Review: Dale of Merchants

Introduction & Overview

It is an age of great discoveries. New and wonderful items are displayed by the greatest merchants. If there is one place these traders revere, it is the city of Dale. Within the city lies a magnificent guild founded by the most renowned merchants. To gain entrance, one must win the annual competition. Numerous traders from all corners of the globe have gathered in Dale to take part in the event, driven by a clear goal: to be crowned champion and become the newest member of the legendary guild.

This is how Dale of Merchants is presented, the debut design by Sami Laakso. The game’s release was funded through a Kickstarter campaign in 2015, with copies reaching backers in early 2016 under the Snowdale Games imprint. Recently, a second standalone and fully compatible box has also been published. The artwork was handled by Sami Laakso himself.

The game has not yet been published in our country, although rumors suggest a prominent publisher will release it before long. As is typical in deck-building games, the cards feature a substantial amount of text, making language dependency significant. It accommodates 2 to 4 players, with a recommended minimum age of 10, and plays in approximately 20 to 40 minutes. The MSRP is €19.95. For this review, a copy of the first edition from Snowdale Games was used.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Go to Personal Opinion

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom) measuring 18.2 × 12.4 × 2.5 cm (a small rectangular box with dimensions similar to Bang! The Dice Game), we find the following items:

• 118 Cards (56×87 mm):
  • 6 Animal decks of 15 cards each
  • 28 Junk cards
• Market board
• Custom wooden die
• Rulebook

How to Play

Dale of Merchants is a deck-building game in which players compete for admission into the prestigious merchants’ guild by assembling the most impressive merchant stall. Throughout the match, players take turns structured across two phases: action and clean-up. In the action phase, the active player must select one of four possible options: purchase a card from the market by paying its cost with the combined values of cards from their hand (adding it straight into hand), play a technique card to resolve its effect (potentially chaining actions if it displays a bonus action symbol), discard any number of cards from their hand to cycle it, or build a stack in their stall. To erect a stack, one must play a set of cards belonging to a single animal folk whose total values sum up exactly to the required amount, and these stacks must be built strictly in ascending order from 1 to 8. During the clean-up phase, the player replenishes their hand to five cards by drawing from their deck, and any empty spaces in the market slide down and get refilled. The game ends immediately the moment a player builds their eighth stack in their merchant stall, winning the contest.

Key Concepts

In Dale of Merchants, there are two types of cards: basic Junk cards and valuable Animalfolk cards. On one hand, Junk forms part of our starting deck and can only be used as currency when acquiring new cards. Certain card effects can interact with these junk items, but generally speaking, they can only be discarded or spent to buy cards.

On the other hand, we have the Animalfolk cards. These cards feature the following anatomy:

• The upper left corner displays a vertical border featuring a numerical value, an animal icon representing its deck, and optionally, a + symbol. The background color also corresponds to that animal species.
• The top banner shows the card’s name along with the name of the animal folk it belongs to.
• Occupying most of the top half is an illustration representing the card, set against the animal’s associated color.
• The lower half details the card’s effect entirely through text (without iconography).
• Finally, at the top margin of this text box, a small speech bubble indicates the card’s effect category:
  • Technique: allows the card to be played as an action, applying the printed effect.
  • Passive: triggers a specific effect whenever the card is held in hand and the specified conditions are met. Simply reveal the card and resolve its effect without discarding it.
  • Junk: cards that cannot be actively played (basic junk cards carry this indicator). They are only used as currency.

Effects aside, the defining concept of these cards is their numerical value. This value serves multiple purposes:

• First, it defines the card’s monetary worth—that is, how much purchasing power it provides when acquiring new cards.
• Second, it represents the base purchase cost when the card is in the market.
• Lastly, it is the value counted toward building your merchant stall.

As mentioned in the introduction, each player’s objective is to be the quickest to complete their merchant stall. A full stall consists of 8 stacks occupied by cards whose total values increase by 1 at each step, requiring players to lay out columns totaling from 1 to 8 consecutively. Multiple cards can be combined to reach a target value, but they must all share the same color and add up precisely to the number needed for the next stack. Barring specific card effects, players may only build one stall stack per turn.

Cards placed into your merchant stall leave your deck permanently and will not return to your hand. Certain card effects can manipulate stall stacks, however. Any alterations a stall undergoes do not impact the target value of the next stack to be built. Once a stack level is established, it is considered completed regardless of any changes it might suffer in subsequent turns.

When buying cards, players have a market displaying 5 face-up options at all times (unless the deck runs out entirely). This market is represented by a board where card slots impose an increasing surcharge from right to left. Thus, the rightmost card carries no extra cost, while the leftmost card demands an additional surcharge of 4 coins.

Lastly, a quick refresher on deck-building fundamentals. The core engine is, naturally, the deck. Players start with an identical pool of starting cards, drawing until they meet their hand limit. On their turn, they rely strictly on the cards in hand to execute actions. Afterward, they refill their hand and await their next turn. Once the draw pile is empty, the discard pile is reshuffled to form a fresh deck, now enhanced by newly purchased cards. The key departures from standard deck-building conventions are:

• Purchased cards go directly into your hand rather than your discard pile.
• At the end of a turn, you do not discard your remaining hand; you simply draw up to the designated hand limit.
• A dedicated action exists specifically to let you discard cards from your hand.

