Summoner Wars: Master Set

EvEvanstar5.9

This gives me everything I've ever wanted out of Magic cards but in a non-collectable format. When I was a magic junkie, I used to imagine in my head my army of creatures maneuvering around my opponent's defenses and barriers. Summoner wars comes one step closer to visualizing that thanks to the card grid, where you actually ARE maneuvering around your opponent's defenses. It's almost a miniatures game in terms of it's tactical aspect, but unlike a miniatures game, these cards allow for simple yet complicated abilities that you and your opponent can see right in front of you. As much as I love Heroscape, there are times I don't even worry about the abilities of my opponent's guys just because I'm too impatient to have them read out the card to me from the other end of the table unless it's super relevant to the current combat. There are cool addon packs that add a minor deckbuilding aspect to the game, which are a great idea, but each time I tinker with the deck I feel like I'm making it less effective than it was out of the box. I will say it uses dice for combat, which brings along the sort of randomness that can end your game even if you make every choice correctly. On the whole I don't like using dice in games, but I've learned to allow myself to not be upset when they ruin the best laid plans in these sorts of games. :star: Art, Iconography and components functional :star: Clever or interesting mechanisms :star: Reasonably low downtime between turns with mildly AP players :star: Multiple plays stay interesting :nostar: Low or mitigatable luck elements :star::star::star::nostar::nostar: Raw enjoyment