Jared

Sentinals is a cooperative card game where a team of superheroes fight against a evil supervillain. The base game comes packaged with no real good way to store the cards once they’re opened so that is one downfall. The other downfall is that every player needs to track their hit points and they need to track the hit points of the supervillian and their minions. The game doesn’t include any way to do this. There are print offs you can find online that help, but the easiest way is probably using mini poker chips.

Players start off by choosing a hero however they prefer. The game includes 10 different heroes to choose from each with their own flavor, and most of them are easy to see which superhero they were modeled after.

The players then choose a villain that they will be fighting and also a location where they will be fighting.

After the first player is determined they flip one of the villain cards and do what it says. After the villain and his cronies will attack if able and then its on to the superheroes turns.

Each player can play one card from hand, some are one time use and are discarded and others persist and stay to buff the hero. After this they have a chance to use one of their abilities. At the start the hero card includes one ability and they gain more through cards played, so your hero will become stronger as the game progresses. After they do their ability (which isn’t always attack) they draw a card.

After all players have taken their turn they reveal a location card and do what the card text says if able. Then they start back over with the villains turn until either the heroes are defeated or the villain is defeated.

This game is super simple and there are no real big elements to make it complex or symbols to be confusing. You open the small box and you have cards and that’s it nothing else, which is a big nose turner to a lot of people. And rightly so for 39.95usd msrp they could have included some type of counters, and it is near impossible to put the cards back into the box once they’re opened. That being said the game is very fun as a party game and for newbies to games.

Yes dice is an important part of the game and you roll them every round but rolling well or poorly isn’t an issue. There is a fairly high learning curve to this game due to all the possible choices to make also these options can slow the game down a bit.

Starting the game each player will activate a number of meeples that they will place into spots on 3 special buildings, the remaining slots will be filled by the banks meeples. Each player will receive dice equal to the meeples in each building matching color of building to color of die (including the bank). Placement of these meeples in the building is crucial because they can and will be bumped out. Also at the start of every round these must be payed for. For every meeple in the red building the owner must pay 2 coins, for the white building they pay 1 and it is free for every meeple in the yellow building.

Each color dice have their focus, yellow are usually used to gain gold, white are used for the cathedral and to usually manipulate other dice in both color and power, and the red dice are usually used for influence and victory points.

After placement of meeples is done everyone rolls their dice and one person rolls for the bank. Dice are then put onto the middle of the board corresponding with the players color.

The first player then flips a thick black bordered red card (when this deck runs out the game ends at the end of the round) and follows with a yellow or white card of its kind if the red one indicates it. After resolving any of the cards abilities the player then rolls black dice equal to the amount on all the cards currently in play at the bottom of the board. This part of the simulates an attack on the city and at least one of these dice needs to be “defeated” by the first player. The first player must use any number of their dice (color doesn’t matter but red are worth double during this phase) to match the sum of one or more black dice. For every die “defeated” the player gains 1 influence. If any dice are left over the next player must do the same and so on until the black dice are gone.

The players then flip one of each of the red yellow and white cards that are numbered (this is only done for the first 3 rounds). These cards allow players to spend use meeples and money in order to gain the ability of the card, and also gain victory points at the end for placement in the card.

Each player takes a turn by using any number of their own or other players dice to do any number of options, though usuing other players dice will cost money, and some options include no dice (players can do nothing to prevent other players from using their dice).
-Place meeples on cards in the middle of the board to gain the effect of the card which can do a number of things such as increase dice power later or give victory points etc.
-Place cubes on the cards at the bottom of the board to gain victory points and influence, which is used to activate more meeples. (when a card is completely full of cubes the person with the most or the first person to place in case of a tie receives the card which may or may not benefit them at the end of the game)
-Place meeples into buildings to gain more dice to roll in later rounds, doing so will bump a meeple out of the buidling and reduce the roll of someone else (no one can be bumped more than once per round out of each building).
-Place a cube in the cathedral to gain influence and vp (and to not lose vp at the end of the game, every level without a players cube is 2 vp subtracted for that player)
-Yellow dice may be traded in for gold (but this option is rarely taken)

Players take turns around the board until everyone has passed. The first player to pass gets 2 gold and every turn that passes someone who passed also gains 1 coin including the first player who passed.

When the round is over they all gain a set income, and they start the next round the same way the started the first.

