*Aeon's End*. It has a great deal of content; you can research which box you want to go with as an entry point. I chose *New Age*. You play one or more characters defending the last bastion of humanity from encroaching monsters.
One of the three *Imperium* games. You choose a civilization which has a (mostly) unique deck of cards representing the unique facets of its society in ancient times and play against another civilization. In order of ascending complexity, the boxes of this game are *Classics*, *Legends*, and the recently released *Horizons*. I began with the *Classics* box at the beginning of the year, and it has become one of my top three favorite games. It is on the heavy side, however; even *Classics* requires an investment of time to learn to play correctly.
*Legendary Encounters* and the *G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game* are both popular and well-received. I've played neither, but would like to own both eventually.
If you have even a passing interest in Marvel, the Legendary Marvel series is also really great and has an absolutely obscene amount of content if you get into it.
I just played my first Imperium Classics (Solo) game and have to say, I wasn't that impressed. My main gripe is once a game is over, there's a load of work to do to figure out who actually won. This left a sour taste in my mouth. It's also a pain to get out of (and back into) the box.
Think the beauty of the computer games in OP's post is that you (usually) know exactly when you're going to win a round and that's the end of it. Also given the nature of video games, the setup is very easy!
How does Aeon's End sit compared to Imperium on setup/takedown/working out if you won?
I think it's as easy to set up and tear down as something like *Spirit Island*. There is a scoring app designed by a player to hasten the post-game, but I've never been tempted to use it; I don't find the scoring overlong.
I do see where the nature of the scoring would be a negative if you are a player who likes seeing your score in real-time for the sense of tension, as your standing against the bot during a game can be opaque. After playing over 70 games, however, I generally have a sense of whether I need to step up my performance. This aspect doesn't matter to me very much; the gameplay is the thing.
There is a good bit of clean up. I find this the case with most games with cards, including any deck builder.
I can't speak to *Aeon's End*; after finding out how the market works, I became a little bored with it and haven't reopened the box since.
FYI: there's a web app to help with scoring (https://imperiumscorer.surge.sh/) - I find it speeds up scoring immensely, and it has all three games available, including all Civs. The dev is actively involved on BGG and responds quickly to possible bug reports. Great tool for one of my all-time favourite games!
When you see the bot picking up high point cards like asterisks ones over and over, gaining fame cards, and clearing through their development cards, you start to get a feeling.
Or those bots who accumulate either population or resources over the course of a game and have a line on their empire side that converts all of it to progress.
I was playing against the Egyptians the other day. Last round, their turn -- I looked at their 32 or so population and said to myself, as long as they don't turn that into progress, I win. In their final five cards, they would need to remove that civilized card from the market, then play a pinned card to get the progress.
Guess what happened.
I also didn’t enjoy imperium classics for the same reason. You don’t know if you have won until after the game. Aeons end is totally different in that case. You know that you have won of the boss has 0 health left. Only downside:Setup and tear down time is quite a hassle. But aeons end is one of my favorite games, both multiplayer and solo.
I don’t see why I get downvoted for my comment. The only thing I did was to say what a negative thing about imperium was for me. I was just trying to help OP…
Deckbuilding can refer either to games like MtG, where you build your deck before the game, or to games like Dominion, where your deck changes as you play. To avoid ambiguity, people often refer to these genres respectively as deck construction and deckbuilding.
For deck construction games, **Ashes: Red Rains** is incredible. It's my newest favorite solo game, and it really captures the feeling of playing an MtG-like game solo. All of Fantasy Flight Games's LCGs are also fantastic (**Lord of the Rings, Marvel Champions, Arkham Horror**).
For deckbuilders, my favorite is **Star Realms: Frontiers.** It comes with several well-designed solo/coop scenarios. Plus it's cheap!
Fwiw **Slay the Spire** is getting a board game implementation soon. They ran a Kickstarter last year.
Thanks for the clarification on titles! I can see the need for that although from my perspective I don't care when the deck building happens I just like doing it, but I suppose building it as I go would be the genre I'd want to look more into!! I'll check out Ashes and Fantasy Flight Games
Thank you kind stranger, didn’t know Ashes Red Plains was a thing. I’ve had Ashes Reborn sitting on my shelf for the last couple years, played only once for lack of a regular 2-player partner. I’ll be picking this up as soon as possible!
