The 10x10 challenge — playing 10 games 10 times each in a year — produces genuine insight into a game's depth that single plays cannot. Games I have done this with: Wingspan, Root, Brass Birmingham, Ark Nova.

Wingspan 10x10: the game revealed a much deeper synergy space than I appreciated at first. Cards I ignored in early plays became centerpieces of later strategies. The bird-specific combos are more varied than the card count suggests.

Root 10x10: the game fundamentally changed after play 5. Before that, I was learning faction mechanics. After, I was reading the table and making political decisions based on threat assessment. The game is almost different on either side of that threshold.

Brass Birmingham 10x10: the card economy becomes intuitive by play 7 in a way that feels like fluency. You stop calculating and start reading the board.