Last updated on January 17th, 2026 at 05:17 pm
Ascension: Deckbuilding Game – Board Game Review
Ascension: Deckbuilding Game is a Board/Card game from Playdek, Inc., first launched in 30th June 2011.
It’s rated 9+ and currently has 1,081+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Ascension: Deckbuilding Game Stand Out
*Legends Expansion Now Available!
Return to the world of Vigil as the Muses of Malevolence rise to bring ruin. Legendary Heroes from Ascension’s past have returned to guide you, granting their power to those who prove worthy.
Each card you acquire or defeat grants Renown with its factions, advancing you on the Legendary Track. As your Renown grows, unlock powerful Boons from Legendary Characters and, at the pinnacle of a faction’s track, gain Legendary status with the power to acquire or defeat one card from that faction for free each turn.
Ascension: Deck Building Game, is the award winning deck building card game for mobile. Play alone or with friends to battle against the Fallen One for honor and victory. Conceived and designed by Magic: The Gathering tournament champions, Ascension will provide hours of engaging and strategic game play for enthusiast and experienced gamers alike.
2011 Golden Geek award winner (Best Mobile/Handheld Game)
Pocket Gamer Bronze Award 2011
Dice Tower Awards Awards: Best Digital Boardgame
Best Interface and Graphic Design – 2011
Best Online Multiplayer – 2011
Highlights:
• Universal Application: Plays on phones and tablets
• Beautifully detailed cards
• Full asynchronous support for multiplayer online games
• Cross-platform online play
• Play against multiple offline A.I. opponents
• Multiple expansions available to purchase to expand the Ascension experience!
AN INTERNET CONNECTION AND PLAYDEK ACCOUNT ARE REQUIRED FOR ONLINE PLAY.
Per our Terms of Service, you must be 13 years old or older to use the Playdek online games service.
Also by Playdek:
- Twilight Struggle
- D&D: Lords of Waterdeep
- Fort Sumter
- Fluxx
Having an issue? Looking for support? Please contact us at: [email protected]
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This Board game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Ascension: Deckbuilding Game is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 20th November 2025
Recent improvements include:
Various bug fixes including DLC access and crashes.
Download & Availability
Ascension: Deckbuilding Game is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Ascension: Deckbuilding Game on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Ive had this game since it first came out, and we still play it every day. Its the one app that will never leave our phone.
Ive purchased all the decks and promo cards twice (because we didnt feel like doing the inevitable back and forth to get them to honor our purchases the first time), but now we have again lost access to 3 promo decks and refuses to buy them a third time.
Could you allow online players to add more honor. And also maybe a computer to play against.
So bummed. This game is fun. It works on our iPhone but no sound. On our iPad it crashes each time it goes to load the cards or a game. Please fix this so we can keep playing the game.
We play this a lot on our own, but now that we have to use their new online service we cant even login. Also you cant change the Points to play to online.
This used to be one of our favorite games to play on our iPad or iPhone. However, it has gotten to the point recently where the AI apparently cant keep up with the card pool. This leads to the AI spending several minutes playing each one of its turns. Given that the AI can play practically instant turns on every other one of our apps, it makes Ascension not worth waiting for. Its so bad that it affects our game strategy, as we know that we have to buy certain cards or they will cause the AI to hang up on every one of its turns. If this problem could be fixed, this would be a great game, but we have seen no reason to believe that the developers will fix it. Thus, the game is decidedly mediocre.
Been playing for years, new cards always come in, great mechanics, top notch card play HIGHLY RECOMMEND.
notice You need to turn your phone off Silent mode or the sound wont play! Love this game and glad they told us the sound issue. They finally took the minimum version past our iPad mini 1st gen (iOS 9.3 max) so its time for a new one.
Ive been playing this game for almost nine years now and had to repurchase it three different times. Im never bored its replay value is significant. Some people absolutely love games like this. Its not a fast based button masher, its a time consuming play out.
