I’m a fan of Minerva and Hisashi Hayashi. He has designed many innovative, and clever games.
I have the bilingual edition of Minerva, and find that it has many cool combos that you can try to exploit. Even the solitaire variant is fun, although it’s just a beat your own high score solitaire game.
boardgamegeek.com – Hisashi Hayashi | Board Game Designer | BoardGameGeek