Episode 303: Tag Team

Welcome to the Ring

Welcome to Tag Team, the tactical auto-battler where you smash faces first and ask strategic questions later! In this game, you combine the unique ten-card decks of two legendary fighters to square off against your opponent over a fast-paced series of rounds. If you suffer from standard deckbuilder trauma caused by constant, aggressive card shuffling, you can breathe a sigh of relief because in Tag Team, you will never shuffle your deck once the game begins. Instead, you start the match with a tiny, two-card Fight Deck containing exactly one starting card for each of your chosen fighters. Your goal is beautifully simple: reduce the health points of your opponent's fighters until someone is completely knocked out.

Step 1: The Fight Step

Every round kicks off with the Fight Step, which is where your carefully laid plans meet a fist. Because this is an auto-battler, you have absolutely zero control once the round begins, meaning you just sit back, flip cards simultaneously with your opponent, and see how it plays out. Whichever fighter is on your revealed card becomes your Active Fighter for the turn, while your other character waits on the bench as the Partner. All actions are considered simultaneous, creating a chaotic flurry of offense and defense. An Attack action reduces the opposing Active Fighter's health points by the exact number of purple Power cubes currently sitting in your supply. Conversely, playing a Block completely negates incoming attacks and triggers a sweet bonus counter-action printed on the card. You might also play actions to gain extra Power cubes for future turns, or execute a Heal action to patch up your wounds. Once your Fight Deck runs completely dry, the fighting temporarily stops.

Step 2: The Build Step

Now it is time to fix the tactical mistakes you just witnessed during the Fight Step. You draw the top three cards from your 18-card Build Deck, which holds the rest of your characters' cards shuffled together during setup. You secretly select just one of those cards to permanently add to your Fight Deck.

Here is the brilliant mechanical twist of the game: you can secretly slide this new card anywhere you want inside your deck, whether that is on the very top, at the absolute bottom, or sandwiched right between two existing cards. The only rule is that you cannot change the order of the cards already there. This lets you strategically position an Attack to exploit a known opening, or place a Block right where you predict your opponent is going to swing next round. You discard the other two unused cards to the bottom of your Build Deck, pick up your freshly stacked Fight Deck, and start a brand-new round of fighting that will now be one card longer.

Victory and Knockout

You repeat this frantic cycle of violent choreography and sneaky deck-building until the bitter end. The absolute second any fighter's health marker hits the dreaded KO space at the end of a turn, they can no longer be healed. The game ends immediately, and the player left with both fighters standing victorious wins THIS match of Tag Team…. My guess is you’ll be ready for another match.

And now back to the table to hear what the PEGS think of TAG TEAMMMMMM.