We are on the cusp of a generational divide in the roguelike deckbuilder genre. I pitched this topic to my friend Ted and he said "that's way too specific for a TED Talk'' and also "please stop asking me to get you your own TED Talk." Ted's hilarious.
Anyway, deckbuilders: there sure are a lot of them, aren't there? 2019's Slay the Spire spawned what I refer to as the First Wave (this would have been a slide on my TED Talk) which is a collection of roguelikes that, while different in many ways, share certain fundamental mechanics. Roguebook, Pocket Crystal League, Monster Train, Inscryption, Fights in Tight Spaces, and Griftlands all have their own unique styles, but they share certain core concepts – namely, turn-based combat encounters that exclusively use cards to represent attacks. Just as with tabletop deckbuilders like Dominion, you engage your enemies by drawing and playing cards.
I played a lot of deckbuilders at PAX East this past weekend, and after a while it started to become clear that there's a paradigm shift on the horizon. We're finally seeing games that have grown past Slay the Spire rather than simply iterate on its gameplay, and soon enough we're going to have a new crop of roguelikes that involve more than just playing cards. Some blend in unexpected genres, while others upend our expectations for what deckbuilding combat can be. Here are three upcoming games that will define the next generation of roguelike deckbuilders. I'll briefly hold for applause.
Wildfrost
Chucklefish and Deadpan Games’ upcoming roguelike combines deckbuilding with classic strategy turn-based combat with an adorable aesthetic and premise. You are a tribe leader making a dangerous pilgrimage to the sun temple to banish the wildfrost and put a stop to an endless winter that threatens the world, and along the way you recruit a cast of cute and cuddly pets and companions to help you f🃏ight the monsters blocking your path.
Wildfrost uses turn-based card combat, but what sets it apart is its position-focused gameplay and turn timers. There are two lanes and six positions where you can put your teammates, and they will attack independently from you based on their individual turn timers. You can play all the attack cards and ability cards you want, but when your turn ends every hero and enemies' turn timers will tick down by one, and any that reach zero will automatically attack the target closest to them.
The strategy is all about repositioning your units to avoid damage and make the most of their attacks, while also using your own cards to manipulate turn orders to avoid as much incoming damage as you can while modifying your own attack damage. This feels like a meaningful evolution of Slay the Spire's formula, and it has the presentation and production quality to be the next breakout deckbuilding hit.
Sigil Of The Magi
Sigil of the Magi is what you get when you cross Slay the Spire with Into the Breach, and it turns out deckbuilders and tactics games are a perfect match. Like in Into the Breach, you control a preconstructed team of three units across a seri🍃es of encounters on micro-battlefields, but instead of each unit having its own suite of attacks, all of your abilities come from your hand of cards.
It has a lot in common with Marvel's Midnight Suns, but with the immediacy and variety of a roguelike. Your three units each have their own deck that gets shuffled together into one, and each turn you draw a hand of five cards and plan your attacks. There's some great depth to the deckbuilding experience. As you complete battles and choose cards to add, you can build around the synergies between characters or go all in on one character and try to build your team around them.
You also have a ꦗcard-rack where you can store a few cards between turns, which makes planning ahead and setting up big combo attacks much easier. Sigil of the Magi has been in early access since last October, with a full launch planned later this year.
Death Roads: Tournament
The aridly named Death Roads: Tournament is actually the most inventive deckbuilder I saw at the show. It's a Mad Max-themed death race from coast to coast that's all about movement and position - a fresh concept for deckbuilders. Encounters take place on the open road, and your cards represent a mix of combat abilities - like hood-mounted machine guns and spiked hub caps - and movement abilities that allow you to speed up and slow down to reposition yourself around your opponents.
Handling is your primary resource in Death Roads, and every card you play (and hit you take) decreases your ability to stay on the road. The same goes for your enemies tho🌞ugh, so battles are a constant push and pull of trying to outdrive your opponents and set up attacks to either destroy them or force them to spin out and destroy themselves.
There are so many fresh mechanics in Death Roads. One of its coolest ideas is that cards are tied to speciꦫfic car parts, so when you get a new engine or set of tires, you replace entire groups of cards in your deck. Not only does this make moment to moment deck building⛦ a lot more impactful than most deckbuilders, but it also opens up opportunities for fascinating interactions.
One ability I made great use of disabled my opponents tires, which meant for a certain number of turns they couldn't use any of the tire cards in their deck, limiting their ability to speed up or slow down. I was then able to more easily get on the side of them and ram them off the road, or even speed up and escape them entirely for an easy win. Death Roads, which launched in early access this week, is proof that the deckbuilding genre can stretch so much further than what we've seen so far.
Thank you for coming to my Not-TED talk. I hope this was as informative and entertaining ༺as a symposium on why 💛schools actually make kids dumber, or whatever.