When the round ends where the last black card with red middle is drawn the players add up all their victory points, minus any levels of the cathedral they did not complete. Lastly each player would have been dealt one of six special character cards at the beginning of the game. These cards give bonus victory points to everyone, however each player only know which character they hold. sometimes guessing which character another player holds can be easy due to their play style through the game.

This is a fantastic game, if you love euro games this is one you should try out. There can be some spots of down time especially if you play with people who get analysis paralysis because of all the options to choose from. The dice rolling aspect of the game is great because even if you roll poorly you can always buy your opponents good dice!

Despite the look of the board and components this game is, in fact, a card game. In this game 2 players pit off against each other in a tug of war struggle for power that was the 45 years of the cold war with USA one one side and the USSR on the other.

The game is played over 10 or less rounds that span over 3 or less phases. Phase 1 is early war and has 3 rounds, phase 2 is mid war and has 4 rounds, and phase 3 is late war and has 3 rounds.

After the game is set up each player will place their allotted influence tokens into the cities in Eastern or Western Europe depending on their side. Influence is how you determine who is in control of a country. If the amount of one sides influence equals or exceeds the number indicated by the country minus the influence of the other player, that player will used the colored side of the influence token to denote that they control the country and not just have presence in it. This will help in scoring points when the score cards are played.

Like I said this game is actually a card game. Each phase starts off with a headline in which each player chooses a card from their hand and simultaneously revealed it. The number in the top left decides who resolves first and the card text must be played out. After that stage each player will take turns playing cards starting with the USSR until the specific amount of played cards that phase has been reached. There are 4 types of cards that players will run into, and there are 3 sets of cards for each phase of the round (but you will use the previous phases cards with the next phase cards). The types of cards are USSR specific cards, USA specific cards, Neutral cards, and Scoring cards. Players will draw from the same piles so you will get the other players cards and players will play most if not all the cards in their hand during an entire round usually if they want to or not.

Cards can be played for 2 different ways but each way has its on effects. Firstly the card can be played for its text. If a player plays a card for its text that matches their side they simply do what the card says. If the player plays a card that matches their side wants to not use the card text (because some cards are only one time use) they may use the number in the top left of the card to gain that much influence to place where they would like (abiding by the rules). If a player plays a card of the opposing team they use the number in the top left to gain that much influence, then the other player may use the text of the card as if they had played it. If a player plays a neutral card they can either benefit from the number in the top left for influence or use the card text, the other player does not get the card text in this case if the influence number was used. Lastly playing a score card, these must be played if you have one in your hand during the round in which it was received. Score cards will consist of a region such as Europe or Africa etc. When this card is played the players divvy out victory points based on the region. Knowing you have to play this card will allow you to either play it early or late in the round but also may tip off another player if you’re putting lots of influence into one region.

The second way to play a card is for operations value. This option allows players to ignore card text and use the number in the top left to use the space race, stage a coup or realign influence. Using this option moves them along their required military operations track, this track is cleared each round and at end any missing operations will increase their opponents victory points by the difference (required amount is determined by the defcon level). For the space race option if the player succeeds they move along the track and gain the benefits of either being the first or second to complete it. This option may only be done once a round however, or until later stages of the game. Realigning allows both players to roll a die and add bonuses based off influence in the city, adjacent controlled cities and adjacent superpowers, after the roll the player with the highest number subtracts the difference and can remove that much influence from that city. If a player stages a coup they add the number of in the top left of the card they played along with their roll, if this number greater than the number on next to the corresponding city the player may remove influence of the other play equal to the difference of the 2 previous numbers. Staging a coup in a war zone city (denoted by purple name and red number) will decrease the defcon level if this ever hits 0 the player who did so loses the game though after every round defcon is raised up one level. Also certain levels of defcon eliminate the opportunity for coups in certain regions of the world.

When one player reaches 20 victory points the game is over and that player has won. If the defcon level reaches 0 the game is over and the player who pushed it to 0 loses the game. If the game goes the full 10 rounds and no player reaches 20 the player at that point with the most victory points wins. The victory point tracker works kind of like tug of war. It starts at 0 and if one player gains 3 vp it is moved to the 3 on their side, if the other player then gains 5 vp it is moved 5 spaces in the direction of that player and would land on their 2 vp spot.

