Episode 30 – World Cup of Fantasy Tabletop Games

In honor of the World Cup, Anthony, Chris, and Drew get together and pit 32 of the best fantasy tabletop games in the hobby against each other in 8 groups of four games. We vote for the winners and discuss which games are going to be the most fantasy of fantasy games. Here is a rundown of our discussion and how we chose from each of these groups:

The Groups

We seeded each of 8 groups below based on a single top seed for each and three additional games, based on rankings from BGG.com.

Group A
Mage Knight Board Game
Shadows over Camelot
Small world
Myth

Group B
War of the Ring
Game of Thrones LCG
Avalon
Lords of Waterdeep

Group C
Magic: the Gathering
Dungeon!
Battlelore 2.0
Tales of the Arabian Nights

Group D
Descent
Ascension
Talisman
Defenders of the Realm

Group E
Dungeons & Dragons
Smash up
Discworld: Ankh Morpork
Munchkin

Group F
Summoner Wars
Wiz war
D&D: Castle Ravenlof
Yggdrasil

Group G
Rune Wars
Seasons
Lord of the Rings: LCG
Cheaty Mages

Group H
Mice and Mystics
Terra Mystica
Citadels
Quarriors

Voting for the Winners

Throughout the podcast, Anthony, Chris, and Drew discussed which games were the “best” of their group and broke them down from there until we had only 16 left. Those 16 faced off in an elimination tournament from which only one game could rise as the best.

There were so many good games on this list that the voting got contentious at times. Listen to the full episode below and find out which games managed to pull it out for the finals and which single game stands as the best fantasy tabletop game for the BGA crew.

Listen to the full podcast on iTunes or from the player below:

Make sure to check out BGA on Twitter (@BGApodcast), Facebook, and BoardGameGeek. We’re also on Patreon so let us know if you think this episode is worth at least $1!

  • Anthony lives and plays games in Philadelphia, PA. A lover of complex strategy, two-player war games, and area control, Anthony is always eager to try a new game, even if he's on rule-reading duty.

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