Fantasy without FLUFF: The Vale of Eternity

[@lostmarble540]

it's nice we finally get officially-licensed Matt cardboard standees and don't have to make our own anymore

[@moltenbullet]

Hosted a table running this game at a board game convention (with Mandoo themselves). Played about 50 sessions over 3 days. Not a single group left unsatisfied. Also, the number of 10 card combinations you can derive from a set of 70 unique cards is 3,533,131,555 - which means you will almost never see the exact same strategy or tableau in any given game.

[@craigandrews7544]

Nerd 😂

[@moltenbullet]

@@craigandrews7544 welcome to the channel... I guess?

[@TheDoak22]

The bride & groom bit is maybe the best SUSD bit since reference pear.

[@aldenutter4975]

Thanks, Reference Pear!

[@markbaker465]

Theference pear

[@AaronRose-q7d]

That is really sad, its a weak joke

[@nolanscott9870]

Feel the exact same way about this game. It’s clean, fun, and easy to teach but lacks maybe one extra flourish to make it a favorite. I’m really excited about the new expansion.

[@jedfromyourlocallibrary]

Thank you for that Matt Lees standee! I hope we get more of the SUSD crew as various paper crafts!

[@THESP-rz3hg]

As a long time supporter- I take my Matt standee everywhere with me. Board game night, to the beach, court dates. I've been asked to stop, but it's my way of showing support.

[@myopiczeal]

Ah, Renegade. The "put extra stuff in the box, maybe use it? I dunno" board game publisher.

[@gabrielgohier-roy1903]

The original publisher is a small Korean company, and they're the ones who designed the components. The dragon was there before Renegade picked it up.

[@GusG_]

Any more examples??

[@narvuntien]

First time I not only played a game but own it before you reviewed it. I found it on a list of games for Magic the Gathering players. CCG players are always going to struggle to pull non-CCG players into thier world but maybe they want to play other games with thier loved ones and friends. This scratches that CCG itch without being completely impenetrable for new players. It went over well at my monthly boardgames night

[@bangonia4116]

We just give the Eternity standee to whoever drafts Eternity

[@Preasured_Andy]

After hearing Matt say "Let's take a little look at these cards," I'm ready for him to star in a Scorsese movie.

[@ryanbartlett672]

Lol on wedding photos! Thanks for the review. Art/theme and weight look right for us -- middle-weight with low rules but big depth is where the gold is. It looks like this could be one of those. Buying.

[@jgruyters]

I've played this game with seasoned players and newcomers and it went great in all occasions.

[@Ovetupp]

I know that one of my friends brain would turn itself inside our if I told her that there is a piece that does nothing. She would never accept such a thing.

[@drillerdev4624]

Don't let her near Overbooked (Great game, though)

[@ryanbartlett672]

First play tonight...could just be a classic. Fantasy Realms meets Century. " Meaningful decisions" Yes! Time will tell, but it seems to be that easy setup, mid to deep strategy. Plus nice Pokemon-like art!

[@clareparkerfischer9204]

Not only is the dragon pointless, but if you put it on the board, no one can see the upside down cards on the other side. It’s anti-functional

[@andrewjanssen8663]

The second time I played this, I went hard into fire creatures and by turn 7 had a hilariously broken combo engine that earned me 20 points every turn by playing a card, then pulling it back to my hand.

[@AaronRose-q7d]

The game has several broken combos that are clearly unbalanced

[@justRobinisfine]

Ha, jokes on you. This time you won't make me buy a new game...I already own it and I am looking forward to the expansion.

[@littlewooll8]

One of Matt’s best videos

[@AaronRose-q7d]

Very sad if true. Its pretty weak

[@maxriley9540]

I love you guys and I'm sorry it's out of my ability to chuck you some cash currently.

[@JonTripp115]

If you think I won't put a Matt Lees standee (and maybe an Eternity dragon) into my copy of Picture Perfect, just you watch.

[@thomastergaard]

I wish that pear had a bigger 'pop' sound. It always feels like someone forgot to turn up the pear volume. 😄 Ooh 13:51 that triple thumb timing!!

[@nazokashii]

Looks really beautiful :) seems fun, too :D thank you for sharing

[@lrthedude]

OK well, to be perfectly honest, I can understand why the bride and groom didn't exactly enjoy you just plopping that dragon into their photos. You should've instead placed the dragon in the center of the game board and then placed the game board with the dragon in the photos. You just held up the dragon without the game board and the rules at 1:16 clearly state that the dragon should first be placed on the game board. I'd suggest you try that approach at your next wedding photography gig.

[@SolviKaaber]

Great timing. Just bought it yesterday

[@maxriley9540]

Matt you are looking great

[@angeloa9041]

I was trying to figure out why this game was suddenly given a recommends badge on the website a few days ago lol

[@BeefyChud]

This game is a masterpiece

[@stephenfinney3101]

surely this is a game that calls out for a lazy suzan

[@FRAN-md7ht]

Please review challengers. GOATED game

[@bgsam8109]

Great video

[@ashrussell5682]

@2:56 Okay, but business when you boil it down really is just about British magical pounds

[@DrMcFly28]

Maybe use the dragon as the last player marker

[@Diceonahill]

This is a fun game! Feels like it squeezes quite a bit of game into a short amount of time.