One of our go to games. We have been playing this game for years and absolutely still love it. We have purchased many expansions and change the combinations to keep the play fresh. We enjoy getting the game in an endless loop. If you get the Reclamax, the Hedron Link Device, and the Tablet of Times Dawn, you can build a deck that allows you to take continuous turns and steel all the cards of the opponent. Thats our end goal. So much power can be collected and lots of tragedy involved. Just a fun, usually rewarding game. Cant win them all, but in this game, if you play smart, you win most.
Play it all the time. Great for killing time, short time commitment(longer with the expansions) our opinion, best phone game Ive ever purchased.
The game itself is fun and we have been enjoying it literally for years. We love deck building and this was our introduction to it. We do wish they would release some new expansions.
We purchased all the expansion decks on our iPad. We havent played in a while, and when we went to play today, we dont have any of them. Im logged in and we tried restore, but nothing happens.
We really like the game. The user interface is great. Since the new update winning when playing it solitaire is neigh impossible. So with that, and its increased sluggishness, Im finally going to have to give it up. Its just not worth it. The fun has been sucked out if it. As Dr. McCoy would say, "Hes dead Jim.".
Was really hoping the latest update would decrease the amount of thinking the AI has to do, but unfortunately it is just marginally better. Still makes it a drag to play though.
Thanks for an amazing experience and fun Im having with this game throughout the years.
We love the fact that we can play this wherever we go. With the free stuff you get four full sets which already give you a lot of playability and a solid idea of what this game is about, more than enough of a bite to justify purchasing other sets, which you can get at a huge discount if you buy them all together. Seriously, the value for the price is fantastic. The CPU functions very well, giving players a challenge on their own, and you can play with friends via pass and play or through the Internet. Only two things we want to note, one being a small bug, not a dealbreaker, and the other a recommendation. First, when playing Storm of Souls, the Hedron Rising event trophy is supposed to allow you to preserve a construct when you are supposed to destroy it. However when one of our constructs is destroyed by a monster effect and we are prompted to try and preserve it, the game will not let us banish the Fanatic in our Construct Tray. In fact, we cant interact with ANY card while the prompt is active. We are forced to click NONE and let our construct be destroyed, which can be quite frustrating. Also, when a construct is destroyed by a Hero effect, we.e. Hedron Pyromaniac, the prompt doesnt even come up. Our construct is destroyed and the Fanatic stays in our Construct Tray. Second, we wish it were possible to make custom center decks. We have a physical copy of Realms Unraveled as well as Ascension: Eternal. We love to combine those two sets, and often will choose which cards we want from each set in the center deck. Most of the time, when Im playing the physical game, Im not playing with both complete sets together; a handful of cards have been taken out. That is what we love about deck builders in general, and Ascension especially. It takes the idea of a TCG and puts all the cards together in one box. Ascension builds on that concept by still having expansions that you can mix and match. In the app you can combine sets, but you cant choose specific cards to put together in one center deck. If PlayDek could add a function that incorporates that concept, we honestly think that would make it the most like the physical game. Im sure Im not the only one who would appreciate it. P.S. Does anyone else miss the old border designs.
This is one of the best implementations of a board/card game in app form we have played. We remember buying the expansion bundle years ago, and we feel it may not have transferred the transaction to our newest iPad, but Im not 100% certain of that If so, Id dock it a star, but we really cant remember. If youre a deck-building fan, or you like the DC Comics deck-builder, definitely give this a look. Ive played this for conservatively 200+ hours over the years.
Different than MTG or Hearthstone. We downloaded this when it first came out. Then late teens it started becoming glitchy,so we dropped it for a bit.. Just recently decided to put it back on our newer iPad. (Game runs smoothly now!)This game does not get old, nor run out of variations of decks and such. Fun mechanics, games go fairly quick. The AI by no means is easy to defeat! Very engaging. The expansion packs are also a nice touch.
