really love this top 10, I love how you are showing game play while talking about the game, rather than just sitting there with the box, that way it helps visualizing whether or not this is something for us.

I think we can all agree Colin makes the best Top 10 lists. All the games in this video are brilliant

You're the master at top 10 lists Colin! the right length to each game, showing relevant content on screen and explaining why you like and why other people may not. Perfection! I've yet to get my head around Imperium Classics, I need to work through it, but i really want to try Alien... annoyingly you can't it here at the moment. 😢

Most iconic (and useful too) part of your top 10 videos ist "This game is not for you ...". I like it. Have a nice da Colin.

Super list Colin! Great stuff. Thank you for the shout for Renegade :)

Thank you so much for including Heroes of Tenefyr! I'm very happy that you're still having a good time with it. Great video!

Thank you guys, I'm falling in love with deck builders so this video fits like a glove in mi life at this moment.

Five out of ten in my collection, so happy you included Dragonfire and Shadowrift, two vastly underrated deck builders. Alien, the best Legendary ever. I wish they had continued support for Dragonfire, so much undiscovered potential. Excellent as always Colin. Cheers👍

Simply a fantastic vid! Thank you colin! :)

Great list Colin. Added the top two to my Wishlist.

Got a copy of Dragonfire ftom second hand market after watching an old video of Yours, oh man I love it! 😊

Great top 10 list. You convinced me to pickup Heroes of Tenefyr and I am so glad I did.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I own or have owned most of these. Big surprise was number 5. Have never heard of this game.

Great list! A quick note on imperium regarding the icons for resources, progress and population. The way I saw it is: the number of icons on each token is the number of tokens you have at setup, so 3 resources, 2 population and 1 progress.

Woohooo! Another Colin Top 10 list! Keep 'em coming! :-)

Just bought Imperium along with the new expansion and excited to play !

Wow, thanks for featuring Imperium, glad you like it :)

Great list - we really enjoyed Aeon's End but you're so right about the expansions! Also really need to try Imperium Classics!

Great job!!!! As usual!

Can't wait for my copy of The Loop to arrive. Looks so fun and unique!

One of your previous top 10 made me buy Dragonfire. Very good game, I was not disappointed.

really enjoyed this top 10 list. I got Imperium after checking out your playthroughs, and really enjoy playing solo. Been putting off on the Legendary encounters, but will check it out now. Thanks

Neat list. I've thought about Aeons End, but I know I'd be garbage at it because of the pressure of knowing what to put where and the like. For me, I have to give it to DC Deck Building Game: DC Rebirth. It has a co-op campaign with secret objectives that help unlock permanent upgrade starter cards to the start decks of your characters to the rest of the game. Also, it's a deck builder that acts like a board. I also give it to DC DBG: Crisis Mode, where you switch the villains out for harder ones, if you want, but you get an extra stack called the cris stack. You have to first get rid of all villains in the line-up for a shot at the crisis, which will have a continuous effect hindering the group. Once that is dealt with, you can take out the current super villain, but when that's done, new crisis and new supervillain.

I'm really glad to see that there are still content creators who know what deck building means. I've seen some people rank Gloomhaven, Spirit Island and Concordia as deck builders. ARGH! :) PS. You should do a: "Rippley kills everything" playthrough of Legendary encounters. (Explanation: play through all movies with all 4 Rippleys in the Barracks :D )

Very cool list. All the games here definitely belong to a top 10. The only one I don't really know is the Loop, but it's mostly because I don't really dig the theme. But the design is really awesome.

Imperium is great! I do agree with you about the components being Nah and also, those Market boards are not appealing. I hope to see an official playmat for this game. Aeons is also good. The turn order and the non-shuffling the deck were a turn off for me at the beginning but i can see the strategy of discarding your cards in a particular order. Thank you so much for this video! 😎

Great list Collin! I think Venom Assault and Red Dragon Inn: Battle for Grayport should be in this list as well!

