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Avant Carde had me with the fact it is a deck builder. The titular pun was the icing on the cake. Not that I knew what the Avant Garde art movement was. I still don’t, truth be told. Something to do with surreal blocky faces? What I do know a bit about, is deck building. Avant Carde promises this in an unusual thematic package. I must admit, I’m keen to try a deck builder that does not follow the typical Star Realms formula. Let’s see if Avant Carde has the art to stand out in a crowded field.
The Art of Deckbuilding
Avant Carde sees players drawing a hand if 7 cards from their initial 10 and then playing them in a sequence. Play happens simultaneously, with players trying to play as many cards from their 7 as possible in front of them. Anyone who has ever played Uno will feel instantly at home with how this works. Play a card, then the next must either match the number or the colour of the previous card in the sequence. Each card you play is worth a coin to spend on further cards from the common market at the end of the round. Earn at least 6 coins and you start to claim achievements. Most achievements earned when the achievement deck runs out is the winner.
Avant Carde features many of the typical tropes of deck building. The cards you purchase from the market are numbered 2 to 7, which is also their cost. The new cards have various effects, from trashing weaker cards from your deck, drawing more cards, when played, wild cards, earning more coins etc. purchased cards are added to your discard pile and are available to use when it is next shuffled into a fresh draw pile. So far, so very deck building.
The Art of Strategy
The essence of what you are trying to achieve in Avant Carde is straightforward. You want to play as many cards as possible each round, therefore acquiring new cards that match the majority colour/number of cards already in your deck is a good starting point.
All cards are available to purchase from the market each round and each player does have the option of burying a card; taking the top card of a market deck and placing it on the bottom instead. This can be done to try and get a more preferential colour available for you to purchase, or to bury a card you know your opponent is after. Some card effects allow you to do this several times, giving you a useful boost when it comes to further optimising your deck.
There are different rulesets for the market cards, named after various cities. These mix up the rules for each game and provide more variability, causing players to rethink their preferred purchasing strategies.
However, you will still be doing similar things. Some of your starting cards are dreadful, due to being colours/numbers that don’t appear elsewhere in the market. You will want to cull these asap, regardless of which special rules are in play.
There is little opportunity to interfere with other players’ plans beyond slightly messing with the card market at the end of the round. This leads to the gameplay having a very similar, albeit fun, loop each time as ultimately it is about getting that long run of cards played each turn. This is great for players that dislike ‘take that’ moments in their boardgames, though in being so accessible, this is one of the lighter games in the deck building genre.
The Art of Art. Oh, and Components.
Avant Carde has a great look to it, with the card art bold and striking as befitting the style. The magnetic box is of excellent quality too, no bigger than it needs to be and everything fits inside securely.
The cards themselves are contained in these unravelling tuckboxes, designed to make set up quicker and easier. They are certainly partly successful, although getting them to lay flat on the table is a bit of a pain. Opening the boxes themselves is also a bit awkward and they are susceptible to tearing if you are not careful. For me, they fall slightly on the ‘more-hassle-than-they-are worth’ side of things and could happily have done without them.
A Work of Art?
I was drawn to Avant Carde because I enjoy deck building games and this one looked a bit different and featured a solo mode (which is a decent take on a beat your own score solo mode). It is pleasant to play and is very accessible, possibly appealing to a wider audience than the glut of sci-fi/fantasy themed deck builders out there.
The accessibility of it makes it easy to teach and play with less experienced gamers, though the flip side of this is that the tactics and strategy required are fairly obvious. Sometimes, that’s what is needed though; a game you can break out with family and friends and not have to think about your turns so hard that you can’t enjoy the company you’re in, along with the game.
I do enjoy lighter games and had a great time playing this with my daughter. If you enjoy family games, or are looking for a way to introduce inexperienced players to the world of deck building, you could certainly do a lot worse than check out the bright, approachable world of Avant Carde.
