Review: Will You Be the Cool Guy in Adventure Time Card Wars?

Image credits to the author

The highly acclaimed animated show, Adventure Time, ran from 2010-2018, with ten seasons and almost 300 episodes produced by the time the show came to an end. The surreal, hilarious and sometimes poignant story of Finn, a carefree human boy, his adopted brother, Jake (a dog with shapeshifting powers), and a large cast of memorable, quirky characters, Adventure Time is set in Land of Ooo, a fantasy-esque realm of colorful kingdoms. Adventure Time remains a cross-generational phenomenon to this day, attracting a dedicated audience of fans of all ages, from younger kids to teenagers and beyond.

A fourth season episode, Card Wars, featured an original tabletop game which the two main characters play, and publishers Cryptozoic Entertainment made this game into an actual, physical card game back in 2014. It returned for the game’s tenth anniversary in 2024, with a Card Wars: Ultimate Collection box featuring all 12 of the character decks that had been previously released, along with quite a few extras. Given that even more new cards, mechanics, and play modes are now on the way (and which you can pledge for right now, on the Adventure Time Card Wars 2025 Kickstarter campaign), we thought it was the perfect time to take a look at the Adventure Time Card Wars!

Getting Started With Adventure Time Card Wars

Though the Card Wars episode of Adventure Time does a great job of satirizing the experience of playing a Trading Card Game (or TCG) for the first time, in that it can be very overwhelming to pick up on all of the individual rules, card types, and victory conditions (not to mention tempers fraying when things don’t quite go to plan for more experienced players!), Cryptozoic Entertainment‘s physical Card Wars game is incredibly straightforward to get started with learning and playing.

We were able to get our hands on the Ultimate Collection for this review, but all you really need to get started with Card Wars are any two decks, each with their own Hero character card (who, in turn, each have their own special ability) and 40 cards, plus four Landscapes. A way to track each player’s hit points, or HP, is also required (pencil and paper works, but it’s worth noting that the Ultimate Collection, along with some editions of the decks, do include tokens for this purpose), with each player starting at 25 HP.

Once you’ve chosen your deck, you arrange your character’s four Landscape cards in a row, with your opponent doing the same, so you each have four Landscapes facing each other, creating the battlefield which consists of four Lanes.

Players shuffle their decks and draw five cards each; they may also take a mulligan (that is, to shuffle their five cards back into their deck and deal themselves a new hand), though they may only do this once, and only before play begins. The starting player is either the “Cool Guy” (the winner of the previous game; the loser is known, according to the Card Wars episode of the show, as the “Dweeb”) or chosen randomly.

How to Play Adventure Time Card Wars

In the Card Wars episode of Adventure Time, Finn is able to frustrate Jake by “Flooping” his Pig card, along with several other Pig-related actions, and the rules in general do seem to be more convoluted (and perhaps inconsistent) than they are in the physical game.

Each turn of Card Wars begins with a player readying all of their cards (any exhausted or Flooped cards are turned upright; we’ll come to this shortly!), then drawing a card from their deck. They can then spend up to two actions, by playing Creatures, Buildings, or Spells (one example of each type of card can be seen below) from their hand, or drawing extra cards, at a cost of one action per card drawn.

Creature cards and Building cards are placed in one of the four Lanes a player controls, with only one Creature and Building permitted per Lane; playing a second Building or Creature to a Lane replaces the current one, which is discarded. Spells are played, their ability followed, and then discarded.

Each of these types of card has a cost in the top left, typically 0-2, which is how many actions it takes to play, as well as how many Landscapes of a certain type are required in order to play the card.

The Landscape type is shown in the top right of a card; a Rainbow symbol means that there’s no specific Landscape requirement to play the card. All 0-cost cards are Rainbow cards, but cards with higher costs may be too.

Players may choose to use the Floop ability of each card they have in play (once per turn, at any point prior to the Fight step), which is the same as tapping or exhausting a card; that is, to turn it sideways.

Flooping activates a card’s ability, two examples of which can be seen above; cards can only Floop if they have this keyword and ability, or if the Hero’s special ability allows it. It’s worth noting that Flooping is entirely optional.

