Miami Dice: Shards of Infinity
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- Tom, Sam, and Zee take a look at a new deck-building game for 2-4 players from Stone Blade Entertainment and Ultra PRO, designed by Gary Arant and Justin Gary!
00:00 - Introduction
01:15 - Game overview
07:06 - Final thoughts
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I love this game. The addition of Mercenaries , Mastery and Shields is what makes this superior to Star Realms.
And this is one of the reasons I love the Dice Tower discussion reviews. THIS! People are able to really explain themselves about why they like a game especially when challenged. It also helps me to decide whether or not I might wanna take a chance on a game as the positives and negatives are revealed during discussion! Great job guys, Star Realms is one of my favorite games, I might have to give this one a go. Love the energy and pushback to get good answers out. Love it!
Watching this two years and multiple plays later and here are my thoughts:
The factions all work very differently when it comes to their synergies. Whereas all of the factions in Star Realms work exactly the same. The mercenaries, shields, and leveling up really send it over the top.
I like it better because:
- No discard mechanic. It's dumb in star realms.
- Mastery is fun, cards level up, leads to an ultimate end of the game if we stalemate.
- Mercenaries. Makes the central row matter until the very last turn.
- No outpost on bases/champions gives decisions, where having mandatory outposts is just a non decision. Guard is interesting too.
- Can't go above 50 starting HP.
The list is exhaustive :p
David Levesque Couldn't agree more.
+David Levesque
What is the discard mechanic? I have vanilla Star Realms. Recycling Station is the only card that discards that I can think of.
vidicate he's referring to how the yellow factiom can make your opponent dump their hand thus preventing your opponent from actually playing Star Realms.
Awesome review! Love Star Realms and the ease of it. Love the Star Realms artwork, and I love this artwork a lot as well. Easy purchase, thank you!
I prefer the faction chaining of Star Realms over the leveling up of Shards. Buuuut I prefer the Shards art. Buuuut I already own Star Realms and a bunch of the expansions.
Finally one review with a lot o different thoughts
I'm excited to see how this game expands. I find the mercenary mechanic simple but ingenious. The mastery mechanic feels a bit minor in the base game, but I see a ton of potential for it in expansions. I see this as a Star Realms killer for me, and a side step for Ascension. I'd probably rather play Ascension with 3+ players.
But Star Realms is already Star Realms with a little bit of Ascension...
The theme seems like Ascension in the future. I kinda hope they connect the two universes in the lore.
The game and the artwork look great to me. I really hope it comes out on iOS!
TheRmm1976 I’m currently in the Closed Beta and it looks really sweet, it will be 7,99$ once it’s out but it’s a price I’d be willing to pay for such a great game :)
Sounds a bit better than Star Realms because you have a couple more choices per turn.
However it still plays itself, there is no punishment for playing all the card, so you always activate your full hand for max. currency and max. damage.
I completely agree with Tom Vasel here, this game added a TON of new things, mercenaries feel great and add a lot of strategic depth, mastery points, and how they evolve your cards feels amazing, and the guy saying it's a cheesy strategy going for 30 mastery I'll whip his ass with my infinity shard every single game until he learns to respect it!!
Now seriously, love this game, I dislike Star realms, don't find it exciting at all (played it after playing Shards) this one, on the other hand, feels so good! also, 3 players games are pretty nice if you all know the game, you must think every turn about who to focus and play defensive to not get focused!
By the way Tom, if you want to play online it would be an absolute honor
i don't like how the health counters are so frickin huge. all other things being equal, star realms can fit in my pocket.
my issue would be star and hero realms can be soloed and that is most of my gaming.
I've never used the cards for star realms life count. I've always used dice to keep count.
Audio Weasel I use two D10's. Works like a charm and is easy to see.
Mercenaries were in an expansion of Ascension.
Sounds like Sam just doesn't like the Mastery mechanism.
Yes, this is very similar to the fantastic system that is used by Star Realms.
Even Sam said there are similar games with Ascension. So is he saying Star Realms is pretty much exactly like Ascension?
Shards adds Mastery. That's awesome! AND DIFFERENT! The Mercenaries seem pretty cool. You can use it as soon as you aquire it if you basically srap it.
I absolutely LOVE Star Realms.. but I feel like the Mastery mechanism is a huge addition. Even if you don't pursue that route, you have to worry about our opponent leveling up.
Counting the app, Star Realms is my most played game of all time. But I think I would like this better.
If you did this one (for the buzz), you should do Sakura Arms too. That one is the real new kid on the confrontational DB block...
I'll be waiting until an expansion hits because I know it will dull out fast strategy wise with just the 1 deck.
It’s new to me, as I’ve never really played this kind of card game before.
54 for seconds for Sam to put the lid back on the box, drove me crazy lol.
usually deck builders make me decide between taking money or damage, while this game seems to add a third element to think about. However small a difference, I think it could be an improvement depending on who ur talking to. Also I like Hero Realms > Star Realms theme wise. same game basically. but Shards of Infinity seems a bit different there.
I am with Tom on this one. I played it with Justin at GAMA and absolutely loved it
It seems similar to star realms but no better nor worse.
