The crazy combo-building classic returns
FANTASY REALMS
Designer: Bruce Glassco | Publisher: Wizkids
Give me a standard deck of playing cards and I’ll give you a hundred ways to play with them. Well, not me, but someone could. In the contemporary gaming scene, designers have picked up on this inherent blend of minimalism and flexibility, simultaneously expanding upon and moving away from the basic 52 card deck to create similarly compact but endlessly varied modern tabletop experiences. Some are overwhelmingly vast (Magic: The Gathering), others are wonderfully inventive (Oh My Goods), but the ones of most value to the hobby are those striking that perfect balance of simplicity and depth. Fantasy Realms is one of those games: staggeringly easy to teach with an emergent depth and cleverness that’s sure to beckon most who play it towards the gates of our curious hobby.
Fitting into the sub-genre of ‘draw and discard’ – a term which more or less explains the whole rules – Fantasy Realms casts three to six players (although the rules include an excellent two-player variant) in the roles of mighty rulers, building up their kingdoms one card at a time. By amassing the likes of wizards, beasts, armies, and mountains, players will gradually transform their seven card hands into compact distillations of power, replete with unique synergies varying from game to game.
Originally appearing back in 2017, Fantasy Realms quickly took the hobby by storm with its lightning quick gameplay and ever-so-satisfying combo-building, despite some mostly widespread aversion to its generic theming and art. This new deluxe edition keeps that same snappy gameplay (with some bundled in expansion content) but polishes the overall look with new art, a graphical overhaul, and snazzy custom card sleeves.
The game flows extremely smoothly, with each turn simply requiring players to draw one card and then discard one. Within this barebones framework though, important decisions and hopeful possibilities are aplenty – which accounts for Fantasy Realms seriously addictive replayability. Drawing cards can either be done from the top of the deck or from the discards spread face-up across the table. Each choice has its own ramifications; taking a face-up card gives your opponents’ clues as to what sort of cards may already be in hand, whilst drawing from the deck ultimately results in adding a card to the discards as opposed to merely replacing one. This is important as the growing discard line acts as a rather unreliable timer, with ten cards signalling the final whistle.
Consequently, the discard area behaves like a landscape on a fault-line, suddenly thrusting upwards between moments of calm plateaus.
This novel timer also has its tactical uses, particularly when players happy with their hands exploit the draw deck in an attempt to rush the discards over the finish line. Elsewhere, tactics are reliant on the careful observation of what other players are taking and ensuring your own strategies remain your own – it’s no fun clutching onto a King and a Queen only to realise that someone else at the table is snatching up every Army, essentially sapping away at a bunch of bonus points.
Unlike mounds of chits, tokens, meeples, and minis, there’s nothing immediately threatening about a deck of cards, and subsequently this makes Fantasy Realms a perfect gateway-game. It’s fun, simple, and deep, but on the other hand not cheap. Then again, if you’re looking for a game playable by near enough anyone, or just fancy upgrading a battered old copy, it’s not hard to find value here.
WHAT’S IN THE BOX?
◗ 95 Cards
◗ 100+ Full art card sleeves
◗ Scorepad
CHAD WILKINSON
WE SAY
A modern classic, revamped to entice even more players to the hobby.
TRY THIS IF YOU LIKED LOST CITIES…
A great multiplayer alternative to this Knizia classic.