Ive never played this for multiplayer. However, in single player it is enjoyable and challenging. We play it frequently. We own all the expansions and while some are superior to others, they all offer a fair amount of variety to keep it interesting. Some items for improvement: Theres a monster in the Dreamscape expansion costing 5 that is supposed to eliminate half of opponents constructs upon defeat. Occasionally this effect does not happen, we think the first time. It would be great if they could fix that. It would be good if, upon game completion, if you could go back to look at the board, what constructs were out, etc. Sometimes an enemy will finish the last turn with a surprise move and you just want to confirm what happened. Some other games (7 Wonders, Ticket to Ride) allow for this.
The best Deckbuilding card game ever made. Some of the expansions are hit or miss, but you can easily mix and match based on the gameplay you want. The starter set and 1st expac alone is still good over a decade later.
Even though we lose every time, its fun and fairly easy to pick up.
Our family doesnt like this game, but it is our favorite! So we were thrilled to find this app version. We can play at anytime! Our two suggestions to the app developers: 1) Make it possible to increase the point pool when playing with two or more expansions combined. 2) Add the Pirate expansion! We know itll be more difficult to do because of the ships and the kracken. But we would seriously pay any $ amount for it.
This is the only game we play on our phone. Needless to say, we play it a lot. The newest update cutting the cards in half is the first time in years of playing the game that we have genuinely thought about putting the game down. Please please fix or at least give an option to use the old display style. We greatly enjoy the game but not seeing the full card in our hand definitely affects the play of the game and at least for us, our enjoyment of it. Thank you for your time.
We love love love this game and have had at least 6 games going at a time since the initial release. However, this weeks update totally messed up the display on iOS at least. PLEASE fix this; it makes the game much less playable.
Good game fun need more stairs online game only increase stairs offline.
2,825 gems, 1,465 damage gems, 1,069 dream points, 7,940 stars, and then it froze.
If you want to change the brightness or volume while youre in an online game, make sure you have enough time to wait for the server to log you back in afterwards. Even just an accidental hint of pull-up/down menu action will boot you from the server. Super annoying.
Add increase honor to online mode. A friend and we wish to play longer games.
Certainly a good alternative to the hard copy game but just wish it were labeled more especially the settings.
While we do appreciate the cards being bigger, the layout now feels more squished together.
We open up the app today and wanted to play off-line game and we saw the card cut in half we cant see the hole card ! Please fix.
Ive played hundreds of games of Ascension in the past but after opening it up recently for the first time in years we noticed that the app feels super sluggish. It also makes us log in every time when playing games online. It saves our password but makes us go through the login screen and hit the button. It never used to do that for years and years. IPhone 14, iOS 17.3.1.
Fun game, but we always feel like the game ends right as its really getting good. It couldnt take more than a single line of code to let us increase the point limit, and it would give us much more flexibility in our games. If youre worried about balance you could limit it to local or AI games. This is our most desired feature, devs get on it.
6 years later and they still have not fixed the bug where the game becomes super sluggish if the computer gets certain cards or hand combos.
Why can we increase honor pool only in offline mode? Please make this available in online mode, others can choose to accept a game or not. Game just starts getting good and its over.
We like this game, and we still play it on the app, but some stuff here is just horrible design choice. Why does it take five seconds for cards to scroll across the screen when abilities trigger? Why cant we turn off the motion, considering the fast option is sluggish? Why is the button to look at our constructs so tiny? Why cant you auto-tap cultists when you have a hundred power stored up? Just a lot of small things that add up to an unpleasant experience.
Not a bad game, but now were just waiting for them to fix the bad update.
Over the last four years, we have purchased every expansion for ourselves and another player. Recently, we got a new phone, and reached out when we could not pull up to the games that we have on going with other players. Imagine our surprise one on our old phone, the other player in the family had all of the decks, again on a phone that they did not use, and on our new phone, at least all the decks do not show, even on several gams we have been in for over a year. We reached out and received garbage directions that have not worked for over four attempts. We have made every attempt to reach out to Toby and their customer service who takes about a week to respond, since these are time sensitive games, those games have expired due to this companys lack of critical customer support. All. Decks were purchased for two players, which is more expensive than purchasing the game. Support shouldnt take a month for basic steps, and they know this is an issue, as evidently others have experienced, and reported the same. Waiting to exhale, but we do not expect customer care or product support.
