These Two Player Games are Great 

Apologies, but absentmindedly I forgot to mention that the following games are review copies provided to us in the past when we were still accepting them: Spirit Island Sleeping Gods Worldbreakers

Thanks Efka for the awesome review! One more thing about Worldbreakers, the game also comes with a 2p draft mode and a solo campaign. I really tried to pack as much as possible into that box :)

The gold standard for 2-player card games for me is still Jaipur. Gorgeous, dead simple to explain, and consistently thinky but not too thinky. I actually give it as a wedding gift all the time.

Cannot add a big enough thumbs up for 2 player spirit island. 100s of games in. And the expansions add insane amounts of variability.

In this house, Targi is also called "divorce in a box".

I think Res Arcana is my favorite 2 player game. It's absolutely fantastic!

Undaunted, Summoner Wars, Ashes Reborn, Netrunner, and For What Remains are probably at the top of fighty two player list. They may all be combat focused, but none of them are as mean as Targi. 😂 I also prefer most dungeon crawlers at only two players, because it always ends up being the right balance of variety and low downtime.

For me, Radlands has been amazing so far. Has seen the table quite often. Unmatched is crazy good too. I have a lot of boxes so the variability is insane. Sky Team, my most recent purchase, is an incredible experience too. Highly recommend.

It’s interesting, because I play with a friend who does really like one on one combat, he loves Targi, and doesn’t consider it mean. If you think of it as a puzzle, a bit like Naughts and Crosses, then it’s about resource collection, goals, and perhaps area influence. We love it for its simplicity with hidden depth and its seemingly casual competitiveness.

One of my great two player games is Raptor. I love how much of the game is in the game of chicken that the card play brings out. Plus, the abstract and asymmetrical actions you can take are just great. Easy to learn, very exciting and interactive.

You actually have a strength in telling how the game plays really quickly, seriously really impressive. Thanks for keeping it snappy!

I love your qualifier for “great” games. I’m definitely going to consider using that lens when scoping out games going forward. Thanks!

Ankh is so good at two, especially if you play the scenario where the top third of the map is off limits

Great video thank you! For tile laying I love Botanik. The combination of the puzzle in the middle where you are setting yourself up but can also mess with your opponent and then your personal puzzle in laying the tiles makes it a great mix.

Mandala is the most played game in our collection hands down. Tonnes more depth than meets the eye. Great pub game

Thank you for including Targi and Air Land & Sea -- two fantastic, favorite two-player games! :)

It seems you haven’t played “Pagan: Fate of Roanoke” yet - otherwise I am convinced it would have made your list… (it’s a 2 player only game). Would be great to watch a review from you on it !

I've been really enjoying worldbreakers and am so excited for the expansion! As somehow who's bever played games like this, it was really accessible and has been fun to learn and develop strategy. My spouse and I also enjoy that its so easy to grab the box and head out to play at a coffee shop or brewery.

Great list! I recently tried out Targi and love it, and Spirit Island looks like a great co-op experience. My personal favorite 2P game is Blue Moon. This non-collectible card game is easy to learn and play but has deceptively deep strategies that open up once you get to know the cards (kind of similar to Air, Land & Sea). The oversized tarot card format of the original 2004 release is a wonder to behold.

Worldbreakers sounds really great. I enjoy most every format of magic, but my favorite way to play has always been buying card kingdom battle decks from card kingdom and just playing casually. I want to play sleeping gods but it just seems a bit to BIG. Really appealing though.

14:20 is a 10 out of 10 BRoll shot!

So glad I came across this channel! Going to grab some of these games!

Since the holiday season is coming we NEED more videos like this! 👍🏽

Great list and video as always!

Hanamikoji, 7 Samurai, and Rebellion are all fantastic 2-player games that have you struggling to figure out what both of you are going to do the entire game.

I bought Ankh for my wife and I based on Eric Lang's pedigree and your original review of it. I'm so glad I did because we love it.

Great off the cuff video! Not sure how much work it was compared to your usual reviews, but this is light and a lot fun, and would def recommend more videos like this occasionally. Thanks as always

Great selection! My go-to 2 player game is Tak - it is fun, fast, clever and portable. I usually take it to the pub when I am catching up with someone, and we will play dozens of games over a couple of pints as we shoot the breeze.

I think this video is great and it hardly noticeable is not scripted, it felt fresher (not sure if this is a word, im not a native english speaker, nor i have the time or patience to look it up) to the point i would encourage you to do more of these if they save you time and improves your quality of life. Great work as always !