The mastery points make the gameplay ramp up more towards the end of the game in what feels like a different way than Sar Realms faction symnergy does.
Repeated actions are called echo, lol
Take that, latest Hearthstone expansion
Considering both Ascencion and Star Realms are trully amazing, I'm just waiting for the digital version of Shards of Infinity. Yeah, I got no real life friends to play with, and also importing games to Brazil is expensive as shit nowadays :/
Mercenaries are exactly like the Heroes expansion for Star Realms, which you can buy and use right away, or keep to use on a later turn.
Not exactly. Mercenaries can be used immediately, or they can be added permanently to your deck. Star Realms' Heroes are one-time use no matter if you use immediately or later. And if you save the Hero for later, you don't have to shuffle it into your deck. So they're pretty similar, but there is a significant distinction.
I was going to say there are cards in Star realms you can play where the next card you buy goes on the top of your deck. I like those cards :) I'd be interested in trying this, but I'm looking forward to my Star Realms Frontiers having unique starting decks. I almost backed Hero Realms because of that, but didn't like the art work and concept of the Red faction in those decks.
I LOVE ASCENSION!!!!
Been logging some plays on ios and it’s refreshingly different to star realms imo
The economy is completely different and leads to a much more agressive game, all the cards have their importance in the right situation. The design may not be groundbreaking but it is super tight. Saying this is just sr with a better life counter misses the mark.
I love Star Realms, but the main problem is... the box it comes in is terrible! We like to take it traveling with us, and it quickly becomes a tattered ruin. We just picked up Shards of Infinity, and the box is WAY more durable. I know every penny counts, but how much would it set Wizards of the Coast to include a decent box with Star Realms (we also have Colony Wars; equally shoddy box). I also do love how Shards improves upon the life counters so you don't have to mess with those dang life cards in Star Realms.
Star Realms is pretty much my favorite game ever. This looks like basically a copy of Star Realms with a few new mechanics and worse art and theme. Maybe I'll play it at some point when I get tired if star realms, but I'm certainly not rushing to the store to buy it.
Darn. I just got vanilla Star Realms. This looks better. The mercenaries and leveling up give you ways to use currency when the only cards available you might not want in your deck, or can even afford. I can understand that people don't want to just abandon a game they've put money and time into collecting, but they could at least acknowledge this actually has something new and potentially viable/cool over Star Realms. I guess if you've played a lot of deck builders, the nuances between them seem more significant than they do to someone who's perhaps only played Star or Hero Realms (where the whole genre might look the same(-ish) with respect to the other genres they play).
At the same time, with this game it does feel as though one of Ascension's co-designers is saying to the other, "I can do it better than you did", *blows raspberry*. Oh well - in the end there's nothing wrong with having another option in the "Ascension-duel" sub-genre... right?
Star Realms bias by one of the trio lol
I like cthulhu realms myself
Why so few people talk about this game?
With so many deckbuilders, it takes something new now to stand out, this one looks like it brings nothing new..... :(
Couldn't agree more. Everything about the game is completely generic.
I don't know. I readily admit that I am no expert on deckbuilding games, but I really love the game. Over the course of a good 700-800 games, I would say that I find a new facet or approach each time I play.
Ummmmmmm.... the life counters are good but hell I just use an app for Star Realms.
Shame it doesn't have a solo mode.
Looks nice but I'll never get it played without a solo or co-op mode.
Same for me, bought Star Realms Frontiers because of solo play :(
Looks better then Star Realms IMO
Matafer other than leveling, this looks like a complete copy of Star Realms
@Sam Healey:
If you don't like it, don't like it more than Star Realms, or think it is middling, those are all fine.
But really couldn't see the forest for the trees here. I have over 10,000 plays on the Star Realms app against actual players. Not the AI. SoI has differences: Being able to always go straight to the dome is HUGE. That shield thing is diff (I think it is dumb), the leveling is indeed simar to faction but it is different as there is far less emphasis on factioning here...
SR had years of expansions, now has unique starting decks, events... Cite those. Please don't say this isnt different.
SR will be an uphill battlw to unseat. Same with MtG. Too many years on the market. I see this as another "too similar" game that wants better distribution and bringing back in removed elements from SR. Basically it is returning to the breeding pool and coming out as SR + Ascension. That hurts the speed that SR has.
But if you said Hero Realms was worth having next to SR.... Than I see that bias as more of a hypocrisy here. Just say I like SR because it did everything I wanted FIRST. Thats basically the argument
Star realms killer? Not by a long shot.
Oh, so he's lying. And I suppose that you don't? Thanks for the heads up, good to know.
winnie666 this is a matter of perspective so there is no right or wrong. For Tom this game replaces star realms but for me it doesn't.
I believe Tom was comparing it to the original Star Realms on a recent Dice Tower Tonight.
No way it's definitely not a Star Realms killer. The games look similar yes, but Star Realms is better. Just wait until the Star Realms Frontiers kickstarter is released. It will bring A LOT more awesomeness to the table.
R33SS just wait indeed. :-p
Having recently bought Frontiers, I can say it honestly just feels like more of the same.