Please give the option to go back to how the layout used to be. It is helpful to be able to read all descriptions of cards in hand at once. IPhone XR everything is zoomed in to just being artwork in hand, discard pile, etc. When looking at our hand we like to be able to see all descriptions at once. It was easy to see which cards had abilities like draw a card, banish, unite, etc just because the descriptions in cards are laid out in generally the same way. We have a constant 40+ active games and this will make that impossible to continue. :( Please give an optional to go back to old layout. RIP.
Huge fan of this game and from a UX standpoint should be the template for how these games are designed on mobile. We own every expansion and in terms of hours used this is far and above any other game on our phone. Our only request is to have an option to auto destroy as many cultists as possible when you only have attack power left but no enemies on the board to kill. Having to click the cultist then kill a bunch of times slows gameplay down when youre in your flowstate. Otherwise amazing game. Keep making digital expansions. Ill keep buying them.
We own the physical copy of this game and we play them both. Wife and we enjoy mobile edition especially on the go! Very nice of the creators to give us some expansion packs for free. Thanks guys great job.
This is our fav deck building game. We love the app and the different expansions. Id like to see a stats record for offline play against AI. Or maybe more specific Win/Loss stats for each expansion you play. For example, if you select 4 expansions to play against AI or online opponent, you can see you specific WIn/Loss for that expansion. Overall great app. Just needs a little more stats.
Our wife bought us the physical Acension game this past Christmas. We played it together and we loved it. Reminded us a lot of D.C., but with their own twist. We came across the app version of Acension while at work (a boring day) and decided to download it. Within a day of playing this awesome game/app, we bought all the expansions and everything for 20 bucks! Now Im playing this non-stop! We love it. The only thing that we wish they would change or add feature wise, is the ability to increase the honor pool past 240. We feel like it really limits your time to enjoy the combinations of playing different expansions and getting through all the cards. If possible, make the honor pool less restrictive so that way players really have a chance to build a crazy deck when playing several expansions at once. One final note! Im looking forward to other Ascension expansions being added to the app. Keep up the awesome work.
Ascension is a fun deck building game and this is a wonderful adaptation of it. We usually judge digital table top games by how smooth the game makes it to just play a lot, and this app excels at making games go smoothly and quickly. Ive played literally more than 1000 games in this app in the years that Ive had it, and as long as they keep bringing new card sets to the game as IAP we will keep playing.
Absolutely love Ascension. One of our all time favorite deck building games. To us, its second to Resident Evil Deck Building game, and thats it. Now; we will say, we had to give it 4 stars instead of 5 just because the sole fact that you cant increase the star count for a PvP match beyond the limit now. We can play a 240 star match against a computer, but only a 120 against friends. Change that PLEASE. Us and our buddies love playing the game and would absolutely love longer games.
We like this game and we would like to play it on our M1 Mac. Please consider upgrade it to support Apple silicon devices. Thanks.
The game is good but could there be a custom game feature to alter the amount of honor that can be won? We know rules are 60 but personally we'd love to up that number to 120 or higher. At least implement that feature into the custom games.
We bought this on a whim and it is now a game we love immensely. Occasionally you can play a card that accidentally banishes something and there is NO UNDO!! THIS CAN WRECK YOUR STRATEGY Sadly it is pricey to buy the expansions on the iOS store and while we have bought all of the add-ons on STEAM for our Macs and Windows systems, we can only play the basic game on our iPad. DEVELOPERS: any way to transfer steam purchases over? Alternatively please intro some bundles as right now there isnt much incentive to get the additional packs especially for those of us earning in Developing nations. Steam had the benefit of offering deals in our local currencies which makes these things much ore affordable. Great game though.
Please update for the new resolution.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 2.5.2.523
- Size: 1,237.20 MB
- iOS: 13.0 or later
- Languages: EN
- Content Advisory: Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence, Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
- Developer: Playdek, Inc.
Last updated: 20th November 2025 | Genre: Board, Card | Developer: Playdek, Inc.