My first introduction to tabletop games was through 2 player card games like Magic the Gathering and Pokemon TCG. The relationships here at Gaming With Sidekicks were forged playing Dice Masters, yet another 2 player competitive game. If I see a card game like this, it has to have something unique to really hook me. Let’s look at Paragon: Trials of the Chosen. Their tag line is “Make your own luck.” Paragon boasts gameplay where all luck-based mechanics have been removed. There’s a lot to this game that sets it apart from others in this very competitive genre. Let’s get to it.
Paragon: Trials of the Chosen
Publisher: Midwinter Mages
Designers: Ryan Hall & Adam Testerman
Gameplay
Paragon takes some familiar mechanics and features from other popular games, as well as breaking the mold with their own spin on things. First, as mentioned above, the lack of randomization. As you are building your deck you will choose 20 unique cards and decide on their order in the deck. You will start with a hand of 4 cards. At the start of each new round you will draw a new card. There are some card effects and abilities that allow for more drawing. If there’s a great combo you want in your opening hand, you can guarantee it every time. This lets players do cool and rewarding things more often. This is a simple concept, but telling players, “yes, do the thing” instead of “no, you can’t do the thing” is a big part of what makes a game fun. Paragon does this well.
The next important part of the game is your Avatars. Each Avatar has a discipline, or energy type. Chronomancy, Pyromancy, Chivalry, Demonology, and Shadow, are just a few of the disciplines available. You will choose two Avatars. Their disciplines will determine which cards you have access to. These two Avatars will start the game in play, and you win by defeating both of your opponent’s Avatars. It’s like a fantasy tag-team match.
The card anatomy is very simple and the designers have done a great job of not trying to clutter it up with too much information. In the upper, left-hand corner, each Avatar has their attack value and HP. Each Avatar also has two abilities that can be used during gameplay. Other cards follow this same format with energy cost, attack power, and health listed on the top left. The card’s effect is laid out clearly under the card’s image. There are keywords and icons to familiarize yourself with, but all of them are very clearly laid out in the rulebook.
Similar to other popular game (Hearthstone comes to mind), players have access to energy equal to the current round number. This energy can be used to pay for cards from your hand. There are some effects that can gain you energy as well. Some equipment or abilities can do this, but also you have the option to “channel energy” on your turn, which gains you an energy by simply exhausting an Avatar.
The other standout feature of Paragon is the fast-paced gameplay. At the start of a round, one player will take a single action. This can be playing a card from their hand, activating an ability, or attacking. After that single action, it is the next player’s turn to take a single action. Players go back and forth taking one action at a time. A player may pass if they do not wish to take an action. If both players choose to pass, the round is over. A player can pass, and then take another action when the turn comes back to them as long as their opponent did not pass as well.
Once both players have passed, the round ends. All energy pools are reduced to zero, all cards in play become ready, players each draw a card and refill their energy pools with energy equal to the current game round. The player who passed first in the previous round will go first. The designers joked that the only randomization in the whole game is deciding who will go first in the first round. Unless you decide by playing Rock, Paper, Scissors because there is some strategy involved in that.
For me, the thing that puts this game design over the edge is the Avatar’s abilities for when they are defeated, or fallen. If an Avatar is fallen the card is flipped over. Each Avatar has a unique ability or effect that the player now has access to. These are REALLY good, game-changing effects. In the image, we have Ezragor. I have his regular and fallen sides for comparison. For instance, when Sir Aren is fallen, his ability ready “Once per game: This card is a 5 attack, 5 HP Two-Handed Weapon with Quick; equip it to target Avatar.” Rendar’s ability allows you to give your remaining Avatar +6 attack power at instant speed. Things like that can help even the odds instantly, and can deter players from focusing on a single Avatar. Ideally, you’ll probably want to knock out your opponent’s Avatars on the same turn to keep them from being able to utilize those knock out abilities.
Theme
Paragon: Trials of the Chosen is set in its own universe. There are 8 different disciplines: Shadow, Chivalry, Divinity, Chronomancy, Pyromancy, Brutality, Marksmanship, and Demonology. There are 8 Avatars, each one utilizing one of these disciplines. There are 8 additional Avatars that have access to two different disciplines. However, all of these dual-discipline Avatars begin the game with less HP. So, there is a trade-off.
