What is a deck building card game?

A deck building game starts every player with the same small, weak deck. Each turn you draw a hand, play it, and use what it produces to buy cards from a shared market in the middle of the table. New cards go into your discard pile, you reshuffle, and the deck gets stronger as the game goes on. Building the deck is the game.

Dominion introduced the mechanic in 2008. Star Realms, Clank!, Aeon's End, and Ascension each change one part of that loop, but the shared market during play is what they have in common. In the digital space, roguelike deckbuilders like Slay the Spire add a run and a map around the same idea.

The difference is timing. In a collectible card game you build the deck before the match from cards you own. In a deck building game you build it during the match from a market everyone can see. Same word, two different hobbies.

Toybox Champions is not a market deckbuilder. Each of the seven toy types has a starter deck, you edit that deck between matches, and you bring it into the duel finished. Nothing is bought from a shared row while the toys are fighting.

If you want Dominion, this is not it. If you want a short duel in a browser where the deck decisions happen before the bell, open toybox.swizzleworks.com. It is free in this web version, with no ads and no purchases, and it is not directed at children under 13.