I became a collectible card game player back in 1994 and from that point, I never felt the rush that this form of hobby gaming could provide through any other gaming genre. RPGs provide more of an emotional attachment, board games tend to be about calculating and then establishing a winning strategy, while video games are completely all over the board with kind of feel that they provide.

Monopoly itself is the personification of the tradition and strategic play that board games tend to steer towards. What I mean by that is that each session that you play of that game will most likely be the same game, albeit with different outcomes and different winners. It could be said that the other types of games work the same way, however, what I always liked about collectible card games is that there are a plethora of different play styles, deck builds, formats, etc. that ensure that you never get bored with the game. To me, that is why I never owned many board games; I always felt that the game was going to end the same way.

Enter Monopoly Deal!. Holding true to the core concepts of the Monopoly, Monopoly Deal! retains the board locations and the business aspect of the board game, yet installs many of the traditional card game mechanics that I grew to love after playing Magic: the Gathering the first tim. The game is not a collectible card game, therefore one game pack contains all the cards you will ever need to play – over 100 cards in fact. The objective of the game is to control three monopolies, or own all the properties of one color. The moment you own three monopolies you win the game… but don’t think it is as easy as playing cards and winning (especially considering the number of cards in the deck).

The key part of this game that drew my attention is that it places a new found importance on money, card drawing, and actions. Notice that I did not mention properties? The properties themselves do nothing except count towards the winning of the game. After a few plays of the game, you will quickly come to find out that the single most important part of this game is to be rich and stay that way.

The game begins with each player drawing five cards from a common deck. The youngest player leads off the game and takes his or her first turn. To begin a turn, a player draws two cards from the deck (or five cards if you had zero cards in your hand to begin the turn) and can play up to three cards from his hand. Money and property cards cost nothing to play and sit directly in front of you for all players to see. Action cards are played in a similar manner, but once the card does what it does, it goes to the discard pile. There are a few cards like Houses and Motels that will become attached to a monopoly and remain in play.

Play continues in this manner until someone gets his third monopoly, then you shuffle and start again.

Hmm...

Pretty boring right?

...Did I mention the Action cards?

Action cards are the typical actions that you try to accomplish in the board game, but inevitably someone is not going to cooperate with you and will drag the game out for two more hours. This is one of the reasons why Monopoly takes so long, and why many seasoned board game players hate it. These actions include property trades, taxes, gifts, etc. You can even Pass Go, which is represented in this game by drawing two cards – a very powerful card in Monopoly Deal! By far, the most back breaking card in the game is called Deal Breaker, in which you steal an opponent’s monopoly. I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was going to win a game, only to have my opponent (who only had one monopoly to start the turn) play the final piece to his second monopoly, then play Deal Breaker and take one of my monopolies only to win the game! Talk about frustrating - but also exhilarating.

In the board game, you rolled dice and scrambled around trying to purchase as much property as possible to squeeze the life out of your opponent’s wallet. In this game, the properties are free to acquire, but equally as deadly once under your ownership. Another cycle of action cards are the Rent cards. These cards will allow you to choose one of two colors of monopoly properties and will force your opponent’s to pay you rent according to how many properties of that color you control. For example, if I control Boardwalk (which is Blue) and it says that the rent here is 3M (M is the unit of currency), then all of my opponent’s need to pay me 3M – whether it is via cash or property. However, if I also controlled Park Place, then the Blue cards indicate that rent is 7M, which means that everyone pays me 7M! Each house increases the rent of a monopoly by 3M and each Motel is 4M. A house on the Blue monopoly is a game ending 10M. There is also an action card called Double the Rent… which… doubles the rent! (20M is almost always the end of the game.) In order to control the barrage of rent bills and property theft, Monopoly Deal! does include a deterrent card called Just Say No! Can you guess what it does??

With the basics of the game explained, I can now talk about why I personally fell in love with the game. The game authentically feels like a CCG. There are various ways that you can play the game: aggressive, passive, controlling, combo-style, etc. I have tried a few different way to approach the game. In an aggressive approach, you can exploit a basic rule that governs the game: You don’t give change. If I demand 3M from you and you only have a 5M or 10M card in play, then you need to give me one of those and get zero change back. This rule places an emphasis on the early stages of the game as if you are an aggressive player, you can steal a few early properties from an unsuspecting player who plays a property card and a small money card like a 1M or 2M. As an example, if you played a 1M and a property worth 3M, and I play a card that makes you pay me 2M (which is a very easy and common thing to do), then you are forced to give me the 3M property and get nothing in return.

The other thing that an aggressive player would do is capitalize on the zero-card hand draw. Each turn that player must play three cards. Once they empty their hand, they get to draw a bunch of cards at once (five) and restock for another onslaught of rent demanding and property theft.

My personal playstyle of choice is controlling. In this mode you simply play money early and often, realizing that the game ends early normally because your opponent is taking property from you. So if you don’t play property in the early game, he can’t beat you quickly. What essentially happens is that you allow your opponent to get a decent number of properties into play and as you draw the property stealing actions, you strategically take important properties. You rely on Pass Go to get you fresh cards and sit and wait to draw a Deal Breaker to end the game.

The size of deck is so big that you may not see the same cards every game, making it feel different each play. You may not even see Boardwalk and Park Place for two games in a row, then find yourself trying to figure out how to pay 14M the following game as your opponent sits there with Double the Rent and Blue’s Rent card.

Personally, I give this game a very high recommendation. I highly encourage any fan of any card game to get a hold of Monopoly Deal! and give it a try. The break from the monotony of Counterspells (Magic: the Gathering) and Cores (Battle Spirits) will be well worth the cash put down for a pack.

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