That is enough to get started.

How to Play

1. Select a number of animal decks equal to the player count plus one.
2. Give one 1-value card from each chosen animal deck to every player. Any leftover 1-value cards are returned to the box (they are not used in the market deck).
3. Additionally, deal Junk cards to each player until their starting deck contains 10 cards. Form a separate draw pile with the remaining Junk cards within reach of all players.
4. Shuffle all remaining animal cards together to create the market deck.
5. Set out the market board on your preferred side, and fill it by dealing 5 cards face up from the market deck.
6. Finally, choose a starting player (according to the rulebook, whoever woke up earliest that day).

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Dale of Merchants runs across an indeterminate series of alternating turns, starting with the first player.

A player’s turn consists of two phases:

1. Action Phase. The active player chooses one of the following options:
   • Market Action (Buy a Card). The player plays enough cards from hand so that their combined value meets or exceeds the target card’s printed cost plus the surcharge of its market slot. Overpaying is permitted only if the surplus difference between the total cost and the paid value is strictly lower than the value of any single card played. In other words, you cannot use a purchase simply to discard cards whose values are not actually required. The purchased card goes straight into hand, while the spent cards move to the discard pile.
   • Technique Action. The player places a card with a technique ability into their play area and resolves its effect. Once completed, the card is sent to the discard pile unless its text specifies otherwise.
     • If the played card displays a + symbol in its upper left corner, the player immediately gains a bonus action, allowing them to choose any of the four standard options.
   • Stall Action (Build a Stack). The player places cards into their merchant stall to construct the next required stack level. As a reminder, the stall consists of 8 slots with strictly ascending values from 1 to 8. Multiple cards may be combined to hit an exact value, but all cards in that stack must come from the same animal deck (share the same color).
   • Inventory Action. The player discards any number of cards from their hand into their discard pile.
2. Clean-up Phase:
   • The player draws back up to 5 cards. If the draw deck runs dry, shuffle the discard pile to form a new draw pile and continue drawing.
   • The market is replenished: existing cards slide to the right to fill empty gaps, leaving empty slots on the leftmost side. New cards are then dealt from the market deck to fill those remaining slots. If the market deck empties, reshuffle the market discard pile; if no discards remain, slots stay empty.

Play then passes to the player on the left.

Game End

The game ends immediately when a player successfully builds the eighth stack in their merchant stall, claiming victory on the spot.

Personal Opinion

As you well know, I am a huge fan of deck-building mechanics whenever the players at the table have mastered the system and the pace stays brisk. Dominion was the trailblazer (and remains the pinnacle in my eyes), though countless titles have attempted to follow in its wake. Perhaps far too many. Does this Dale of Merchants bring something fresh to the table? Or is it just another derivative exercise piggybacking on a proven formula? Let us find out!

There seems to be an ongoing trend to crack the elusive formula for a deck-builder that does not require an overwhelming mountain of cards—delivering a satisfying, robust design using a lean deck of roughly 100 cards.

Star Realms (read its tocho-review here) is likely the game that best achieved this goal. Yet, while undeniably entertaining and great at what it does, it is arguably a bit overrated; after several plays, it wears thin due to a lack of impactful, heavyweight decisions during the game. Then comes Valley of the Kings (read its tocho-review here), which, through a couple of smart mechanical twists, delivers a much deeper experience with greater longevity.

Into this arena steps Dale of Merchants. Beyond serving as a textbook example of how to run an exceptional campaign, it is a masterclass in delivering a near-flawless product that is bound to make waves, as it represents prime material for retail publishers.

Those already familiar with the title, or any brave souls who read through the rules breakdown, will have realized that a couple of simple tweaks completely transform the game feel. It is a genuine breath of fresh air for the genre. And what constitutes this radical shift? Essentially, swapping out standard victory point tallies for a staged race where whoever crosses the finish line first takes the crown.

It might not sound like a huge leap, yet it fundamentally upends the genre’s standard cadence. Traditional deck-building typically unfolds in two distinct acts: first, players refine their deck, buying cards to build engine efficiency, and once adequate momentum has been gathered, they pivot into scoring mode.

Titles like the aforementioned Star Realms and Valley of the Kings had already begun to alter this structure with distinct win conditions. This was particularly evident in Valley of the Kings, where players had to entomb cards straight from their hand, permanently stripping them out of deck rotation. Dale of Merchants embraces that very same philosophy, but adds a crucial distinction: the game’s endpoint is governed directly by player tempo rather than an exhausted card supply.

Because of this, players must shift their mindset entirely. Rather than obsessing over synergies and combo potential, the focus narrows down to stealing a march on opponents and completing all 8 stall stacks as swiftly as possible. Consequently, cards cease to be valuable merely for their printed text; their animal set and, above all, their numerical value take center stage. You will spend practically the whole game eyeing the market to see which cards mesh with your current card pool so your momentum never stalls. A two-step deficit in the merchant stall can easily prove fatal.

