deckbuilding and diverse card abilities.
- Wingspan provides a relaxing and visually appealing strategy card game that challenges players to attract the best birds to their wildlife preserve.
- Slay the Spire combines card strategy and roguelike elements as players navigate through the Spire, making choices and building their unique deck to survive against enemies.
Strategy games are released with different sorts of mechanics all the time. From games that use real-time strategy to have the player guide a battalion across a battlefield to turn-based titles that allow players to plan before admitting that their turn is over,
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However, some of these games go a step further by using features such as deckbuilding to allow players to create their perfect hand of abilities before pursuing actual combat. Many of these games approach using cards in different ways, as well as how the games are played by placing them. Since the start of strategy games using this feature, these are by far the best strategy card games of all time.
Updated October 10, 2023, by Collins Erasmus: Playing a game of cards has been a popular pastime for many generations. Strategy games challenge players to think strategically and devise effective methods of accomplishing an objective. Card games like Monster Train, Wingspan, and Dicey Stone advocate for people of all ages to challenge their reasoning and cognitive abilities. Gathering people together over a game of strategy cards is a great idea because they're cheap, fun, and social. Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel, Legends of Runeterra, and Gwent: The Witcher Card Game are some of the strategy card games that have been introduced to this list. Players may now enjoy some of the best strategic card games ever made thanks to the availability of these classics.
11 Gwent: The Witcher Card Game
- Developer: CD Projekt Red
- Release Date: May 24, 2017
- Platform/s: Android, PlayStation 4, GeForce Now, Microsoft Windows, IOS, Xbox One, and Mac OS
Based on a minigame seen in The Witcher 3, Gwent: The Witcher Card Game recreates the grandiose world of the Witcher series, complete with knights, sorcerers, monsters, and Witchers. There are three rounds in each game of Gwent, and the player with the most points at the end of the game wins.
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Each of the several factions has its own unique rules, cards, and leaders. Each player's Gwent card deck has two rows: one for melee attacks and one for ranged attacks. Gwent is one of the best strategic games, and it teaches players resilience through its inherent difficulty and aesthetic appeal.
10 Marvel's Midnight Suns
- Developer: Firaxis Games
- Release Date: December 1, 2022
- Platform/s: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series x|s, Microsoft Windows
Starting off strong Marvel's Midnight Suns is a brilliant strategy game that combines some of the player's favorite Marvel characters into a strategy game that feels as if it has been plucked right out of the comic books. Each character has its own set of cards that can be unlocked and upgraded to build up a separate deck for each one before recruiting them into the upcoming battles.
Players should really consider what role each of these heroes will be playing in their team in order to build the right deck of cards that allows them to be the most effective. There are over 30 different superpowers available for players to equip their custom superhero, The Hunter, with. Additionally, either a man or a woman can portray The Hunter because he is a gender-neutral superhero.
9 Legends of Runeterra
- Developer: Riot Games
- Release Date: April 29, 2020
- Platform/s: Android, GeForce Now, IOS, Microsoft Windows
Riot Games developed Legends of Runeterra, which is similar to its parent game, League of Legends (LOL). The digital collectible card game Legends of Runeterra also lets players make their own custom decks. The game's strategy cards are modeled on all of League of Legends' most popular heroes, and their spells and abilities are included.
Combat in Legend of Runeterra requires quick decisions, continuous responses, and clever counters. Even if the game is only played once a week, participants can take turns playing offensive and defensive and earn cards based on their playtime. This leads to some similar crossovers, which boosts the fun factor of the card game's strategic elements.
8 Wingspan
- Developer: Monster Couch
- Release Date: September 17, 2020
- Platform/s: Windows, MacOS, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Android, iOS
Wingspan is one of the most relaxing strategy card games based on the board game with the same name. Each player controls a wildlife preserve and must compete against other players to attract the best birds to that location. Although Wingspan may sound simple, it is actually quite an amusing experience that has since won awards for its soothing card game experience. Players must think strategically in the hope of combining the right birds together in the right habitats, all while racing against a short number of turns to do it.
