Most Complex Deck-Building Games

While deck-building games may be difficult to learn for newcomers, the genre itself isn't typically known for overly-complex designs. Games such as Slay The Spire, for example, feature interlocking gameplay mechanics that help to support a relatively straightforward structure.

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Complexity and difficulty don't need to go hand-in-hand; not all of these titles are hard to learn, or even particularly difficult to beat. However, these titles all feature a variety of interconnected systems that elevate their similar foundations.

8 Slay The Spire

A Straightforward Experience With Complex Strategies

Slay the Spire

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Roguelike

Deckbuilding

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9 /10

Released

January 23, 2019

Developer(s)

Mega Crit

Platform(s)

Android, iOS, PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Genre(s)

Roguelike, Deckbuilding

OpenCritic Rating

Mighty

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Slay The Spire is a diverse deck-builder packed with a variety of features that encourage multiple play-styles and allow for intricate strategies. The diverse cast of playable characters, each with their own unique cards, provide much of the game's complexity, but they're supported by a tremendous number of viable strategies and game-changing passive items.

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The game's map system also adds a level of complexity to the experience, putting some immediate pressure on the player to pick the optimal path for their current strategy. However, despite several interlocking systems, Slay The Spire rarely feels overwhelming, allowing it to remain a relatively accessible deck-builder.

7 Monster Train

An Intricate Combination Of Tower Defense & Card Play

Monster Train is an accessible deck-builder with a unique tower-defense twist that allows for a variety of complex combat encounters; the vertical nature of the combat arena forces players to think ahead, and the combination of tower-defense gameplay, classic deck-building, and card play provides a complex tableau of decisions at all times.

Supported by multiple factions, spell cards, and unique locations, each run of Monster Train is often different from the last. This ensures that each of the game's complex combat scenarios must often be overcome in unique ways based on the current strategy of the player, improving replay value and adding further depth to the experience.

6 Cobalt Core

Accessible Difficulty & Interconnected Systems

Cobalt Core isn't the most difficult deck-builder on the market, but its complex combination of turn-based tactics and classic card play makes for a winning fusion. In the game, players control a spaceship and its crew via a hand of cards, each of which represents the movements and decisions of each crew member.

Cobalt Core also allows players to maneuver their spaceship with a unique resource: evasion. This allows players to dodge incoming attacks and even line up their own devastating shots, making for a surprisingly complex, and yet accessible, experience.

5 Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles

A Dice-Builder With A Unique Flow Of Combat

Although Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles swaps out cards for dice, the basic structure of the game remains the same; players fight enemies, add new dice to their "deck", and customize that deck throughout the run in order to keep up with the scaling difficulty. However, Astrea's dice are highly customizable, adding to the complexity and making the viable strategies harder to decipher than those in a standard deck-builder such as Slay The Spire.

It's not rocket science, but it often takes experimentation to discover the winning combos within Astrea's potential strategies. This is further complicated by the game's dual damage system, which allows players to use different colored dice for different results.

4 Griftlands

A Distinctive Dual Combat System

While Griftlands can be difficult, its complexity lies more in its elegantly-designed combination of RPG and deck-building mechanics. In the game, players control one of three unique characters, fighting and even negotiating with enemies in a dual combat system.

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This dual system tasks players with building and managing two unique decks for both violence and debate. By including two entirely unique systems for conflict, Griftlands is able to offer a decidedly complex combination of mechanics. Additionally, the RPG elements woven into Griftlands' design allow players to interact with friend and foe in meaningful ways, developing social bonds in order to further their own goals.

3 Wildfrost

Diverse Factions, Dynamic Combat, & Deep Customization

Beneath Wildfrost's colorful cartoon art-style is a biting difficulty driven by complex mechanics and unforgiving enemies. Though remarkably easy to learn, Wildfrost is a deck-builder that requires constant attention, as even one piece of missed information can result in the end of a run.

There's a lot to keep track of in Wildfrost, as each character, both friend and foe, acts on a designated timer. Supporting these intricate combat encounters is a complex combination of card types, passive upgrades, and node-based map exploration. This results in a deck-builder that is truly unique, requiring careful thinking and patience in order to succeed.

2 One Step From Eden

Real-Time Combat & Complex Controls

Card play takes a back-seat in One Step From Eden, replaced by frantic, fast-paced action that requires constant attention in order to succeed. Taking inspiration from Mega Man: Battle Network, One Step From Eden has players bobbing and weaving on a grid, avoiding enemy attacks and simultaneously dishing out damage with a variety of spells.

These spells are played in sequence, drawn from a deck that players build over the course of each run. This combination of real-time action and careful deck-building results in a remarkably complex and relatively challenging game, complicated further by the addition of multiple playable characters.

1 Dune: Imperium

Worker-Placement & Deck-Building Combined

• Platform(s): PC, Xbox, Mobile
• Released: 2024
• Developer(s): Dire Wolf
• Genre: Strategy

Adapted from the tabletop game of the same name, Dune: Imperium is an elegantly-designed tableau of complex mechanics and interlocking systems that encourage a multitude of strategies. From the variety of playable characters that drastically change the starting position of each game, to the complex combination of deck-building and worker-placement mechanics, Dune: Imperium excels with its complexity, providing a truly strategic puzzle.

The worker-placement mechanics at play in Dune: Imperium ensure that every player's options are always changing, even dwindling. However, the variety of available spaces and the agency afforded to players through the game's wild variety of cards ensures that there are almost always multiple choices. Furthermore, the game's unique conflict system adds yet another element to worry about when strategizing, providing an intense gauntlet that offers as much risk as it does reward.

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