Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game supplants Sky Team at top of monthly new owner rankings

Co-operative card game The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game has claimed the most new owners adding it to their collections on BoardGameGeek for February, supplanting 2024 Spiel des Jahres winner Sky Team just a few weeks after its release.

The new trick taker from Asmodee North America’s developmental studio Office Dog had unseated Sky Team from the top of the weekly new owner charts towards the end of January, and held that title for five weeks before it was outstripped by SETI at the end of last month.

That popularity translated to more than 2,740 BGG users adding the game to their collection in February, leaving it in first place for new owners above evergreen favourite Carcassonne, which added about 2,600, according to data collected by BGG user and data visualiser Igor Larchenko.

SETI was third in the February rankings with about 2,500 new owners, continuing its strong showing since picking up heavy interest at the Spiel Essen board game fair in October last year.

Finspan, the final title in Stonemaier Games’ bestselling Wingspan trilogy, finished fourth in February with just under 2,200 new owners, while Sky Team fell to fifth place by adding about 2,080.

The top 10 was rounded out by Harmonies, The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle Earth, The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition, Azul and Wingspan, giving board game publishing major Asmodee four of the top ten spots.

The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game‘s surge to the top of the monthly BGG new owner charts follows several years of growing interest in trick taking games, in the wake of the success of The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine and its successor The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, and the growing influx of interesting trick taking games such as Cat in the Box making their way over from Japan.

Bryan Bornmueller’s design sees players work together to play out the adventure from the first volume of The Lord of the Rings, with each taking on the roles of different characters such as Frodo and Gandalf with unique conditions that must be met to advance the story.

Developer Taylor Reiner, who also runs the YouTube channel Taylor’s Trick-Taking Table, has confirmed that work has been under way on follow-up titles covering the remaining Lord of the Rings volumes, The Two Towers and The Return of The King.

Igor Larchenko‘s data also examines the number of games added to BoardGameGeek users’ wishlists over the course of each month, with Ostia from Japanese publisher Uchibacoya coming top in February with 733 new additions.

That total put the mancala-based euro just above Moon Colony Bloodbath – a new engine builder from Dominion designer Donald Vaccarino – and third placed Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, published by Far Off Games.

Wondrous Creatures, Harmonies, Endeavor: Deep Sea, SETI and Slay The Spire: The Board Game made up the next five slots, with each putting on between 300 and 500 new owners.

BGG new owners Feb 2025

+2743 The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game (2024)
+2601 Carcassonne (2000)
+2512 SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (2024)
+2185 Finspan (2025)
+2078 Sky Team (2023)
+2030 Harmonies (2024)
+1804 The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-earth (2024)
+1582 The Castles of Burgundy: Special Edition (2023)
+1502 Azul (2017)
+1486 Wingspan (2019)