Mystic Vale Review

Who are you?
I am you, but more colorful, more dynamic, younger. And also transparent.
Pay what?

Dominion started the kava-making genre, which quickly exploded in many different directions. The blog has already reviewed the "bag building" game Orleans , which replaced cards with cubes and coffee with a bag. The developer John D. Clair (the author of the already discussed game Space Base ) in turn went in the direction of Inception and created a card building game, moreover, making it visually so elegant that it is difficult to talk about mechanics and appearance separately - in this game, these dimensions are inseparable.

Mystic Vale is played by 2 to 4 (with the Conclave expansion - up to 6) players, each representing their own druid clan, trying to stop the spread of evil, the flourishing of the forest, and just a little bit to prove that while all druids are equally druids, some are better. .

Each clan plays with a deck of 20 cards, some of which give “mana” (game currency), some introduce a dead tree into the forest (and bring the end of the turn closer), and many do nothing…

Pay what?

That's right - each player starts the game with 20 cards, each of which has 3 slots for various amulets and spells, but at the beginning only 12 cards have one element each, and during the game these same 20 cards can be supplemented with new abilities, creating a compact, dynamic engine .

Continuing on the elegant solutions - the limit of the duration of the move is the dead trees on the player's field. The player takes the cards one by one and counts the trees; when there are more than 3, the player's field is destroyed and the turn is spent. But dead trees can be canceled out by cards with flourishing trees, so if at the beginning most of the moves consist of 2 or 3 cards, then it is possible to put almost or all 20 in the end game, making real "power moves".

Therefore, the game is dynamic throughout - at the beginning all the moves are short and simple, while at the end of the game you can fill in the long moves of other players by revealing your field and calculating which of the trees cancels which of the others.

To refresh "money can buy more money, and a lot of money can buy victory points", three currencies coexist very dynamically in this game - "mana", which can be used to improve cards, amulets (paw, leaf, sun, etc.) that used to buy stronger cards (which don't take part in the 20 card cycle, but work all the time, like +1 eternal mana or +1 any symbol, etc.) and helmets that add power to certain cards, like each helmet gives one flourishing tree , or each helmet gives one paw amulet, as well as all sorts of combinations of such inserts.

Another similarity with Dominion is the great expansion of the game - the game released in 2016 already has 6 expansions and at least two more expected this year. In our group, the basic game is played with one expansion, and anyway, we have already accumulated 40 played games without the slightest signs of boredom, rather, on the contrary - this is one of the most requested games every time.

You can buy the game in Brain Games stores on the 1st floor of Rīga Plaza or K. Barona Street 55, or in the online store: Mystic Vale

Board Game Geek rating: 7.3

Author: Karl Bergmanis

Pictures from personal archive and Board Game Geek