• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Recommend a 2 player strategic card game

Status
Not open for further replies.
D

danowat

Banned
I've been trying to teach my wife to play Magic for ages, and she can't really get it, so I am looking for a strategic but easy(er) to learn 2 player , physical, card (or very compact 'board') game that we can play at airports, while flying, waiting for the bus etc, something with a nice art style, and / or big license.

We play the Walking Dead card game, but it's not that good for extended play.

Any suggestions?
 
1upsuper said:
It fits every requirement the OP has, technically, calm down. Still, might not be the best choice when you want to play with someone in front of you. Have you tried Lunch Money or Fluxx?
Click to expand...

We are pretty new to this kind of game, so haven't played anything, Fluxx looks interesting.
 
Check out this kickstarter for this card game called Fugitive. They have a beta you can print out, it's pretty good. I'm probably gonna back the game now to get a real set.
 
Red said:
Lost Cities? Blackjack?

By strategic you mean Magic-esque? I'm not versed in this lingo.
Click to expand...

Yeah, something like Magic, but a bit simpler with a bit less mechanics, a paper version of something like hearthstone would do.

Although something that isn't a CCG would be better, something that you just buy once and play.
 
danowat said:
Yeah, something like Magic, but a bit simpler with a bit less mechanics, a paper version of something like hearthstone would do.

Although something that isn't a CCG would be better, something that you just buy once and play.
Click to expand...
Maybe The Lord of the Rings card game?
 
Pixel tactics is great and inexpensive. Check out a video on YouTube to see if it interests you. The company that makes the game (level 99) has several small strategy card games that are fun.

I wouldn't recommend fluxx with two people (or at all, really). I find that the game really devolves rapidly and there isn't much strategy involved.
 
Android: Netrunner is a really good 2-player strategic card game.

Android_Netrunner_Core_Set_Box.jpg


Get the core set and maybe a few expansion packs.

I haven't played Magic, so I don't know how its complexity compares to Netrunner, but Netrunner is fairly easy to learn. Not sure it would be suitable for airports, flying, waiting for bus etc.

The art is really good too.
 
Pokemon - You can pick up this trainer kit for cheap and it allows you to play with 2 players, it can always be used as a one 60 card deck.

XY-Trainer-Kit-Pikachu-Libre-Suicune.jpg
Click to expand...

UNO but its better to play with at least 3 players i reckon due to the reverse and skip cards.

How about Gwent? If you just want the cards just get the PS4 version of either Heart of Stone or Blood and Wine and sell the code on Gaf or ebay.

Ascension has a cheaper apprentice edition that is better for traveling.

AE.jpg
 
Being able to play at airports etc is a big problem as many games need table space. For example fluxx variations all can take up quite a bit of space.
"Splendor" is simple to learn but harder to play well, and is portable but still needs some desk space, but less than dominion and it's much faster to setup and tear down.
 
If you want something simple that doesn't take more than 30 mins then either Jaipur or Splendor (the latter if you want the option for three or four players).
 
Netrunner takes a ton of space and requires tokens and shit. Good game but bad travel game, I reckon.

Affeinvasion said:
Pixel tactics is great and inexpensive. Check out a video on YouTube to see if it interests you. The company that makes the game (level 99) has several small strategy card games that are fun.
Click to expand...

I've played this a few times, I quite liked it.
 
A game that's really interesting and takes up very little space is hanabi. It's a game where you hold a hand of cards away from yourself and you and the other players work together to create runs of colored suits. A bonus is that you can find it at target in a little tin so you don't have to search online shops like coolstuffinc.
 
I've taken a punt on Paperback, but some of the other suggestions are also great, so we'll see how we get on with Paperback!

Cheers all!
 
I am not sure if you are interested in trying some lesser known games and leaning towards board games that have card game versions but there are some great games out there that are card games that are compact without a crazy amount of rules and card text, etc.

San Juan is a recommendation:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/166669/san-juan-second-edition

Biblios:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/34219/biblios

Blue Moon Legends takes up a bit more space but it is a great two player game similar to Magic but less complex:
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/147154/blue-moon-legends

I hope LOTR works. It's co-op but I love it. It does take up more space. Feel free to drop into the board game community thread too. You can find lots of great games if you can get your wife into gaming.
 
1upsuper said:
It fits every requirement the OP has, technically, calm down. Still, might not be the best choice when you want to play with someone in front of you. Have you tried Lunch Money or Fluxx?
Click to expand...

