Epic: Review

Epic: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Card Game, Head to Head
Player Age: 13+ 

Player Count: 2 - 4 Players

Time to Play: 15 - 30 Minutes 
Game Designer: Robert Dougherty, Darwin Kastle

Game Artist: Kaile Dutton, Vito Gesualdi

Publisher: Wise Wizard Games

Year Published: 2015

BGG Weight: 2.52

Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

Objective:

'Epic' is a head to head game in a similar style of CCG’s (collectable card games) like magic the gathering. However, there is no collectability. You simply shuffle the cards and deal each player a deck of equal amount. There are no useless cards (often referred to common cards in CCG's) when you play this game; every card is epic!

Card Anatomy:

Each card in the game will have an alignment of the four options; evil (red), good (yellow), wild (green), and sage (blue). When cards of the same alignments are played, there are often benefits or abilities that activate. 

Each card will also have a cost on the top right of zero that can be played without a cost and cards that have a cost of one. At the start of every players turn they will have one gold to spend on either their turn or during their opponents turn. This one gold will reset back to a total of one every turn so you cannot stack your gold.

Events:

Events are your spell cards. They can be played on your turn or during an opponents turn. The majority of the events will have two options and when played the player will choose only one of these options to activate. 

Champions:

These are your creatures that will stay on the field. They will have an offence (damage dealt) on the left-hand side; a class in the middle of the card; and the defence (the amount needed to be dealt on one turn for the champion to be destroyed) on the right-hand side.

The majority of champions will have a special keyword that will activate on certain conditions. Some examples are:

- Tribute; when the champion is played an effect occurs. 

- Ambush; the champion can be played at any time an event can be played.

- Ally abilities; trigger when you play a card with the same alignment and costs one gold.

Set up:

There are numerous ways to play including drafting or building pre-constructed decks but for this review I’ll be discussing the basic, easy to set up and play.

- Shuffle the cards and deal each player 30 cards - this is now their deck.

- Each player starts with 30 health.

- Each player draws a five-card hand.

How to Play:

There are two ways to win, to eliminate all your opponents by reducing their health to zero or by needing to draw a card and having no cards left in your deck. There is a crucial part that needs explaining before going into further detail, which is initiative. This determines which player is allowed to play cards (only champions with ambush can be played outside of that players turn).

Start Phase:

At the start of every turn, the active players gold resets to one. Ignoring the first turn, they will also draw one card, prepare any champions (untap), and do any start of turn abilities on their played champions. 

Main Phase:

During the main phase, you are allowed to play any amount of cards and declare any amount of battles that you choose. When this is done you will declare to end your turn. Before your turn actually ends the other players will gain the initiative. If they choose to play a card then you can choose to continue your main phase or end your turn as previously declared. 

Battle Phase:

The battle phase is separated into numerous steps; choose attackers, before blocking, blocking, before damage, and damage.

The basis of these steps is that the attacking player chooses a single champion or creates groups of champions to attack a player. There are some rules to choosing such as the champions are prepared and were not played this turn. These champions will now expend (tap). The defending player will gain the initiative. If they play a card the initiative will go back to the attacking player. If not, the defending player can now choose to block with their prepared champions.

Before damage is dealt, the initiative will pass back and forth starting with the defending player until both players choose not to play any more cards. Each defending and attacking champion(s) will compare their attack (total attack if there is a group) and defence simultaneously. If the enemy's attack exceeds your champions defence then they will break and be placed in your discard pile. The controlling player of a champion will allocate where their attack goes when there is a group of champions defending. If there are no blocking champions then the damage will be done to the defending player directly.

End Phase:

The active player will discard down to seven cards, any end of turn abilities will now occur, and the next player will start their turn.

Final Thoughts:

Pros:

- Multiple ways to play that help to increase the complexity and pre-planning.

- Quick and easy to setup.

- Every card will sway the battle. 

Cons:

- Playing the basic way has a very unpredictable deck.

This is a CCG filler for casual gamers. It contains the CCG feel with no collectability and no barriers to entry. When you play, you aren't worried about the metagame or rare cards that CCG's often keep as high barrier of entry for new or casual players. With epic, there is still variability each time you play based on what alignment you want to focus on. If you want the feel of a CCG without the lifestyle that comes with one then I highly recommend epic. Especially the drafting or pre-constructed decks if you want to play competitively.

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