There is a lot of information to intake so the learning curve can be quite steep, but all in all it isn’t that complicated of a game. The theme is spectacularly done you’ll find yourself countering every move your opponent makes and vise versa. My only gripe is that sometimes you have no good moves and you will be forced to play cards that help your opponent, but that also adds to the theme of the game. It is a great history lesson and each card is explained in the back of the instructions.

Simple game of defending the onslaught of monsters. Each round new monsters will spawn and advance on the castle and each player has attacks that they can do to fend them off, but your attackers can only attack monsters on the board if they’re in the corresponding color. The game is surprisingly fun for such a simple game and from what I’ve heard the expansion is a nice addition.

I love Battlestar Galactica and I love manipulation games so its easy for me to love this game. If you’ve played games like Werewolf, Mafia, Bang!, Shadows Over Camelot, and The Resistance you’ll see that this game has some of the mind games that they have. Where this isn’t as heavy in that category as some of those are you run into the possibly of one of your team mates being a bad guy.

If you know nothing about Battlestar Galacitca I will ask you why you’re reading this and not watching that, but it basically is humans being hunted down by cybernetic beings humans created and all went terribly bad now want to kill them. (much better than it sounds as its been done so many times before)

There are going to be better reviews of game play so I’m not even going to waste anyone’s time. This game is excellent and will always end with you talking about the game and thinking about it right after its over and the next day.

Go watch the show because if you’ve seen it I’m sure you don’t need a review to know you will want to play the game.

If you’re familiar with Reinder Knizia you’ll know what type of game this and that it includes biding.

Fairly simple fun game that has you bid for areas that you will own for one phase of the game and then bid again later for the 2nd phase of the game.

Each area can be build up with pyramids for victory points or workers to gain money and also allow for other bonuses such as ability to buy certain number of cards, bonus building materials for pyramids, bonus money at the end of the round, or bonus victory points at the end of the 2 phases. Each area has its up sides which some players may want to bid on to get where others may not find value in them.

There are 2 phases in the game and each phase consists of 3 rounds.

A player takes his turn by buying cards (up to their max based on the areas they own), buying building materials, and buying workers. Cards give the players bonuses on victory points or coins and also reduction cost to build pyramids and free workers.

At the end of each round a sacrifice must be made in currency. Each player chooses how much or little they want to give in secrecy. Then once everyone is ready they reveal at the same time. The player who gave the most gets to choose from a number of items (cards, materials, workers) and then the next highest chooses from a lesser number of items. Bidding low does have its advantages though because there is a 4 tier sacrifice system that can boost coin gain or victory point gain based on how much was given in each round and keeping that low may be a priority to you.

At the end of first phase players add up victory points based on number of pyramids in an area total number of pyramids and so forth including bonuses from cards. Then every player relinquishes control of each area and workers are removed but not pyramids. Then the players enter phase 2 where they bid on each area again and finish the game scoring the same way at the end of the 2nd phase.

One of my current favorite games. Area control with bidding and a fantastic fluctuating market.

During the first phase of the game players are able to bid on a set of power plants that may use coal, oil, garbage, uranium or even wind to produce power. Each plant uses a certain number of these resources and also powers a certain number of cities. Every round you have potential to bid on new power plants that could potentially be more efficient than your current ones. There is a current and futures market for power plants and so if a power plant is bid and won by an opponent you have the possibility of getting one of the futures power plants or a random one from the deck.

The next phase of the game takes you into resource buying. The game has its very own fluctuating market in that for resources bought the cost with that resource can go up and also the supply could be entirely depleted, in which case you may not be able to use a power plant you own that round.

The next phase is where you are able to buy into cities so that you can power them and get paid. During the first stage of the game only one person can buy into any one city. In the later 2nd and 3rd stages 2 and 3 people can buy into cities respectively, but the cost to do so increases. To connect more than one city into your power grid you must pay connection fees (if any) to a neighboring city and then pay the cost to buy into it.

After that round is over you spend resources from power plants that powered cities and then get paid based off how many cities in your grid that you powered that turn. You could have ownership in 4 cities but only power 3, in which case you would only get money for powering the 3.

The resources are then restocked based on set numbers corresponding to the stage in the game and then bidding on new power plants begins again.

The game ends once the number of cities connected in one persons grid equals or exceeds the number in the rules (based on number of players).

