Advert: This game was loaned for review through the UK Board Game Review Circle. All opinions are our own and components are subject to change.

Looking for a fun deckbuilder with a twist? Well look no further than Wickens, which is coming to Kickstarter later this year.

Editor’s note on terminology: ‘Deck building’ versus ‘deck construction’ are two different mechanics. Deck building is when building the deck forms part of the gameplay itself, like Dominion (the originator of the term), Star Realms, or Clank! Deck construction refers to games where building a deck is required before the game begins, which is common for Trading Card Games (TCGs) like Pokemon, Magic the Gathering and Lorcana.

Key stats:

2 to 4 players
20 to 45 minutes
Publisher: Deep Etch Games
Theme/category: Card games, Fantasy
Mechanics: Deck building, Action points, Player elimination

Gameplay overview:

In Wickens, each player chooses one of 4 Wicken decks to play with (3 in the prototype), each containing a different Wicken starting deck and a creature deck. Each deck is from a different realm, each with its own strengths, weaknesses and quirks. Starting with basic attack and defense items, you collect stronger cards by defeating creatures – from your own creature deck or your opponents’ – and flipping them over to reveal stronger items. All while also attacking and defending against your fellow Wicken players!

A round goes through each of the following phases (starting with the first player):

1. Play cards from your hand to increase your defense.
2. Attack creature(s) and/or other Wickens
3. The active creature on top of your creature deck attacks YOU!

Each attack and defense card you play costs between 0 and 3 mana, and you start each round with 3 mana to spend (usually). You can spend it however you want: on one card or many, split between defense and attack cards, all on defense or all on attack. The choice is yours!

When attacking, each card can be directed to either an active creature (on top of any deck) or another Wicken. If you attack a creature and they run out of health they’re defeated! You take the monster card and flip it for your prize. If it’s a new attack or defense card, it goes on top of your deck for the next round. But there are also Emblem cards, special cards  with useful ongoing abilities that are instantly added to your player area and stay there permanently.

When attacking another Wicken, it reduces any defence they have first before directly hitting their health points. If you manage to reduce their health to 0, they’re knocked out of the game.

At the end of each round you discard the used cards AND the cards from your hand, return your defense to 0 (defense usually doesn’t carry over between rounds), pass the first player marker and redraw cards and mana tokens.

The game ends when all but one player is eliminated. Can you survive long enough to be the last Wicken standing?

Our first impressions:

I really enjoy deckbuilding games, and Wickens is no different. It was like if Keyforge and Star Realms had a baby, but with an innovative mechanism of acquiring cards. I got the same vibe and enjoyment that I would get from a TCG, but without the faff of collecting and constructing a ‘good’ deck.

What first attracted us to Wickens (and the reason we wanted to review it!) was the novel application of double sided cards. I want to call them multi-use, but multi-use cards as a mechanism refers to cards that have multiple actions/abilities for you to choose from, like the cards in forest shuffle where you choose which side of a card to play into your forest, or use it to ‘pay’ for another card. So technically, Wicken’s cards don’t meet this definition because you aren’t choosing from different actions: it works as one thing (a creature) until you can flip it over to use the item side. Maybe the multi-use definition needs to be broadened, or maybe BGG needs to add a new mechanic term to capture what’s happening in Wickens. Magic the Gathering has similar ‘double-faced’ cards which flip using a ‘transform’ action, so perhaps transform could be the new mechanic term? Either way it’s something we’ve not seen before, and it’s pretty cool!

We went through a bit of a journey with Wickens: when we first started we were unfamiliar with the decks, so we’d defeat a creature not knowing what item we’d get. There was a thrill as we flipped the card to see what we’d ‘won’. But as we became more familiar, we’d target the active creatures we wanted and avoid ones we didn’t (you can spend 1 mana to move the active creature to the bottom of the creature deck). And that included swiping an opponent’s creature to grab an item you really don’t want them to get hold of! I can see how this could cause an imbalance between new and experienced players, but as I’d position Wickens as a game played more casually than an actual TCG, I think it’s less of an issue as long as there’s some consideration given to the newer player (e.g. you could agree to only take creatures from your own deck until they feel more familiar with the cards).

And you’re not only trying to defend against opponent players, you have to defend against the ‘active’ creature from your realm too. You want to beat it to get more cards for your deck, but sometimes you’ll defeat one only for something stronger and meaner to take its place – just in time to hit you hard at the end of your turn! Some of them also have additional abilities that are mighty inconvenient. Plus mana is limited, so there’s only so much you can do each round. Deciding who to attack, and how much to prioritise attacking and/or defending at the start of each turn, gave the game an interesting tension.

We liked that each deck had a different vibe and this was illustrated by the distinct art within each deck (see what I did there? hehe). The creature designs are interesting and inspired by each world the Wicken comes from. Surprisingly, the Defence deck (Frith) was my favourite for artwork and gameplay style – I’m not usually an attack-first girly but Frith definitely takes “defense is the greatest form of offence” very literally!

Ideally the cards are kept in sleeves with an opaque back to avoid people sneaking a look at the prize (remember, players can attack the active creature from ANY creature deck, not just their own). Initially we thought taking cards in and out of sleeves to flip them would be too fiddly – in practice it didn’t feel like a problem during the game, resetting at the end can be a bit faffy. But it wasn’t as bad as we expected.

We were only able to play Wickens at 2 players, which is probably why it felt similar to traditional deck building battles. I can imagine with more players it becomes a bit like Fire Tower; everyone is in it for themselves, but people might pile on and take out the easiest targets first – Hunger Games style! 

Final thoughts:

As someone who enjoys the concept of deck battling games, Wickens scratches that itch for me without needing to worry about competitive card collecting and deck curating. We had a really fun time with it and we think it would work well for people new to deckbuilding, with a novel twist that would draw in regular players. I’m intrigued to see what it’s like at higher player counts, and I believe a solo and co-op mode are also in the works!

If you’re looking for a new deckbuilder with a unique building mechanic (and can handle being a target!) Wickens is definitely one to keep an eye out for, and you can click to get notified for the Kickstarter launch later this year.