I love that everything revolves around the Avatars. All equipment or ability cards are attached to specific Avatars. When it comes to equipment, you have weapons, armor, and accessories. You can have up to two hands worth of weapons, as each weapon is labeled as one-handed or two-handed. You can only have 1 armor and one accessory as well. If you play a card that you cannot equip, you can unequip a current card, discard it, and equip the new one. This presents an additional level of strategy. Maybe I will put my second armor card 7 or 8 cards down in my deck, anticipating when my opponent might get rid of the first one I had in my opening hand.
I’ve always liked games that revolve around a character card in play having health determining the end of the game. There’s some kind of disconnect for me if I am the one with health that needs reduced to zero, like in Magic. I don’t want to be a part of the game. I am playing with cards that are in the game. This is a personal preference of mine that just happens to line up with the direction of this game.
As far as the universe that Paragon is set in, I would like to see some sort of larger story put on display. I want to know if there are relationships or rivalries between some of these Avatars. I know this hasn’t even funded yet, but if there is another set after Trials of the Chosen, I’d like to see how some of the Avatars change disciplines from one set to another. Or maybe if there is a powerful weapon in Trials of the Chosen, have that that weapon broken in the next set, or a smaller weapon forged from its pieces.
And I have to talk about the artwork here. This art is beautiful and can definitely stand up against anything else in this genre. I think my favorite artwork on an Avatar card is Elan’co, Last of Her Kind. This card is dripping with theme. First, her subtitle, “Last of Her Kind”, combined with her flavor text of “In and out of time – for the memories I’ve lost.” Gives you a sense of loneliness and hopelessness. And then we see her art. The look on her face is somber, but her eyes are focused on something that we can’t see. The edges of her body are hidden by smoke, keeping mystery about her. She comes off as a loner, but not in an angsty, edgy kind of way. She is sad. The artwork, subtitle, and flavor text all enhance each other. That is the kind of theme that is found in Paragon. Small details are intentional and well executed. Special shout out to all of the artists: Natalie Bernard, Matt Forsyth, Stephanie Gustafsson, Nathanael Mortensen, and Olga Volkova (and potentially more since I’m only playing an unfinished prototype). You guys are making this game look great.
For Parents
I set this game up and had my 8 and 7 year old boys play each other. I just helped them figure out the card anatomy, turn order, etc. I helped with what I thought were good strategies, but tried to remain hands off and let them navigate it themselves. They both really enjoyed it. One son really focused on eliminating all equipment or abilities that the other played, while the other focused on trying to deal damage directly to the opposing Avatars. It wasn’t flawless strategy, but they followed the rules, had fun, and will improve for next time. How well they played it really exceeded my expectations. (The 7 year old won in the 10th round.)
Set up time is quick, IF you already have your decks put together. If you’re changing up the order of decks it could take longer. But that’s part of the fun in this game. So yes, it is considered set-up time, making those choices is an important part of strategy that you can’t really rush through. I enjoy putting decks together, so considering the order of some card is very enjoyable to me.
Final Thoughts
Paragon: Trials of the Chosen takes some familiar mechanics and themes while introducing new features to have a completely unique and fun gaming experience. There are so many options for decks right out of the box. You get 216 cards, 16 of those are Avatars. So, that leaves 200 cards for building decks, with each deck having 20 cards. That is a lot of possibilities. That kind of variability is huge for me, and is a big selling point for the game.
One downside with completely taking the randomization out of the game, is that if one player out strategizes another, the game can feel a little one sided. When chatting with the game designers, they suggested playing a best of 3. In between each round, instead of using a sideboard like other games of this nature, you can simply reorganize cards in your deck. I really like this idea and after playing a few games I would highly recommend it.
If you want a 2-player card game with fast paced gameplay and a focus on strategy over relying on luck, Paragon: Trials of the Chosen is one to check out. The amount of options out of the box can keep it coming back to the table with new decks and constantly changing strategies.
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November 2020 Update: Paragon is ready to follow up their first Kickstarter campaign with a new and improved approach. There were some aspects of the game that are now streamlined. There were two different types of energy, and now there is only one. There are a few new keywords as well just cleaning up the terminology in general. Outside of the game, the new campaign has a lower funding goal. So, if you looked at Paragon the first time around, be sure to check it out again. It’s only gotten better.
Here is the link to the Paragon: Trials of the Chosen Kickstarter campaign!
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