Never play those two games. Random-City.

Try Star Realms. The whole deckbuilding game fits in one deck box. It's super fun.
 
Though it isn't physical I agree with hearthstone, and it can be sort of physical played on tablets. Hearthstone is basically MTG lite and can be a stepping stone for her to get into Magic.
 
Epic:

http://www.epiccardgame.com/

Magic: The Simplified. Simple but fun mechanics, very easy to learn, doesn't require a tons of space to play (well, less than Magic anyway) If I remember correctly it can be played from 2 to 4 with a single set and up to 8 players with two sets.
 
Phobophile said:
Dominion is a fun deck building game for 2+ players.

Dominion https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001JQY6K4/?tag=neogaf0e-20
Click to expand...

I second this.

It works way better as 3-4 or more player game, but does ok as 2-players.

But the thing about Dominion is it is SUPER accessible. In my experience it has turned non-board game players into boardgames players.

It is SUPER easy to play, and once someone does, they want to play immediately again to try something else. It is not frustrating in competition either, because at least int eh base set, you're not even really interacting all that much (only a few cards actually have you directly interact) - this may sound boring, but it's not - the competition is basically a race to get the best deck and collect the most points, and it is actually really engaging.

But again, I can't stress enough how accessible it is.

Ascension is a Dominion-like deck building game, with similar strategies and made by expert Magic players, so is more interactive and competitive, still pretty accessible, and works better as a 2-player game. I still think Dominion has the edge though.

MY wife loves Dominion, and she's not a gamer by any stretch of the imagination.
 
MrChom said:
Damn this game's fun, but replace the cards tracking health with literally anything else, they're awful. Even a Smartphone app will do a better job.
Click to expand...

I use an MtG point counter app.

Epic is similar, in that the whole thing fits in one box. But I prefer Star Realms.
 
The problem with Dominion is that it isn't small. I thought that was one of the requirements - being able to play in the airport, etc. That's why I recommended Star Realms.
 
Battle Line

Two opponents face off across a 'battle line' and attempt to win the battle by taking 5 of 9 flags or 3 adjacent flags. Flags are decided by placing cards into 3 card poker-type hands on either side of the flag (similar to straight flush, 3 of a kind, straight, flush, etc). The side with the highest 'formation' of cards wins the flag.
Click to expand...

pic149717_md.jpg


Not strategic as much as very very tactical. Always have lots of fun playing this. It's not extremely compact though as you need 9 rows of cards (flags that you battle for) but it's not as bad as other games


Star Realms

Star Realms is a fast paced deck-building card game of outer space combat. It combines the fun of a deck-building game with the interactivity of Trading Card Game style combat. As you play, you make use of Trade to acquire new Ships and Bases from the cards being turned face up in the Trade Row from the Trade Deck. You use the Ships and Bases you acquire to either generate more Trade or to generate Combat to attack your opponent and their bases. When you reduce your opponentÂ’s score (called Authority) to zero, you win!
Click to expand...

pic1903816_md.jpg


It's fast, it's fun and it's addictive. Played this for an entire summer round after round at every single table/surface that my friend and I could find while travelling. It's fairly compact and it's super cheap (14 dollars or so). Similar to dominion but faster, chaotic and in my experience a lot more fun.


Jaipur

Jaipur, capital of Rajasthan. You are one of the two most powerful traders in the city.

But that's not enough for you, because only the merchant with two Seals of Excellence will have the privilege of being invited to the Maharaja's court.

You are therefore going to have to do better than your direct competitor by buying, exchanging and selling at better prices, all while keeping an eye on both your camel herds.

A card game for two seasoned traders! Jaipur is a fast-paced card game, a blend of tactics, risk and luck.
Click to expand...

pic725500_md.jpg


Simple, compact and some good tactical choices in there. One of my favorites to bring into the park as it's small, quick and fun.


Love Letter

All of the eligible young men (and many of the not-so-young) seek to woo the princess of Tempest. Unfortunately, she has locked herself in the palace, and you must rely on others to take your romantic letters to her. Will yours reach her first?

