1616: Ascension + Dominion = Thunderstone

That’s something of an oversimplification, of course, but it’s not inaccurate; the card game Thunderstone Advance (of which I have the set themed around Monte Cook’s Numenera setting) very much combines elements of the two distinct deckbuilding games Dominion and Ascension to create an experience that is altogether its own thing, rather challenging, enormously variable and a whole lot of fun.

Thematically, the game represents you and your friends each commanding a band of heroes as they attempt to storm a dungeon and defeat a Thunderstone Bearer, a powerful boss monster that triggers the end of the game if they are either defeated or reach the top level of the dungeon. In order to best your enemies, you’ll have to recruit new heroes to your cause, gather a suitable source of income with which to equip them, level them up and proceed on regular expeditions into the dungeon to stomp all over monster faces and plaster their entrails all over the walls.

There’s a strongly thematic RPG feeling, in other words, but the deckbuilding aspect brings up some interesting new twists. The Dominion side of things comes from the “Village” phase of the game, whereby you can use the cash value on the cards you have in your hand — you draw a completely new hand from your deck every turn — to either hire new heroes or purchase items. These are then added to your discard pile, which means they’ll start coming up in your hand the next time you cycle through your whole deck. As with any deckbuilder, though, cluttering up your deck with too much chaff makes it less likely that you’ll pull a killer hand with a brilliant combination of cards to use together, so at times it’s necessary to exercise a bit of restraint and determine the most efficient way to proceed — that or look into acquiring cards that let you draw more from your deck once your turn has begun.

The Ascension side of things, meanwhile, comes in the dungeoneering side of the game, where you’ll take your hand into the dungeon instead of the village and attempt to defeat the monsters therein. This is mainly a simple task of ensuring you have enough light to deal with a monster in a particular “layer” of the dungeon — deeper levels require more light, or you suffer an attack penalty — and then having enough attack score to equal or beat the monster’s health value. The difficulty comes in the monsters’ various special abilities, and each monster mini-deck, three of which are shuffled together at the start of the game, is themed around a particular style of opposition to the player. One set of monsters, for example, demands that you not only equal or beat the monster’s health value with your attack, but ensure that you do not exceed a particular value, either — or, in a couple of particularly unpleasant cases, you have to get an exact match. Another becomes more powerful if certain types of card are in your hand; another still focuses on forcing you to discard (temporarily) or destroy (permanently) heroes and items you have in your hand. Nasty stuff.

Defeating monsters awards you experience points and victory points. Victory points are how you win — whoever has the most when the Thunderstone Bearer either goes down or escapes the dungeon wins — while experience points can either be used to level up your hero cards into more powerful versions, or expended as “cyphers” to give you small, but often extremely helpful benefits during a turn.

There’s a nice balance of strategy and luck in the game. You can build a great deck but be stymied by a string of tough monsters storming through the dungeon. Alternatively, you can have a seemingly mediocre hand, decide to take a chance on a few extra-draw abilities and end up absolutely kicking arse. Either way, it’s a lot of fun, and it never feels like games are a foregone conclusion.

I’ve only had the opportunity to play the game twice so far — four times if you count the two solo games I’ve played — but I’ve really liked it every time. Hopefully I’ll get the chance to give it another go at some point in the near future.