This has been one of those months where the games shelf has barely been touched. We’re mid house purchase, which means the spare room is full of boxes that aren’t games boxes, our evenings are eaten up by solicitor emails, and “shall we get a game out” has been replaced by “shall we just collapse … Read more
Cascadia. The game that teaches in five minutes and plays in 45 has beaten 200 games to be crowned the greatest board game in the world by community vote. Cascadia has won the World Cup of Board Games 2026. The tile-laying wildlife habitat game from 2021 that came in as seed 25, that nobody predicted … Read more
THE FINAL IS HERE! Cascadia vs Root. One game will be crowned the World Cup of Board Games 2026 champion. Voting is on the blog. When we started this tournament, Brass: Birmingham was the number one ranked game on BGG and the top seed. Ark Nova was number two. Terraforming Mars had been in the … Read more
Four games left. None of them are the ones most people would have predicted at the start of this tournament. Wingspan is out. Terraforming Mars is out. Root and Pandemic have played their quarter final and Root came through. What we are left with is 7 Wonders, Cascadia, Lords of Waterdeep, and Root. I would … Read more
This is the last quarter final and it might be the most interesting one to think about. Root beat Ark Nova 62-37 in the last round. That result told us something. Ark Nova is BGG number two. It is a better-designed game by most objective measures. Root won because it has personality, stories, and a … Read more
Of the four quarter finals, this is the one that feels most like a genuine 50-50 on paper. Forest Shuffle is a newer game with a strong recent following. Lords of Waterdeep has been one of the best gateway worker placement games for over a decade. Neither has the name recognition of Wingspan or Terraforming … Read more
This is the quarter final that looks straightforward on paper and probably isn’t. Terraforming Mars is the heavier, longer, more complex game. It has been on the BGG top ten for years and has a devoted following among people who like their games to take two hours and fill a table with cards. Cascadia is … Read more
Of all the quarter final matchups we could have ended up with, this is the one that makes the most sense and the least sense at the same time. Wingspan and 7 Wonders are both card-based games. Both play in under 90 minutes. Both are accessible enough to get onto the table with people who … Read more
Azul is out, beaten by 7 Wonders in the closest match of the round. Ark Nova is out, beaten by Root. Wingspan beat Fate of the Fellowship 88-13 and faces 7 Wonders in the quarter finals. The four quarter final matchups are: Wingspan vs 7 Wonders, Terraforming Mars vs Cascadia, Forest Shuffle vs Lords of … Read more
TL;DR Brass: Birmingham, the BGG number one ranked game, lost to The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship 89-11. Ark Nova is now the highest-ranked BGG game still in the tournament. Every game received at least some votes this round. Azul and 7 Wonders meet in the World Cup of Board Games 2026 … Read more