Great video! This helped me a lot. I’ve got a question: do you normally sleeve your cards? And if so.. what brand is your favorite? I’ve just started sleeving my deck building games and just trying to find a good suggestion.

Great list and some interesting choices. I sometimes ponder over the question if Spirit Island and Mage Knight also count as deckbuilders, since both (although mainly being completely different mechanics: area control and adventure respectively) have some deckbuilding aspects. What do you think? Oh and Imperium is amazing. Although relatively new, I think it has become one of my absolute favorite solo games of all times.

I really love Aeon's end, but I only play it 2 player, and I have a house rule for the turn order: i build the turn stack in two tiers, where each tier has each player or nemesis once. This means that there's still some randomness, but any player will never go more than twice in a row. In my opinion this keeps the surprise, is loyal to the game, doesn't break it, but remove the ridiculous swingyness of having three or four nemesis turns in a row

Nice list. I figured Imperium would have been on top. My #1 as well followed by Aeons End and Marvel Legendary.

Loads of great games on the list (as always) and some I didn't think of or had fallen off my radar (as always). As much as I like to hear others like the stuff I like (vindication! my taste is okay) I especially love to hear about why games I had written off are great after all... or just hear about some new games. So thanks. You keep my options open. And yes - I LOVE Imperium as well - though it takes quite long normally... 1,5 h is the minimum for me. BUT I think you did miss one thing. The scoring. I feel that that is nearly unnecessarily difficult for the bot. Because you have to keep things in their own stacks you literally have to do it with a piece of paper.

I'm most interested in picking up Imperium: Classics after watching your best of 2021 (so far) video. Unfortunately, it's completely sold out at the moment. I've tried to trade via bgg, but no success. All I have left is to exercise my patience muscle. Thankfully Kickstarter has made that muscle strong 😁

Great list Colin. Even though my tastes differ somewhat, the way you describe each game gives a really clear idea if I'll like a game or not. Dragonfire is the one I most recently acquired - I find the core gameplay fantastic, but the game as a whole still feels like a bit of a mess. I might look to trade it out for Renegade, which sounds more up my alley (love Ricky Royal!). Imperium Classics I've only just started getting into, and I'm still on the fence about it. The games seem to last 15-20 minutes longer than I would like, and the starting civs seem a bit "on rails" with not that many interesting decisions. Still, I'll persevere in the hope that the more complex civs shake things up a bit!

I’m still waiting for my copy of The Loop. Great list

Great list. I was expecting to see Dungeon Alliance.

I have and enjoy playing 5 out of 10 - Dragonfire (Shadowrun Crossfire too), Thunderstone Quest, Shadowrift, Aeon's End, Heroes of Tenefyr. :) Still to try Renegade, I haven't managed to read the rules, I'm a bit intimidated by terminology in this game, like you mentioned! Just to mention, though I'm on verge to let it go, so I have more time to play these better games above - Battle for Greyport. Art is simple and it's quite difficult to win (maybe when playing 2 characters?). But it has interesting elements like assisting and purchasing a new card after each your turn which goes to your hand and lots decisions to make each turn.

Wow, no Dungeon Alliance or Mage Knight? Didn’t expect that! I totally agree that Barricades mode really elevated Thunderstone. I am a long-time player going back to the original, and it really renewed my interest in the game. Finally, Shadowrift feels like a flawed game but I have a soft spot for it. Later “monster” decks made it difficult to win via sealing rifts, which is fun because you can actually go the wall route. Have you tried those? Anyway, love the list!

I love renegade as well but the barrier to entry was tough. The names as you mentioned was a slog.

Nice work sir. Good pick for number 1. I also hate the counters with a vengeance, not because of the confusing icongraphy but because of the counter art . A cross, circle and "V"? come on...yuk. However, that pales into insignificance compared to my hatred of the box. You just can't fit the tokens in the box. That's just an insane production choice. I expect MUCH better from Osprey.

