Sorcery: Contested Realm

Today's review is of the 2022 release, Sorcery: Contested Realm. For two players, it takes 15-60 minutes. Note: this is a collectible card game, with two releases (alpha and beta) to date.

Overview

You are an Avatar, charged to shape the world (by playing sites) and control it (by playing minions, artifacts, and other things). Each Avatar starts with 20 life; the first to drop the other to zero wins! A select and simplified overview follows. You can get a more thorough overview here.

The Beta set of four preconstructed decks

Sorcery is played on a 4x5 grid. Each player starts with their avatar in the center of their back row. Each has two decks:

- an atlas deck, containing sites

- a spellbook, containing all other cards

To begin the game, each player draws three cards from each of their decks, as shown below.

A player's turn has three phases:

- Start (untap your cards, get mana from sites, trigger any abilities, draw a card from either of your decks)

- Main (play a site to a legal space in the realm, use mana to play cards from your hand to a site, move and attack with your minions, etc.)

- End (trigger relevant abilities, remove damage from surviving minions, etc.)

Sites have an affinity (an elemental symbol like Air, Earth, Fire, Water) and generate 1 mana each turn. To play a spell, you must have the necessary mana and affinity; you can play a minion to any of your sites. To play a site, you must tap your Avatar and play the site adjacent to one of your existing sites (see below aid).

During the main phase, you can battle by moving and/or attacking with your minions. Minions can attack an opponent's site (doing damage to it will damage your opponent's Avatar) or an opposing minion (compare strengths; highest wins and the other dies) or Avatar (decrement their life total accordingly). Minions (and Avatars) tap to move (in cardinal directions only) and/or attack. You can also defend attacks by moving and blocking with minions.

Once you do 20 damage to your opponent's Avatar (either by damaging sites or the Avatar directly), they are "at death's door," and cannot be further damaged that turn. On a subsequent turn, however, any damage dealt to that Avatar will enable you to win the game.

Some minions have various keywords like airborne, burrowing, or submerged. The latter two enable them to survive underground or underwater, respectively. There are times where it is strategically wise to use these abilities.

There is a lot more to say . . . check out the aforementioned 'how to play' video, look at the official site, read the rulebook, or check out the card gallery to get an idea how this game works.

Review

This game bills itself as an old-school CCG experience. In that, it succeeds. The art is astounding, the play is fun. There are similarities to Magic: the Gathering, but there are notable differences:

- sites (and associated movement/ranged possibilities)

- the ability to choose from two draw decks (that's pretty cool)

- the lack of instants (casting spells on your opponent's turn; you can use your mana on your turn only)

The rulebook is okay but does not cover every scenario or concept; note the golden rule in the above aid ("some text is intentionally informal or necessarily compact. Use common sense and be cool"). That is my primary complaint at present. Magic has had decades to tighten the wording and streamline the rules; you won't find that here. A fair amount is left up to player decision. That is okay . . . so long as everyone is cool. 

They are releasing an Arthurian-themed expansion later this year. That intrigues me. I enjoyed playing the four precon decks, and might get a pack or two of the current set, but I'll probably hold out for Arthur to explore the game more.

Rating: A-