The person who and that point is able to power the most cities in their grid wins, in case of a tie the player that did so and has the most money wins. (note that the person to have the most cities isn’t always the winner because you have to be able to power them as well.)

*The expansion maps for this game are very fun and add flavor to the resource market since they base the resource restock rate on the countries/areas uses of those resources.

If you like resource management type games you probably know about this game at the least you’ve heard of it since it is one of the top of its category.

Each player chooses from certain options such as take resources, plow fields, sow crops build buildings and so forth in order to get their family through each round.

Out of all the resource games I’ve played this one is by far the most stressful. It always feels like you’re treading water and need just one more turn to be able to do what you want before the harvest comes. I usually do extremely well with these types of games but with this I never seem to be able to get my head above the water.

Gateway game that you’ll see at Barnes and Nobles. Easy to learn and teach and an easy way to get someone who doesn’t play board games to do so.

Players place train engines in between cities on colored tracks to denote their ownership. collect cards of certain colors to pay for said tracks. once a track is taken by someone it cannot be taken by someone else. some cities have double tracks between other cities, and some do not. Players get objective cards that name 2 cities that you need to connect to get a certain number of points. Get the most points from connections made from cards and you win. You can also get points from the longest set of connections on the board.

Lol no not really but from first glance that’s what it looks like. This is a fairly old game that is very fun and easy to learn/play. I rated components lower because I’ve played the original print of the game. the tiles interlock with the board and so do the hotel tokens which are way cooler and nicer than the cardboard you get from the newer print. the money in both versions are paper and not very good. However the stock certificate cards are far nicer in the newer print.

Players have a set of tiles that they draw randomly from a bag and place them each turn to start new hotels, build onto existing hotels or even merge hotels. Whenever two or more tiles touch (not diagonally) a hotel is formed. The person who completed the hotel gets 1 stock from the hotel that they chose to build. They choose from 7 hotels (2 cheaper 3 medium and 2 more expensive types) they they get to buy 3 stocks of any hotel including the one they just founded.

This goes on until the end of the game when stocks are sold based on how big a hotel is (based on how many touching tiles) and bonuses are given to each hotel’s majority and minority owners.

If at any point during the game 2 hotels that are already founded touch each other a merger happens. The larger hotel devours the smaller hotel and the smaller hotel’s majority and minority shareholders get bonuses based off the size of the hotel and then they can either keep shares and hope that same hotel gets built again, sell the shares for the cost associated with the size of the hotel, or roll shares 2:1 into the hotel that devoured it. However there are only 25 shares of each hotel and that’s where the strategy comes in.

I haven’t played it in quite a while but it is still one of my favorites. Easy to learn – Hard to master.

Not really one of my favorite games and that is just a personal preference. Many people love this game and its easy to see why.

If you enjoy chess and or any type of wargame that is tactical with troop deployment and movement you will probably enjoy this.

2 players pit off on a board like chess. Each player chooses a race/group of characters to help them defeat their opponent.

Each race starts off with some of their characters in different spaces on the board and each have different amounts of movement, range, attacks, hit points, an so forth. In order to cast any of your characters that weren’t already present on the board when you started you have use discarded cards. These discarded cards then become unusable for the rest of the game! so you really have to plan out when you want to buy guys and which ones you want buy. The game changer comes when you kill another persons character you then gain their card and you can use that as a card that is discarded to pay for new character cards.

Like I said the game is not one of my favs, but that doesn’t mean its not a good game. There are a lot of good concepts and it is a very popular game so finding others to play shouldn’t be to hard.

This game is 10 years old and so bashing it is not something I will do. mixed reviews will be strewn all over this because yes some people love it and others just know other better games exist. so I will just put a few points of why it is not one of my faves.

I just feel that I follow a certain way if I’m playing with a 4-5 players and I follow a certain way if I’m playing with 3. Though there are a few ways to score points once you’ve played the game a bunch of times you realize that some things work better than others.

One of my biggest gripes is that the 5 choices the governor gets to choose from 4 are extremely simple concepts (build, get a card and so forth) and one of the concepts has like a page explanation of how it works (shipping) I never understood why the game had to be so easy explain and then have this one function that seems, to me at least, so clunky.

IF you don’t know what scrabble is what rock have you been living under?

Make a crossword with opponents to score the most points from words that are put onto a tiled board that has bonus points if tiles are laid on them.

