Etherlords II Card duels, five campaigns

Instead of shuffling numbers on a table, your creatures take the field and fight in turn-based combat, spell by spell and move by move. Hundreds of spells and creatures combine into nearly unlimited tactical possibilities, and the four races play differently: one floods the field with bodies, another burns everything down with raw attack magic, a third stalls and disrupts until you overextend. One duel can hinge on a single well-timed spell, and losing usually means the answer was a different deck, not a different dice roll.

The singleplayer side is a proper role-playing journey: five campaigns across a fantasy world, each with its own setting and story. Between duels you grow your hero with new spells, creatures and abilities, and missions are non-linear, with multiple paths to completion. Opponents come with decks built for their ground, so part of the game is reading the situation and rebuilding your own deck to answer it. The music carries the mood well, especially late in the game, and a thorough tutorial teaches both the basics and advanced dueling tactics, so the learning curve is friendly even if the game is old.