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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 a lighter, quicker tile-laying game from 2021 that won the Kennerspiel des Jahres and has picked up an enormous following among people who want something satisfying without the overhead.
In a popular vote, lighter and more accessible usually wins. But Terraforming Mars has been around longer, has more passionate advocates, and came through 83-17 against Wyrmspan last round. Cascadia came through by exactly the same margin against Clank!: Catacombs.
The results say they are evenly matched. The games themselves are anything but. Let’s get into it.
Just want to vote? You can here.
How They Got Here
Terraforming Mars entered as seed 4, the second highest-ranked game in the tournament after the top three seeds. It beat Five Tribes 87-13 in the Round of 16 before coming through 83-17 against Wyrmspan in the quarter final play-in round. It has been efficient rather than spectacular. It does what it needs to do and moves on.
Cascadia came in as seed 25 and has had a more interesting journey. It beat Splendor Duel 100-0 in the Round of 64, Star Realms 87-13 in the Round of 16, and then Clank!: Catacombs 83-17 in the last round. The margins have been consistent but not dominant. It has never been truly tested by a game with the name recognition of Terraforming Mars.
This is the first time in the tournament that Cascadia faces something with real weight behind it. We are about to find out if the votes are there.
What Terraforming Mars Actually Is
Terraforming Mars is a card-driven engine builder designed by Jacob Fryxelius and published by FryxGames in 2016. You play as one of several corporations competing to make Mars habitable by raising the global temperature, filling the oceans, and covering the planet with oxygen-producing greenery. The game ends when all three global parameters reach their target values.
The card play is the heart of it. You start each generation with a hand of project cards, pay to keep the ones you want, and then spend resources to play them over the course of your turn. Cards build on each other: a card that produces steel makes your building cards cheaper, which lets you play more infrastructure, which generates more resources, which lets you play bigger cards. The engine takes time to build but when it starts running it is enormously satisfying.
What makes Terraforming Mars special is the sheer variety of the card pool. There are over two hundred project cards in the base game, each with different conditions and effects. Some cards are only playable if you have certain tags or have reached certain milestones. Some cards chain together in ways you didn’t expect when you drafted them. Every game feels different because the cards that come up are different.
It is not a short game. With experienced players who know what they are doing, expect 90 minutes to two hours. With new players who are reading every card carefully, give it three. The solo mode is excellent if you want to practice the card interactions without the social overhead.
I have played Terraforming Mars enough times to have a favourite corporation (Ecoline, for the plant production), a favourite card combination (anything that generates heat and also does something with it), and a strong opinion on the Prelude expansion (yes, always, it makes the early game much less slow). That is probably too much information but it tells you something about the game.
What Cascadia Actually Is
Cascadia is a tile-laying and token-drafting game designed by Randy Flynn and published by Flatout Games in 2021. You are building a wildlife habitat in the Pacific Northwest, placing hexagonal terrain tiles and pairing them with wildlife tokens representing five animals: hawks, elk, salmon, bears, and foxes.
Each animal scores differently depending on how they are arranged. Hawks want to be isolated, not adjacent to other hawks. Elk want to be in lines. Salmon want to be in rivers. Bears want to be in pairs. Foxes want to be surrounded by as many different animal types as possible. The scoring cards for each animal are drawn randomly at the start of the game, so the specific patterns that score change from game to game.
The draft mechanism is elegant. On your turn you pick a tile-and-token pairing from a central market of four options. You always take one tile and one token together, which means if you want a specific tile you might have to take a token you don’t need, and vice versa. There is a pinecone system that lets you reset unwanted tokens, which adds a small layer of decision-making without complicating the core loop.
Cascadia plays in about 45 minutes with experienced players, maybe an hour with new ones. It is the kind of game where someone who has never played a modern board game can be taught in five minutes and be competitive within two turns. It won the Kennerspiel des Jahres in 2022, which is the award for games that are more demanding than gateway-level but still accessible enough for a broad audience. That is exactly the category it occupies.
The thing Cascadia does that I think gets underappreciated is the tension between building a good habitat and scoring the specific patterns each animal wants. You will often place a tile in a position that is excellent for your terrain network and immediately realise it has blocked the line of elk you were building. That conflict between spatial efficiency and animal scoring is where the real decisions live.
Where They Are Similar
Both games reward forward planning. In Terraforming Mars, the cards you keep at the start of each generation shape what is possible for the next several turns. In Cascadia, the tiles you place early determine which spaces are available later, and the scoring patterns you commit to pursuing early dictate which tokens you need to prioritise.
Both games have a strong spatial element. Terraforming Mars has the board, where placement of greenery, ocean, and city tiles matters for adjacency bonuses and milestone racing. Cascadia is entirely spatial: the physical shape of your habitat determines everything.
Both games also reward playing multiple games. Terraforming Mars opens up as you learn the card pool and start to see combinations before they happen. Cascadia opens up as you internalise the different scoring patterns and stop needing to re-read them every time they come up.
Where They Are Different
The weight difference is the obvious one. Terraforming Mars takes twice as long, has ten times as many rules to remember, and rewards investment in a way that Cascadia does not require. If you only play each of them once, Cascadia is the better experience because Terraforming Mars takes several games before the card interactions start to feel intuitive.
The interaction is different too. In Terraforming Mars you are competing directly for milestones and awards, racing to complete global parameters, and sometimes directly blocking opponents by placing cities or greenery where they wanted to expand. In Cascadia the interaction is indirect: the tile you take from the market affects what is available to the next player, but you are not targeting anyone specifically.
The replayability works differently. Terraforming Mars has a vast card pool and multiple corporations, which means no two games start the same way. Cascadia changes the scoring patterns each game and shuffles the tile and token supply, but the core of what you are doing is the same. Cascadia has expansions, but the base game has a narrower range of experiences than Terraforming Mars.
The table presence is different too, which matters more than people admit. Terraforming Mars, particularly with expansions, spreads across an enormous area and fills the table with cards, cubes, and markers. Cascadia is a collection of hex tiles arranged neatly in front of each player. One of those setups excites a certain kind of gamer. The other is more welcoming to everyone.
Which One Is Better
For a specific type of player, Terraforming Mars is significantly better. If you like heavy games, long games, games with deep card pools and emergent combinations that you discover over multiple plays, Terraforming Mars is one of the best examples of the genre and has been for nearly a decade.
For a broader range of players, Cascadia holds its own more consistently. It is the game you can get to the table with your family on a Tuesday evening and your dedicated games group on a Friday night and have both sessions go well. Terraforming Mars requires the right group in the right mood with enough time set aside.
If I am being honest about which game I find more interesting to think about, it is Terraforming Mars. The card interactions reward the kind of planning I enjoy and the corporation asymmetry adds a strategic layer that Cascadia does not have.
If I am being honest about which game gets played more often in my house, it is Cascadia. It fits more occasions.
Who Goes Through
Terraforming Mars should win this on paper. It is the higher-seeded game, it has been around longer, and it has a passionate community who have been voting for it throughout.
Cascadia has the broader appeal and the more recent release that keeps it fresh in people’s minds. The Kennerspiel des Jahres win in 2022 gave it a visibility that a lot of games never achieve.
I think Terraforming Mars wins. But I thought Ark Nova would beat Root, and Root won 62-37. The heavier, more acclaimed game does not always carry the popular vote.