Besides all this, the art style as well as the sound design of the real-life sounds of each bird make Wingspan an experience that any card player should try. In addition, making use of a bird's habitat will unleash the bird's special abilities. There are four rounds in total, and each player gets a turn activating a habitat and/or adding a new bird to their player board.
7 Yu-Gi-Oh! Master Duel
- Developer: Konami
- Release Date: January 18, 2022
- Platform/s: Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Android, and iOS
Yu-Gi-Oh! Just like the original trading card game, players in Master Duel are engaged in the lore of the game. The popular card game Yu-Gi-Oh is the next generation of digital collectible card games that youngsters have been begging for. There are more than ten thousand cards available there, along with tournaments and rated matches.
The game does a decent job of introducing players to it, and there's even a single-player mode where they can learn more about the history of the cards. In Master Duel's extensive solo mode, players can learn the ropes at their own pace while avoiding the shame of a history of online defeats.
6 Monster Train
- Developer: Shiny Shoe
- Release Date: May 21, 2020
- Platform/s: Windows, Xbox One, iOS, Xbox Cloud Gaming
Set on a train, players must build their decks, ideally to help defend the backgrounds they pass while riding their one-way ticket to Hell. As a roguelike deck builder, Monster Train requires a lot of strategy from players in the hope of keeping back the forces of heaven while finding a solution to stop the freezing over of hell.
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Like any good strategy card game, there is a wide variety of cards for players to earn or find to make up their deck from ten starting decks, as well as five different monster clans to choose cards from. The playing field is vertical, the train has four levels, and the top level is a pyre. To defeat the invaders, players will employ a variety of cards that unleash monsters or trigger special effects.
5 Inscryption
- Developer: Daniel Mullins Games
- Release Date: December 5, 2020
- Platform/s: Windows, Linux, macOS, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series x|s
For those looking for an even bigger challenge with a twisted story, Inscryption is definitely the card battler title for players to try. Every choice matters, from the route the player decides to take to the cards they choose to play, as the opponents will only get harder the further into the game they play. Combining a variety of genres into one makes Inscryption much more than just a simple card game.
Players will need to take a step away from the table in between battles to unlock the secrets of this room they struggle to escape to find more solutions. The game shifts into a roguelike deck-building mode during this act, with the player starting with a basic set of cards drawn from the Leshy and Grimora card pools.
4 Slay The Spire
- Developer: Mega Crit
- Release Date: November 14, 2017
- Platform/s: Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, IOS, and Android
Similar to Monster Train, Slay the Spire is another brilliant card strategy roguelike where players must use their heads in the hope of surviving against the onslaught of foes while advancing up the Spire. Players must decide between the four characters to play with; they all come with their own sets of cards that specialize in different play styles. Players will also find other new cards to use as they explore the spire, with each adventure being entirely different.
Choosing to take the riskier path or the safer one can be the difference between life and death, as players are left with a lot to think about while creating their unique deck of cards. The objective is to make progress through a spire's many levels, each of which contains a variety of possible encounters spread across a branching structure and finishes with a boss character.
3 I Was A Teenage Exocolonist
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- Developer: Northway Games
- Release Date: August 25, 2022
- Platform/s: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, Linux, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS
Another brilliant yet unique card strategy game that many players have fallen in love with is I Was a Teenage Exocolonist. This title combined deck building and strategy with the RPG genre to make a game where players follow the journey of their main character as they grow up on a new planet that has the risk of being destroyed.
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Doing certain activities as well as bonding with certain people will change the cards players obtain through the ten years of life they play. Both the past and the future matter when trying to make the right choices as well as building the perfect deck of cards with the greatest mastered skills available in it.
2 Dicey Dungeons
- Developer: Distractionware
- Release Date: August 13, 2019
- Platform/s: Linux, MacOS, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series x|s, Android, iOS, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5
Combining deckbuilding with dice rolls makes Dicey Dungeons one of the most interesting strategy card games to date. Players must attempt to escape the dungeons set up by Lady Luck as they find the set of characters they may choose from have been turned into giant walking dice.
Although the main feature of the game is that the player rolls dice, they must build up a deck of abilities to put those dice rolls into. As players explore the dungeons, they will find new equipment to improve their chances, as they must try to make it further each time they play.