Greed Review - Chairman of the Board

At number three, I have Greed. So, perhaps a bit unfair being placed at number three. Um, Greed was just unlucky that there was two fantastic games I played this month because on its own, Greed is a really welldesigned little card engine builder and with a mafia or criminal underworld theme. So, this is actually designed by Donald Vakarino who is most known for Dominion and Kingdom Builder.

So, there is a designer of good pedigree here. And I think maybe this one has somewhat faded into obscurity because of its more adult theme. You know, this doesn't shy away from um what it is. You know, there's there's killing, there's prostitution, money laundering, all the stuff you'd expect with a with a mafia theme, which I personally like.

I think it's um different to the other stuff we're seeing out there. No anthropomorphic animals or nature theme. This is a bit more gritty um and a bit more adult, which, you know, I know it's not for everybody, but I think it's nice to have something a bit different. But the gameplay itself here is actually um super refined and really clever.

So this one you are partaking in a closed draft um initially building up a hand of cards and then it'll be a simple one inone system. You draft a card and play it and you have basically I think three or four different types of cards. You have the kind of course the mob members themselves which will give you kind of benefits as well as being the prerequisites to play the more powerful cards.

So you have like little symbols on them that which some cards will require to be played. You've got your holdings which are your buildings essentially which will be a bulk of how you get your money and you the more you play the kind of the same symbols the more money uh you can build up. You've got instant abilities um as well as other things too.

So really cool blend of cards here that all synergize with each other in weird and wonderful ways. Do I want to play this card first? wait a few turns and then play this one and duplicate the money there. Do I want to steal money off someone else? Um, but wait until the right time to play it, but perhaps something might change by that time.

So, there's a good sense of, you know, how do I prioritize my actions? Um, which card am I going to take? Which cards can I filter through to the next player and perhaps get back when it comes to my turn to be drafted again? Now, it has all the the drafting elements that you'd want and expect from a good card drafter, but what I really like is the the quantity of cards in the game here because it's quite a thick deck to play with and each game you only play with a fraction of that deck.

Meaning that each time you play it, you can't really go into the game with a certain strategy in mind. So it has a good idea of acting tactically with what's available to you, but you can go with at least a loose thread of what you want to achieve by the end by acting strategically, too. So I think it strikes that balance really nice of being unpredictable, but predictable enough where it's not just wild throw caution to the wind.

Now, because of that, I'm not I'm not entirely sure it's perfectly balanced, but the game is kind of quirky enough that that doesn't really bother me. Um, it's also only a few rounds, so it's pretty quick. And again, if you like these games that um are pretty easy to explain and all the fun and the juiciness of the game is on those cards, then this is one that I think has been definitely overlooked for a long time.

It's certainly fallen into the shadow of more modern engine builder card drafting games. And I think maybe a big portion of that is because of the more the more adult nature of it. You know, this doesn't shy away from what it is. It does really embrace that kind of criminal underworld, that mafia, you know, Sopranos theme, you know, you know, killing and stealing and money laundering, all those stuff you'd expect.

So maybe it's not for everybody in that respect, but I personally like it. It's good to see something that's not so um, you know, repeated again and again by being afromorphic animals or nature theme or anything like that. So this one super nice. Um, I actually remember looking at this one many, many years ago when I first got into the hobby.

I just never secured myself a copy. But now we've got it. I'm really happy we have because it's um it's actually a really nice well-designed game. So that is greed at number