Tag Team from Scorpion Masque — Review

I take a look at the 2-player game of team combat auto battler.

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Publisher — Scorpion Masque

Designer — Gricha German and Corentin Lebrat

Art Direction — Xavier Gueniffey Durin

Game Type — Auto Battler, Character Focused, Deck Building, Programing, and Two Player

Initial Year of Release — 2025

Age Range — 10+

Expected Playtime — 10 Minutes

Number of Players — 2

Theme and What is it?

Inspired by a combination of Auto End and 80’s fighting games Tag Teams has players taking two fighters, mixing their cards to form a pool, and fighting each other to see which team stands the tallest.

Initial Impressions

Before I’d gotten hands on this game I was looking forward to seeing it. It was on my most anticipated games of GenCon list this year. While I didn’t get to play it at the con, I did watch a full game and was intrigued by how it played out. I filmed an unboxing video for Instagram you can watch here for my first hands on look at the game.

Overall, I was impressed with the art and cardboard components. I was a little leary of the card quality. I ended the unboxing excited to get this one to the table.

Game Mechanics

To start the game you and your opponent will choose two heroes. There are multiple ways to do this, with a suggestion of which teams you should use for your first couple of games.

Once you’ve chosen your team you’ll gather their decks, character board, and any tokens they use. You’ll also place life markers on the top most part of their life track, set aside each hero’s starting card, and shuffle their remaining cards into a single draw deck. You’ll finish set up by following any instruction for your specific fighters in the hero guide book.

The last step you’ll take is to decide how your combat deck is built. Using the two starting cards you’ll place one on top of the other. It is your choice which one is first and which is second. Once you’ve done this you’ll place your deck face down between yourself and your opponent. Once you’re both ready you begin.

Each round you’ll flip the top card of your deck, follow its instructions, and resolve all of its effects, then flip the next card, and repeat until you’ve gone through the entire deck.

After you’ve gone through the deck you’ll draw three cards off of your supply deck, choose one, and add it to your deck. When you add a card to your deck you place it at the point you want to activate it. You never shuffle your deck, it will always play out in the same order changing only when you add new cards.

When you are playing cards, you’ll determine your cards target by looking at the active fighter. This is the character whose card was revealed this turn.

Any damage you do will be based on your character’s power, a resource that can increase as different cards take effect.

You keep playing out this system until one fighter is reduced to zero health and knocked out.

this is the very basic system under which you’ll be playing. There are multiple things that affect this. Each fighter has their own mechanics and rules that get introduced. Milady has scheme tokens that can cause swings to the battle, Shango places flame tokens on his target and if he can place five they’ll be instantly incinerated winning the fight, and Joan has a Divine Voice track that constantly activates building her and her partners power.

Game Build and Quality

I like the cardboard components. They’re nice and sturdy with a good thickness. The rules are well written and clear. The game comes with a nice Fighters Guide that breaks down each character’s set up, rules, and frequently asked questions. All of this is a nice quality.

The cards are fine. They’re a bit thinner than I’d like and don’t have a finish. Since you don’t shuffle them more than once per game it should be fine, but I’m still going to sleeve mine.

Artistic Direction

I really like the art style. It’s reminiscent of 80s fighting games like Street Fighter and Teken. Not the games themselves, but the art on the side of the arcade machines. It hits a lovely bit of nostalgia for me. It makes me happy.

Fun Factor

This is a quick back and forth game where you are trying to outthink your opponent. As you decide where your cards go in your deck you need to remember when your opponent’s big attack happened and think of what card you want to go there, but also remember that they are modifying their deck as well. It’s also a very short game allowing for multiple bouts very quickly.

Age Range and Weight

The box says 10+ and I think that’s pretty good. I don’t know if you want to let younger players use the more complex heroes but they should be able to run the starter and a couple others pretty quickly and without help. The symbols on the card make figuring out what they do pretty quick and easy.

Finish Him!

I like this game. It’s quick, fun, and punchy. The rules are easy to learn and you’ll be leaving the rulebook behind pretty quickly.

The game’s loop of running your deck, adding a card, and running it again is nice and rewarding. It feels good to out think your opponent and get the perfect card to work at the right moment. All of the fighters feel different due to their individual mechanics but will mostly work together. There are a couple that I don’t think play well on the same team, but for the most part they all work in tandem. Milady is probably my favorite with her scheme tokens but I like manipulating the Corrupted Sheriff token with the Wild Bunch as well.

I wish there was a second fighter’s guide and I’d like some extra health tokens so multiple games could be going at once, but I’ve got access to tons of options here.

All in all, this is a great game that’s worth playing. Even if you get completely stomped, the game lasts around ten minutes and can be reset pretty quickly.

It’s even on Board Game Arena if you want to give it a try.

I’m hanging onto this and hoping for more fighters and a future expansion. I’m dropping in at 9/10, but I can see it climbing with experience.

If you’re interested in the game and would like to pick up a copy you can follow this link to Amazon and pick one up for yourself. If you do, it helps us out at Meeple Gamers and we would appreciate it.

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Until next time, stay safe and be well.

Overall Rating — 9/10