Looking for a 2-player strategy game that has plenty of interesting decisions without getting too long or complex? Here are our recommendations.
⭐️ Top Picks
Our top recommendations in this category, and games that we personally own to fill this niche.
Res Arcana
🟢 Ryan’s #21 All-Time
Summary: Make the most of your 8-card deck as you control mages vying for places of power and ancient monuments.
You Might Like If… you enjoy games with card effects and resource management and like the idea of racing for 10 points by finding and executing on combos as efficiently as possible.
KeyForge
🟢 Ryan’s #25 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #43 All-Time
Summary: Strategically select which house you will activate each turn as you race to forge three keys in this game where every deck is unique.
You Might Like If… you enjoy collectible card games like Magic: The Gathering but want an experience where you can just grab two decks and play without any deck construction. Each deck you buy is completely unique, and the core system of only activating a single house per turn is a really fresh spin on the genre.
Wingspan
🟢 Ryan’s #24 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #22 All-Time
Summary: Strategically collect and play birds into your wildlife preserve to combo your way into higher efficiency.
You Might Like If… you enjoy games with comboing card effects and low confrontation and want a game that has a really accessible theme and great components.
The Search for Planet X
Summary: Use deduction and clever inquiries to narrow down the location of a new planet at the edge of our solar system.
You Might Like If… you enjoy puzzly deduction games and like the idea of an app-based experienced where players ask questions and the app provides answers that help you infer new information in a race to find the answer.
Aeon’s End
🔴 Daniel’s #21 All-Time
Summary: Control mages defending humanity’s last city, harnessing alien powers to destroy monstrosities.
You Might Like If… you enjoy deck-building games and want a cooperative experience with a lot of variety and some unique spins on the genre.
Heat: Pedal to the Metal
Summary: Manage your car’s speed to prevent overheating as you push to win the race.
You Might Like If… you want an easy-to-learn racing game that plays well across a wide range of player counts and has a really elegant deck-building system that is simple but full of interesting decisions.
👍 Honorable Mentions
Games that missed being top picks, but that we still think are great choices for a lot of people.
Summoner Wars
Summary: Duel with unique factions as you summon cards onto the map and tactically move and attack your opponent.
You Might Like If… you enjoy head-to-head dueling games and games with card effects and want a game that has many asymmetric factions and a focus on spatial positioning on a grid.
Roll for the Galaxy
🟢 Ryan’s #38 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #46 All-Time
Summary: Tactically allocate your dice to develop technologies, settle worlds, and ship goods.
You Might Like If… you enjoy building up your own engine of effects and want a game that plays simultaneously with an interesting puzzle of using your dice results to most efficiently build out your personal tableau.
Dominion
Summary: Strategically build your deck in a race to acquire victory points in this classic game that is the father of modern deck-building.
You Might Like If… you enjoy games with card combos and identifying them in a market of cards and want a really streamlined and quick experience with tons of variety with the card market being randomly chosen for each game.
Cthulhu: Death May Die
🔴 Daniel’s #14 All-Time
Summary: Work as a team to disrupt the ritual and slay the Lovecraftian Elder One.
You Might Like If… you enjoy thematic games with lots of dice-rolling and want a game that provides a big experience in a reasonable amount of time and has great variety and expandability with the mixing and matching of different Elder Ones and scenarios.
The Castles of Burgundy
Summary: Strategically use the results of your dice each turn to acquire and place tiles to build out a more prosperous estate.
You Might Like If… you don’t mind a dry theme and enjoy tactical optimization puzzles and want a game that has satisfying turn with combos and building up your own board.
Mechs vs. Minions
🟢 Ryan’s #31 All-Time 🔴 Daniel’s #16 All-Time
Summary: Work as a team and program your mechs to fight off the army of minions and complete scenario-specific objectives.
You Might Like If… you enjoy cooperative games and want a game with amazing components that is still easy to teach and play and has a really fun programming system that leads to lots of interesting decisions and hilarious moments.
👀 Worth a Look
Games we haven’t tried yet ourselves, but we believe could be a good choice in this category.
Bullet♥︎
Summary: Control space heroines defending earth as you clear bullets by forming patterns and triggering special abilities.
You Might Like If… you enjoy spatial puzzles and finding patterns and want a quick and unique real-time game with a dose of push-your-luck as you draw more bullets from your bag.
The Guild of Merchant Explorers
Summary: Explore strange lands, establish trade routes, and search for treasure on your personal map by using the revealed terrain card each turn.
You Might Like If… you enjoy games in the roll-and-write genre or simply like working on your own personal puzzle and want a game that has the neat twist of acquiring powerful custom abilities that will trigger as certain cards are flipped as the game progresses.
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