Summoner Wars is my personal favorite head to head 2p game. I really want to play Ankh…but after not liking the other games in that trilogy it is hard to justify buying it to see if it is good as everyone says it is. Very curious about Worldbreakers

Fun fact: Three Five Three is being rereleased at Essen as Oh Meow Bow. 🤘🐱

Appreciated as always.

Air Land & Sea, Ankh are great games and my Gf loved them as well. I haven't tried Targi and Lacuna yet, but I've heard a lot about them, and I can't wait to try them out. 😅🤩

Depends on how much energy we have left: Lost cities > 7 wonders duell > Targi > Spirit Island

Thank you so much for this! I’ve added several games to my shopping list. One game that I love at 2 players is Tsuro (the original, simple edition). I’m not a fan of it at higher player counts, but at 2 players, it can be much more strategic. Early in the game, you can cordon off regions. After many plays, you can “count tiles” to know what’s left in the pile and whether it’s a good idea to move into a tight space. No, it’s not going to be chess-level deep, but it has high replayability. I’ll also highly endorse Fox in the Forest, Onitama, and 7 Wonders:Duel.

Good inspirations and the comments here also seems very helpful!

Two more games I've truly loved as 2-player games are Parks and Brew. Parks can be cutthroat as a 2 player thing, but it _feels_ so chill and lovely, and the tactility of it reminds me of what Efka was saying about Lacuna. Brew is also a joy in terms of 'take-that' games that are just plain rude, but don't feel aggravating. The theme is so silly and the area control happens quick enough that it never feel like one player is crushing the other. Besides, the art is so derpy that one can't help to laugh about everything that happens.

A great video, with some very interesting suggestions, and presented in an attractive way - thanks!

Obligatory mention for the excellent 7 Wonders Duel, but also really love this format - perhaps future videos for other player counts…?

@noPunincluded the algorithm brought me here what a entertaining video. I will follow and look deeper in your channel. My taste is totally different I really love the small, short tense 2 Player like Jaipur, Lost Cities, Hanamikoji, Hive Pocket, district noir and Mindbug. Which you probably will love too. It's a clever streamlined magic version. The Idea is so cool that even Richard (Magic) Garfield joined the project as co designer. Also great with two are cooperative games like exit, pandemic legacy, codenames duet. Spirit Island looks awesome for me personally it's to long and to difficult to fit in my family life.

Agricola: All Creatures Big & Small is a really underrated 2p game that’s also a great introduction to worker placement/Uwe games. Air Land & Sea and Spirit Island are great imo! I prefer SI solo personally but it works really at 2 due to combos and spirit interactions, provided the players are around the same experience/skill level (if not then extra care needs to be taken to have a good experience). I played Targi a lot and appreciated the design but couldn’t get into it…I think the games I played were just too long and tense? Carcassonne is still one of my favorite 2p games and the my go-to for simple yet strategic and cutthroat. Ditto with Blitzkrieg! and Caesar!

Great video. Loved it! Can’t wait for Lacuna to hit retail in the UK.

Great list Efka! I would also add Skulk Hollow/Maul Peak as super fun 2p games that are as close to a boardgame version of Shadow Of The Colossus as I’ve ever seen.

Worldbreakers is great (and I love that it avoids the wasteful/predatory booster pack model). Have you tried 7th Seas / Doomtown? They are also great 2 player dueling games that avoid being MtG clones, I think they're a bit stronger but definitely more complex

Interesting about Ankh at 2 players 🤔 guna have to try it

Love Lacuna and the 535 take!!!

A great new 2p game my wife and I have been obsessed with is Beer & Bread - if you haven't tried it, you should!

Air Land Sea + Worldbreakers = Radlands

Targi is such an amazing 2 player game, & the expansion really does only improve upon it. I wish we could grasp how to play Spirit Island - even as well experienced board game players, we just can't wrap our brains around it. Another of our favorites is War Chest. I only have the base game, but it still has so much legs for us. It's well designed, well crafted & really deeply satisfying strategy-wise.

Great job Efka, lovely vid My preferences are: Quick game - Quarto, Quorridor, Onitama Crunchier - Cave vs Cave, Agricola ACBAS, Inland Port, Fields of Arle Mid range - Beer and Bread, Kingdomino Duel Friendly Coop - Deckscape/Unlock/Escape Room Classic - Jaipur, Patchwork, Phase 10, Targi

As usual, a great video. My wife and I love Targi. Out of all the others I have only played Ankh but not at two players. I bought Summoner Wars based in part on your review, so I was surprised that it wasn’t on this list.

