Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Deca Slayer takes the gameplay from Decathlon and moves it to a fantasy environment in which players now need various skills to complete tasks. In this card game, players compete to slay a series of ten monsters and grab the treasure the monsters leave behind.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Auction/Bidding
Bid against other players to determine who receives an item, action, or priority.
Deck / Bag Building
Add new pieces during play to improve the cards, tokens, or dice drawn later.
Hand Management
Time and sequence a limited hand of cards to preserve future options.
Open Drafting
Select cards or items from a shared face-up display.
Trick-taking
Play one card each and award the trick according to suit and rank rules.
Read the full game description
Deca Slayer takes the gameplay from Decathlon and moves it to a fantasy environment in which players now need various skills to complete tasks. In this card game, players compete to slay a series of ten monsters and grab the treasure the monsters leave behind. While beating a monster gives points and potential bonuses in future rounds, not beating it gives a player first dibs on getting the replacement adventurer cards, giving an advantage in future challenges. Each monster has a different rule for beating it, and players bid adventurer cards in turn — sometimes face up, sometimes face down — to fight it. The rules might be the highest card in a certain suit, or most cards that have a certain skill, or the sum of all cards the player has. In the end, the player who slays the final dragon receives bonus points, then everyone sums their loot and points, with the player who has the highest total winning.