This edition of Off the Shelf will look at small deck-building game that I first learned through an app. It’s called

Star Realms is a 2014 two-player game designed by Robert Dougherty and Darwin Kastle, published by Wise Wizard Games (originally White Wizard Games, but rebranded in 2021). Dougherty and Kastle are champion Magic: The Gathering players, and had a goal to make an affordable strategy game. Star Realms is a space combat game where players are building their fleet and trying to blow their opponent out of the sky.

As with most deck-builders, players begin the game with a starter deck. In this case, it consists of eight Scouts (with one purchase power each) and two Vipers (one attack each). Players also get 50 Authority, which is their health for the game. It can be tracked using cards in the game, or on a piece of paper. The trade deck, which consists of 80 cards is shuffled and five cards are laid out in a trade row players can buy from. Additionally, some Explorer cards are set to the side, which can be purchased for 2 and give 2 purchase power (plus 2 attack if you trash them). The start player draws three cards from their deck, and the second player draws five.

On your turn, you can play all cards from your hand. Attack points go into an attack pool you can use against your opponent, while purchase points can go to buying new cards for your deck. Attack points can be split between any bases your opponent has in play and their Authority as you see fit. More on bases in a bit. When you purchase cards, they go directly into your discard, and you can buy as many as you want on a turn. Each card is immediately replaced on the trade row when you buy it.

Cards in this game come in four different factions: Trade Federation (blue), Blobs (green), Star Empire (yellow), and Machine Cult (red). If you play multiple cards of one faction, you often get a bonus – cards become stronger and do more damage, or give you more money, or let you draw cards, or give you other benefits. So it’s good to try to get cards from the same faction, but having cards from other factions is OK too. Some cards also have abilities that are triggered when you trash them from your deck. Then you don’t have the cards anymore, but you’ve got a powerful one-time blast of something to use.

Some of the cards are bases, and when played, they stay on the table. These can be attacked as normal, and each has its own defense. You have to completely destroy one for your attack to work, however – if you send three attack against a four defense base, it doesn’t do anything. Some bases are outposts, and these will absorb damage. In other words, you have to destroy them first before you destroy other bases or attack your opponents’ Authority. If you have attack left over after attacking one of these bases, it can be applied to another base, or even to the player themself (as long as they don’t have another outpost in the way).

When a player is done with their turn, they discard all cards played, all cards purchased, and any that might be left in their hand for whatever reason. Then, they draw a new hand of five and it’s their opponent’s turn. If there aren’t enough cards in their deck to draw five, they shuffle their discard and use that as the new deck. Play continues like this until one player has brought their opponent down to 0 Authority. They win.

I believe I got my copy of Star Realms for Christmas in 2014. I played the physical version a few times over the next few months, but I haven’t played the physical version since 2015. Most of my plays have come on the app, which I don’t count for play logs.

One of the best thing about Star Realms is its portability. It’s a whole game in a small package, just coming in a tuck box. It’s easy to carry around, and it’s just cards, so there’s nothing else to deal with. There are a good amount of cards in the box, and there are of course expansions if you just want more. I don’t have any of the expansions, but I might be interested in getting at least the ones that let me play solo sometime.

Gameplay is basic deck-building stuff. It deviates from the Dominion model in that you are allowed to play every card from your hand and buy as much as you want to. Also, it’s attack-based rather than VP-based, which makes more sense considering the theme here. But, other than that, you’re putting newly purchased cards into a discard pile, reshuffling that when your draw deck runs out, and trying to build synergies between the cards so you can do maximum damage.

The four suits of the game are really helpful in building combos, especially since a number of them have extra actions you can do if you play another card of that suit. And the suits all have general tendencies you can focus on. The Blobs are primarily focused on combat. The Star Empire is also combat-focused, and also have the benefit of making your opponent discard cards. The Trade Federation gives you money to spend. The Machine Cult helps you thin your deck. It’s likely that you won’t have a deck full of one of these types of cards, but it’s good to kind of focus on something so you have a better chance of triggering those extra abilities.

The Base mechanism in play here, where certain cards just stay out on the table, adds an interesting layer to the game. Especially because a lot of the bases act as shields, preventing the player’s main authority count from being attacked until they themselves are destroyed. Plus, these bases can be used to make combos, which makes them very strong and desirable to get out.

The game uses a trade row, which is another way it differs from Dominion – this is more like Ascension. It does lead to some luck of the draw – if you buy a card only to reveal something extremely good your opponent can snatch up on their turn, it can be frustrating. But, luck of the draw goes both ways.

Thematically, the game has a pretty good storyline behind it that I hardly ever think about. It’s red cards, blue cards, green cards, and yellow cards, and I’m just trying to hit my opponent as hard as I can while preventing them from hitting me. It’s a combat game, so you’re fighting, which never seems to bother me as much in a two-player game as with larger player counts – it doesn’t feel like you’re ganging up on someone, you’re just playing the game. And that’s fine.

I do like Star Realms a lot, and writing this up has me wanting to play it again. I’ve got it ranked #16 on my current Off the Shelf rankings out of the 46 games covered so far.

And that’s it for today. Thanks for reading!