Ultrameanicus and Deques Applenti in Millennium Blades
Experience the thrill of opening up card packs in a CCG simulation with tons of variety and tense matches in Millennium Blades.
Long ago, I remember starting to get into Millennium Blades a lot more! Yet there was a lull, I missed a major expansion, and I wondered if I had missed the game entirely. Fortunately, a recent campaign for all of the content I didn’t have delivered… Back to the mayhem of simulated card packs and extreme tournaments in this exciting, timeless world!
Game Overview
Game Name: Millennium Blades
Publication Year: 2016
Designer: D. Brad Talton, Jr.
Artist: Fábio Fontes
Publisher: Level 99 Games
Solo Mode: Included in Millennium Blades: Set Rotation
Talk about cards! Setup involves mixing together a bunch of card sets to create a deck. Money is used to buy and sell all of these singles on the path to creating a tournament deck. Variety and humor are practically endless, as are the many unique strategies to uncover across all of the cards.
First Play
March 27, 2020
Complexity
3
Latest Play
August 6, 2025
Expansions
6
Setup Time
10 Minutes
Lifetime Plays
16
Play Time
40 Minutes
High Score
204
Game Area
32" x 26"
Low Score
76
Stacks of Paper Money
To this day, this remains the only game in my collection that uses paper money. Namely, stacks of them! And I put these together when the base game arrived. Memories!
I considered moving over to a more universal currency, like poker chips or metal coins, but there is something so old-school about these… I just can’t seem to abandon them!
With the way I gently handle them, though, they don’t slow down the timed rounds at all. Because this can be tense…
In another diverging path, this is also the only game I can stand with a timer during deckbuilding. It’s rather fun!
Deques Applenti
There are high hopes to actually enjoy playing as all of the different characters someday, but Deques Applenti is always a fun one. I even tracked down his character biography!
Note, too, that this new arrival came with upgraded neoprene mats. The central ones are fantastic to keep everything organized. Absolutely the right decision!
But keep an eye on the player mats. The dense text is a little muddy, and the edges never laid flat for over a week.
I ended up switching back to the original thin cardboard player mats, which are much more functional and legible.
Tournament Play
No time to stop during the deckbuilding phase! This is broken out into a pair of 8-minute rounds, and a final round that blocks selling cards and ends after 7 minutes.
That might sound limited, yet in solo, I find that I rarely need to go far into that third round to finalize my deck.
It’s important to know where extra ranking points come from in terms of the cards in a deck, so I sometimes shift my choices partway through and scramble a little bit.
As much as I steer clear of stress in games, the timer keeps things moving and I enjoy tossing those money stacks!
Ultrameanicus
The goal is, of course, to beat a solo opponent with the most ranking points, but there is something that makes this game much more exciting… And it isn’t just the variety!
Many cards include flavor text or obvious nods to pop culture parodies. Take Ultrameanicus, for instance, who was the core feature of this deck. Dark and mythical? Evil.
But not quite! His flavor text and the tiny flower in his claws added a lot here, and I had a few laughs as I played.
Indeed, strategically, I had to build a deck with lots of face-up score effects in order to beat my solo opponent this time.
The Hidden Game of Organization
Prior to playing, I had all of this content spread across 4 boxes: The original base game box, and then 3 rather large expansion boxes. The neoprene play mats stayed in their own box, but that was less concerning to me. Imagine getting deck lists to pull 15 unique sets of cards… And all of those are spread out in a somewhat haphazard fashion. No longer!
I spent a couple of hours alphabetizing and organizing all of the cards to make it much easier to grab new sets. It worked out quite nicely! The base game box is now exceptionally heavy, but the amount of saved space is immense. Maybe that’s not a fun activity for everyone, yet getting a collection organized is a lot of fun for me. So satisfying to have a system!
This also meant that I finally replaced some of the older sets that were re-released with a few updates. My husband is still really adamant about keeping them for the moment… Yet I’m pretty sure I’ll pass those onto a fan of the game to add a little bit of variety to the base game. That also saved me a lot of space, as I didn’t realize how many sets I previously collected.
Building Synergies
For the most part, going into the tournament allows for a total of 8 singles to form a deck, although only 6 will be played. Deck boxes and accessories are separate bonuses.
As funny as some of the cards are, I simply can’t hang onto all of them! There always needs to be some sort of strategic theme to a deck in order to have a chance to win.