[@mariekyslingerova4505]

1:22 made me laughXd

[@DeuZerre]

Loved your shirt! I played it twice or thrice. It was neat, looked cool, but honestly in the end after the game I didn't want to play it again. If one player gets an engine running before the others, they win. Combos are great but some are just more simple with more reward than others. You can see that the ideas are there but the balance isn't. It's a race to get an engine running and trying to stall someone else is just too punishing because you're missing a precious turn.

[@nikosmessis]

I can understand why someone might not enjoy the game and not want to play again. However, labeling a game imbalanced after 2-3 beginner plays is really offensive towards everyone who worked for this game. Oh, also, you are wrong. The game is not imbalanced. You just don't get it. And it's totally normal since they are your first plays.

[@DeuZerre]

@@nikosmessis look man, disagreeing is fine. Itws actually respectful. I didn't say the game was crap at all. Just donwt want to play it again. It might have been one of my first few games with that game, but none of the people at that table were beginners in board games. First game was of course bad until we got how things ran. Second game and third game kinda merge together: both times, one player managed to get an engine to start (I think it was mostly with pink), at least one person tried to stall them, and the others got engines running afterwards in other colours. The people that tried to stall always ended last (and I mean dead last) because their engines were ruined from missing 1+ turns of "optimal" play. The people with late but working engines were leagues away and the first one to get a series of combos just wrecked them. Everyone liked it, the looks are good and the combo tricks all feel cool. I read all the cards after the games to get a feel for them and yeah, that's it: there's a lot of combos of varying power, and it's all about having the right turn order and the right draw early enough to cruise in a snowball. There aren't enough efficent catchup mechanics to do something for yourself as well as hampering someone else.

[@Healermain15]

@@nikosmessis That's weirdly hostile and dismissive, please don't do that.

[@nikosmessis]

@@DeuZerre As mentioned I can totally see why someone might dislike the game and I dislike many of the elements of the game. Also, there was no intention to be aggressive or something like that, probably the language barrier is responsible for that. I cannot see why mr/mrs Haelermain got triggered. My point is that most of the times when you don't have enough experience with the game, you cannot label it as IMBA. There are so many people that worked hard to test of the game is actually IMBA and that is something you cannot see on the first games. For the specific game, I do apologise for the card names/combos because I don't remember them but we had several games that players scored 30-40 points in one round (in later rounds). After some more plays, noone felt secure even 20 points ahead of the others. I am not trying to change your view, I am just providing a different perspective. My apologies if you find it offensive.

[@tigriscallidus4477]

​@@nikosmessisof course you can label a game as inbalanced without lots of plays. You might not always be correct, since you overlook things. Like people thought living forest was inbalanced because people overlooked how they can play against the fire strategy. Still in some games things are just mathematically beoken and aomw people are good to catch that. Tapestry got a huge balance patch because of that. And this game does not look like it has catchup mechanics like variable turn length which can make long time strategies better but give people some ways ro speed up the game.

[@SodaQuasar]

Dang, ur such a good salesman... i m so tempted to get this game now eventhough i have nobody to play it with 😅

[@xxMonkeyman2142xx]

it took me 13 min to realise I own the same pink shirt

[@andrewstewart7078]

Yes I love this game.

[@JarradShaw]

❤

[@thegamesninja3119]

Did the standee eat the reference pear?

[@davidgonzalezquesada896]

We like this game but, my brother and I enyoyed Seasons the most. We like to organice 3 years. Thinking in what dice can bring every season and combos.

[@krysannethemum]

Easily my most played game this year, on BGA and in real life! Very cool to see you all like it as well! 🩵🐲✨️🧝‍♀️🧚‍♂️

[@MrSomebunny]

Matt is the greatest board game reviewer of all time.

[@Healermain15]

I'd say the rest of the group gives him a run for his money

[@leozbu3955]

I beg you, analyse dune war for arrakis. great video btw

[@thumper8684]

What is the value of eternity?

[@Thebazilly19]

I'm a sucker for a game with cards that have cute little dragons on them. Just ask Flamecraft.

[@samarchism]

🖤

[@Wookien]

.... But I love fluff :(

[@davidmorse5411]

+1 for Res Arcana! An advanced engine builder!

[@blairox6031]

Strange. I got this for Christmas and played a few games with some veteran board gamers in my family. We felt that the balance was so off that it seemed like the game was unfinished and we promptly introduced some rule changes to make it interesting (Starting with a draft was the most notable). It's an engine builder, but it's over in 4 rounds so you don't have time to enjoy your engine. Many cards are just too slow and just unplayable, some places of power are insanely op while others are useless, the initial order of the cards (and your ability to draw) has a huge impact on your game. Most games felt unfair and frustrating, the attack system is so weak it's almost as if it wasn't in the game. Maybe we missed the point, or we are not the right table for it, but It was pretty disappointing.