Love Letter is a game of risk, deduction, and luck for 2–4 players. Your goal is to get your love letter into Princess Annette's hands while deflecting the letters from competing suitors. From a deck with only sixteen cards, each player starts with only one card in hand; one card is removed from play. On a turn, you draw one card, and play one card, trying to expose others and knock them from the game. Powerful cards lead to early gains, but make you a target. Rely on weaker cards for too long, however, and your letter may be tossed in the fire!
Click to expand...

pic1401448_md.jpg


So this is only really good with 3/4 players but it's one of the smallest games (9 cards and some wooden cubes) one can buy, it's deceptively simple (explained in a few minutes) and it's a fun bluf/deduction game to play with others. I basically always have a copy of this in my backpack in case I there's a chance to do a game while waiting for something.


Netrunner

Welcome to New Angeles, home of the Beanstalk. From our branch offices in this monument of human achievement, NBN proudly broadcasts all your favorite media programming. We offer fully comprehensive streaming in music and threedee, news and sitcoms, classic movies and sensies. We cover it all. Ours is a brave new age, and as humanity hurtles into space and the future with an astonishing series of new advances every day, NBN and our affiliates are keeping pace, bringing you all the vid that's fit to view.

Android: Netrunner is an asymmetrical Living Card Game for two players. Set in the cyberpunk future of Android and Infiltration, the game pits a megacorporation and its massive resources against the subversive talents of lone runners.
Click to expand...

pic1324609_md.jpg


By far my personal favorite card game / strategic deck building game. It cured me from thinking that Magic was an actual good game. That said it's way more complicated than magic (more math-y), can be a bit difficult to get into now that there's quite a few expansions released (still way way cheaper than magic) and it's not really a game to play on the road (takes up quite a bit of table space)
 
danowat said:
So star realms is along the same lines as Dominion but more portable?
Click to expand...
The real common thing about them is that both are deck building games in the way that you build your deck while playing the game (as opposed to a Magic the Gathering type of deck building game where you build your deck prior to playing the game).

Dominion was the very first game to introduce this type of play experience to the world where the building of the deck is the game itself as you strategically adept what cards to put into your deck based on what your opponent is putting into theirs. Since Dominion there has been a huge variety of different deck building type games.

Personally I think Star Realms is by far the best interpretation of the genre. It's quicker than Dominion and there is more fun chaotic randomness. The combination of both makes it that you always want to play just another round to see how to cards and strategy will fall out this time.
 
I feel like Magic is pretty simple, but can get pretty complicated. I think if you were to build some fairly vanilla decks then slowly ramp up the complexity of the decks then your GF will eventually get it.

Sadly, I have all my cards in boxes stored away because my wife likes to fuck with me instead of playing the game. Damn I miss playing Magic.
 
I cannot get enough of Seasons.

I usually play it with three but it's considered best with two. The combination of the "prelude" card draft and the ongoing dice draft make this game really unique. The super chunky dice and charming artwork round it off to make it the total package.

seasons_creatures_620.jpg


EDIT: The problem is that this game isn't very small per se, sorry, I missed this requirement in your original post.
 
The Mule said:
I haven't played Magic, so I don't know how its complexity compares to Netrunner, but Netrunner is fairly easy to learn. Not sure it would be suitable for airports, flying, waiting for bus etc.
Click to expand...


Android: Netrunner is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more complex than Magic.

Magic: "You both have twenty life. Mana is the engine to cast spells and instants are interrupts. Enjoy!"

Netrunner: "Runners have 4 clicks. Corp has 3 clicks. You both have to click for credits or card-draws (Corp has a mandatory draw at the start of turn though!), Milling doesn't work on Runners, Corps can be milled for Runner to win. Runner can be 'flatlined' by Net/Meat damaging them until they have no more cards in their hand to lose.

Oh, by the way, you need to manage your economy and building up defenses if you're the Corp so the Runner can't steal agendas...

...
...
...
...
...
(Two hours later)
... And that's all the mechanics."

I mean I enjoy Netrunner and am in the learning process myself, but Magic is easier to understand than the interactions and mechanics of Netrunner when you're running into some of the combos that Jinteki.net players do. Plus the Core set won't show you some of the mechanics if you're using the Rulebook recommended decks.

Merino said:
By far my personal favorite card game / strategic deck building game. It cured me from thinking that Magic was an actual good game. That said it's way more complicated than magic (more math-y), can be a bit difficult to get into now that there's quite a few expansions released (still way way cheaper than magic) and it's not really a game to play on the road (takes up quite a bit of table space)
Click to expand...

