The Best Games For Two Players

Every year, Board Game Geek user Ira Perkins conducts a poll to determine the favorite two-player game. This is not limited to games that play ONLY at two people but games that play at many different counts but still do it well at just two.

For the second year in a row, 7 Wonders: Duel has taken the prize followed by Patchwork (up two spots), Wingspan (same as last year), The Castles of Burgundy (down two) and Azul (up five). To see the whole tally, go to Ira’s geek list which includes the top 200.

I thought it would be interesting to see what the Board Game Geek users, overall, thought was the BEST two player game based on their extensive ranking of over 20,000 games. To do this, I looked at two things, the ranked list of the top board games and the individual game listings where people have evaluated when a game is “Best”, “Recommended” and “Not Recommended” at the different player counts.

In the example above, which is for Brass: Birmingham, it indicates that the game is at its “best” at 3 and 4 players; however, it is still recommended by 87.4% for two (total of Best and Recommended).

I decided to take a look at the top games in two way, first as those that are truly rated “best” at two and those that “play well” with two (a combination of “best” and “recommended”).

Here is the list of the games that are considered “best” at two players. Every one of these has the highest percentage of votes (the figure in parenthesis) of the possible player counts, and are ranked based on the BGG master list:

1. Ark Nova (69.0%)
2. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion (52.5%)
3. Star Wars: Rebellion (94.6%)
4. War of the Ring: Second Edition (92.9%)
5. Spirit Island (69.4%)
6. Twilight Struggle (93.8%)
7. The Castles of Burgundy (69.0%)
8. 7 Wonders Duel (97.4%)
9. Arkham Horror: The Card Game (75.9%)
10. Marvel Champions: The Card Game (71.0%)
11. Underwater Cities (69.6%)
12. Cascadia (66.9%)
13. Crokinole (73.7%)
14. Paladins of the West Kingdom (74.4%)
15. Android: Netrunner (94.2%)
16. Azul (59.1%)
17. Aeon’s End (78.4%)
18. Race for the Galaxy (69.8%)
19. Grand Austria Hotel (80.0%)
20. Five Tribes (56.2%)
21. Fields of Arle (83.2%)
22. Sleeping Gods (61.7%)
23. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon (60.4%)
24. Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth (56.4%)
25. Patchwork (96.7%)
26. Obsession (62.8%)
27. The Search for Planet X (57.5%)
28. Aeon’s End: War Eternal (71.4%)
29. Res Arcana (68.2%)
30. Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases (70.2%)
31. Watergate (96.4%)
32. Targi (95.9%)
33. Star Realms (94.0%)
34. Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game (89.9%)
35. The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game (74.2%)
36. That’s Pretty Clever (70.5%)
37. War of the Ring (89.8%)
38. Magic: The Gathering (83.2%)
39. Jaipur (94.4%)
40. Memoir ‘44 (92.7%)

Now, here’s a different take on two-player gaming, adding in games that might be deemed better at more than two but are still ranked “best” or “recommended” for a duo of players. In this case, I’ve chosen a threshold at 75% total of “best” and “recommended” which appears to be the approximate cutoff on where those who frequent the two-player Board Game Geek board regularly choose a game to play.

1. Gloomhaven (93%)
2. Brass: Birmingham (87.4%)
3. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (85.9%)
4. Ark Nova (97.1%)
5. Terraforming Mars (88.9%)
6. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion (98.1%)
7. Star Wars: Rebellion (99.7%)
8. War of the Ring: Second Edition (99.2%)
9. Spirit Island (99.5%)
10. Gaia Project (91.7%)
11. Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization (93.2%)
12. Great Western Trail (91.8%)
13. Twilight Struggle (99.3%)
14. The Castles of Burgundy (96.9%)
15. Nemesis (75.3%)
16. 7 Wonders Duel (99.7%)
17. Concordia (82.7%)
18. A Fest for Odin (97.4%)
19. Wingspan (94.0%)
20. Arkham Horror: The Card Game (99.1%)
21. Lost Ruins of Arnak (95.4%)
22. Orleans (83.6%)
23. Everdell (94.3%)
24. Viticulture: Essential Edition (89.2%)
25. Mage Knight: The Board Game (97.3%)
26. Food Chain Magnate (80.3%)
27. Marvel Champions: The Card Game (98.9%)
28. Too Many Bones (94.8%)
29. Caverna: The Cave Farmers (86.6%)
30. Agricola (88.6%)
31. Underwater Cities (97.8%)
32. Anachrony (96.1%)
33. Pandemic: Season 2 (85.5%)
34. Mansions of Madness: Second Edition (91.5%)
35. Maracaibo (94.8%)
36. On Mars (92.1%)
37. Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar (89.0%)
38. Cascadia (88.1%)
39. Crokinole (99.5%)
40. Clans of Caledonia (86.9%)

For comparison, Clans of Caledonia, overall, ranks at 55 on the BGG list, meaning there are only 15 games above that are considered less than suitable for two players. Examples would be Twilight Imperium (only 4.4% said it played well at two), Root (a bit higher at 38.5%) and Puerto Rico (51.7%).

The “best” list is, obviously, much more picky with Memoir ‘44 at number 160, leaving 120 games above it that are not considered “best” when played with two.

Either way you look at it, any of the games on either of these lists should be more than satisfying when playing with a spouse, a sibling or a good friend.

For more insight on two-player gaming, join us on the What Couples Have Been Playing BGG Geek List.