[@davidmorse5411]

@@blairox6031 I totally understand! For us at first it was a miss, and we shelved it for two years. It felt janky. But when we took a second look, it blew us away. For beginners, yeah, there are no guardrails, and cards vary wildly in power and ease-of-use. This ain't Wingspan - certain strategies *demand* counterplay. Figuring out the best use cases for cards is fun for us. Almost all of the stinky cards do eventually have their time in the sun, or at least not in the doghouse, but yeah, Dragon's Lair is going to get snatched up while Cursed Forge is wildly unpopular. The game is lumpy. The attack mechanic does eventually cook, though it's still rare. About half of the big attack games feature Dragon Tamer, a mage in an expansion. So does a destroy-create engine, with e.g. Fiery Whip + Crypt. The fact that running an engine really only happens for ~2 turns means that the game is a sprint not a marathon. Shorter games have their advantages. I do recommend the drafting rules in the back of the rulebook, and also the Pearlae Imperii expansion takes the game to a new level.

[@yarondavidson6434]

The game seems interesting (and charming), but the whole 70 cards with unique text that you need to read from multiple angles is a really huge minus from me. However annoying it is to sometimes have to read upside-down, you can at least choose which players will need to do that, and then there's a single angle it's readable from. The 5 different angles here, at least 2 of which would be different variations of upside-down, just gave me a large nope the moment I saw that. In theory, I could see the point said in the review, that you don't need to pay attention to most of them because you only need to focus on ones with icons for the suits you have and so care about. But, looking at the different cards, that's really not the case. Some cards will only have point icons on them, and you always care about points. Some will have stones, and you always care about stones. And for the suit icons, that's still not true, because some cards may apply to cards you have, some may apply to cards competitors have, and some may apply to cards you want to buy/reserve fort he future. I expect it would be very rare to have a suit that doesn't fall into any of these. So most rounds you really should read/know all the cards in the market, in all 5 different orientations... And, If I see it correctly, that board doesn't really do much beside indicate the alternate stones cost you get for scrapping a card, and it's fixed for each suit. So it could just have been marked on the cards themselves, since there's no modifier that can be applied globally to the board for all players. In any case, thanks for the review, I did hear about this one and it was helpful to see more of it.

[@elqord.1118]

Absolutely hated constantly having to read cards that were upside down for me. So so annoying in a game where those abilities are literally the game

[@craveracer]

Is this game artwork created by an artist from Wakfu or Dofus? It reminded me alot of them.

[@BagOfKnives]

I bet you all read this next bit in his voice "Patronizing Matt Lees voice"

[@adampliszka4855]

Damn, at 2:45 I legitimately thought you photoshopped a pokemon onto the card for a joke, but no. Also, nice review!

[@WanderingLunatic]

I liked this but I think I preferred both Res Arcana and Seasons.

[@theOldTimeAlchemist]

This dude has watched The Boosh

[@AndyGoldman]

Continuing the trend of low-buttoned shirts, I see.

[@sjd83]

Hey! I am Steven! Please let me have my magical pounds!

[@AbderrahmenBesbes]

Intrested

[@tsukasa0802]

Yo!

[@lkjkhfggd]

The four token limit is definitely interesting. I think I will be picking this one up. You've done it again, SUSD! Edit: I see it's on BGA, so I will be trying it out soon, and then maybe buying it!

[@xCriticalStrikex]

Sounds fun but I am really put off by the art. I find it visually unappealing entirely.

[@AaronRose-q7d]

Looks like its made for kids

[@psykogamerous8391]

Could you do a experienced review of the ttrpg called F.A.T.A.L

[@Hydr312]

In my opinion the game is good but its hard to read. If you dont know the cards everytime everyone needs to take a look and facing the cards i na circle doesnt help xD

[@NevTheDeranged]

Alright, as soon as I head the big standee was just cruft, I immediately stopped caring. Games are too damn expensive to be including extra cardboard just for decorative purposes, get out of here with that nonsense.

[@vincebrannon3353]

"...I also think I will sopt paying my taxes!!" 🤣

[@Electroporcupine]

I saw this in an EB Games and thought it looked crap tbh. Might get it for my partner now

[@tylerrrr07]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. First. Love SUSD

[@jeffmcarthur5617]

Hey! Please buy me a car!

[@GameDelay]

I see you have a 6. Would you buy me a car?

[@nikosmessis]

Salton Sea review when?

[@mikemuldoon7520]

I am never this early

[@CamObscura88]

Who cares?

[@PatrickBrophy]

I don’t play with that stupid radial in the middle. I deal out the cards to the first player and they draft from the hand and then pass it like a normal draft. This speeds up the game immensely and has zero downside.

[@sshim950]

: )

[@craigspencer2826]

First

[@mercster]

Talisman for zoomer simpletons.

[@orangerful]

Link to Downloadable pdf of Matt standee where? I fully want to have him popping up in the background of all my board game photos going forward.