Nice list I have some of the game that you mention and I really like to play solo or coop. I'm not into Imperium Classics... civilization card game are not for me, I miss the "fight" for such a short game. Still is well done

great video, totally forgot about Renegade which i wanted to buy. also no.1 is on my wish list for the next game. is it just personal or any other reasons that Lotr LCG or Arham of Horror or Friday is not on your list. i was going to ask about Spirit Island but saw the comment below. thanks

OH Heroes of Tenefyr looks good and its got solo built in AND its dead cheap!

Hi Colin! I nearly agree to every choice :D Have you ever tried Pathogenesis? I think it is a hidden gem.

Aeon's End all the way for me!

For someone who generally doesn’t care for Top Ten Lists, I have to admit to being a huge fan of OSCS lists. I’m going to have to look into Dragonfire. And Renegade, I’ve been chasing that one for a long time. If anyone has a line on a copy at a reasonable price, I’m all ears…

Just watch Alien and Aliens. They’re responsible for like all the future space games on this list.

Neat list. I don't think I've played a single one though. Legendary and Imperium are on my list though. Have you tried Friday? I feel like I've seen a playthrough from you guys, but I'm not sure. Such a neat solo-only deck builder.

Aeon's End

IMHO that we don't know who Dr Foo(?) is doesn't detract from the game, because most people are familiar with the arch villain/crazy scientist who wants to control the world trope. It's standard for a TV cartoons show which is referenced in the graphic design. It's got that "Fairly Odd Parents" style about it which is no bad thing lol

Colin! What tip recommendations for coop games do you have? I'm trying to find more for my wife and I :)

I have Aeon's End War Eternal and it is a household favorite, my son wants an expansion for his birthday. Should we go Outcasts which you highlighted or is New Age good too with the campaign? Thoughts? Thanks!

I actually got into Renegade from watching your playthrough. It is such an amazing and clean design. It's too bad the game didn't get more buzz

8:45 You start talking about the random option for the market to be a downer and how certain cards are useless for solo play. Well, there's a randomizer available that's a game changer. I can post the link if you're interested (provided that your comment settings allow for links). You can filter whatever quests you have, like usual, but it also gives you a scalable percent slider that lets you adjust the combo quality of the setup. And it can also filter out all cards that aren't great for solo, which is a huge plus. If you try this randomizer out, I'll bet that TQ will enter your top 5. It's that much of a game changer.

The crowdfunding for the German version of Imperium Classics/Legends has just started. I'm definetely gonna back that...and then wait for February 2022. :-(

Keep an eye out for the next Aeon's End legacy game that is on the boats to deliver now. It's a huge step up from the previous legacy, and in fact is the best one of the series, in my opinion!

I missed Ascension in your list. 😊

Woah…not LotR LCG?! *gasp* I guess it depends on what “deckbuilding” means…during the pregame or during the game? Looks like your list takes the latter definition.

My top 5 deck building solo for me is Marvel champion Aeon end Dune imperium Imperium classic Arkham horror lcg

Is Apex Theropod missing in the list because it is not coop, just saw your playtrough and you said it will appear in your top 10...just wondering. Nice videos!

I need to play more Thunderstone Quest

Did you try Battle for Greyport, I got this one on Mike recommandation and it's one of my favorite right now :)

I've heard Tournament Fishing: The Deck building game is also very good. It's trending very high on BGG right now.

What would you say gives Thunderstone Quest the edge over Hero Realms?

Xenoshyft Dreadmire: first time I played was a 4 player game. Do not do that. It was fun but we stopped playing after 3h when we reached round 5 (out of 9). It's super long.

Funny fact for Imperium, there is a note in the rulebook talking about the historic fact that are not accurate for gameplay purpose.

I thought for sure you would have Apex on here.

What's the name of the KZfaq channel of renegade's designer? I'm searching for "Richard Wilkins" but I'm not sure the man that shows is the one I'm looking for... or is he?

Bro the way you talked about Aeon's End sounded like you haven't even played it.

No Mutants?! Have you played it before, Colin?