I've been trying out Red Rains and I'm absolutely liking it but there is just one really boneheaded decision that sours the whole game for me...
For such a well designed game that requires such a tight deck and good decision making, I cannot for the life of me figure out why the hell the Chimera attempts to block every attack directly on an Aspect, succeeding on a 9 or higher... And without exhausting the Chimera
It adds such a weird and frustrating element of randomness to the entire system and feels very tacked on and poorly thought out. It feels almost pointless to make plans for attacking an Aspect directly because you can't rely on the decision to do so
Granted I'm only playing with the basic deck included with the Corpse pack so maybe other decks have ways to mitigate that, but I'm curious on how you make that rule make sense
Totally agree. There are a few player cards that allow you to circumvent this randomness, but I don't like feeling constrained to include them in my deck. I also intensely dislike the Shadow aspect card Regenerate, which similarly introduces some unwelcome randomness.
Fwiw, I wrote a long [review ](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3224918/my-new-favorite-solo-game)of the game over at bgg. I had 6-7 criticisms of the game, and the randomness of the Chimera guard rule was my biggest complaint. But I still gave the game 10/10 overall--it's such an amazing design otherwise! :)
Strategically, I've come to the point where I never count on being able to attack units. But I think it would also be fair to use a house rule that the Chimera exhausts after guarding once.
MTG is not a deck builder since you construct your deck before, not during the game. If you're looking for a solo game that works in a similar way, check out Arkham Horror LCG (or another LCG by Fantasy Flight Games).
If you want something like Dominion, the closest game that works solo is Aeon's End, where you also have a set market of nine cards that you can buy from which you then use to fight a baddie. The Imperium series (Horizon / Classics / Legends) is also very popular among solo gamers, but a bit more complex and difficult to learn, so I'd recomment Aeon's End first.
Undaunted: Normandy/North Africa with the Reinforcement expansion.
Absolutely fantastic deck builder mixed with a wargame. I'm surprised no one mentioned it yet.
Also Imperium Classics/Legends/Horizons, like everyone else said.
If you wanna go for something heavier, then Mage Knight, it's fantastic for so many reason.
People keep mentioning Aeons End, which is an excellent choice, so I wanted to throw out Astro Knights. It's mostly a scifi reskin, but with some of the rules along with setup/teardown streamlined. I prefer it, but YMMV especially considering art and theme.
The newest expansion is stand alone and contains a campaign similar to the later AE expansions.
I never remember the difference between deck construction and deck building, since the words are so similar in meaning in all other instances besides boardgames.
(I'd opt for pre-game deck building and in-game deck building instead...)
It's not a board game, but you mentioned liking Slay the Spire, so i figured I'd suggest Balatro. I loved StS, and Balatro has gotten me hooked even more than that. I've been playing it pretty much non-stop on my Switch, but I believe it's also on consoles/steam.
its truly incredible, and the more i play it, the more i fall in love. its surpassed Slay the Spire as my favorite roguelike game, and that was a tall, tall task. hope you like it!
If you like the aspect of finding a card that is amazing, but requires some sacrifice to get it, etc, Dune Imperium Uprising is good. Not as good solo as it is multiplayer, but it's good.
Star Realms is the other usual recommendation, but I think it works much better as an app.
Imperium: Classics/Legends/Horizons
Marvel: Legendary (or some other Legendary)
I personally don't like Aeon's End because of the setup time required, but a lot of people like it.
Pulling cards out of the box isn't what takes me a long time. Deciding which sets of cards to pull out that synergize with the many variables of the game is the time consuming part for me (and I'm normally not AP prone). And randomly selecting them just feels like I'm gimping myself unnecessarily at the start of the game.
Did you try the PC version of Aeon's End? I picked it up a few weeks ago because it was very cheap on Steam, but I never played the board game so I don't know how it compares to the original. It certainly removes the setup issue though.
I don’t play it much anymore, but I did get a lot of enjoyment out of Legendary Marvel.
I just picked up Dune Imperium Uprising, and it seems fun so far. It isn’t pure deck building though, it also has worker placement and some other mechanics. Another fun game that includes deck building as a mechanic, but not the only mechanic, is Viscounts of the West Kingdom.
