In card games I always like that little spice that’s added when discards can be picked up by someone else and used. It adds an element of “should I perhaps continue with this less-than-perfect hand, or should I risk helping someone else build the perfect hand?”

Mystic Vale is a neat take on the deckbuilder. Each player starts with the same 20-card deck, but Instead of earning new cards to add to your deck, you modify the cards themselves.

You add these clear plastic cards into the sleeve that add or modify one of three sections on your cards.

One of my favorite mechanics is when you place tiles next to each other and the effectiveness of the tiles depends on what is next to them. Suburbia does this but almost goes too far in my opinion. It’s way too much to easily keep track of.

A game called Cité is my favorite for this because you share a border with your opponents and you can make deals out of it. “I’ll put my x2 multiplier on the border here if you give me one Cloth per turn.”

I’ve of my favorite mechanics comes from Unearth, specifically their catch-up/bad luck mitigating mechanic.

In a game where the goal is to have the winning die on a ruin as a cumulative threshold is reached, any dice rolled under 3 nets you a stone, which can be used to build you own ruins.

Roll poorly enough and you won’t fall too far behind. Have the worst rolls every time and there’s a good chance you can win without actually capturing a single ruin card.

Push-your-luck is a great time. Can’t Stop uses it quite effectively.

I’m a tactile person, so I really like minis and tokens. No flat character cutouts though please, I’ll sometimes 3D print minis to replace those.

Recently picked up Moonrakers, which has little starships and metal coins for counters, and it lights my brain up like a Christmas tree.