Star Realms – Pure Deck Building Perfection

Star Realms is a fast, exciting 2-player deck building duel between rival galactic empires. The goal is simple: bring your enemy down to 0 “authority” (health). You start with a weak deck of 10 cards, and use your turns to buy stronger cards and deal damage to your opponent.

This concept was first introduced by Dominion. Since then, games like Dune Imperium and Clank! have incorporated deck building as part of gameplay. Star Realms, however, puts deck building on centre stage, and it makes the whole place shimmer.

It is quick.

It is fun.

It fits into a little deck box.

Robert Dougherty and Darwin Kastle have perfected the deck building here, building on the success of older deck builders like Ascension. There are 4 different factions in the game, each with a different focus. The yellow Star Empire excels at card draw and combos (playing multiple star empire cards together grant special bonuses). The red Machina is good at thinning out the weaker cards in your deck. The blue Trade Federation is great for defence and restoring authority. Finally, the green Blobs can deal insane amounts of damage if played together.

Besides cards that get shuffled into your deck (ships), there are also bases. When you draw a base, you put it down in front of you permanently. These bases provide a long-term passive bonus…so long as it stays standing. Bases have hit points, and can be destroyed by your enemy. Some bases even act defensively, where your opponents must attack and destroy them first before attacking anything else.

There are loads of deck building tactics to explore, with a huge emphasis on picking one or two factions to specialise in. A good turn, with combos chaining together, feels like hitting the jackpot. There’s nothing more satisfying than chaining card draws and seeing your damage total go up, up, and up. While this can lead to massive swings in-game, games are so quick that you don’t feel bitter when you get one-shotted. Just reset the game and plan your revenge!

The deck building is snappy, and it feels like there is a lot to think about before adding cards to your deck. While in some deck builders, it usually makes sense to just buy the most expensive card available in the buy row, Star Realms’ crazy combo-building approach rewards thoughtful deck building and combo crafting. It is clear to see when someone has built a good engine.

Beyond this, destroyable bases gives players more tactical considerations, as it can often be worthwhile attacking bases rather than always going for the face. It scratches a strategic itch in both choosing which cards to buy and choosing your targets.

Star Realms marries deck building games a la Ascension and Clank, with deck crafting duelling games liked Magic: The Gathering and Flesh and Blood. If you’re looking for a quick, snappy duelling game, Star Realms fits the bill and will not disappoint. Games are fast, easy to reset, and addictive, so expect to play multiple rounds every time you pull it out. It doesn’t take up much space at all, so it’s also the perfect travel game for two!

My only other recommendation is to pick up some sleeves for the game. The card quality is great, but you’ll be shuffling and playing so much that you’ll want to invest in some protection!