Top Tier

• Designer:  Amar Dzomba, Dom Korzecke, Tyler O’Tsuji
• Publisher: Indie Board and Cards 
• Players: 4-10
• Age: 10+
• Time: 30 min
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4hnfrwY
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Top Tier is a light party game based on the internet phenomenon of tier lists. Each round, one player will be the Tier Wizard, and secretly draw a category card from the deck. This will be the category they are ranking all the contenders in for this round –anywhere from who would be best at fighting a bear to who would have the most unread emails in their inbox! Without knowing the category, the remaining players will pick 8 contenders for the round. These can be characters, celebrities, or even personal friends. The Tier Wizard must rank the contenders by how good they’d be in the category, and once they’re done the category is revealed, but not their rankings! The rest of the players must do their best to rank the 8 contenders the same way the Tier Wizard did, scoring points for every card placed correctly! If you can get all eight contenders right, you’ll truly be Top Tier!

So this is the point in my reviews where I usually go over the game mechanics; but man, the little blurb from the publisher above pretty much encapsulates what you do.  The round is scored based on how many answers out of 8 you got in the right tier.  But, honestly, the game doesn’t even really offer you any way to judge how you did.  It also suggests a endpoint to the game, but it’s pretty loose about that… Just play as long as you’re having fun.

And, in that sense, the game was fun to play a few rounds.  We had some laughs and learned a few things about our friends.  We also had a few spirited arguments over a few placements.

I’ve played the game in a few different settings – and at least for me, the game is super crowd dependent.  I really liked playing the game with people that I knew well; because I knew everyone in the game, I had a lot of personal knowledge of their likes/dislikes, and I was able to use that information to help rank my choices.

I played at a game night with a few other Opinionated Gamers – people that I chat with periodically online and/or see at conventions; and Top Tier was fun in that setting because I was able to learn a lot about folks I was familiar with.  I also was familiar enough with them that I felt like I could make some intelligent guesses about how they would rank things.

I also tried playing this at a local game store with randos, and well, the game didn’t work for me at all in that setting.  With none of the gamers knowing anyone else, it felt more like a guessing game at what “Joe Gamer” would answer, and the game lost its personal touch.  I guess that everyone still enjoyed the game when played with strangers, but it really didn’t engender any passion.  If you’re in the mood for a party game, this is a fun one to try.  Just find a good group to play it with!

Thoughts from other Opinionated Gamers

Steph H: Decently fun. I both dislike and enjoy that you have to write in your own answers, but I don’t see a time when I wouldn’t choose Robin Williams as one of the options. I kind of wish they included a deck of cards already made.

Until your next appointment,

The Gaming Doctor

Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4hnfrwY