The next step is Fight. All ready, non-Flooped cards attack in the Lane they occupy, in the order of the active player’s choosing. The player turns a card sideways when attacking (note that this isn’t considered to be Flooping, but instead is “exhausting”); if there’s no opposing Creature in the exhausted Creature’s Lane, damage is dealt to the opposing player, according to the card’s attack value.

If there is a Creature in the same Lane, both Creatures deal their attack damage to each other simultaneously, and tokens are placed on each Creature when they’re damaged in this way. Creatures each have a defense value; damage tokens remain on a Creature at the end of a turn, and when their defense value is reduced to zero, they’re discarded. In the above image, you can see that the Ancient Scholar will deal one damage to the Legion of Earlings. With a defense of 8, but 7 HP of damage, The Legion of Earlings will be discarded due to this fight. However, it will deal its damage to the Ancient Scholar before being discarded; the Ancient Scholar will end the fight with two damage tokens placed on it.

Once all Creatures have attacked during the Fight step (and unlike Flooping, Fighting isn’t optional, though neither Floop or Fight can be carried out by the first player, on their very first turn!), it’s the next player’s turn. If a player reduces their opponent’s HP to 0 at any point, they win the game. That makes them the Cool Guy, and the loser the Dweeb. Unlike in the show, there’s no rule about having to imbibe a gross drink when you lose, thankfully!

Is Adventure Time Card Wars Fun to Play?

The beauty of Adventure Time Card Wars is that the anarchic, surreal tone of the show is woven into every single element of the experience, with countless characters and settings, not to mention the visual design, perfectly capturing Adventure Time‘s unique, off-kilter and boldly colorful vibe, going far beyond the Card Wars episode itself – though you will recognize cards from that episode too.

It’s a simple game to pick up and play, which makes it absolutely ideal for younger players, and there’s still room for some strategy despite that simplicity. It isn’t the deepest game in the world, but it does a great job of feeling like a sort of introductory TCG, and the variety of decks available for Card Wars allows for a range of different play styles.

It’s also entirely possible to build your own decks, with very few restrictions. You may use four Land cards of any type or combination (bearing in mind the costs of cards in your deck) and your deck of 40 cards can be composed of any cards you choose, with up to three copies of any one specific card. You can use whichever Hero you want, and then you’re ready to go!

Adventure Time Card Wars plays quickly and always feels satisfying, with a neat set of mechanics which have been streamlined in a logical way, in comparison to the show’s version of the game (which also has a holographic board; maybe that’s something we’ll see when the game hits its 20th anniversary!).

What’s Special About the Adventure Time Card Wars: Ultimate Collection?

As previously mentioned, we were able to try out the Ultimate Collection of Card Wars, so it’s worth noting what we’ve been able to get hands on with, in terms of the game’s content.

When Adventure Time Card Wars was originally released, it was in the form of packs which contained two decks each; these were Finn vs Jake, BMO vs Lady Rainicorn, and Princess Bubblegum vs Lumpy Space Princess. For the Glory! booster packs followed, as did further 2-deck packs (Lemongrab vs Gunter, Ice King vs Marceline, and Fionna vs Cake), with the Hero Pack bringing the Hero cards to the game too.

The Ultimate Collection contains all of the above, including the entirety of the For the Glory! booster set, and even more besides, with some Kickstarter exclusive cards also in the oversized box as well. It’s an absolute treasure trove for Adventure Time fans, with more than 650 cards included in total.

It’s all lovingly packaged in a box which bears the same illustration as the title card from the Card Wars episode. It’s even future proofed, to a degree, as there’s plenty of space in the box to add extra cards. This is worth noting, since there are many more cards on the way, and you can pledge for these on Kickstarter, at the Adventure Time Card Wars 2025 page. New elements include an absolutely adorable BMO Token Holder, a co-op expansion, and some very exciting exclusives too.

The Card Gamer Verdict

Many thanks to Cryptozoic Entertainment for sponsoring this post, and for providing a copy of Adventure Time Card Wars: Ultimate Collection, in return for an unbiased review.

For more standalone games, check out our recent reviews of Slay the Spire: The Board Game and The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game.