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Welcome to my new blog! Hopefully, this is something some people enjoy and find as interesting as I do.
For the first post I thought, I'd start things off with something easy, so here we go:
Dominion invented the genre of deck building games in 2008.
Deck building: As opposed to deck construction, where each player constructs a deck from a certain pool of cards, according to certain rules, deck building refers to games that build a deck during the game, usually using some sort of ressources to acquire cards to add to the deck. The starting deck is a predetermined pool of cards, possibly, but not necessarily identical to all players that enables to build upon. The cards during the game are acquired from a pool of cards and can be chosen by the active player (no random draws into the deck). The card pool may be fixed or randomized, but it is important that at the time of acquisition the players know what they get. To distinguish from tableau building, it is also important to note that the acquired cards actually go into a deck that the player draws from during the game and plays with the cards from this deck (as opposed to building a tableau or a simply building a pile of cards for scoring).
Inventing a genre of games: To invent a genre of games, the same mechanism employed by the inventor must not be found within any other game published before that game in its entirety. Having only parts show up in earlier games does not void the claim for invention.
There are about 2060 games in the BGG data base listed under Deck / Pool Building. Fortunately, the BGG definition matches very well with the one I have given above, so I can start working with that. Unfortunately about 50 or so do not have a year of publication listed, so I may possibly have to do some additional digging later on.
For now, I'm going to start with the ones that do have a year of publication listed:
The oldest one is Mix-Econo from 1971, in total there are 23 games with that mechanic listed before 2008. Most of these I have never heard of before, so this may become interesting
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Mix-Econo
This is already a tough one. No-one on BGG owns it, the description actually reads pretty interesting, it was designed as an educational game about the basics of economy. The internet at large doesn't know a lot about the game. (You can supposedly buy it somewhere for 75$, though!) Thus I have to go by the description and while it seems to have some card choosing / hand management stuff, I would - with the information available to me right now - rule this out as an earlier inventor of deck building.
Slapshot
It's a hockey game from 1982 (hey, just as old as I am!) that seems to be a lot more alive than number 23. Originally published by Avalon Hill it has seen some revamps and reprints (latest one in 2011) and there are even 2 games logged for July already. I got the rules from the Columbia Games website and it definitely disqualifies as a deck building game under the above definition. Each player has a starting deck, but the building is done by draws from other people's decks and several common face-down piles. You have no real control over what you are getting (only over what you're getting rid of). It is already pretty close, though! And I wouldn't be averse to trying it, actually.
Match of the Day
The next one on the list is from 1988 and is published by BBC, with the same name as their main football (AE soccer) TV program. The theme is, of course, football and there is not a lot to be found about the board game. So I will have to go by the description on the main page of the game here and the images provided. Going by that, it reads mostly as a roll-and-move game, where you pick up cards if you land on the right spot. You seemingly can buy and sell players anytime, but I can't find the mechanism of actually going through and drawing from the deck. Based on this last criterion, I would rule this one out, too.
Schnipp Schnapp
Oh my, I love Janosch! That said, I have no idea why this game is listed as a deck building game. While the first three I think already came pretty close to the mark of my definition, this game has not a single element required. Well, I guess it does have cards and they are drawn from decks...
1000 Blank White Cards
Huh, this is a weird one. It's a public domain game, that actually doesn't have rules (or a lot of them depending on your point of view) and you create the cards you want to play from blank cards. I'd rather call that an experiment than a game, but who knows, there are probably people who enjoy it. However, you do not actually build a deck, but rather create it. Not a contender.
Neo-Combat
Obviously never published in printed form, this shows up as a print-and-play release from 1999. The only sites I could find with this game were in Russian, so I will stick to what BGG has to say about it. And going with that, I can't find any mention of actually building a deck in the description, you only draw cards from a draw pile. 
Nation Builder
I could not find anything about this game and its publisher (Zen River Games and Software) seems to be on Facebook but I could not find a proper website. However, this game is also tagged as "Not Published" by BGG and I tend to believe that, because there is really nothing to be found about it. Shame, because from the description it might have fit the bill and it sounded pretty interesting. Oh well, disqualified because it never came to be.
Scarab Lords
A Knizia game, who would have thought. However, this game has either fixed decks for each player (basic game) or a deck construction element (advanced game). The deck is not built during the game.
X-Mas 2004 (fan expansion for Ophidian 2350)
Fan expansion to a game called Ophidian 2350 CCG, which is a CCG, not a deckbuilding game. Out.
Seasons: The Calendar Rummy Game
I don't know who tagged a beefed up Rummy version as a deckbuilder. I have fond memories of playing Rummy with my parents and friends, so I like the game. It's just not a deckbuilder. Not even a little.
