Each year, our precious Sorcerer City districts must be rebuilt in new, exciting, and ever-changing ways. This is why we call to you, wizard architects. You will be responsible for rebuilding the same city district over 5 years, constantly improving it, to gain the most influence, gold, raw magic, and, of course, prestige. Beware Sorcerer City’s monsters, however, as they only seek to get in your way and perhaps even destroy all you’ve worked so hard to build. Which of you wizards will be the best architect? It’s time to find out. Good luck!

What Is It?

A real-time part deck-building, part tile laying game for 1 to 6 wizard architects. Played over 5 years (rounds), players will simultaneously reveal tiles from their decks 1 by 1, placing them into their city as they do so. Some tiles just have colors on them, while others are goal tiles which will help players create earn 4 different types of resources, which will steer them on the path toward victory. Rounds are timed so players must work quickly and try to get as many helpful tiles into their city as possible to score more resources and points.

Between rounds, players will also acquire new tiles from the market to aid them on their quest to build the best city. These tiles may provide more goals to score, future discounts, wild colors, and more. Unfortunately, players will also attract monsters into their deck which will act as hindrances in future rounds. Thus, players must manage their tile decks round to round and try to handle their monsters while still being able to build great chains to accomplish their goals!

Who Is It For?

The game box says ages 14+, which I think is pretty accurate. The game is pretty fast-paced and players need to adapt quickly. There is also a fair amount of strategy in what tiles to buy, how to attempt to build your city, and what resources to focus on when, so younger audiences may get overwhelmed.

I think that fans of deck building will enjoy this twist on the mechanic, and fans of tile laying games will like the ability to combo their tiles together as they lay down goals, abilities, and more.

I would also recommend this at 3+ players just because at only 2 I don’t love the mystery player, nor how influence rewards are distributed (which I’ll detail in a bit), but it’s still not bad at 1 or 2 either. But, do keep in mind that it is a bit of a table hog, so if you’ll be playing with more people, make sure you have enough room!

Contents + Quality

Overall, I have to say that this game has an awesome table presence, and while the components are mostly cardboard, it’s really a gorgeous game.

Tiles/Cards/Prestige Tokens – All the cardboard and cards are nice quality. Everything seems plenty sturdy and long lasting. The cards don’t get handled much, but it wouldn’t hurt to sleeve them since you always need to shuffle them quick at the beginning of a new game.

Boards – The market, influence, and player progress tracks are also nice, sturdy quality.

Sand Timer – Average sand timer, it lasts almost exactly 2 minutes. There is also a free app available which lets players choose a difficulty level which changes the timer to 1, 2, or 3 minutes for building cities.

Rules – The rules are super detailed and offer good examples as well as descriptions of certain tiles and the influence cards to help with any questions players may have. There are a handful of typos which were a little confusing, but luckily there is a helpful errata on BGG to help sort through those.

Insert/Box – This box is massive. We store most of our games horizontally, but it’s hard to get off the shelf sitting like that. But, the size makes sense because there’s a lot of components. The insert is nice, but the top plastic piece can be annoying because you have to slide it over everything and if something is even slightly out of place, it gets stuck

Variants

Solo – If you want to try this on your own, there is a cool single player mode. You’ll compete for influence against 2 mystery players and each round monster tiles will flood the market, giving you a possible way to instantly lose the game. At the end your score will determine your Wizard Rank!

2 Player – For a 2 player game you need to use 1 mystery player to compete for influence against.

Artifacts – At the beginning of the game, each player is dealt 2 artifacts and chooses one to add to their starting deck. They have unique abilities to start players off with once you’re comfortable and want to have more than just the basic tiles.

PROS

  • Fast-paced and exciting
  • Mechanics are easy to pick up on
  • Nice table presence/aesthetically appealing
  • There’s a lot of market tiles for variability game to game
  • The player with the least prestige each round gets a free tile from the market which is a cool catch-up mechanic
  • You can combo tiles in your deck really well if you purchase wisely which is so satisfying
  • Different monsters are cool for variability and add to the strategy as they come out

CONS

  • In a 2 player game, the mystery player didn’t seem to be challenging enough. So it was super easy for both players to collect the prestige  bonus every round, and really only compete in the last one where only 1st place is awarded it. It just made influence seem a little less valuable for most of the game
  • Table hog, so it can be hard to play with a full player count
  • Influence reward cards often didn’t seem powerful enough; it always felt better to take the prestige bonus if you could only choose one since points is how you ultimately win

Final Thoughts

This game is super cool, and I really enjoyed playing it. Even though the 2 player game isn’t perfect, from the plays I’ve had so far, it still works and I will still play it at 2 easily, because it’s definitely fun.

I think with the amount of tile variety that there is every game will be pretty different, which is great, and lets players really vary their strategy. I do wish there were a few more monsters since 2 of each tier are used every game, but there’s still a good amount of variety with how many there are.

I would also say this is better suited for experienced gamers, rather than families or beginners, because there is a lot of options and also because of the timing element.

Overall, a ton of fun, and I have to highly recommend this one.

My Final Ratings
Overall Game: 9/10
Aesthetics: 8/10
Difficulty: 5/10
Replayability: 8/10

Additional Information:
Designer –  Scott Caputo
Artists –  Noah Adelman, Lina Cossette, David Kegg, Damien Mammoliti
Publishers – Druid City Games, Skybound Games
MSRP – $60.00
BGG
BGA
Website

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

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