This design does harbor one slight flaw. Stalls must be assembled in strictly ascending order by combining matching colors, an absolute requirement for the later slots since the maximum card value is 5. Players start the game with a handful of 1-value cards—one per animal folk—which means, outside of specific card effects, they cannot be bundled together.

Furthermore, no additional 1-value cards will ever appear in the market. Under normal circumstances, building your second stall stack requires purchasing a 2-value card. Should bad luck strike (as has happened in my games), many rounds of purchasing may pass before a second 2-value card surfaces. The lucky player who snagged that first 2 can exploit this lull to break away from the pack.

This is where card effects enter the picture, proving especially vital during that opening act. In fact, it often feels painful to part with a card whose ability you cherish, even if doing so is mandatory to stay competitive. Certain effects let you manipulate your stall, draw extra cards, or cycle the market, substantially mitigating the market variance described earlier. That is why I refer to it as a minor flaw: it remains a subtle detail, but on rare occasions, it can tilt a game too early.

We also touched upon Star Realms earlier. From that game, Dale of Merchants borrows its blistering game pace. By altering the game’s core objective, players are not endlessly calculating intricate combo chains like in Valley of the Kings, nor are they agonizing over squeezing every drop of efficiency out of card text. It delivers great tempo paired with genuine tactical weight—a balance the sci-fi deck-builder often lacked.

One could say that Dale of Merchants successfully synthesizes the best virtues of what were previously the gold standard for compact deck-builders: the brisk speed of Star Realms and the gripping tension and tough decisions of Valley of the Kings. What is more, it keeps play times tight, avoiding the drag that sometimes bogged down the ancient Egyptian title, where games could easily stretch past an hour. In fact, I would only recommend Valley of the Kings over this design if you are after a longer, heavier sit-down, because Dale of Merchants leaves you wanting more after a single playthrough—you will usually want to run it back immediately.

Replay value easily outshines both predecessors. Mixing and matching different animalfolk decks each game generates noticeably varied dynamics. If you ever need more variety, two extra standalone boxes exist, each packing six additional animal decks. True completionists can even track down the promo deck to round out the full collection. Beyond the standard variance of card draws, certain animal folk introduce direct die-rolling and push-your-luck elements that spice up the flavor. Game setup offers plenty of levers to suit any table’s taste.

You already know that I rarely endorse playing deck-builders at higher player counts, as game flow and downtime suffer if participants are not intimately familiar with the card pool. In Dale of Merchants, however, the learning curve is exceptionally smooth since card values and color sets matter far more than dense text. You do not need to memorize every card effect to have a blast from the jump. The only drawback to playing at 3 or 4 players regularly with just the base set is that you cycle through the animal combinations much faster.

Turning to production quality, the craftsmanship here ranks among the very best I have encountered in a long time. It starts with the box: tailored to house the cards with virtually no wasted space (featuring a small insert you will need to remove if you sleeve your cards, which I always advise for high-shuffle games) and made of remarkably thick cardboard. Yet the cards themselves easily steal the spotlight. They offer a sublime hand feel with a crisp linen finish, generous card stock, and a snap that I wish every card game possessed. It is one of those rare titles where sleeving feels almost criminal because unsleeved cards feel so pleasant in hand. A custom wooden die is also included for use with a specific animal folk, and its finish matches the high standard of the rest of the components. The rulebook is equally lucid and comprehensive. An outstanding production all around.

As the cherry on top, the visual presentation is just as remarkable. Laakso’s own artwork is gorgeous, bringing these anthropomorphic critters to life with real charm and expressive character. My personal favorite is the raccoon, sporting a Mr. Burns-esque pose that immediately flags him as the trickiest rascal in this first box. Every element is handled with care, inviting players to pause and admire the fine details on every card. If I had to nitpick, the cover art feels somewhat muted compared to the vibrant cards inside, leaning on an excess of earthy brown tones that keep it from popping off the shelf.

The game has since evolved into a full-fledged series. Two additional standalone boxes were released, each containing six new animal decks (a massive boon for variability), alongside a big storage box that arrived with the third entry to hold extra content. Much like with Claim (read its tocho-review here), completionist urges can ultimately demand too much shelf space for an experience that remains a filler at heart.

And let’s wrap this up. Dale of Merchants is a brilliant, thoroughly refreshing design that reinvents deck-building by ditching the usual victory-point bookkeeping in favor of a high-stakes, staged footrace. Its core revolves around sharp hand management where every card delivers both immediate tactical agency and the raw numerical value required to secure stall stacks and dash toward victory. This creates a compelling tug-of-war between cultivating a well-oiled engine and dismantling it at the exact right moment, resulting in blazing-fast matches where every move carries real weight. While a dry spell of mid-value cards in the market can occasionally stall someone out or open up an unearned gap, the game’s rich tactical choices and breezy pace make it an immensely rewarding design that keeps you hooked. For all these reasons, I give it a…