I’ve always loved games of any sort but this is The game that got me into the board gaming nut that I am.

Great tile laying game that you use meeples to grab points from building castles, roads, and farms. Simple game to learn/teach and its a great game to introduce to someone not familiar with some these types of games. Play without the farms scoring aspect of the game and it will be super simple for even a 5+ year old to play.

If you’ve ever played baulderdash this is pretty much the same concept except you choose a picture and tell a one or few word story. Others try to pick from their pictures to try and best match that story and hope that others choose theirs.

Great for party its a light simple game.

That being said this game can cost you so much money. over 13 years this game has been out and it has had dozens of sets released. the basics are simple, use 5 different types of magic to cast spells and creatures to defeat your opponent. The tricky part comes when you try to build a deck. Deciding which cards to use and which to keep out. Each color has its own flavor. Create a deck of 60 or more cards consisting of land, that will allow you to cast your spells and creatures, include spells and creatures to make a themed deck of single or multiple colors. Each color has its own characteristics and they are…

Plains (white) – Order, Protection, Light.
Island (Blue) – Knowledge, Manipulation, Illusion.
Swamp (Black) – Darkness, Ambition, Death.
Mountain (Red) – Freedom, Emotion, Impulse.
Forest (Green) – Growth, Instinct, Nature.

Great coop for up to 4 players. You can choose the difficulty by including or excluding certain cards. Travel around the world trying to cure or eradicate 4 different types of diseases before they overwhelm you or you run out of cards to draw from.

Each player takes one of 5 roles each with special abilities to help them through the game. Each player will take their turn by using up to 4 actions on any of all of the following. Move, clear disease cubes, build research station, or cure a disease.

After the game has been set up the players will take turns of their 4 actions trying to keep the diseases from spreading all the while trying to cure them. The cubes can quickly become overwhelming and can make for some very tense moments.

The players win by curing all 4 diseases (you do not have to eradicate them which is clearing all of one colored cube from the board). The players lose at any time if the player cannot draw cards from the player deck or there are not enough of one color cube to put on the board.

Super fun party game always a hit for the casual gamers that I game with on Friday nights

*Highly suggest the expansion it is probably one of the best expansions that I have played, Both in contents and what it gives. 3 new types of scenarios and adds the option for a 5th player and one of them includes the ablitiy for a player to play the role of the infector.

A game I would consider a gateway game, this is great for the new comer to games and the hard core gamer. This is one of the few games that you will be able to find at stores like Barnes and Nobles

Each game is a little different since part of the setup is random. After determining each players 2 starting locations of their towns on the map the players turn consists of rolling 2 dice and then divvying out resources from the bank to the players with towns on the corner of the tile that corresponds with the die that was rolled.

If anyone rolls a 7 players with too many cards will have to discard cards and the player who rolled gets to place the robber into any tile and block players from gaining resources from the number on the tile, they then get to take one card at random from a player who has a town on the boarders of the tile.

After the roll the player can then spend resource cards from their hand to do any number of these – build new towns, upgrade towns to cities, build roads, draw bonus cards. Players can trade goods between themselves and with the bank.

A great game that may get some flack or too much love depending on who you talk to.

Hardcore gamers might rip this game but there is a reason this game is one of the hottest games. It is super easy to learn/teach and once everyone knows how to play games can go super fast.

The basics are pretty simple – get a random starting city tile, choose a card from your hand to “build” then pass the rest to a neighbor the appropriate direction. Do that for three rounds and find out who has the best city. Scoring points from about 7 different categories makes it great for trying different building strategies.

IF you are a fan of H.P. Lovecraft and/or coop board games you will most likely enjoy this. Tons of different investigators for players to choose from with each their own flavor. Visit other worlds, slay monsters, and collect items to win the game.

After the setup the players choose which investigator they will play and then choose a starting player. Each player will have little stats on their character sheet that differ from one to another. There will be 3 trackers as well which each have 2 associated numbers. Players can increase and decrease certain stats to help them out in different situations, however this step has to be done at the beginning of the round.

To begin the game the players draw a mythos card that will start the monsters and other world portals to spawn in the town and possibly other nasty stuff.

Starting with the first player each player will move around the town and have encounters at their locations or use the locations special action. IF they move into or land on a monster they have to try to roll and sneak past or fight it.