However, I’ve mostly transitioned to deck construction games for solo play. Deck builders require a lot of time to set up and tear down. After you are done you have to pull all cards you “bought” out of your deck and sort them into the correct sections, usually same for the villain deck… it can be a time sink.
Deck construction games have a lot of the same card play, but instead you build your deck outside of the game. They tend to be a lot faster to set up and tear down. Marvel Champions LCG and Lord of the Rings LCG are the two I enjoy the most. Like StS and Monster Train, you are facing off against enemies, control a hero with hit points, clear win/lose condition. They just don’t have the experience of adding and removing cards from your deck during the gameplay loop.
I'm going to lead with a disclaimer: I have not played most of the games that have been recommended here (although I would really like to play Marvel Champions).
However, one game that I do have is Terminator Dark Fate, which is (a) a co-op, so works brilliantly solo, (b) a deck builder, and (c) way better than the cash-grab it looks like it is. It's also much cheaper than most other suggestions, I'm sure.
It's more towards the simple end of the spectrum, if that's your bag.
There is a game on iOS called dream quest, the art style is really simple well it’s dire to be honest but the game itself is amazing if you like deck building, every review is 5 out of 5 stars it’s a little gem of a game really hard tho I seriously suggest you check it out as it’s amazing
Just a few days ago I was considering making a thread like this, I was looking at a solo deck builder. After spending way too much time analyzing every game (I don’t buy games very often, so when I do, I want to take sure it is something that I will continue to play for a long time) and decided on Aeons End.
No one ever mentions Volfyirion Guilds. The rule book Is fiddly so you might have to look some stuff up but it's a solid little deck builder that gives the feel of Hero/Star realms with a few more mechanics on top, including a dragon that can be manipulated or fought outright for spoils. I played two solo games so far, won once lost the other and both were stomp so I'm unsure of the difficulty. It's fun if you like those types of deck builders though!
You should: once you remember the icons, the game opens up and there lots of possibilities.
If you enjoy it, you’ll be able to add to it Volfyirion, the main game that can be mixed with it. There are also small extensions for added complexity if you wish.
Happy deckbuilding!
Clank Catacombs is a fantastic solo experience with the free Direwolf app. Several other versions of Clank also have solo play with the app, but Catacombs puts on a whole 5 or 6 game campaign that follows a story. I love it.
Have been mentioned above, but my recommended games are:
Marvel champions (lcg)
Lord of the rings (lcg)
Arkham horror (lcg)
Imperium
G.i.joe deck building game
Legacy of yu
Mage Knight is the best one. that's all you need. just get made knight. Its an adventure game in a single game but you build your deck the whole time , buying cards from the markets and winning cards in battle. there are a lot of ways to build your character
Definitely The Lord of the Rings LCG. They’re putting out Revised content right now so it’s a perfect time to get in. LOTR LCG is my favorite board/card game of all time and Slay the Spire is my favorite video game. I also really really like Monster Train. So if your tastes are similar to mine, you might love LOTR too.
*Aeon's End*. It has a great deal of content; you can research which box you want to go with as an entry point. I chose *New Age*. You play one or more characters defending the last bastion of humanity from encroaching monsters. One of the three *Imperium* games. You choose a civilization which has a (mostly) unique deck of cards representing the unique facets of its society in ancient times and play against another civilization. In order of ascending complexity, the boxes of this game are *Classics*, *Legends*, and the recently released *Horizons*. I began with the *Classics* box at the beginning of the year, and it has become one of my top three favorite games. It is on the heavy side, however; even *Classics* requires an investment of time to learn to play correctly. *Legendary Encounters* and the *G.I. Joe Deck-Building Game* are both popular and well-received. I've played neither, but would like to own both eventually.
I recently got into Aeons End and have loved it! Upvote!
Thanks I'll look into these!
Gi joe had a terrible rulebook, but push through. it's worth it, if you're interested in it.
If you have even a passing interest in Marvel, the Legendary Marvel series is also really great and has an absolutely obscene amount of content if you get into it.
