This is not a collectible card game, one purchase nets you everything you need to play. It is a game about deck building. Everyone starts with the same 10 cards, and attempts to acquire the most victory points.There are lots of descriptions of play available for perusal.
It is an open game. All of the available cards are face up on the table, and everyone can see each of your plays. The only hidden information is what you are holding in your hand, and the card order in your deck and discard pile. This effectively means it is your own fault when you lose the game.
There are 10 supply piles of cards to purchase used in the game, and there are 25 available in the box. We played four or five times last night with 3 players who had never played before (each game takes about a half hour) and selecting randomly did not get to try out all the different kind of cards. What's more, is that the card's value changes within the game based on what other cards are available. No witches makes the chapel useless.
There, replayability, without gouging your players. I'm not surprised that this isn't the model that WotC follows for it's planned expansions. There is nothing wrong with card games as the long history of mankind has show us.
The other entertaining aspect is how your deck building plans immediately get trashed as soon as someone else starts buying cards. It is so difficult to stay on track and not react to the plays of other players.
It's a different game every time you sit down to play. We had a lot of fun and I'm sharing so that everyone can check it out. I imagine we'll play it for another week or two before heading into one of the expansions.