Edit: Thanks tofor pointing out, that in this version of Rummy, every player actually has their own deck of cards and is able, by stealing from their opponents to evolve this deck. It's closer to the mark than I thought!Dan Vujovic(dvujovic)United States
Sugar Grove
Illinois
"The Leavetaking" - Michael Whelan planned for this piece to be a large "preliminary" to a new work in his Passage series that he would paint in oils. He wanted the design of the robe on the sand to suggest the drawing of water back into the sea.
"Passage: The Avatar" - Initially inspired by a few notes from a Pink Floyd instrumental track, THE AVATAR came to Michael Whelan while he was floating in a sensory deprivation tank.
Ophidian 2350 CCG: Rise of Champions
An expansion to Ophidian 2350 CCG. Wave of Fictions (fan expansion for Ophidian 2350)
And another one. This seems to have been quite popular in 2004. How come I've never heard of it anywhere? Spacedogs
The next oddball that I'm not sure ever really got published. Anyway, it's got nothing to do with deckbuilding, you're just putting cards into your pile for scoring. Ophidian Legends (fan expansion for Ophidian 2350)
I think that's the last one of the Ophidian expansions. Infinity N3: Core Book
Huh? Two things that surprise me here: That a miniature skirmish game is listed in the deck / pool building category. And that it already came out in 2005. Given my weak spot for cool miniatures, I'm surprised that I have successfully avoided to get this game for 12 years! And I was sorely tempted several times. Yay, me!
Back on topic: You construct your army before you start to play, you do not play with the cards, they only have the stats on them. So, nope, no competition for Dominion. Ef-One
Seems to be originally a Chinese game about Formula 1 racing. It does have cards but I could find no hint to either deckbuilding or deckconstruction in the sparse information available in English. Vampire: The Eternal Struggle – Nights of Reckoning
This must have gotten its tag by mistake, because neither one of the other sets from this Vampire - The Masquerade themed CCG has made it onto the list. I'm glad this one was here, though, as I learned some interesting things (apart from the mere fact that this game exists): It was designed by Richard Garfield in 1994, so not long after Magic: The Gathering, which I still play, albeit only with friends. It had quite a few expansions and looks like something I might pick up if I find a decent amount of cards for it in a sale. For the purpose of being a contender against Dominion for the inventor spot - nope. It's classic deckconstruction, as in any other CCG. Pog Word Builder Game
Nothing to do with cards, pogs seemingly are little card board chits. The OutWorlds Revelations (fan expansion to Ophidian 2350)
I was wrong, there's still more expansions to this game. Unicante 2007: Das Spiel zum Chor
Du lieber Himmel... There is some seriously obscure stuff on this list for sure! This game is about managing a German choir. I couldn't find much about the game, there is a Facebook post about it, but not much else. It was self-published so also no publisher website that I could find. From the sparse information, I would think that it is more tableau building, if it isn't just "draw some cards and see what you can do with them". I would now rule it out based on what I could find out. StarCraft: The Board Game
Ooooh... now we're getting somewhere. The "Research" part of this board game of epic proportions based on the populare PC RTS games is actually pretty close to the mark: Each player has their own combat deck that they can customize during the game. The starting contents of each deck are predetermined. Players draw until the deck is empty, then it is reshuffled. The cards are bought from a pool that is individual to each player, but the purchased card is chosen from that pool, not randomly drawn. Wow, I think we have a winner here!
Although it is by far not the only thing happening in this game, it is still an element of the game that fulfills all criteria of the deckbuilding genre. And it was published in 2007, one year before Dominion. Sorry, Dominion, but you have been de-throned! 
Dominion did not invent the genre of deck building games in 2008.
Starcraft actually took that price just before the finish line. However, while the starting hypothesis could not be validated, Dominion is still the one game that made the mechanism so popular that the number of games using it or something similar literally exploded. I mean, look at the figures at the beginning of this blog post: 2060 games listed and only 23 (!) are older than 2008. Kudos for Starcraft for inventing it. Dominion still made it as successful and popular as it is today.
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this little encyclopaedic research project. Feel free to challenge my assessment, agree or disagree with my conclusion or even give some insight into some of these - possibly - lost gems.
Keep thinking!
I like to analyze things. In this blog I am going to start from a hypothesis that I find interesting and try to find data that either supports or contradicts this hypothesis to determine whether it is valid or not. The topics can be statements that came up in discussions with friends, something I read here on this site or in any other media. Of course, everything is boardgame related!
- Magic: The Gathering
- Slapshot
- Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
- Scarab Lords
- 1000 Blank White Cards
- Ophidian 2350 CCG
- Seasons: The Calendar Rummy Game
- Infinity N3: Core Book
- StarCraft: The Board Game
- Dominion
- Match of the Day
- Pog Word Builder Game
- Schnipp Schnapp
- Mix-Econo
- Nation Builder
- Neo-Combat
- Spacedogs
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Fri Jul 14, 2017 11:55 pm
Fri Jul 14, 2017 11:55 pm
- [+] Dice rolls