The nice part is how the solo opponent’s strategy is revealed during deckbuilding with a pair of accessories.
Similarly, the solo opponent usually only plays 6 of 8 cards… But the puzzle is in figuring out how to do better!
Warmaster Canada
Not Canada! I laughed out loud when the solo opponent unleashed Warmaster Canada on me. It was a pretty terrible play effect… But my goodness, what an outfit. Ha ha!
I was smart and loaded up on a couple of accessories that could be used to ignore a couple of play effects. Good planning definitely helped me survive TCG-Illuminati!
However, there was a moment when the worst card came out… And threatened to reward 8,000 ranking points. Yikes!
Luckily, there wasn’t an animal card across any tableau, so I breathed a sigh of relief at this very close call. Take that!
Accessory Attacks
Each solo opponent has a set of 4 different accessories, but only a pair of these show up during each play. These are slowly revealed during deckbuilding to make wise choices.
I constantly had my deck boxes and accessories knocked out for final scoring, which meant I needed a lot of score effects! And that Not-So-Secret Card Vault? Hmm…
It allowed the solo opponent to play an additional card, but each card was revealed a turn ahead. Helpful information!
Don’t get me started about some of the single cards, though. A couple of right proper nightmares in this group!
Beating the Master
It was exciting to figure out the best ways to counteract the solo opponent’s deck. Although working against 8 possible cards might seem easy, the order is always unpredictable!
My early success was easily thwarted as I couldn’t quite put together another excellent deck. Always a challenge!
For a quick comparison, by the way, this is the original thin cardboard player mat. Much cleaner numbering, along with a completely flat area to place all of the cards.
The information isn’t fully up-to-date with the new rules, but the changes are easy enough to remember. Much better.
Session Overview
Play Number: 13-16
Main Expansion: Millennium Blades: Set Rotation
Accessory: Millennium Blades: Deluxe Upgrade
Solo Mode: Included in Millennium Blades: Set Rotation
Play Details: Standard Difficulty Level
Outcome: 164-110, 120-139, 122-154, 96-176 (1 Win, 3 Losses)
Yikes… Deques Applenti seemed to have Skillz A-Limited. Ha ha! At one point, I managed to have a single faceup card at the end without scoring enough during play. Not my finest hour, although all of the laughs were worth it! This one continues to be lots of fun, even with so many cards!
%
10 Plays
Affordability
Price & Value
10
Functionality
Challenges & Mechanics
10
Originality
Design & Theme
10
Quality
Components & Rules
7
Reusability
Achievement & Enjoyment
9
Variability
Distinctness & Randomness
10
+ Pros (Positives)
- Plenty of variety exists with the cards and the different kinds of strategies that can be tried out over time.
- Each solo opponent offers a different challenge, and even the order of the tournament cards changes everything.
- Timed deckbuilding rounds encourage active decisions without too much tension or pressure to speed things up.
- It’s easy to swap out something else for the paper money stacks, although these add a certain bit of charm.
- For how busy the cards can be, the iconography and keywords are easy to identify at a glance from far away.
- Shopping for card packs is a fun part of gameplay as a small deck takes shape, allowing for a few tournament options.
– Cons (Negatives)
- Setting up the initial store deck and re-sorting all of the sets is a time-intensive process that requires lots of shuffling.
- A fair amount of luck is involved with getting the best cards that will work together against a solo opponent.
- There is a ton of content, although not every set is completely unique and the card stack management is a lot of work.
- The upgraded neoprene mats work well for the central boards, but are way too curled to work well as player mats.
Victory Conditions
Defeat the Boss
- Overall Goal Progress 63%
Goals and Milestones
Win at least 1 game against They Game from Space.
Win at least 1 game as Deques Applenti.
Win at least 1 game as Fulton Suitcase.
Win at least 1 game at the easy difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game at the standard difficulty level.
Win at least 1 game against EEG.
Win at least 1 game as Greline Alcartone.
Win at least 1 game as Shur Wen Na.
Continue the Conversation
What do you like the most about Millennium Blades? Are there any sets or particular cards you enjoy using the most? I’m happy that I consolidated all of the game content into a single box, which should make playing much easier in the future. There’s a lot to enjoy here, and I’m looking forward to playing as other characters against all of these silly solo opponents!
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