A Deckbuilding Look at Nightfall

It looks like deckbuilding games are really heating up as a new subgenre of board games, just like worker-placement games and co-op games have in years past. I was recently sent a preview copy of one of the newest, AEG’s Nightfall. In the manner of my past article, A Deckbuilding Look at Thunderstone, today I’m going to summarize Nightfall and talk about some of its innovations good and bad.

In my opinion, of course.

The Game

Nightfall is a game that in many ways borrows more from Magic: The Gathering than it does from Dominion. As with other deckbuilding games, you draw a small hand of cards each game, and through their play are able to buy more cards which are added to your deck.

The biggest difference in Nightfall is its cardplay method: you get to play a card, and then you can play other cards in a “chain” if they match certain color requirements. Afterward, each other player gets to play appropriate cards too, in order. Finally, all effects go off in reverse order. Though some of the card effects are things that you’d expect, like card draws and influence gain (that’s Nightfall‘s money), a Dominion player would probably be surprised to find effects that directly damage opponents and that damage their minions.
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