Deck of Thieves

Deck of Thieves takes the deckbuilding roguelike formula and dresses it up as a series of heists. Each run you assemble a crew and a deck, and every encounter is a small puzzle: play the right cards in the right order to break through guards before they overwhelm you. Lose, and you start over — but a little smarter each time.

The card design is sharp. There are combos that feel broken in the best way once you discover them, and part of the fun is that first run where you stumble into a synergy and suddenly everything clicks. Runs are short enough for a single sitting, which makes 'one more try' genuinely dangerous.

It leans on knowledge you build across runs, so the first hour can feel opaque. Push past that and it becomes hard to put down. Easily one of the best card games I've played on a phone this year.

What we liked

• Deep, combo-rich deckbuilding
• Short runs, endless replay
• Rewards learning across attempts