When I was first introduced to Star Realms, I think I gave it a fair try. In principle, it wasn’t a totally unfamiliar premise - though at that point I hadn’t played too many deck building games. But I understood the premise, and liked the idea of something like a trading card game, but that you only had to pay for once, which was the main reason, at that point, I had not delved into the world of TCGs (fair reader, how things have changed now!)
I played against Skully, Hand Limit editor, a couple of times, and lost spectacularly, before declaring it was a trash game for trash humans and I would never play again. I played the cards in my hand, I did a little damage to their authority, I chose cards from the marketplace and tapped my currency cards to pay for them, when they eventually entered my hand I used them and did a little damage to their authority again. My opponent seemed to get the better cards, they did spectacular damage to my authority, and it didn’t take them long to get another good card in their hand again and do even more damage. My little 1 hit Vipers were useless and I couldn’t regain authority quick enough to keep up with the damage being done to me.
Back then I was a novice, a baby TTGer, and I hadn’t fully discovered any skill for forward planning, ruthless competition and dastardly strategy. If I played it for the first time now I think my first impression would have been completely different.
Skully found a friend who was into Star Realms, and they played happily on work breaks and over the mobile app version of the game for several months. I looked on suspiciously - how can they love this unequivocally terrible game, that punishes less experienced players and affords no opportunity for learning and improvement?
Eventually, after months or even a year, I was persuaded to give it another go, after several thorough explanations (lectures) on the importance of strategies such as discarding cards (getting rid of the stuff that doesn’t help), building a deck around a specific faction (benefitting from buffs and boosts), and being a sneaky little goblin and trying to purchase the cards you think your opponent will want before they have an opportunity to.
We played again, and this time I tried implementing the strategies I had been told about and I didn’t lose so fast. I decided to buy cards that matched colours, I discarded the lower value cards by making sure I had some Machine Cult faction cards that allowed you to do this. I played the game as it was supposed to be played. And reader, I loved it.
So then I had to put my big girl pants on and admit I was wrong. Maybe the problem wasn’t the game? Maybe I was the drama after all?
I’ve actually spoken about this game in some talking therapy since. It was a neat demonstration of my stubbornness and fixed thinking around things that I perceive as too difficult or beyond my knowledge and skill. If I cannot do something, it is therefore not worth doing and is even a Bad Thing. American psychologist, Carole Dweck’s Growth Mindset theory is a good place to start if you are interested in looking into the psychology of this further. Using this neat little example of a tabletop game as an illustration of this tendency of mine, and being able to unpick my responses and reactions to it, was a much easier and more comfortable task than thinking about an example of this behaviour from work, personal relationships or studies.
Games are great aren’t they? They teach us how to play nicely with each other, how to share, how to be a gracious winner, how to deal with disappointment. They can also show us things about our own inner worlds and self-limiting beliefs.
So, if there is a game you really don’t “get”, maybe give it another go one day. You might find out something about yourself.
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