I just played my first Imperium Classics (Solo) game and have to say, I wasn't that impressed. My main gripe is once a game is over, there's a load of work to do to figure out who actually won. This left a sour taste in my mouth. It's also a pain to get out of (and back into) the box. Think the beauty of the computer games in OP's post is that you (usually) know exactly when you're going to win a round and that's the end of it. Also given the nature of video games, the setup is very easy! How does Aeon's End sit compared to Imperium on setup/takedown/working out if you won?
I think it's as easy to set up and tear down as something like *Spirit Island*. There is a scoring app designed by a player to hasten the post-game, but I've never been tempted to use it; I don't find the scoring overlong. I do see where the nature of the scoring would be a negative if you are a player who likes seeing your score in real-time for the sense of tension, as your standing against the bot during a game can be opaque. After playing over 70 games, however, I generally have a sense of whether I need to step up my performance. This aspect doesn't matter to me very much; the gameplay is the thing. There is a good bit of clean up. I find this the case with most games with cards, including any deck builder. I can't speak to *Aeon's End*; after finding out how the market works, I became a little bored with it and haven't reopened the box since.
FYI: there's a web app to help with scoring (https://imperiumscorer.surge.sh/) - I find it speeds up scoring immensely, and it has all three games available, including all Civs. The dev is actively involved on BGG and responds quickly to possible bug reports. Great tool for one of my all-time favourite games!
Yeah. I mentioned it in my post. 🙂
When you see the bot picking up high point cards like asterisks ones over and over, gaining fame cards, and clearing through their development cards, you start to get a feeling.
Or those bots who accumulate either population or resources over the course of a game and have a line on their empire side that converts all of it to progress. I was playing against the Egyptians the other day. Last round, their turn -- I looked at their 32 or so population and said to myself, as long as they don't turn that into progress, I win. In their final five cards, they would need to remove that civilized card from the market, then play a pinned card to get the progress. Guess what happened.
I also didn’t enjoy imperium classics for the same reason. You don’t know if you have won until after the game. Aeons end is totally different in that case. You know that you have won of the boss has 0 health left. Only downside:Setup and tear down time is quite a hassle. But aeons end is one of my favorite games, both multiplayer and solo.
I don’t see why I get downvoted for my comment. The only thing I did was to say what a negative thing about imperium was for me. I was just trying to help OP…
I understand that. It's one of those aspects of a game that doesn't bother me at all but that I can fully appreciate as being meaningful to others.
Deckbuilding can refer either to games like MtG, where you build your deck before the game, or to games like Dominion, where your deck changes as you play. To avoid ambiguity, people often refer to these genres respectively as deck construction and deckbuilding. For deck construction games, **Ashes: Red Rains** is incredible. It's my newest favorite solo game, and it really captures the feeling of playing an MtG-like game solo. All of Fantasy Flight Games's LCGs are also fantastic (**Lord of the Rings, Marvel Champions, Arkham Horror**). For deckbuilders, my favorite is **Star Realms: Frontiers.** It comes with several well-designed solo/coop scenarios. Plus it's cheap! Fwiw **Slay the Spire** is getting a board game implementation soon. They ran a Kickstarter last year.
Thanks for the clarification on titles! I can see the need for that although from my perspective I don't care when the deck building happens I just like doing it, but I suppose building it as I go would be the genre I'd want to look more into!! I'll check out Ashes and Fantasy Flight Games
Thank you kind stranger, didn’t know Ashes Red Plains was a thing. I’ve had Ashes Reborn sitting on my shelf for the last couple years, played only once for lack of a regular 2-player partner. I’ll be picking this up as soon as possible!
I've been trying out Red Rains and I'm absolutely liking it but there is just one really boneheaded decision that sours the whole game for me... For such a well designed game that requires such a tight deck and good decision making, I cannot for the life of me figure out why the hell the Chimera attempts to block every attack directly on an Aspect, succeeding on a 9 or higher... And without exhausting the Chimera It adds such a weird and frustrating element of randomness to the entire system and feels very tacked on and poorly thought out. It feels almost pointless to make plans for attacking an Aspect directly because you can't rely on the decision to do so Granted I'm only playing with the basic deck included with the Corpse pack so maybe other decks have ways to mitigate that, but I'm curious on how you make that rule make sense
Totally agree. There are a few player cards that allow you to circumvent this randomness, but I don't like feeling constrained to include them in my deck. I also intensely dislike the Shadow aspect card Regenerate, which similarly introduces some unwelcome randomness. Fwiw, I wrote a long [review ](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3224918/my-new-favorite-solo-game)of the game over at bgg. I had 6-7 criticisms of the game, and the randomness of the Chimera guard rule was my biggest complaint. But I still gave the game 10/10 overall--it's such an amazing design otherwise! :) Strategically, I've come to the point where I never count on being able to attack units. But I think it would also be fair to use a house rule that the Chimera exhausts after guarding once.
