Hero Realms review—There is a lot of fun to be had here

Hero Realms is a deck-building game that is easy to teach and even easier to store. The starter box is about the size of my hand and comes with everything you need to play the game! The rules stood out to me as extremely easy to teach, something that is very important here because this game can’t be played solo. I haven’t played Star Realms, the other deck-building game made by Wise Wizard Games, however. With that being said, after my experience with Hero Realms I have become more than open to checking out Star Realms and whatever else Wise Wizard Games offers. There’s a lot of quality here and since I only have one complaint, I find the art style to be extremely ugly, I can see myself and my friends picking this one up to play often.

Opening the Box

Hero Realms comes in a small box that holds a rulebook and two decks of cards. What you need to know is that this box comes with enough cards to play with 2-4 players and you can expand the game through card packs and expansions.

Playing a Game

As you play Hero Realms, you use Gold to buy cards from the Market and add them to your deck. The cards that you buy allow you to take action during the game. I have never seen a drafting mechanic quite like this before and my partner and I enjoyed this quite a bit. Using Gold is extremely smooth and doesn’t hinder gameplay in the slightest.

Once you have cards, you can enter Combat and this is where Heath tracking comes into play. As you go through a battle, you’ll be tasked with keeping score and there are a couple of ways to do this. The game comes with health-tracking cards, but we didn’t use them because we found that the game is easier to play with a pencil and paper.

To get started, you have to separate the two decks, shuffle the Market Deck, and place it face-down on the table. One of my biggest gripes with these games is that often cards are labeled in a way that can be seen as confusing, but that’s not an issue here.

Next, shuffle your personal deck and place it face down somewhere near you on the table. Keep in mind that I played with one other person and this process was extremely fast. So with all of that being said: how is this game played? Well, Hero Realms is divided into phases: Main Phase, Discard Phase, and Draw Phase.

During the Main Phase, you can do a couple of things. First, you can play a card from your hand. Second, you can use the expand, ally, and/or sacrifice abilities of any of your cards in play. Third, you can use Gold. Finally, you can enter combat.

There are some things I want to call attention to here that make the process extremely easy to pick up. The rules are written exceptionally well and the rules paper is sturdy. We only had to read the rules once before playing and use the rules during play once before we got the hang of the game. Now, cards don’t have a cost to use, so there really wasn’t anything to keep track of: This is the mechanic that I believe makes this game so fast to play. Once we got the hang of it we were knocking games out in 20 minutes.

Needless to say, Hero Realms is an extremely teachable card game that offers a lot of variety in the starter box. But there is something about Hero Realms that makes it a perfect introduction to deck builders specifically for younger players, and that’s the balance between skill and luck that comes with winning the game. We never felt like either of us was at any real disadvantage, even as beginners, because the game has a constant sway that I just adore.

Final Thoughts

Hero Realms is something that I will be bringing to the table as often as possible. It is far from the perfect game for me because I like to have a touch more complexity in my deck builders, but it really is a fantastic party game that is great for introducing new players to deck builders.

Hero Realms is advertised as being playable for ages 12+ and, yes, that’s true! I played one game with an older friend in their 20s and passed the game off to a few younger family members. It took them a little longer to learn the game, but once they got the hang of it they were playing just as fast as my friend and I.

The fantasy theming lends itself to being easily liked by my whole friend group but we all shared the same complaints about the art style: It’s a huge negative for me and personally makes it harder for me to get into a game when I can’t get into the artwork.

Despite not liking the way the game looks, Hero Realms is still a worthwhile addition to your table! One of the best things about Hero Realms is how clear each card is. You’re not going to be running into much card bloat. Plus, the clear iconography makes it extremely easy to find card synergies: something my friend was having a good time with, but I did not want to dive into.

See below for our list of partners and affiliates: