Everdell Expansions - Ranked From Worst to Best
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 มิ.ย. 2024
- All five large Everdell expansions (Pearlbrook, Spirecrest, Bellaire, Mistwood, and Newleaf) ranked from the ones we use the least to our most recommended.
00:00 - Intro
01:08 - 5
03:28 - 4
05:30 - 3
08:34 - 2
11:51 - 1
15:31 - Outro
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/1... - เกม
Looking forward to playing the new expansions during our live streams this week. Might have to do our favorite expansion as a video too.
Thank you for this list with your experienced insights!
Thank you! My group has been debating for the longest time on pearlbrook and I didn't know if mistwood would be worth purchasing. For us, the three other expansions have all become permanent fixtures of the game. Bellfaire we love for being able to play six player, but could do without the market, the other additions nice. We love Spirecrest in its entirety, the only downfall is that it increases playtime A TON and can feel long especially when you have a lot of people doing prepare for season at once. As a group that enjoys chaos and a bit of an extra challenge the weather conditions have become one of our favorite elements. New leaf is all around fantastic, we've found that at least when playing without the optional elements, makes Everdell functional as a seven player game (note: we always also play with spire crest and bellfaire). The extra cards prevented any card shortages among players, and though we got close we didn't have any issues with resources either! Hope this helps someone else make a decision for them!
Thank you for this well thought out response! Even though our list differs I think your reasons all make sense.
You've sold me on Bellfaire. I was thinking Everdell is one of the games where the base game is the best version of the game. Bellfaire looks like it adds valuable concepts and 'fixes' as you put it, so I'll include it on my long wishlist lol. Though that said, I love the awesome special events to aim for in the base game, and their theming is so perfect. "Ministering to Miscreants" if you have the Monk and the Dungeon... things like that are so hilariously on point for Everdell's feel!
My ranking:
#5 Mistwood
I don't really know what to say here except that I usually play with 3 people but this one has my favourite player powers making it close to nr 4. I will say that I would like to try the Nightweave with multiple plan cards for an extra challenge though.
#4 Bellfaire
First of all, I hate how you can't really play with the Bellfaire board and the evertree at the same time. The garland awards are also pretty wierd as I think it would be better if you had all of them at the same time intead of just one, making the players specialize. I know people prefer the new special events but sadly I don't. I think they take away the importance of card draw, I think they tell way less of a story than the old ones and the rewards are just points whithout criterias which is pretty bland and uninteresting. All and all they are just more basic events.
The market and the player powers are what saves this one from number 5 however. Although I don't like the market, I usually don't play with it because of the previously mentioned evertree-issue. It's a good and reliable way to get coins (coins win you the game basically allways) and I like how the mechanics makes it feel like a real world market. The player powers are great but I feel like many of them belong to Mistwood and Newleaf and not really to Bellfaire. On the other hand I allways play with the player powers but not with the rest of Bellfaire.
#3 Spirecrest
Spirecrest is good but there are a couple of balance issues here. The power cards (I don't know their names but the cards you get with a powerful ability on them) are a great concept. I love the tiers of cards where ridge and foothills cards have scoring, the mountains and foothills have big boi critters etc. However some of the cards are super op and some are letdowns. The mountaineer gives you two mountain cards which are the best ones, the grey cloaks hideout gives you like 3 workers and more, honeypaw gives infinite berries and the bounty hunter lets you get 3 scrubble champions (or any critter you want). If we compare a foothills card giving you 4 points at the end of the game and cloudrim peak giving you 24 if you just put in a bit of work.
The weather cards are good imo but I think there should be good weather as well. When I first played everdell I didn't think lightning storms were a common occurance. Finally the expedition is nothing special and I think it could be tweeked by having some of the card ones be speciffic cards (say plant ones) to make it more interesting.
#2 Pearlbrook
Oh boy here we go! I like everything about this one except the wonders now that the old box is gone. The river locations are nice as they give more of a purpose to the early game in that the players race to get the free pearls. They also just give you more workers that aren't broken which adds more fun. The pearls are great as they aren't allways something you have to spend to get value from since you have ferry ferret, harbor and brige which are super good cards. The new special events are also interesting (which I can't say for Bellfaire's). What really makes this number 2 though are the cards. New cards are good cards and all of these are interesting, (the pirate is good and worth your time even if you don't get a pearl).
The wonders however are not my favourite. The biggest one gives you ninteen points for a cost that makes it not worth it especially if you're playing with Newleaf. It takes a worker which is 3 points in my book dropping it to just 16. It also takes the cost of a big building which averages around 8 to 10 points meaning that it ultimately gives a 6 to 8 points difference and now you use fancy pearl powers. On top of that they take away basic events and now gazette is impossible, king sucks and someone next to me is mad for stealing their wonder.
Finally the adornments are awesome, if you homerule it so that masque only gives a max of 5 points (I got like 21 points from it the other day).
#1 Newleaf
Your score just increased by 70 points. This expansion adds so much and so many ways to get points. The cards are litterally all amazing and I love how the new golden occupied tokens minimize luck without nerfing card draw. The reserve tokens and tickets are also awesome in just letting you do more stuff. The station cards give so many recources back when you play them as well as many blue cards in the new deck. I particularly love the Diplomat as it gives you so much from just playing critters which you will do anyways as critters are the best cards in the game.
Visitors are also good, especially if you don't play with the new special events, as they are just a more interesting version of them. They also doesn't feel like a waste of workers as you also get a recource or to when you pick them up.
Another reason why your score goes up so much with this one is that there are so many new cards that give gold. If you for example use a chipsmith to activate a miller and a ferry ferret every turn you will get so many points. Other examples are poet, bank, city hall, diplomat, gardener (indirectly) and more.
Nothing in Newleaf is bad and everything fits into everdell like butter on toast.
If you made it this far, kudos to you, because I now realize that this is almost a video script by itself.
Thank you
Thank you for taking the time to do this. It is interesting that even though our rankings are so different I agree with most of your points. I will admit we perhaps didn't take the pearlbrook cards into consideration enough. There are some awesome ones! I can see Newleaf taking over the top spot down the road for us maybe, it definitely does help rack up the points!
Glad i read this i had a feeling about their number 1 pick and you comfirmed it for me.
Thanks, great video. We have just started with the base game. Question, how much does it amp up the complexity when you add one (Pearlbrook?) expansion, or several expansions. I believe it can get pretty deep yes?
@@charlieluchangco2843 Pearlbrook is probbably fine but newleaf and spirecrest can really change the whole game
Fantastic breakdown!
Solid shirt to game coordination, Jess!
Thank you! Very helpful! 💫
This is an amazing review!! I think that I´ll get Bellfaire first and see how that works. My main complain with the basegame is the goal cards, most times we don´t even try to get them, so those new goals seems way better and are surely to improve the game experience!
Thanks! And yeah the goal cards make a huge difference. I'm not sure if we mentioned it, but Newleaf also has a few if you end up wanting even more in the long run.
For me newleaf is now my favorite. I love having 2 extra actions with the tickets. And the new cards are awesome. And the knoll location is a great way to refresh the meadow and station and then you get to choose 3 cards with 11 choices, and a train tile to boot.
Spirecrest is my second favorite. The weather restrictions make it more challenging but the discovery cards make it more rewarding in the end. (Lizards!) the big super meeple powers are cool.
Mistwood is my third favorite. I often find myself playing Everdell alone or with just one of other person. So to have another opponent who is also challenging just makes Everdell more interesting when I can’t get of 3 or 4 players. Also really like the farms through each season and the two random legendary cards that start in your hand is cool.
Then pearlbrook is my number 4. The pearls are cool, then you get a frog you can additionally place in a couple of spots, although I wish there was a couple of other places to choose from for the frog to go. The adornments are awesome. The wonders are okay, but not my favorite part of pearlbrook. The cards that come with pearlbrook are my favorite part of pearlbrook.
And bellfaire is number 5. While I absolutely love all the different critter powers, I’m not really a fan of the additional worker placement spots on the board, it’s honestly only there so you can play with 5 or 6 players. Which I’m also not of fan of. Analysis paralysis all my friends have it and it sometimes takes 5 minutes for them to decide what to do. Waiting 15 minutes for my turn I can manage but a half an hour of downtime no way, never again. And the main problem is with these new spots on the board just makes that worse, true pearlbrook, and newleaf have extra places to go too, but the frog mitigates the analysis paralysis and my friends tend to ignore the station during winter and spring. As for the knoll it’s just a sweet action location. So yeah bellfaire just doesn’t add enough content or uniqueness to Everdell, maybe it would of been ranked higher if they had made construction and critter cards to the game too, but they didn’t and the whole tree removal thing also ruins the game for our gaming group. And those player board things, not a fan, we never use them.
Thanks for this well thought out list. We are starting to be won over to New Leaf taking the top spot, it really does add a bit of everything. Good points on the others as well. Even if we have a different order, I don't really disagree with anything you say here. I guess that speaks to how good these are overall.
@@AlliesorEnemies yeah all the expansions are good, and worth buying. (Even if they didn’t all come with critter meeples)
Same with us. We played with Newleaf and usually adding Bellfaire's player power. It's more than enough for us
Haven't played Spirecrest yet, but I agree that Bellfaire is the best as well. I'm not sure I'll play without it. At minimum, we'll use the Garland Award and the player powers.
Love this review!
I've seen a lot of people bashing Bellfaire (Zee Garcia) and I am thrilled to see you disagree.
I have always felt that Everdell could be improved upon and Bellfaire seems to fix all of the issues I had.
Cheers
Thanks! Although we do generally love Zee's reviews, but Bellfair really is underrated.
Love this video!
I just have base Everdell plus Bellaire, would you recommend adding in Newleaf in this too?
If you're going to get another one, New Leaf is the definite choice. It is really good, and adds a lot more scoring, card, and resource options.
Great video!!!!! Thx!!!! 🎉
9:54 Just so you know, you do not have to discard the reserved card when you prepare for season if you have not played the card you reserved. it is an option to dicard it or keep it until you play it. You just can't reserve another card if you keep it.
Thanks for this clarification. That makes the reserve token even more useful!
My own ranking is:
1) Bellfaire/Newleaf - both are great additions where you can mix and match, I do agree the asymetric player powers is the best element and the market stalls are a great extra resource point, but I think the ticket, reserve token and golden leafs are really powerful additions as well.
3) Pearlbrook - I like it just fine, the pearls are cool, a little hard to get
4) Spirecrest - the weather really annoys me in this one. If it was more of a mix between good/neutral/bad, it would be one thing, but who wants an "event" deck that is just filled with bad events? I get the balance reasons, but my first experience, the cards I got the chance to get didn't feel "worth" suffering through the bad weather, but I might just have been really unlucky with my options.
I haven't tried Mistwood, I think the regular solo works fine if I am really hankering to play this solo, so haven't even looked into this new solomode. Mostly I do prefer to play this one with other people, so I think Mistwood is going to stay unplayed for me.
Thanks for the list. We mostly just leave out tge weather when we use Spirecrest. Negative effects don't feel very Everdell-ish.
If you like the Belfaire Market, you might like Border Variant at BGG. It is a very low upkeep way of lightly modifying the base game.
Thanks for the suggestion!
Do you ever combine any of the expansions or just play them individually? I have just received the Complete collection as my wife and I love the base game. Seems like Bellfare is the best to start with but keen to get into the expansions.
We mainly play this 2 player. One criticism I have is that the card market does not change much between rounds at 2 players and therefore you ended up buying/taking cards you didn’t desperately want just to change up the market. Do you play a variant to address this or found this to be an issue yourselves?
We mix and match quite a bit. Although we have learned that two expansions is probably the most you really want to use at a time, and one of those is usually Bellfaire. However it is worth having at least one epic game with everything at some point, just to see. But block out a whole afternoon for it.
We haven't used any variants but I know what you mean about the markets. A lot of expansions help though. Belfaire gives you more ways to draw cards, as do the player powers. New Leaf expands the market choices which helps a lot. And the others also seem to move cards a bit more. If it is really an issue maybe try Mistwood at 2players as Nightweave is constantly buying and discarding from the meadow.
Thanks! We’ll give that a go. Love the content you make.
Spirecrest is my favourite, Newleaf comes second. You don't loose the card under the reservation token, you can choose to discard to be able to reserve a new in the upcoming season.
Interesting. Thanks for the heads up! It would not be the first time we misread a rule.
@@AlliesorEnemies where do you buy the extra meeples and stickers from?
*lose
How do ppl not know the words "win" and "lose"?
@ClarkPotter if this is addressed to me, I speak 5 languages, and it was probably the middle of the night. People misspell words sometimes. Don't you have anything better to do?
I finally played spirecrest and felt it was hard mode of the game. Newleaf is my fav as I love the train and visitor features. The only expansion I haven't gotten to is mistwood
Newleaf could well take our top spot after a few more plays.
As someone that plays solo, I love Mistwood!
I need toay it more. It is really good.
Where did you get all those meeple stickers? Are they official Everdell stickers?
Did not expect Bellfaire on nr 1. It's the only one I don't have yet (I also don't have NEwleaf and Mistwood because they are not out in Dutch yet) but I always thought that Pearlbrook and Spirecrest at least add some new gameplay elements instead of just more of the same like Bellfaire adds. But maybe I should reconsider buying Bellfaire because these event cards do look more fun.
They are the official stickers that came with the Complete edition. It took us a full movie and a half to stick them all.
@@AlliesorEnemies Ah ok! No wonder they are not sold on their own. I couldn't find them anywhere haha.
They’re also in the Click Clack expansion
And the PLAYER BOARDS!!!! ❤❤❤
Yes! We always use them.
Have you had any problems with the stickers and saddles?
Not yet. Most of the saddles from our Complete Collection box seem looser than the ones we originally had, but it totally feels like a possible danger so we are really careful with it.
Can you play with all the expansions at once?
Yes you can, and we have. But it turns it makes it pretty unruly. It is worth trying once to test the limits. But I think 2 is probably a good stopping point.
Bellaire is definitely the best expansion due to the asymmetric critters. Spirecrest is a great expansion too but we dislike the weather cards. It's too restrictive. We never use them. heard mixed things about Pearlbrook but I personally enjoy it due to the cards that can provide a powerful effect as well as endgame scoring boosts. Have yet to play Newleaf but sounds interesting. Mistwood looks good for solo players but I rarely play Everdell Solo. My wife loves the game too much so it would be a sin to play without her.
Based on your likes here, I have a feeling Newleaf would be a good fit. It adds good stuff in a kind of similar way to Pearlbrook but even more of it.
We play without the weather cards in Spirecrest. It's more fun
Good idea. They really do feel a bit out of place. I picture Everdell always being sunny anyway, even if a turtle is riding on a moose.
Same, Mistwood is not very interesting for non solo players. I went through the rules nonetheless and it seems to make the game much longer and very fiddly
To be fair it is great for solo, but that is definitely the niche.
Is no one bothered with the fact that you have to remove the tree for Bellfair? :(
It is kind of a plus and a minus. We do love the tree, but sometimes it can get in the way a bit, especially at 4 players.
You don't like an expansion because it came in too large a box? That's kinda weird.
It is a very, very empty box. It is kind of like if you bought a big box of cookies and it only had two cookies, you'd be like "hey, where are my cookies."
@@AlliesorEnemies We have a friend who feels the exact same way.
It's interesting that both of you aren't a fan of what expansions can bring ie new game mechanics.
We like all of the expansions and the added mechanics. We tried to make that clear throughout. We just really like that one of them works in conjunction with all of the other cool stuff. But we are fans of everything.
@@AlliesorEnemies poor wording on my part. It is a ranking video afterall!
NIghtweave AI...?! Its an NPC
I'm not sure i've ever heard NPC used for a solo bot. Usually Bot, AI, or Automa if it's Stonemaier.