As the ruler of a mighty land, it is your responsibility to make it the mightiest one that you can! Can you build the right combination of armies, beasts, artifacts, and more, or will a neighboring kingdom beat you to the punch? There’s only one way to find out!

What Is It?

Hand Management – Players start with 7 cards in hand and have to draw 1 from the deck or the discard pile, and then discard 1 card each turn until there are 10 cards in the discard pile, and the game ends. Cards all have a suit, base strength, and a scoring method and bonus and/or penalty. Players are trying to form the best hand they can, that gives them the best score.

Who Is It For?

  • 2 to 6 Players – Scales well at 3+; I’m not big on the 2 Player variant
  • Ages 10 and up – Small ruleset, quick teach
  • Fans of short card games with a combination of luck and strategy
  • Fans of trying to build a perfect hand of cards to try and have them all trigger off of one another
  • Groups looking for a good filler type game for a wide range of players

Variants

2 Player – Players start with no cards in hand. Each turn they can take 1 from the discard pile, or 2 from the deck, still discarding 1, until they have 7 in hand, then they can only draw 1. I wasn’t huge on this variant. Starting with nothing meant you had to reevaluate more every turn as you got new cards, instead of building off of what you started with. It just felt like a slower burn for the game, and it felt harder to build a hand that worked well together because of how many times you just had to draw at the beginning.

Chaos Realms (3 – 7 players) – Players start with 7 cards and set a time limit for the game (i.e. 5 minutes). Players then openly trade throughout the time limit. It works best with higher player counts, so more cards are seen, but it still isn’t my favorite. It’s a bit unruly (hence the name) and it’s hard to make a decent hand, especially if some players stop trading very early, thinking their hard is good enough. Just doesn’t seem like a game that needed trading.

PROS

  • Aesthetics – Nice art on the cards
  • Quality – Good cards, big score pad
  • Small – Easily portable, and doesn’t need a large play space either
  • Variability – There are so many possible combinations to be made, no 2 games are ever the same
  • Game Flow – Quick turns, smooth/quick play
  • Rules – Clear and well-written

CONS

  • Gameplay isn’t terribly exciting
  • Luck – Your game is dependent on what starts in your hand, what you draw randomly, and what gets discarded by others, and with less players, lots of cards go unseen. There’s some strategy in what you choose to keep versus discard, but when you draw your next card, you might wish you had the one you discarded before, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Sometimes, you just can’t get your cards to work together

Final Thoughts

I thought this game was fine. I like the art and I appreciate the simplicity of play. It’s a decent, quick game to fill out a short amount of time. I just don’t find myself going back to it often. But, if you’re really into trying to make big combos to score points, there might be something here for you!

Additional Information:
My Final Rating – 5/10

Designer – Bruce Glassco
Artists – Anthony Cournoyer, Octographics
Publisher – WizKids
MSRP – $19.99
Website

*I was provided a copy of this game to do this review*

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