Amazing, non of those games are on my list 🤣😂😂😂 I know why because I'm not a fan of vp based, or just some of them are not that interesting to me Honnorable mensions for me are Friday and marvel legendary those two were my first that I played and since then I just love this mechanism so much, but I got a tired of them and it only played them on vassel or the app, won't buy marvel legendary at all since I have a ton of problems with this game so just on tts or at some other friends which most of them own it anyway (suckers...) I just think it an expensive game to get into anyway Get ready for the most awesome hidden gem deck building game list of all time! I bet non of those are so familiar and that why I love my list so much damn much muhahahah My top 10 is: 10. Rune age - the only deck building from ffg. 9. Pixel glory - changed it name to pixel legends since the company broke and resold this game in different name. Borh of number 9 and 10 has solo, co-op and comettive modes and are fantasy all in the same box that is why I love and own them 8. Dunguen brawler - another fantasy Dunguen crawler I saw rhado play and love it! A total hidden gem 7. Shake up - the first offical reverse deck building game on my list with 3 (or 4 with expansion) ways of winning and unique theme of building a high tech business! BTW the first offical reverse deck building is vally of the kings which is nice but not for me 6. Feudalia - the real copy is stuck in Israel post office need to get it real soon but I played a ton on the app... This is the offical first deck building with worker placement from 2011 before it was cool and shitty like today it has a long cool campaign and again has all the three modes man in love rhado recommendations so much!! 5. God of War the card game - one of the games that finally cmon didn't create with minis God I hateeeee minis so much!!!!, great game 4+3 Super hot the card game and Blight chronicles agent decker. They are somehow the same game from the same creator Manuel guria that's why they are tied or can be switched positions... So unique games. Agent decker stated as a pnp with unique shifting market which also transformed as well to superhot wow just wow games! 2. Hero realms - before the new app will be released and I think star realms is fine hero realms with the full way to play with the campaign is amazing! 1. After the virus - always was and always will be my number one game of all time. It's f₪#ing from the guys who created teraforming Mars but no one seems to give a damn about thier deck building game? Really?!?! Yeah the art is trash (not to me I love it) but wow such a tough game! Easy to learn it had the main mechanics of get rid of card to pay it for another card that shit is now in marvel champions which people love this game and I hate it, but man wow I love everything about after the virus for solo, tense, thematic as hell, short to play, campaign, 6 characters to choose from and great story (generic one but still great) So this is my list, I know that only hero realms is popular and not hidden gem but without it the rest is total great unpopular hidden gems and love it ✌️✌️✌️

no Arkham LCG nor Marvel? Edit: Just found out those are deck contruction games and not a deck builder. :) Really need to try out Imperium but they keep running OOS

Great list Colin, but wait, where is Lord of the rings LCG??

no Mage Knight?

Mavel champions ?

No LOTR LCG? :O

You have never seen Alien?! What did go wrong? :-)

Really wanted to love imperium the only part that is great is that every nation is unique...and that art is awesome The rest of the parameters I hate so much for me a hugeee pass 😭 The other factors are: Vp based? Pass, Automa? Pass, Too damn long? Pass, Hard to learn? Pass, Crappy and cheap component? Pass And the most annoying problem - shit rule book? Pass Most of the problems are solvable : 1. Long? It can be shorten by the bgg varients 2. Shitty rules? Just watching tutorials But the rest of the problems are not solvable for me at all... I asked if somehow this game can be played solo without vp at all, David said to me that it can't be done... If you and Mike can create a solo without vp and shorter sure I'll buy and play only your version but until then pass 😅

Never watched Alien and Aliens and no intention to? Unsubscribed! Joking aside, nice list, I find deckbuilders have trouble to stay fresh after repeated play for me. I've got Clank and Quest for el dorado but don't play them much outside of introducing to new people. Was very tempted by the loop but I can see being done with it after a few plays, gonna watch videos of your top 3.

what no greyport?!?!?!

No marvel champions??

No empires of the North? I suppose Imperium is just better EotN

The list is lacking the two best ones, Shadowrun: Crossfire and Mage Knight!