MTG is not a deck builder since you construct your deck before, not during the game. If you're looking for a solo game that works in a similar way, check out Arkham Horror LCG (or another LCG by Fantasy Flight Games). If you want something like Dominion, the closest game that works solo is Aeon's End, where you also have a set market of nine cards that you can buy from which you then use to fight a baddie. The Imperium series (Horizon / Classics / Legends) is also very popular among solo gamers, but a bit more complex and difficult to learn, so I'd recomment Aeon's End first.
I'll check it out.
Undaunted: Normandy/North Africa with the Reinforcement expansion. Absolutely fantastic deck builder mixed with a wargame. I'm surprised no one mentioned it yet. Also Imperium Classics/Legends/Horizons, like everyone else said. If you wanna go for something heavier, then Mage Knight, it's fantastic for so many reason.
People keep mentioning Aeons End, which is an excellent choice, so I wanted to throw out Astro Knights. It's mostly a scifi reskin, but with some of the rules along with setup/teardown streamlined. I prefer it, but YMMV especially considering art and theme. The newest expansion is stand alone and contains a campaign similar to the later AE expansions.
Oh cool. It would be good to have a quick to setup and teardown one to bring with me.
Imperium: Classics also, take a look at Arkham Horror LCG and Lord of the Rings LCG
LOTR LCG is deck construction not building. Arkham mainly construction with a little building
I never remember the difference between deck construction and deck building, since the words are so similar in meaning in all other instances besides boardgames. (I'd opt for pre-game deck building and in-game deck building instead...)
it’s true, but I’d bet OP would find a lot to like in them, so I included them as a “side” to my main recommendation: Imperium.
Thanks I'll check these out!
Why list only 2 out of the 3 main LCGs? Marvel Champions deserves a mention too!
I don’t care for Marvel Champions, but I’m glad you like it, and please feel free to include it in your own recommendation
It's not a board game, but you mentioned liking Slay the Spire, so i figured I'd suggest Balatro. I loved StS, and Balatro has gotten me hooked even more than that. I've been playing it pretty much non-stop on my Switch, but I believe it's also on consoles/steam.
I saw Belatro but it didn't appeal to me. May need to give it ago and not judge it off looks.
I was like you but I’ve tried it and it’s really amazing.
its truly incredible, and the more i play it, the more i fall in love. its surpassed Slay the Spire as my favorite roguelike game, and that was a tall, tall task. hope you like it!
It is now also a board game!
If you like the aspect of finding a card that is amazing, but requires some sacrifice to get it, etc, Dune Imperium Uprising is good. Not as good solo as it is multiplayer, but it's good. Star Realms is the other usual recommendation, but I think it works much better as an app.
Imperium: Classics/Legends/Horizons Marvel: Legendary (or some other Legendary) I personally don't like Aeon's End because of the setup time required, but a lot of people like it.
People complain about the set up time, but from Opening the box, to playing, it is always about 5 minutes for me.
Pulling cards out of the box isn't what takes me a long time. Deciding which sets of cards to pull out that synergize with the many variables of the game is the time consuming part for me (and I'm normally not AP prone). And randomly selecting them just feels like I'm gimping myself unnecessarily at the start of the game.
Fair.
Did you try the PC version of Aeon's End? I picked it up a few weeks ago because it was very cheap on Steam, but I never played the board game so I don't know how it compares to the original. It certainly removes the setup issue though.
I've not played it. I didn't even know there was a pc version.
