Slay the Spire-alikes?

I'm not the only person here to have discovered the delights of Slay the Spire lately but essentially it's a finely-balanced card drafting game that's compulsively addictive.

I was wondering - what's the nearest thing to this in the physical games space? Part of the reason it works so well is because it's a kind of closed environment, i.e. it's not going down the Hearthstone route of constantly trying to get you to buy or unlock more powerful cards, every run starts out with the same basic possibilities and then it builds from there.

In terms of card drafting games I've already got, I have:

Marvel Legendary - fun, but essentially just a hook for you to buy expansions with your favourite characters in, it doesn't feel like a huge amount of effort has gone into balance for instance.

Clank - decent but let down by its Deep Sea Adventure-type hook of having to decide when to turn around; too much of the game hinges on that one decision rather than the cards you have.

Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle - far better than you're probably expecting, but pretty easy given the target market.

On iOS I've played quite a lot of Ascension, which is more in line with the kind of thing I'm thinking of but again it's absolutely drowning in expansions and I don't know how it plays as a physical thing.

Is there anything I'm missing that folk here would recommend?

Arctic Scavengers is a solid deck-builder, with players competing for resources in a frozen (post-apocalyptic, but thankfully not zombies) wasteland, but no drafting. You collect cards which you can spend to perform actions which get you more cards – gather food, search for equipment, attract new colony members. At the end of each round there's a "skirmish" between players, so you've got to save some of your hand for the fight. This introduces a bluffing mechanic where you can hold back a bunch of garbage cards in the hope that their sheer number will discourage any opposition.

Does Steamworld Quest count as card drafting?

It's a slower, smaller scale, story-driven experience, but it's absolutely lovely.

*Just read you said physical games. Ignore me…

It's a space flooded with options. As you say, I think Clank is one of the closest spiritually to Slay the Spire. Just a quick think on general deck builders we like….

Arctic Scavengers is a good shout. Art is mediocre, and the expansions are so so, but the core game with a group of people is very tight and very good.

Millenium Blades is an absolutely unique experience. You might need to be into TCGs to really feel it, but I've had some absolutely wonderful games of it. it's a timed… simulation? of a deck builder. Very meta.

Fields of Green - a unique farming field-builder. Still quite unique.

Concordia is a deck builder twinned to a board game. The team variant is very, very good (Venus).

El Dorado is a sort of "my first deck builder" with a spacial aspect. We quite enjoyed it - good for kids too.

Glory To Rome is a tight, sophisticated (if abstract) deck builder.

Race for the Galaxy - iconography soup, awful art, but probably our favourite quick deckbuilder.

Paperback - Scrabble reimagined as a deck builder. Really like this one.

Dice Forge - a deck builder… with dice…. See also Dice City.

Spirit island - complex, and subverts a number of boardgame paradigms (you're fighting off the white invader colonialist trope rather than taking part in it). Possibly not a beginner game, but a firm favourite as co-ops go in this space.

City of iron V2 - a good introduction the art of Red Raven/Ryan Laukat. A lightweight, pretty deck builder with a board. Don't buy V1.

Pathfinder - somewhat slight, but another good co-op deckbuilder. Very cheap. I'm very lukewarm on it, but I know people who adore it.

Paper Tales - I bloody love this. Drafting, spatial deck construction. Nobody else likes it :(

Terraforming Mars - another deckbuilder twinned to a spatial board game.

My Story - beautiful Japanese art. A deckbuilder where you live a life. Always raises a laugh as it generates great narratives. Hard to find, but worth it.

Brilliant - thanks everyone (especially cav). I'll definitely check some of those out.

One other thing worth mentioning - Xenoshyft (specifically Dreadmire) has plummeted to low low prices recently. It's a sort of cross between a tower defence and deck builder. If you can get it for 14 quid or some of the ridiculous prices its been at it's a lot of game for not a lot. Co-op too.

Oh and I forgot Thunderstone. Because newer versions are out you can get a lot of older Thunderstone for not a lot, and it still remains one of the most streamlined, fun and accessible deck builders out there.

There's also the concept of a "bag builder" - which is just a deck builder with tokens. The Quacks of Queidlinberg is the current darling in this space. My son adores it, I'm sort of so so.