Disclosure: Meeple Mountain received a free copy of this product in exchange for an honest, unbiased review. This review is not intended to be an endorsement.
Auto Battlers Assemble
Up until last year, I never really knew what an “auto battler” card game was. Sure, I’ve played TCGs like Magic: The Gathering and Flesh and Blood, or card battlers like Compile and Radlands, but those games require careful strategy and meticulous timing to come out victorious.
At last year’s Gen Con, I was introduced to Tag Team, my first auto battler, and I was immediately enthralled by how fun and straightforward the concept was. Essentially, you draft cards, arrange them in a specific order, and let the battle play out. There’s no strenuous bookkeeping or agonizing over every move. Just compare values, resolve effects, and move on.
Super Auto Pets Card Battle is the tabletop adaptation of the popular video game that somehow flew under my radar. Though I’ve never played the digital version (and I definitely will now), I’ve been told the card game is a faithful adaptation in all the best ways.
My appetite for auto battlers is starting to grow, and this one fell into my lap at just the right time. Besides, who couldn’t be wooed by adorable animals duking it out on colorful cards?
Pet Friendly
Super Auto Pets Card Battle plays over six rounds, with players competing to be the last deck standing. The winner of each round claims a trophy, with the final round awarding two. Whoever collects the most trophies wins.
At the beginning of each round, players buy and sell pets to strengthen their decks, with increasingly powerful pets becoming available as the game progresses. Each pet has attack and health values that determine how much damage it deals and withstands. Food cards, such as apples and durians, provide additional boosts or abilities.
Once players finish shopping, they arrange their decks in their preferred order and let the battle commence. Pets face off, resolving damage and special abilities until one player runs out of pets. Afterward, pets return to their respective decks, ready to fight another day alongside some new recruits.
Rinse, repeat, and hopefully collect a few trophies along the way.
No Animals Were Harmed in the Making
This is a neat little card game. While the individual abilities are fairly straightforward, there’s a surprising amount of strategy in deciding where to place each card in your deck to maximize synergies while anticipating your opponent’s lineup.
Sometimes, buffing an early pet with apples (+1 attack and health each) can keep it in the fight longer, but that strategy might backfire if your weaker pets are stuck at the back of the deck.
I haven’t played the Classic Pack, but I was provided a review copy of the Golden Pack, which introduces trumpets and Golden Retrievers into the mix.
Trumpets are a resource generated through certain pet abilities that accumulate throughout battle. When you’re down to your last pet, you can call in a Golden Retriever as a final line of defense, with its attack and health determined by the number of trumpets you’ve collected.
I really enjoyed this concept. It adds another layer of strategy, encouraging players to invest in trumpet-generating pets to beef up their final furry defender. Just when you think you’ve defeated your opponent’s entire deck, out comes a ridiculously powerful Golden Retriever to hold the line.
There are plenty of other interesting abilities to discover, from durians that remove an opponent’s food buffs to pets whose abilities trigger when they’re defeated. The latter creates some interesting tactical decisions, as weaker pets can sometimes offer greater value through their lingering effects than their raw attack and health values.
The pets themselves reminded me of Mindbug from Richard Garfield, with their unique situational abilities that reward clever positioning and timing. That’s certainly a compliment, given how much I enjoy Mindbug.
Of course, there’s also something to be said for throwing caution to the wind, shuffling your cards together, and letting fate decide how the battle shakes out.
I tried this approach for a couple of rounds, and somehow it actually worked in my favor.
With all the potential synergies and card combinations, there’s certainly room for analysis paralysis to creep in as players try to map out the perfect sequence. But part of the wacky fun of an auto battler is watching your carefully constructed strategy either come together beautifully or completely fall apart without any further input from you. Sometimes it’s better to just let the animals loose and see what happens.
Overall, Super Auto Pets Card Battle is a solid deck-building auto battler packed with wacky animals, charming artwork, and some surprisingly clever tactical decisions. I particularly enjoyed how the Golden Pack’s trumpet mechanic creates opportunities for dramatic comebacks.
That said, the game felt a tad long for what it offers, with my sessions running around 30–45 minutes. While the six-round structure gives your deck time to evolve into a competitive beast, the later rounds don’t introduce much beyond increasingly powerful pets. By the halfway point, you’ve experienced most of what the game has to offer mechanically, and the remaining rounds can start to feel a little repetitive.
Still, there’s a satisfying charm to assembling an army of adorable animals, sending them into battle, and watching your plans unfold (or spectacularly implode). I just wish the game got to the finish line a little faster. Even the cutest pets can overstay their welcome.
