8 Deck Building Games That Introduced Mechanics Now Standard in the Genre

6. Valley of the Kings - Introducing Set Collection and Entombment

Valley of the Kings, designed by Tom Cleaver and released in 2014, made a revolutionary contribution to deck building by introducing the concept of entombment - permanently removing cards from your deck to score points - which fundamentally changed how players think about deck optimization and endgame strategy. Unlike traditional deck builders where victory point cards remain in your deck as dead weight, Valley of the Kings required players to actively remove their most valuable cards from circulation to score points, creating a fascinating tension between deck efficiency and point accumulation. The game's set collection scoring system, where players earned exponentially more points for collecting complete sets of related cards, added a puzzle-like element to deck building that rewarded careful planning and risk assessment. Valley of the Kings introduced the innovative pyramid marketplace, where cards became available for purchase only after the cards above them were taken, creating a spatial element to market timing and card availability. The game's unique approach to deck cycling, where players could choose to entomb cards during their turn rather than waiting for specific card effects, gave players unprecedented control over their deck composition and scoring timing. The entombment mechanic proved so compelling that it has been adapted by numerous subsequent games, demonstrating how a single innovative concept can reshape fundamental assumptions about genre mechanics. Valley of the Kings also established the viability of ancient Egyptian themes in deck building, proving that the genre could successfully explore historical and cultural settings beyond the fantasy and sci-fi themes that had previously dominated the space.