Purpose: A quick reference for common board game and card game terminology useful when designing, discussing, testing, writing rules for, or pitching Gauntlet.
This glossary uses plain-language definitions. Some terms overlap, and different publishers or players may use them slightly differently.
A game where players build or improve their decks during play.
Players usually start with a small, weak deck and acquire better cards as part of the game.
Examples: Dominion, Star Realms, Clank!
Gauntlet is not currently a deck-building game in this sense.
A game where players build their decks before the game begins.
Examples: Magic: The Gathering, Pokemon TCG, Netrunner, many expandable card games.
Gauntlet currently fits this category because players build decks before play.
A game where players customize decks from a larger card pool.
This is a broad term that can include trading card games, collectible card games, fixed-expansion card games, and other constructed-deck systems.
A card game designed to grow through later expansions, additional factions, additional cards, or new modes.
This does not necessarily imply randomized booster packs.
A customizable card game usually sold through randomized packs, with collection and trading as part of the product model.
Example: Magic: The Gathering.
A term closely related to TCG. It usually emphasizes collecting randomized cards.
A fixed-expansion customizable card game model associated with Fantasy Flight Games. Mechanically, it describes a non-random expansion model, but the term itself is a branded product label.
Use caution before using this term commercially.
A game where card play creates tactical decisions about timing, conflict, positioning, or short-term advantage.
A board game where cards drive many of the actions, events, battles, or strategic options.
A small-scale tactical conflict game, often involving units or characters fighting across a board or map.
Gauntlet has some skirmish-game feel, but it does not currently use units in the traditional sense.
A game where conflict is structured along one or more lanes or paths.
Gauntlet has lane-battler qualities because players advance through a defined line of contested Territories.
A game where players fight over spaces, regions, or areas on a board.
In some games, this means having majority presence in an area. In Gauntlet, territory control is more direct: a player controls, occupies, captures, or contests specific Territories.
A game where different factions, characters, or decks play differently from each other.
Good asymmetry gives each faction a distinct identity while still keeping them inside the same core game.
A game or strategy where players assemble systems that generate repeated advantage over time.
Engines often produce resources, cards, actions, movement, or victory progress.
A game where the central skill is deciding which cards to keep, play, commit, discard, or save.
A game where players can mislead opponents about hidden information, intentions, or strength.
A game where some important information is known to one player but not others.
Examples include cards in hand, face-down cards, secret objectives, or unrevealed board elements.
A way to win other than the game’s default victory condition.
Alternate win conditions are strongest when they create tension and counterplay rather than bypassing the main game.
How many meaningful things a player can do per turn.
If a player can do more useful things than the opponent, they may have an action-economy advantage.
How efficiently a player gains, spends, preserves, or loses cards.
Drawing cards, discarding cards, forcing the opponent to lose cards, and recovering cards all affect card economy.
How many turns it takes to convert a plan into a result.
A powerful effect that takes several turns to set up may have a high turn-economy cost.
How a game or faction gains, stores, spends, and converts resources.
Faction resources in Gauntlet include things like Command, Influence, Conviction, Capital, and Intel.
Immediate pressure, initiative, or momentum.
A tempo play may not create the most long-term value, but it forces the opponent to respond right now.
Long-term advantage.
Drawing extra cards, gaining repeatable income, preserving resources, or improving future options are common value plays.
How much effect a player receives for a given cost.
A very efficient card or ability may be too strong even if its effect looks simple.
A repeatable system that generates ongoing advantage.
An engine might generate resources, cards, movement, battle bonuses, or victory progress.
A mechanic or strategy that accelerates a player’s access to resources, power, or options.
Ramp often makes later turns stronger than they would normally be.
How a player’s power increases over time.
Scaling can come from resources, board control, card engines, faction progress, or recurring income.
A pattern where an early advantage helps create more advantage, which then creates even more advantage.
Snowballing is not always bad, but it becomes a problem when comebacks feel unrealistic.
A player whose lead has become self-sustaining and difficult to interrupt.
A mechanic that helps a trailing player remain competitive.
Good catch-up mechanics preserve tension. Bad catch-up mechanics can feel artificial or like they punish successful play.
The opponent’s ability to respond meaningfully to a strategy, card, or win condition.
