Shelf of Opportunity – Jan. ’23 Update

There’s a great quote from Peter Le Fleur (said with a ridiculous flourish) from the movie, Dodgeball – “ I found that if you have a goal, that you might not reach it. But if you don’t have one, then you are never disappointed. And I gotta tell ya… it feels phenomenal.” I always laugh when I hear this, or the similar one from Mary Jane Watson in the new Spider-Man Marvel movies. Not that I feel phenomenal, or disappointed, but I definitely didn’t get as many games played in January as I would have hoped for. Now, there was a work trip, a family vacation, my mother passed away in the middle of those, and we had a week of additional travel for the service for my mom and to see family, so it was an absolutely insane month. We got a lot of plays of some “gathering” games like Skull King, Cover your Assets, and Green Team Wins, but I only got one game knocked off of the SoO list (while adding a few that arrived via Kickstarter!). With that said, I am thrilled to report that the game played was a HUGE HIT!

Splendor: Duel

Designer: Marc André and Bruno Cathala. Artist: Davide Tosello. Publisher: Space Cowboy. Player Count: 2. 30 Minutes. Age: 10+. BGG Rating: 8.0/10. BGG Weight: 1.95/5.

I’ve played Splendor quite a few times, and to be honest, I have kinda moved on from it and would rather play Century: Spice Road if given the option. Even so, I wanted to give this two-player variant a chance because of the success of Splendor and since I heard it was a different game and not just tweaked to “work” for two players.

Overview

The game will look very similar to veterans of Splendor. You have gems that you will draft to purchase Jewel Cards that grant you permanent gems to spend along with potential victory points. Jewel Cards come in three different levels which become more expensive and granting more rewards as you get to level three. New in the game are the Privilege Scrolls which grant the owner the ability to draft an additional gem (not Gold) before the start of your turn. The game ends when one player achieves one of the three end game conditions.

Gameplay

Players take turns taking one of three mandatory actions:

Take up to 3 gem tokens
Take 1 Gold token and reserve 1 Jewel card
Purchase 1 Jewel Card

When taking 3 gem tokens, they must be adjacent to each other in an uninterrupted horizontal, vertical or diagonal line. You are not able to take a Gold token this way.

The only way to take a Gold token is to take it along with reserving a Jewel card. Reserving allows you to draft a card from the display and keep it in your hand. You can use this to either reserve something that you and your opponent may be both going after, or to potentially draft something your opponent needs to disrupt their flow! Cards in your reserve are able to be purchased during a subsequent turn (discussed next). It’s important to note that you can only have 3 cards in your reserve, so be careful how often you use this option!

To purchase a Jewel card, you must have in your tableau the amount of gem tokens and colors required to purchase it. These amounts and types are found at the bottom left of each card. Once purchased, you’ll add them to your tableau and they will give you some or all of the bonuses below:

Permanent gem that you will not have to give back to the supply to spend
Prestige Points
One time instant ability
Crowns

Eventually, the gem supply board will become depleted, or you will want to refill it because your choices become extremely limiting. When this happens, you may choose (or may have to if you run out of gems) to refill the board. The player that does this replenishes the board as an optional action at the beginning of their turn, and then gets to take their turn. The other player is rewarded with a Prestige Scroll.

Crowns are bonuses that are on some of the Jewel cards. Once you have acquired 3 of them, you are able to take one of the four Royal cards which grant you Prestige points and an instant ability. You can acquire one of these cards once you have 3 Crowns and a second once you have 6 Crowns. These are placed to the side of your tableau and the Prestige points count towards your end game total, but are not placed in a gem color column.

Instant Abilities range from taking an additional turn, stealing a gem (not a gold) from your opponent, drafting an additional gem, or taking a Privilege Scroll.

Winning the Game

Players can win the game in one of three ways:

Have 20 or more Prestige points between your Jewel cards and Royal cards
Have 10 Crowns
Have 10 or more Prestige points on gem cards of the same color

Impressions

Rachel and I love this game. It’s quick to setup, rules are quite simple, doesn’t take up a lot of the table (as you can see, we are playing at a board game/video game restaurant) and there is a good level of strategy and decision making to be made! For me, it instantly replaces 7 Wonders: Duel in our two player lineup because of its ease of setup and similar drafting structure. We loved the decision making and posturing that took place when it got close to needing to restock the gem supply, which felt very similar to when you’re playing Azul and trying to limit what is being put into the middle.

At first I didn’t pay any attention to what Rachel was doing or drafting, but as the game played on, trying to balance doing what I needed to do while also trying to disrupt her needs/wants because necessary and was a great “game within the game” for me!

Overall, I would highly recommend Splendor: Duel to any couple or duo that is looking for an easy to setup and fun to play game for any occasion!

-Stuart