I've well over 100 games of 2P Ankh under my belt with the missus. We love it. To this day, it's still presenting us with novel situations - the replayability is off the chart (particularly with the expansions). I'm really excited and hopeful for Mordred too, despite Eric Lang's absence.

Nice video, awesome content as usual. With my girlfriend we do love playing (and I feel they are great games especially @2P count) : Grand Austria Hotel, Castles of Burgundy, Lorenzo Il Magnifico. We are also in love with Jekyll vs Hyde, a very nice and always tense trick taking game. And Hanamikoji is up there, also.

But.... where is Hive?!... [listens to intro] looks at Hive bag "It is ok little fellow... you are great, he didn't really mean that" 🤣 Great video! Have not played most games on it, but Spirit Island and Targi are great

Critters at War (the reskinned Air, Land & Sea) and Hanamikoji are the go-to two-player games for my partner and I.

Your Sleeping Gods review is one of your best reviews still. I also really liked your review of Now Boarding and your most recent one on Ragnarock because a lot of what you said about KSes in there is completely true. I've almost completely sworn off crowdfunding - with the exception of if Ryan Laukat and Red Raven did a Sleeping Gods 3 - that I would back in a heartbeat. For 2 player games I really recommend Jaipur and Splendor Duel personally and am looking forward to trying Sleeping Gods: Primeval Peril (Sleeping Gods 0?)

A couple other 2 player games I think are great are Lost Cities The Card Game and San Juan. Yes, San Juan can be played with more than 2, but it's great for 2 players as well.

Unforgiven The Lincoln Assassination Trial is currently mine and my dad's #1. It takes our favorite elements of 7 wonders duel with a dash of those from Watergate and absolutely knocks it out of the park

Do you keep expansion boxes or do you consolidate in the core box and throw them away?

Air, Land & Sea is great, I just got a bit bored but how much the second player is advantaged... the expansion is great tho! 18 more cards, a lot of new interactions

Rebellion, Targi, and Twilight Struggle are up there for me. :)

Amabel Holland’s Field of the Cloth of Gold is a great 2P only game that inspires a lot of banter with my partner. Super easy to explain too…

Great video! Any thoughts on Radlands? I've been enjoying that one recently.

Once again, a great vid! Thanks for that! What about Aeon's End? I think it is also a "great" 2p game, not just a good one.

That Jekyll and Hyde trick taking game where Jekyll is trying for both of you to have the same number of won tricks, and Hyde just wants chaos. It works so well on all levels, and it's short!

To add my favorites...Hanamikoji and Mandala. Lacuna looks interesting. I like the smaller, shorter games at 2p. Oh, also, Codenames Duet.

Great choice. Ankh is a really awesome game, also for 2 Players!!!

What are your thoughts about The King is Dead SE? We really like it at 2, sometimes it really hurts our brains and I think it has great "conversation value". Not to mention, it was 50% Game of the Year in 2020!

Maybe there'll be Earthborne Rangers to add to the list for a 2p coop campaign game. Me and my wife are some days into the story and the stakes might be rising. We plan and talk a lot on how to proceed during gameplay. Looking forward to play that one more soon. Great list, love Spirit Island and have to play Targi again. Will have to check out Ankh!

If you enjoy Air, Land & Sea..then you'll also enjoy the Blue Moon original card game. Very similar in many ways.

The games that my wife and I get to the table most: Wingspan (probably more specifically, Wingspan: Asia) Railroad Ink Viticulture Castles of Burgundy Targi Azul Agricola: All Creature Big & Small Big Box Patchwork Some of my other favorite games at two players: 7 Wonders Duel Obsession Watergate Letters from Whitechapel Grand Austria Hotel

Thanks for opening my eyes to Lucana, never head of it, sounds fantastic! Spirit Island is our favorite game, its amazing! Targi sounds a bit like Tic-Tac-Toe 2 though 😅

16:55 Since you enjoyed the mind games of Ankh, I would recommend trying out two games which revolve around that concept. These would be BattleCON and EXCEED both from Level 99 Games.

Great review. Tragi and lacuna!

Excellent list! Do you still enjoy Caesar! Seize rome in 20 min?