A powerful plan can still be fair if the opponent sees it coming and has realistic ways to interfere.
The degree to which players affect each other.
Battles, blocking, negotiation, disruption, and contested spaces are all forms of interaction.
Interfering with the opponent’s plan.
Disruption may delay, weaken, redirect, reveal, cancel, or complicate what the opponent is trying to do.
Preventing the opponent from doing something.
Denial can include blocking movement, preventing card play, removing resources, or stopping a win condition.
Influencing the opponent’s choices without completely preventing them.
Soft control often works through incentives, pressure, costs, or negotiated outcomes.
Directly removing or forbidding options.
Hard control can be satisfying, but too much can create negative play experiences.
A game state where one player will eventually win if the opponent does not act quickly.
Alternate victory paths often create inevitability.
Everything currently true on the table.
This includes controlled spaces, occupied spaces, revealed cards, hidden cards, resources, active effects, and any visible progress toward victory.
Where players are on the board and what those positions allow them to threaten or defend.
The spaces, cards, or objectives a player can affect from their current position.
The ability to affect something farther away or sooner than expected.
Extra movement, long-range effects, sudden capture effects, or surprise battle effects can create reach.
The contested area where opposing players’ pressure meets.
In Gauntlet, this is often the Territory or Territories where occupation, counterattack, and capture pressure are concentrated.
A space or situation that restricts movement, concentrates conflict, or forces players to fight over a narrow path.
Choosing how to use a limited hand of cards.
This includes when to play, commit, save, discard, or sacrifice cards.
Putting a card, resource, or position at risk before knowing the full outcome.
Face-down battle cards are a clear example of commitment.
Representing a stronger, weaker, or different play than the one you actually have.
Making your plan visible before it resolves.
Telegraphing can be good if it creates tension and counterplay, but bad if it makes the plan too easy to stop.
Information known to one player but not all players.
Examples: cards in hand, face-down cards, unrevealed Territories, and secret or face-down objectives.
A game state where all relevant information is visible to all players.
Chess is a classic perfect-information game. Most card games are not perfect-information games.
A situation where one player knows something the other does not.
Information asymmetry creates bluffing, reading, deduction, and surprise.
How strong a card, faction, strategy, or mechanic is overall.
How good something is in a bad or ordinary situation.
A high-floor card is rarely useless.
How good something can be in an ideal situation.
A high-ceiling card can create big moments but may be inconsistent.
How dramatically outcomes can vary because of luck, timing, or high-impact effects.
Swinginess can create excitement, but too much can make decisions feel less important.
Randomness in outcomes.
Card draws and dice rolls are common sources of variance.
How reliably a deck, card, or strategy does what it is designed to do.
Too strong numerically or mechanically.
Too weak to compete or not rewarding enough to use.
A legal strategy that damages the game experience because it is repetitive, uninteractive, too reliable, too strong, or not fun to play against.
A strategy that is usually best regardless of matchup, situation, or opponent response.
Dominant strategies reduce meaningful choice.
Anything that slows play, creates confusion, or adds effort.
Some friction can be worth it. Too much makes a game feel clunky.
How much players must remember, track, calculate, or mentally process.
High cognitive load can make a game harder to learn and harder to enjoy.
Mechanical tracking that is necessary but not inherently fun.
Examples include repeated calculations, many counters, frequent state checks, or complex resource updates.
The feeling that something important is about to happen and both players can still affect the outcome.
How the game moves through its opening, middle, and endgame.
Good pacing keeps decisions meaningful while preventing the game from dragging.
Time one player spends waiting while another player makes decisions or resolves effects.
A moment that may be balanced but feels unpleasant, unfair, or deflating.
Feel-bad moments are especially important to watch in games with denial, discard, cancellation, or permanent loss.
Big, dramatic, memorable effects.
Splashy moments can make a game exciting, but too many can reduce control or clarity.
The most useful terms for discussing Gauntlet are likely:
A concise technical description:
Gauntlet is a constructed-deck, card-driven tactical territory duel with asymmetric factions and alternate victory paths.
A more player-facing description:
Gauntlet is an expandable tactical card game where players build faction decks, battle through contested territory, capture ground, and pursue unique paths to victory.