A little painful to see one of the designer's names misspelled the whole time on the screen :p
I played Star Realms first, but I don't think I'll play it again after playing Ascension. When the whole family can't game, it's my go to game to play with my mom. While the pace and feel of play of Star Realms is different, I don't really get the hype besides the deck builder in a deckbox marketing (which expansions help negate that factor). Especially since it's so close to Ascension from an ex Ascension designer, it just feels cult of the new.
It's like comparing Simpson's to Family Guy. They are similar, they are different.
It's like comparing Seinfeld to "Home Movies". Both are shows about nothing yet oddly entertaining.
Yeah no reason to get this when I have Hero Realms.
Just 1 infinity gauntlet.
Everyone but Tom had their heads up their butts on this one. Sam said some especially stupid things. Yes, it builds on Star Realms, but Star Realms was built on the backs of prior deck builders, Star Realms copied most of their mechanics from other games. Both mastery and mercenaries are game-changing mechanics that freshen up the formula in a way that no one has done in awhile. It seems to me less a rip off and more of an evolution, the next step forward.
I think it's a little disingenuous to suggest a level system isn't a meaningful difference. That mechanic alone can allow for this game to mitigate luck significantly more than Star Realms. Now I don't understand this game at all but I do know in Star Realms there's one clear objective at the end, get your opponent to 0 authority. Now you might do that by scrapping more cards, making your opponent discard more cards, or having a large econ/health/dmg build, or bases doing a little of everything. All of that sounds great but at the end of the day all of those strategies need to do damage to win the game. This game already suggested an entirely different mechanic to win the game, get your mastery to 30 with x specific card along with an entirely different currency for cards to utilize towards this strategy. Now does that make it better than Star Realms? No. But it's a meaningful mechanic difference that comes immediately out of the base set and since this game has 3 currencies vs Star Realms 2, the cards in this game have the potential to mitigate luck more assuming the cards play off those 3 currencies in a balanced way.
I haven't played this game yet so take my analysis with a grain of salt. But what Tom said about having defenses in hand is a significant difference too. That by itself means the base set of this game has interaction across players on every turn! Star Realms is more like chess where the board set is 100% known and there is no counter play! In this game it sounds like I need to be concerned about what defense cards my opponent may draw. That's a very meaningful difference towards how players will think about the game.
I will take their word that the game felt similar to Star Realms and I can see why from a general perspective. Still, the mechanical differences within this game offer meaningful differences I can at least notice immediately regarding the base set.
I feel like this game is to close to Star Realms and Hero Realms it is like a boardgamegeek expansion to those game. It feels like a reprint cash grab of a game that already exist with just enough changed to not be sued. Very unimpressed with the design.
Be inspired by other games, do not just copy them. - From Top Ten Tips for Designers #7
Same designer for all of those games, so he's just copying himself.
It says Rob Dougherty and Darwin Kastle for Star Realms and Hero Realms. These two worked on Ascension.
I was interested in the game listening to the podcast, but I really did not like the artwork and theme and the lack of innovation
Looks like another deckbuilder with very little combo potential. Just like Ascension.
I wish Tom would review Heart Of Crown. I don't own it, but it does look cool and some people compare it to Dominion, which I like because most deck-builders borrow more heavily from Ascension. But I don't think Tom reviews Weaboo-ish games.
Sam here...actually, there's a TON of combo potential in this one...so much so that I'd say that's kind of the heart of the game.
I might have to check it out in the future. I do enjoy deck builders and play Star Realms on Steam. I however, enjoy Fantasy more than Sci-fi, so am more inclined to buy Hero Realms.
Good lord, Sam acts like Star Realms is his actual child or something. He's so offended this entire video.
I don't get that at all. I think you're reading a personal bias into it.
This looks so much better than Star Realms. It screams awesome, it has interesting mechanics, while Star Realms is just boring. It's generic as hell, way more than Dominion in which you have interesting Actions, while in Star Realms it's all about getting those numbers.
I feel I have grown tired of the generic deck builder this day and age. Ascension/Star Realms/DC Deck Builder/Dominion(base) dont really do anything for me. Clank! even falls into this category a bit, while it does have a board and movement element, It's basically Ascension. And all these games ever boil down to is - "whoever draws the most on their turn and/or is able to KO/Trash their starter cards will win" It grows stale fast, and it's even more egregious in a co-op deck builder where one person destroys the opposition and everyone else is just along for the ride. That's why I prefer Aeon's End and Xenoshyft but to each their own.
The game looks merely ok, and good for beginners, but that's about it. The game just looks like every other deck building game that's come out after Ascension.
I highly encourage you to check out Valley of The Kings. It's a small deck builder but the decision space is so huge. Easily one of the most slept on deck building games.
Star Realms and Hero Realms are better in art work and play by far. This game is not for me. Tom is wrong. :)
Joke, you know the Tom is wrong thing he is doing?
I've never enjoyed games like Ascension or Star Realms. It's just a card game that plays itself. Pay all cards, buy the best available card, repeat. Boring as fuck. Is that one different? Seems to be the same.
These generic attack games need to go away. They're just bad variations of each other.