Review: CHALLENGERS is a fun deck builder with support for large groups

Last year, Asmodee and Z-Man Games released the deck management game Challengers. The game is designed to create more or less the feel of a card game tournament, and you can improve and modify your deck between matches. Challengers supports 1-8 players and has an average play time of 45 minutes. Asmodee was very kind to provide me with a copy of the game to review, but you can grab your copy from your local game store or Asmodee’s site with an MSRP of $39.99. Game designers are Johannes Krenner AND Markus Slawitscheck.

Challengers is an interactive deck management game with an original tournament style of play for 1-8 players. Play individually or with a group of friends!

Each round, each player improves their deck with new characters and fights against new opponents.

75 distinct characters with more than 40 exciting effects create a unique experience in every game!

This game was so much fun. I’m a fan of trading card games and Challengers it does a decent job of emulating some of the feelings of playing in a card game tournament, but it’s extremely basic. There are two main phases to the game: the Deck Phase and then the Match Phase. The deck phase occurs at the start of each round and allows you to add new cards to your deck and even remove weaker ones. During the Match Phase, you’ll basically play a slightly more complex version of War until you or your opponent fill your Bench or run out of cards in your deck. Then repeat this cycle for seven rounds and then, if you have more than two people, there is a final round with no Deck Phase where the players with the most fans (gained through card effects and winning games) face off one last time to determine the best.

As you can imagine, this means most of the strategy is in the deck phase. You need to balance having enough cards not to embellish with not having too many cards filling up your bench. Luckily, cards with the same name stack up, so if you can get repeat copies, you’re in luck. There are also cards that move your cards from your bench into a discard pile that you’ll also want to search. Will you try to go all-in on 1-2 factions or will you diversify your deck to cover more ground?

Overall, I think this is a lot of fun, and even my wife, who isn’t a huge fan of deck-building games, enjoyed playing it. Challengers has a lot of fun art from Jeff Harvey and it’s honestly one of the biggest draws in the game. The game comes with four cloth playmats that look great, and three plastic card trays help you stay organized for the deck stage. The game definitely has the potential to grow as new factions are added, and I’m sure additional game modes could also be designed. Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to play with a full group of 8 but it was great fun with the 4 of us. You will need quite a bit of space and will be able to move around the space as each round will have different matchups.

I tried Challengers in the 2 player game and while doable, it’s not ideal. The only changes made are that there is no final round and if you have 11 more fans than your opponent, you win instantly and the game is over. The trick is that since there is only one opponent, it’s much easier to snowball. When there are more people, you need to adjust your deck for a wider variety of games, but in a 2 player game you don’t have to be so adaptable. I think there are some tweaks that might help it work a little better, but ultimately it wasn’t the best experience for me.

At the end of the day, please Challengers for larger groups. The 4 player games were a blast and I hope soon to be able to find a group large enough to play an 8 player game. Even if you’re not a huge fan of deck-building games, this might be one to try.