Once everyone has completed their turn they reveal another mythos card and the cycle continues. If at any point too many creatures are on the board the doom tracker moves up one and one ally will leave town, or possibly one shop will close. if it ever reaches 10 the boss monster awakens and you are forced to fight him.

During the game the players will have to enter portals and explore other worlds in order to close portals so they dont become overwhelmed with monsters, but sealing portals is the important part. If a portal is sealed there can no longer be any more portals or monsters spawned from that location and when a certain number of portals are sealed the players will win the game. If the boss monster awakens the players will have to fight him in which it varies what each player has to do but will always get progressively harder with every turn the players make.

This game is tons of fun for everyone with a great theme. Try the new lighter version of the game called Elder sign if you enjoy this one.

I’ve yet to play this version but from everything I’ve seen and read the Thunderstone Advance improves upon all the broken aspects that everyone complains about.

In it’s own right this game is great. It is extremely simple to play and to learn. It is a wonderful game if you’re interested in getting into gaming, or you want to introduce someone into gaming. That being said the game can get rather stale even after many expansions because there are just newer games very similar to this that have improved upon the genre.

If you love LotR and co-op you’ll most likely love this. Living card game allows you to know exactly what you are getting when you buy an expansion. Great with 1-4 players (3-4 suggests 2 sets of base game). Most balanced with 2 players though.

Fight through scenarios with a set of 3 heroes that can stem from 4 spheres which I’ll include specialties but are not limited to – Tactics (fighting), Leadership (hero buffing), Lore (healing), Spirit (questing)

Build a deck of at least 50 cards to help your 3 chosen heroes and fight your way through monster, location, and treachery cards to complete your quest.

Once players have their decks ready the quest is set out in between them and then the flavor text is read aloud to set the mood. Once that is read do what the card says for setup and then its on to the players turn.

Each player then draws 6 cards and decides if they like their hand. If they don’t they can mulligan once and draw 6 new cards.

Players then go into the first step of the game which is resources. Each player receives 1 for each 1 of their heroes and puts it next to them. This is because each hero has their own separate pool of money. Then the players each draw 1 card.

The second step is planning and in the phase players (in turn order) are allowed to play ally and attachment cards from their hand paying the associated costs and making sure that they pay using currency only from any of their heroes with the same sphere as the card being played. The third type of card players will use are event cards and these can be played through out the game during every phase including this one, though they normally benefit from being played in later phases.

Now the questing begins and starting with the first player, players choose which heroes and allies they will be including on the quest. Whoever is on the quest will need to exhaust (kneel/tap/turn sideways) this means that they will not be able to defend or attack later unless able to exhaust because of special effects. Based on what cards are in the staging area from previous rounds or from set up players then need to equal or exceed the amount of threat generated by those cards and extra drawn cards based on number of players (1 card per player) with that of their combined willpower from all included characters. Equaling the threat from the staging area will break even and nothing will benefit or hurt the players. For every point over the players then place a progress point on the current location, if there is one, if there isn’t then they go on to the current quest. Failure to do so will increase player threat. If a players threat ever reaches 50 the players lose.

Once the quest phase has been completed the players may choose to travel to a location if they currently have no location active. Location cards cards usually give a positive or negative effect after traveling. Traveling to a location removes it from the staging area and removes some of the threat from questing in subsequent turns, but also works as a buffer between the quest (which is the main objective usually)

Next comes the encounter phase. Each player starting with the first player can choose to optionally engage a creature in the staging area. After that any and all creatures that have engagement costs equal to or less than the players will engage them.

The combat step follows and starting with the first player each engaged creature receives a shadow cards, which is just a card from the encounter deck. Players in player order then choose 1 and only 1 character to defend each attack from creatures in front of them. After defense is made by each player it is the players turn to attack.

Starting with the first player each player can choose any number of their attackers (other players if they have ranged attacks) to attack a single creature. This is done until all attacks have been made. Any creature still standing and the end stays engaged and doesn’t commit to the threat during the quest phase but they will attack during the next combat phase.

Lastly the players do a refresh phase which they can then un-exhaust all their characters and equipped cards (equipment exhausted separately from characters). They raise their threat by one and pass the first player marker to the next player.

This game can be so much fun but it can be also very frustrating at times. Knowing what cards can come up from the encounter deck helps when trying to build a deck. Some quests are location heavy and require a lot of questing power and some quests are monster heavy and require lots of strength and defense.