The Magnificent - Playthrough & Review

[@RobertHovakimyan55]

I think this is a wonderful "My First Modern Euro" (in a good way!). It packs a lot of classic modern euro punch with pretty light rules and a tight playtime. For those of us who have played A LOT of modern euros, I think its easier for this to fall in the "meh" category. But its hard to not credit it for how much it does with so little, and how many fundamentals it teaches newer players without being daunting.

[@hiho8084]

Fun game. Thanks as always for the thorough teach and playthrough. I really like the board aesthetic. It reminds me of Merchants of the Dark Road.

[@BeforeYouPlay]

Thank you so much! When we were setting up to film we were nervous that it would be difficult for the audience to see because of how dark it was.

[@hiho8084]

@@BeforeYouPlay It was great, as always!

[@heavy_dice]

I found this game so surprising. It wasn’t what I thought it would be and found it immensely satisfying to play. It just felt good to play

[@alicia1465]

This one didn’t feel very tense or challenging on our first play, but every subsequent play made us love it more and more. It seemed like we could get things done fairly easily at first, but then we got better and more efficient the more we played. Very fun. The expansion is great, too. Thanks for covering a variety of games, and not just new releases!

[@seahawksfan9168]

wow Monique finally lost, i'm shocked lol

[@Tapio_Tachyon]

I'm in the camp of people who found this game to be "just fine" :). Solid mash-up of mechanisms but I found it lacking in tension or excitement factor, and wouldn't therefore gravitate towards it over a lot of other titles. The one thing it has going for it is how quick the game is, I'd imagine with experienced players you'd probably play it in less than an hour. Hope you get Revive to the table at some point, that's a really great modern euro design from this team!

[@BeforeYouPlay]

That’s a fair take, we like it but also feel that lack of tension. We have Revive but haven’t had a chance to play it yet 😏.

[@J-Wheeler-G]

I agree. It was meh to me. I was actually very disappointed with it.

[@Leedguitar2]

Couldn't agree more. The game was fine, but there are so many other games that we'd rather play, so this one made it to the sell pile. Revive on the other hand is an excellent, tense game, with a lot of replayability.

[@ningaubleotse171]

The Magnificent is in my top 10. There was a BGG thread awhile back where the designer assigned the elements of Fire, Nature, and Magic to the colors used in the game. I love the 'Something Wicked This Way Comes' sort of vibes this game gives off with the magic, the performances, and traveling carnival. Thanks for the playthrough :)

[@KitMagnification]

Thanks for the awesome teach and play through! I feel confident I can finally open the shrink wrap and play this magnificent game. 🎪 I do wonder about the expansion and how it affects the base game. 👀

[@SamiPaju]

Seems like a very good and interesting game when it comes to mechanisms, but the theme (or lack of it) is a major turnoff. Not the circus part of it, but how most of the mechanics don’t have much thematic integration to what is supposed to be happening. I wish they had come up with a theme where those mechanics made more sense. When there are so many good-not-great euros to choose from, I think it’s fair to expect that games go the extra mile to integrate mechanisms to theme. Not necessarily Lacerda-level integration, but even a game like Grand Austria Hotel has mechanisms that make intuitive sense to what you’re supposed to be doing in the game.

[@dkoudrin]

The year of The Magnificent Naveen!

[@jhowd78]

BUY THIS GAME FOLKS. ITS ALWAYS ON SALE!

[@dtelquess]

You guys are very conservative on your dice power, plenty of power to be made use of.

[@OdonataCreations]

Thank you!!! I'll finally get this one to the table tonight😁

[@martonferenci]

the description needs a bit of a refresh - mention Lorenzo, also a great game 😊

[@BeforeYouPlay]

Ahh my secret 🤫! I was literally falling asleep getting the video ready last night hahaha 🤪. Thanks for the heads up!!

[@ShowHero]

I for one LOVE this game. Thanks for playing it. Not every game needs to be crunchy.

[@gizmoboardgames]

I love this one. Such a sleek design where the actions are simple, but everything is very thinky and all 12 actions you take matter.

[@Brend0ver]

I got this game for quite cheap during the big warehouse sale Asmodee was having. Only played it once so far, but we were all very pleasantly surprised.

[@BeforeYouPlay]

Nice grab! Glad you played it too, we’ve done that so many times, grab a game we were interested in on the cheap, but it remained in the shrink for 2+ years.

[@shayanaminnjad5354]

I think if you aim for +200 points, you will enjoy the game more. that way every master you draft matters and they change the way you play radically. Also you should pick up high scoring performances and collect big dice numbers to do big actions, which makes money really tight. I think that's the problem with this game. you can ignore part of the puzzle and still get a score above 100 which makes you feel that you have figured out the puzzle. but generally score below 180 is a poor score. Thanks for the video!

[@Shoitaan]

Our thoughts were the same. It's a good game, but it does nothing currently that we don't already have in other games and enjoy more. You should definitely get to Revive though. It's nothing innovative but it comes together in an extremely satisfying and fun way. Revive is a definite keeper for us.

[@elzheiz]

Been hearing about it for a few years as well, didn't appear too great at first glance but I love dice drafting and this seems awesome. Definitely going to buy it and see how it is!

[@lettermarques7310]

Next you should play Trickerion with the expansions. 😀 Any other magician games that you know about?

[@EmmaNovaheim]

When travelling, we use a gem to mark where we started. Makes it much easier to see what should be collected - I think it was JonGetGames which showed this little trick. 😁

[@jamesmorgan1967]

Enjoying the playthrough so far (a little over a third of the way through) and am really struck by the attractive dark palette of this game.

[@aetherllama8398]

I like the mechanics, but the components and art are such a mismatch for the theme. Also I think stacking high dice is worth the cost.

[@Jinmoonlight]

Watching the playthrough, I got the impression that this game either needed to be a round longer, or let you have 5 cards to draft on instead of 4. Without that it feels more luck based than strategic.

[@nick16characters]

"sometimes not scoring is scoring" unknown boardgamer philosopher, circa 2023

[@SweatCryFish]

I donno u guys, but today i feel like we are getting almost "too much" new games. =(

[@BeforeYouPlay]

Funny thing is this game came out in 2019 haha 😛. I think this years Essen Spiel Preview List has some 1,100 games being released this year!

[@SweatCryFish]

@@BeforeYouPlay Exactly, its kind of overwhelming how many good older games still have to play and more 1k comes every year to analyze!

[@russellbyrd]

You ask us to turn on the Klingon channel, but when I do that I get everything translated. I don't know if I am doing something wrong, but this does not happen when I watch Rahdo's videos for example,

[@BeforeYouPlay]

Thanks for catching that, we didn't end up activating the Klingon subtitles since we didn't catch any mistakes... yet haha. We've added them now as a welcome greeting.

[@whitneyalvey3646]

I have over 50 plays of this solo and 20 plus multi-player... and in the first round you've made me realize I've been scoring one of the master cards wrong this whole time... 😬 This is why I watch you! I'm set to get Septima soon and will have to use your video to learn, thanks guys!

[@ElElefante]

How do you find it as a solo game? Is it beat your highscore?

[@vast3394]

nice was looking forward to this

[@BeforeYouPlay]

Thank you for checking it out!