Gameplay
Hero Realms plays the same as the popular card game Star Realms. It's similar in gameplay and mechanics, but with a different theme and some different expansion possibilities.
Hero Realms is all about deckbuilding. It's originally a competitive 2 player game, but there are also a solo, coop and 4 player variants. Each player begins the game with 50 health points, a starting deck, consisting of basic cards containing some coins or some attack. Each turn starts with five cards.
On a players turn, players play cards from there hand, resolving its effects. Effects include, paying coins to buy new cards from the common pool, attack the opponent(s) or other effects that are very well explained on the cards themselves.
Newly bought cards are added to that players discard pile and when the deck is empty, they shuffle the discard pile (containing the newly purchased cards).
The player that gets the health of the opponent to zero points first, wins the game!
Thoughts
I am a huge fan of Star Realms, so it's no surprise I love Hero Realms as well. When I played it for the first time over a year ago, I didn't quite understand how the champions worked, it's only recently when I discovered (what a surprise) it works exactly the same as in Star Realms, but just a teeny tiny bit different, hence confusion on my sight.
This game is a gem. Compared to Star Realms it offers a new theme and I noticed the game is balanced in a slightly different way as Star Realms, so enough newness to explore there.
The expansions are also not copy pasted from Star Realms, they really offer different things, I'm superexcited for instance to try out the Ruin of Thandar campaign in which you build up your starting characters along the way (LOVE that!)
Gameplay is short and has a great tension curve. If you like deckbuilding, easy to learn and quick card games, you cannot miss out on this one!