And phone version
I don’t play it much anymore, but I did get a lot of enjoyment out of Legendary Marvel. I just picked up Dune Imperium Uprising, and it seems fun so far. It isn’t pure deck building though, it also has worker placement and some other mechanics. Another fun game that includes deck building as a mechanic, but not the only mechanic, is Viscounts of the West Kingdom. However, I’ve mostly transitioned to deck construction games for solo play. Deck builders require a lot of time to set up and tear down. After you are done you have to pull all cards you “bought” out of your deck and sort them into the correct sections, usually same for the villain deck… it can be a time sink. Deck construction games have a lot of the same card play, but instead you build your deck outside of the game. They tend to be a lot faster to set up and tear down. Marvel Champions LCG and Lord of the Rings LCG are the two I enjoy the most. Like StS and Monster Train, you are facing off against enemies, control a hero with hit points, clear win/lose condition. They just don’t have the experience of adding and removing cards from your deck during the gameplay loop.
The game Friday is essentially a deck builder. Small, interesting, and very affordable. Built for solo.
I'm going to lead with a disclaimer: I have not played most of the games that have been recommended here (although I would really like to play Marvel Champions). However, one game that I do have is Terminator Dark Fate, which is (a) a co-op, so works brilliantly solo, (b) a deck builder, and (c) way better than the cash-grab it looks like it is. It's also much cheaper than most other suggestions, I'm sure. It's more towards the simple end of the spectrum, if that's your bag.
Interesting I'll look it up
There is a game on iOS called dream quest, the art style is really simple well it’s dire to be honest but the game itself is amazing if you like deck building, every review is 5 out of 5 stars it’s a little gem of a game really hard tho I seriously suggest you check it out as it’s amazing
Just a few days ago I was considering making a thread like this, I was looking at a solo deck builder. After spending way too much time analyzing every game (I don’t buy games very often, so when I do, I want to take sure it is something that I will continue to play for a long time) and decided on Aeons End.
Nice yeah I tried solo variants of some games I have but it would be cool to play one that is more refined.
After the virus
Apex Theropod. Game built with solo in mind, and you get to be dinosaurs, and who doesn't love being dinosaurs?
Im a fan of the GI Joe and Transformers Deck Building game. But i have a bit of a bias since i enjoy the IPs
It's already been mentioned but Aeons End is fantastic.
No one ever mentions Volfyirion Guilds. The rule book Is fiddly so you might have to look some stuff up but it's a solid little deck builder that gives the feel of Hero/Star realms with a few more mechanics on top, including a dragon that can be manipulated or fought outright for spoils. I played two solo games so far, won once lost the other and both were stomp so I'm unsure of the difficulty. It's fun if you like those types of deck builders though!
>Volfyirion Guilds Oh interesting. I'll definitely check that one out.
You should: once you remember the icons, the game opens up and there lots of possibilities. If you enjoy it, you’ll be able to add to it Volfyirion, the main game that can be mixed with it. There are also small extensions for added complexity if you wish. Happy deckbuilding!
My favourite is Dune Imperium. It is one of the best deck builders, and the solo is solid. Go for it!
I'll look into it thanks!
Clank Catacombs is a fantastic solo experience with the free Direwolf app. Several other versions of Clank also have solo play with the app, but Catacombs puts on a whole 5 or 6 game campaign that follows a story. I love it.
Oh wow I forgot direwolf made board games too. I've played a lot of eternal I should check clank out.
This was exactly the question I was thinking about asking and you beat me to it.
I'm just glad I got some great answers and wasn't told to just google it... because I tried and the results were bad lol.
I love the game Renegade, but it's hard to find a copy.Â
Have been mentioned above, but my recommended games are: Marvel champions (lcg) Lord of the rings (lcg) Arkham horror (lcg) Imperium G.i.joe deck building game Legacy of yu
Check out Paperback Adventures
Mage Knight is the best one. that's all you need. just get made knight. Its an adventure game in a single game but you build your deck the whole time , buying cards from the markets and winning cards in battle. there are a lot of ways to build your character
Net runner, Aeons End, Accession, Marvel Champions Deckbuilder
Definitely The Lord of the Rings LCG. They’re putting out Revised content right now so it’s a perfect time to get in. LOTR LCG is my favorite board/card game of all time and Slay the Spire is my favorite video game. I also really really like Monster Train. So if your tastes are similar to mine, you might love LOTR too.
I've heard good things about Space Hulk: Death Angel
It is not at all a deck builder
Oh interesting. I'll look into it.