The Game That Invented the Genre Still Owes You an Apology for the Saboteur

A buddy who used to play Magic taught me this one on a rainy weekend years ago and honestly it clicked in about ten minutes, buy cards, build a deck, shuffle, repeat, chase the province pile before it runs dry. It’s the reason half my shelf exists now, deckbuilders trace straight back to this box, so I owe it some respect even where I’ve got complaints.

And I’ve got one that keeps coming up when I look around, cards like the Swindler and Saboteur, the ones that force other players to trash and replace cards from their deck against their will. One reviewer online called them flat out kingmaker cards, and after enough plays I agree, when somebody’s deck gets gutted by a lucky Swindler hit late game it can swing who wins without that person doing anything wrong themselves, just being the unlucky target. It’s rare, most kingdoms don’t even include those two, but when they show up I notice people at my table start eyeing each other differently.

The shuffling gets real too, constant, and with only ten card types in play per game it starts feeling like multiplayer solitaire some sessions, everybody quietly optimizing their own engine and comparing scores at the end rather than actually fighting over anything. Doesn’t bother me much, I like the puzzle of it, but I get why some people bounce off it looking for more direct conflict.

Price is where this one wins me back though. Base game runs somewhere in the thirty to forty five dollar range depending on the edition, and if you look at what you’re actually getting, a stack of cards in an oversized box, it can feel a little steep on paper. But if you consider enjoyment per dollar, this is one of the best buys in my whole collection, I’ve got hundreds of hours logged and I’m still finding new kingdom combos that surprise me. Works fine at two, plays great at four, still the game I hand new people first.