Tag Team: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Deck-Building, Auto Battler, Shufflebuild
Player Age: 10+Player Count: 2 PlayersTime to Play: 30 Minutes
Game Designer: Gricha German, Corentin LebratGame Artist: Xavier Gueniffey DurinPublisher: Scorpion MasqueYear Published: 2025BGG Weight: 2.04
Player Age: 10+
Game Designer: Gricha German, Corentin Lebrat
Rundown:
Tag Team is a auto battler/ deck building game. Auto battlers are new in this space so some players may be hesitant. This game has such a larger decision space than would be expected from a term auto battler. Players will choose two widely different characters and create a tag team, their cards will be shuffled together, during the game the player will be adding to their deck but keeping the cards in the same order they placed.
Each round player will have a game of war. Where the top card of the deck is revealed simultaneously, each player's card will revolve at the same time. The character that will be attacked is (unless stated otherwise) the character on the card.
The attack will also be equal to the power cubes that character attacking has, this power can be gained through the game.
Besides attacking, these cards can be blocks that gain bonuses if succeeded,
powering up cards, cards that will move characters on their specific tracks or other unique abilities.
There will be a planning phase, this is where the deck building joins the fray. From a combined deck of both tag team characters. Three cards will be drawn, each player will select one card simultaneously from their three cards to add to their deck.
This added card can go at the top or bottom of the deck, or between any two cards. Once determined the cards cannot be moved.
This planning phase is where the decision space of the game exists, it is very crucial to consider where the other player will be placing their card, as programming the attacks, specific character cards and shield/cancel at the right space is crucial. Once a player has defeated one of the two opposing characters they win.
Alteration:
This is a very fast playing game so variability is crucial. Good thing this game has that in spades. There are 12 characters in the game and an expansion teased.
Each character will have their own deck, some have specific tokens, different starting power and varying health tracks.
Each of the health tracks have different variations of health, however some also have benefits that when passed through losing or gaining health activated, this could be power or specific character benefits. Some characters will also have a hand symbol on the health track, this signifies that when health moves to this point it must immediately stop, no matter if the character is gaining or losing more health.
Each character will have a different arch-type, for example support, protector, high damage. As well as a complexity scale, that can easily assist the player in choosing their team when selecting. Since the game doesn't only gain its alteration from playing every character but from finding the potential synergies between certain tag teams.
Production:
The art and aesthetics on the game are great very fun and vibrant. While supplying enough details on the character sheet for ease of selection. There is a specific rulebook explaining each characters uniqueness and strategy, accompanied with am FAQ per character. This is great for clarification, but since there is only one rulebook the preference would have been to have this at a smaller scale on the character randomiser or a separate sheet per character. to prevent the players sharing one rulebook.
The other slight downfall on production could be a personal preference, but when selecting where to slot a card it was easier to visually see the deck of it was spread across the table. A player screen would have helped immensely with this, since the other players can't see how the card is slotted. Personally a card tray was used for this, that worked perfectly.
Interaction:
This is a highly interactive game. There is the obvious where due to this being a head to head game, the game is very interactive as players are trying to eliminate each other. But further more there is a programming element to the game where players are trying to understand where the opposition will place their new card into their deck. If players plan this right they can move a block to prevent a game winning blow. Since each block will block the entirety of a hit. They can also make a character with low health activate later so they are not in the potential firing range. This can all be countered based on how the opposing player places their card as well. With one choice in placing one out of three chosen cards a lot of decisions and interactions occur. It isn't simply choosing which card is best to add to a player's deck, instead the players are programming, how to oppose their opponent and which character is being more active in the game. There is a lot of interaction in the planning phase of the game, since the other attacking phase will resolve as the players have programmed.
Determination:
- Gameplay that when explained sounds like there's not a lot of decisions, but gameplay that strangely adds a large layer of decisions.
- Quick gameplay with big moments.
- Expansion is already announced.
As someone that loves shuffle-build and head to head games with a dose of asymmetrical powers. Tag Team straight away draw attention. The big pause came from the auto play mechanism, was this game going to have enough decision to keep its players engaged? Outstandingly that was a yes, the auto battler mechanism doesn't draw away from the game, the decision space is still very broad it simply speeds the game along. This game is easily getting a Go To Golden Seal. The range of decisions in play when slotting in one card per round is strangely vast, deciding which character is active with their health and power on the line, determine when to block, charge and strike is vital and a good dose of mind games. All of this is great, but shines so much more with the unique characters that provide ease of learning but it has widely different styles and attributes. This is an easy recommendation that I know will be abundant with expansions as this game is already widely popular, with good reasons.
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