Hi there, We liked Targui but found out it really requires a faq in the rulebook, there are so many situation where you just don't know what and how to do and how a card is actually working in a specific situation. Other great 2 players for us are : -Jekyll vs hyde -Astro knights -Jaipur -Blitzkrieg Cheers

7 wonders Duel WITH it's 2 expansions added in, Agora and Pantheon, 👌 design perfection for a 2 player game :D

Thank you for the video, it's nice to see a sincere opinion from a big youtubere. Good to know someones preferences but people should try before buy. For example my wife was so much looking for Sleeping gods to experience and after a month she refused to play with me any further for how frustrating it was. And we both like Cthulu: DMD, so it is not about enough training in tough games. We played Spirit Island together a several times as well. You got me on Ankh tho, I had never played it in just 2 people. Ehm, ordered from shop. Our favorites go in 2-player as no-one asked are: 1. MindBug 2. Alchemists 3. The Wolves (we played it in every player count, stil best in 2 people, if you know, what are you doing😇) . . 10. Schotten totten

This was funny... Just the other day I ventilated my thoughts on two-player games versus multi-player games that work well for two players, and realized I actually tend to like the latter more than the former for two players... They are often a lot crunchier, and frankly it could be that me and my husband just revels in the feeling of marvel over how well this "non two-player game" adapted to two players! ;-) I do like Onitama, Santorini and Seven wonders duel, but I love playing The Arrival, Trickerion, Cyclades, Euphoria, In the year of the dragon and lots of other heavy euros (I start to realize) with just two players! 🙂

I love ankh at 2 players, although I think the sweet spot is 4.

If Air, Land, and Sea looks interesting but your usual opponent doesn't like the WW2 theme, try Critters at War. Exactly the same game - same designer, same publisher - but fuzzy animals instead of lived history.

This is an awesome list and i dont want to presume to add every game I've enjoyed at 2 players. My only addition would be Arboretum. I would also like to say that i appreciate when you point out that a game is "mean." Targi is mean. Its great but it is possible to bounce off if you don't like mean.

Shout out to Kelp I also like Omen and Netrunner but those are older games.

Kind of bummed no mention of summoner wars but great list nonetheless! Great video guys

War Chest is my favorite for 2p... and Fox and the Forest Duet for co-op

These all look great! However, as you were describing Sleeping Gods I couldn't help but think you missed one game amongst all of these, and that is Sherlokc Holmes: Consulting Detective. You want to get 2 people to talk and avoid the akwardness, get them to solve a mystery together!

18:03 Haggis is hands-down the GOAT 2-player climbing/shedding game for this guy. Excellent depth, replayability, cardplay and decision space. You can play it 2-player with a standard deck of cards and wonder why other much more mediocre games need so many more components to accomplish so much less.

Now that I've got almost all the content for it, Mythic Battles: Pantheon has become an unruly beast which I can no longer really take out of the house anymore, but to this day it still remains my favourite game of all time since getting it in late 2017. It's the most preposterous game of chess you'll ever play at 2 players (or 2v2) and I spent almost the entirety of 2018 playing it over and over again. If you're remotely interested in miniature skirmish games, I couldn't recommend it enough.

I'd love a vid about "Magic Alternatives" i like the concept, but worldbreakers specifically doesnt sound like it would scratch the itch

Some of my wife and I's two favorite games: Arboretum, man, talk about a knife fight over pretty trees. Sea salt & paper. So good, so tiny, so beautiful.

Just one small point, when reviewing Targi you said that the only valid place is "there". That's not true. You can always place on a card opposite your own worker, however, this does mean that you would lose out on one card from the centre as you're not creating a new cross section.

Sky Team, for the win! Or Fog of Love!! But I definitely see your case for many of these though. I do really enjoy air, land, and sea - it is in my collective as well specifically for that reason.

7 Wonders Duel is the daddy.

ALS: Critters at War, for the art!

I actually really like Raxxon for two players. This game flew under the radar. i don't think i've ever seen a review for it but I really like it.

Would air land and sea be quite similar to marvel snap then?

Radlands, Keyforge,and Omen: Reign of War, for me, along with Ankh, Targi, and of course 7 Wonders Duel with expansions.

Great video! I love 2 prayers games as I have no friends but I only have one victim in my house that is forced to play with me sometimes. Hopefully my newborn son will share my passion...😅

wait dude hold on, why is the expac for spirit island so necessary?? You've convinced me to get spirit island, but left me hanging here!

You were going to review Apiary. :)