Mercurial: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Hand Builder, Engine Builder, Resource Management, Hand Management , Dice Rolling
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 1 - 4 Players Time to Play: 45 - 90 Minutes
Game Designer: David GohGame Artists: David Goh, Agus Setiawan, Thomas Tan, Jeannette Wang, Chen Wei, Yang Shao Xuan, Beverley YimPublisher: Good Games PublishingYear Published: 2023BGG Weight: 3.12Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher and Lets Play Games.
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer: David Goh
Rundown:
Mercurial is a spell-slinging game where players are building a hand of alterations as they slowly channel the engine that is their spells. On a player's turn they will either take and play, or cast their spell. Once a player has gained a number of heroic cards based on player count (2, 3, 4 players = 5, 4, 3 heroics) the game will end and one last spell for each player will occur. Players will score their heroic cards, prestige points, arcana (which will score based on used spells), and sigils. Sigils will score based on the quantity that appear throughout heroic cards, class board and alteration cards. Each sigil pair is worth one point but if you have three or more of one type then each of those sigils will be worth one point.
Take:
With the take action a player will interact with the main card area and perform one of the following;
- A spell from the display, paying the acuity, mana or dice resource needed to place this spell in their tableu
- Gain a a face-up alteration into their hand asked adding any acuity to their board
- Discard the left-most spell to gain one acuity
- Re-draw the played alteration cards
Play:
As a play action you will play one alteration from your hand then place it into the exhausted pile. Each alteration can be played for the primary effect on the left hand side, secondary effect on the bottom left hand side or for a removal effect on the bottom right hand side (this effect will remove the card from your hand). Some of the primary effects have a cost or requirements shown at the top and will also at times have a choice between two primary options. For a card to legally be able to be played for its primary action, all of its effects must be followed and executed.
Alteration in classes:
In the game there are four classes; elementalist, enchanter, arcanist and chaosmancer. Each of these classes has a simplified side that includes the same starting setup, but I find more fun in alternate setup and effects. Each class has:
- their amount of dice
- starting mana and acuity
- a matching sigil
- what colour the aether charged die face (yellow) can convert to
- a starting hand
- each class also has unique specifics about them
Arcanist:
The arcanist will always have an aether element active which is great as some spells have certain amplifications of value if there is an active aether dice. One of the starting cards has also been amplified to convert aether symbols into other results.
Chaosmancer:
Chaosmancer is focused on the randomness of dice. Not only does he start with seven dice (the highest of all classes), when a secondary ability is used to reroll dice it will instead be amplified to allow the player to reroll four seperate dice.
Elementalist:
The main ability for the elementalist is the improved starter card. Instead of gaining one acuity or playing two other alterations of the original starter card they gain two acuity and can play two more alteration cards.
Enchanter:
Every class gets one artifact alteration as part of their starting hand, however, the enchanter gains three. This comes as a gift and a curse as these alterations accelerate your starting capabilities but cannot be removed in the game. This leaves you with a clogged hand and less room for stronger alterations or sigils.
Procces (Spell Casting):
The other option on a turn is to cast a spell. To explain this process the first thing to be explained is acuity and mana. Mana is a stronger version of acuity but can only be gained through completing heroics. Two acuity can be converted into one mana but not vice versa. The other benefit of mana is when a spell is casted it will return to the player, where acuity will be discarded after use.
When players cast a spell they will calculate the spells in front of them and determine the total value of the ruin (orange) and restore (blue) values. Some spells will link to individual cards in the spell whereby modifying the value, whereas some spells will link to the total combination of spells such as converting all of the restore into ruin.
Players can spend leftover dice and acuity to add additional ruin and restore as shown on the bottom right of their character. Using the total values the spell generates the player will choose one heroic card to claim, spending the ruin or restore required. Only one type is required so any leftover value to the one used can be converted into points for the end of the game.
Equilibrium:
If a player casts a spell with equal value of restore and ruin the player has reached equilibrium and will combine their resources to equal the equlibrium the new resources they have will be displayed on the board and the player will use immediately the new vaoue of restore or ruin, as well as possible bonus points and acuity. When the player gains equilibrium they will gain the mystrune token from the equilibrium board or take it from another player, which can be used later as a free action or benefit to the current casting.
Arcanas:
There are three arcanas avaliable for players to seek when casting spells. These are bonus objectives that can be claimed when claiming a heroic card and are a requirement on the left hand side of the card.
These include gaining a certain level of equilibrium or containing certain types of spells for casting. Each aracana will give you two points at the end of the game, as well as a bonus scoring condition based on spells used during the game. For example one arcana will require a fire, lightning and earth spell when the player casts a spell and will award one point for every two fire spells used at the end of the game.
Iconography:
Mercurial relies purely on icons creating a language independent game. When you first play, the iconography can feel daunting and creates a seemingly steep learning curve. This is helped by a double sided player card that explains all the iconography needed as well as the flow of an alteration card.
Determination:
- There are not enough hand-building games in general so this one is quite welcome.
- Interesting uniqueness in classes.
- Really enjoyed the incentives for each card row.
- Due to the iconography and the gameplay it is a steep learning curve for the first game but it feels familiar by the end of that game.
Mercurial is a very interesting hand-building engine game that has players casting spells using limited dice and mana. As the game continues players will gain better cards and more mana to really channel these spells. There are three sections I really like about this game, first is that the classes are all easy to learn but have a good level of alteration and differing strengths. The second is the card rows as each one has a different incentive. The spell row has a discount on the two far left spaces where players can use their take action to discard spells and bring closer the better spells. The alteration row adds acuity to all the cards on the left of the card you take, whereby creating a higher demand for cards that happen to stay on the field for longer. Lastly, I like that heroic cards are needed to expand your mana pool. Notably, creating equilibrium is also a very challenging resource puzzle that, unlike my opponent, I could not tune into. That's not going to stop me from figuring this out, though and Mercurial has earned a Go To Golden Game Seal Approval for its engaging puzzle and wide range of variation that will have anyone coming back time and again.
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