You don't need anything than 1-2 Core Sets (since Fantasy Flight fucked up and didn't give 3 copies of each card in the Core set, something they should really fix if their "LCG" moniker is supposed to attract new players) and the Deluxe expansions which won't "rotate out" by the end of the year with the new cycles if you care about Tournaments. Otherwise buy whatever that fits your budget after the Core Set and Expansions if you're playing casually.

danowat said:
If it was just creatures and health, it wouldn't be an issue, but you chuck buffs, instants etc into the mix and her eyes just glaze over, plus I am not the best tutor in the world.
Click to expand...

If you're on Steam, X-box, or have an iPhone/iPad you can just download this and have her do the tutorial. But if she still doesn't understand instants/phase-stopping for players to cast spells, she's not going to understand most of these games (especially Netrunner where you can only score during certain phases, or use certain cards only during certain phases) people probably recommend.
 
vikki said:
I feel like Magic is pretty simple, but can get pretty complicated. I think if you were to build some fairly vanilla decks then slowly ramp up the complexity of the decks then your GF will eventually get it.

Sadly, I have all my cards in boxes stored away because my wife likes to fuck with me instead of playing the game. Damn I miss playing Magic.
Click to expand...

If it was just creatures and health, it wouldn't be an issue, but you chuck buffs, instants etc into the mix and her eyes just glaze over, plus I am not the best tutor in the world.
 
edit: sorry, misread the post. Not as familiar with Magic, so I can't say whether this is more or less complicated. There is certainly an initial hump to get over, but the simple face up/down mechanics do go a long way making things a bit easier to grok. Original post below:

If you're Magic players, and are used to having to deal with two play-mats worth of space, give Netrunner a try. It's asymmetrical deck building game without the random chance booster pack nonsense. One player is the corporation, whose goal is to advance agendas and win the game. All their cards are played face down. The other player is the runner, whose goal is to steal the corporation's agendas from under their noses before they can be advanced. They play all their cards face-up, and have to do their best not to be killed by traps left by the corporation in place of agendas, which can instantly kill the runner and end the game.

There are plenty of apps and the like to keep tokens to a minimum, when travelling. Very cool art and theming, easy to pick up the basics, lots of chances for creativity and surprises, even after hours and hours of play. Games last anywhere from ten minutes to half an hour.
 
TheSeks said:
You don't need anything than 1-2 Core Sets (since Fantasy Flight fucked up and didn't give 3 copies of each card in the Core set, something they should really fix if their "LCG" moniker is supposed to attract new players) and the Deluxe expansions which won't "rotate out" by the end of the year with the new cycles if you care about Tournaments. Otherwise buy whatever that fits your budget after the Core Set and Expansions if you're playing casually.
Click to expand...
Sorry but I really have to disagree with this. For casual play the Core set is rather unbalanced and you will really need to buy either datapacks or deluxes to make sure you have more agenda options for each faction. With only core you'll also miss out on the most important way to play as a shaper (using clone chips and SMC's to do stuff mid run).

I think for casual you are fine with 2 core's and at least the Shaper and Jinteki deluxe's (probably want to just get all of them though).

For tournaments you NEED data packs (and quite a few of them) to get the right strategic pieces. It's not too bad though since buying it all will still be cheaper than a tournament level Magic deck.

You can also just get these pre build decks to try out the game instead of a core set (sucks that Valencia is little bit anti-netrunner though):
packs.png
 
Merino said:
Sorry but I really have to disagree with this. For casual play the Core set is rather unbalanced and you will really need to buy either datapacks or deluxes to make sure you have more agenda options for each faction. With only core you'll also miss out on the most important way to play as a shaper (using clone chips and SMC's to do stuff mid run).
Click to expand...

ymmv, obviously, but you absolutely do not need to worry about any immediate time Shaper
bullshit
shenanigans or competitive play styles when you're learning the game or playing casually with another person. You can mature into that stuff as a player and as your curiosity peaks, but I think it's misrepresenting the game to say you absolutely need two or three core sets and bunch of expansions right off the bat.

I mention this as someone who has introduced this game to a few different sets of friends over the past three or four months, and started playing myself earlier this year. I probably can't convince you otherwise, but at least both perspectives are accounted for itt! :)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

MAPPA signs strategic partnership deal with Netflix
14
711
Paltheos replied
cologne-age 2.0: Recommend and share fragrances here.
2
74
2K
IDKFA replied
Anyone using a Digital Audio Player?
11
581
Cyberpunkd replied
Chainsaw Man Season 2 Trailer 2
0
139
Moondoggy replied
Beast Games Season 2
8
627
OccasionalPoster replied
Top Bottom