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Overview
Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game is based on Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy book series Mistborn. The characters and locations primarily follow the first three books, but no prior experience is necessary to enjoy this strategic card game. Mistborn can be played competitively, solo, or (for a truly challenging experience) cooperatively. The game plays similarly to many deckbuilders, with the twist being that eight “metal” tokens must be burned or flared to power your cards’ abilities. Choosing which of your limited metals to use and which cards they should activate is what keeps this game interesting.
Core Gameplay
Each player takes the role of one of four book characters. They provide benefits if you focus your deck on a specific metal, while some abilities are common to every role. The focus of your deck is the key to victory in this game. With four groups of metals, it can be highly advantageous to limit the majority of your deck to two or three categories. This allows you to play your entire hand each turn instead of having some cards left over. The game encourages this behavior by providing many cards which let you permanently eliminate cards from your deck or the shared market.
Three-ish paths to victory
Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game is won in one of three ways. The most common is to be the last player standing. While bringing your opponents’ health dials from 36 down to zero may seem simple given the many attack actions and combos, the attack marker discourages you from becoming too aggressive too early. Players can only spend their attack points on the player possessing the marker. With the marker, however, you can copy your total attack onto each other player, ensuring a devastating hit to everyone’s health. After attacking, you can choose to either hold on to the marker or pass it on based on how much damage you are planning to deal out / willing to receive on the following turn. Allies are another discouragement from holding on to the marker, as a defensive player will often have multiple layers of protection that must be destroyed before their primary health pool can be lowered.
Reaching the top of the three mission tracks provides another route to winning. These tracks provide you benefits such as drawing cards and gaining resources, but give you additional bonuses if you are the first to reach certain points. Rushing towards the top of a single mission track will gain you a major benefit, while creeping along all the tracks at once prevents your opponents from earning rewards early in the game.
These two conditions create a constant tension between keeping your health within a comfortable range, while also not being so defensive that you miss out on the one-time opportunities found on the mission track. The third victory condition is by far the least common. It involves collecting four of the rarest metal tokens, called “atium,” and using them to activate a specific card called “confrontation.” This condition requires careful planning but can help to cut short a game where the players are not aggressively striving towards the first two conditions.
The Mists Rise
Playing the game cooperatively is a challenge that will keep you on the edge of your seat for the near hour of close calls with defeat and tense combat encounters. In this scenario, all players use their turn’s total attack power to bring down the Lord Ruler (the primary antagonist of the book series) and his many allies. Once a player has finished their turn, a card is drawn from the Lord Ruler deck. This can either be an immediate effect, such as the Lord Ruler’s health returning to its starting value, or an adversary which is attached to your character card until you can defeat it. The players must carefully balance removing harmful cards stuck to their allies, watching their own health, and taking down the lord ruler’s health as quickly as possible. What makes this challenge more difficult than most co-op adventures, however, is the fact that the lord ruler can heal nearly every turn based on how many uncomplete missions remain on the table. Striking at the villain from the start, therefore, is futile, and the player’s must first focus on staying alive and quickly driving up their chosen mission track.
Mistborn: The Final Evaluation
Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game is a tense, highly competitive game with incredible component quality and balancing of the different metal card types. Choosing either a lean deck with only a few, powerful cards from a small set of metals or various low-cost cards from all eight metals keeps the game fresh. Between those decisions, what character you are given, and which three missions are drawn, each play session feels unique while still allowing you to learn which cards create dynamic synergies.
My only complaints surround the poor explanation of the rules / layout of the rulebook, as well as the lack of customizable difficulty for the co-op scenario. The Lord Ruler’s deck can be fickle, with some attempts to overthrow the empire feeling quick and balanced, and others feeling impossible.
Overall, this game provides a great experience for dedicated fans of the franchise, or those who want a deck builder which balances card combos, resource management, and combat.
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