Splendor Duel Review - You Get A Gem! And You Get A Gem! Just The Two Of You

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Confront your rival guild in a race for victory. Take Gem and Pearl tokens from the common board, then purchase cards, gather bonuses, royal favours, and prestige.
Discover new twists and strategic opportunities derived from Splendor, the original best-selling game. Acquire cards with impressive powers, take advantage of special Privileges, and fight over scarce access to Pearls.
Splendor Duel is a two-player only standalone game based on Splendor that retains some of the main gameplay mechanisms of that design, while being a bit more complex, dynamic, interactive, rich, tense, and mean.
The game features a main board shared by both opponents, card powers, and three victory conditions.
BGG Link - boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3...
TimeStamps:
0:00:00 - Overview
0:05:26 - What I Like
0:07:14 - What I Don’t Like
0:07:51 - What I Can See Others Not Liking
0:08:30 - Final Thoughts
0:09:38 - Recommendations
5.0 - My absolutely favorite games. You can pry them out of my cold dead hands.
4.5 - Love this game! At the same time missing something that would make it a 5. Could be hard to table, lacking variability, a little light, etc.
4.0 - Really great game, almost always keeping, although has meaningful complaints as to what takes away from the experience.
3.5 - Really enjoyed, don't love it, may lose out to better games but the idea of never playing again is a bit sad.
3.0 - A good game, would play and suggest with the right people, if I never played it again wouldn't lose any sleep.
2.5 - A game I'd play again , but will never suggest it myself
2.0 - A game I don't want to play again
1.5 - A game I can't find any reason to recommend
1.0 - A game that is just bad.
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[@brianb5145]

The player on the left took two black gems incorrectly. The gems were separated by a blank space. Only connected/touching gems can be considered in an unbroken line and can be taken together.

[@RudolphCookie]

can’t believe that was missed lmao

[@jeffersonwu952]

Splendor didn't work out for me, but Splendor Duel is a hit in my house. It is fun and fast. Consistently requested out of the 200 games I have. I personally would have given it a 4.5 out of 5.

[@stevekingswell9143]

I think as alternatives I’d consider Jaipur, Cafe, and I’d be interested as to whether you have played Capital Lux 2 Generations as a comparative. The 2 you suggest are both brilliant and better games but somewhat heavier.

[@Paul-ro6py]

We enjoyed Splendor, went playing it enough, so moved it along. Picked up Splendor duel, bit it the two player version with adjustments or its new form factor (easy to carry in back pack) it gets a lot more play. Would be good if they released a Splendor 2.0 in a more compact storage solution.

[@RiHa_Games]

One of the few games I got before I saw a review from you 😁

[@maxf.7262]

Ty for this video!

[@BoardGameCo]

Absolutely!

[@darinherrick9224]

I own both. My take: If you are worried about playing Splendor so much you will get really tired of it: buy the Splendor expansion Cities of Splendor...and buy this. Both are great if you just want more Splendor and don't want to burn out on the base game.

[@ogunquit5]

I think a lot of what you say is true but I strongly disagree on the idea of 7 Wonders Duel being better than Splendor Duel. 7 Wonders Duel is deterministic and it got to the point that after about 5 - 10 plays, I could predict what my opponent would take and leave me most times and could even see a couple of turns into the future. Splendor Duel I don't yet feel that way with the uncertainty of what cards come up. Targi is a game though I'd like to try - I just don't play enough two player games to warrant it as I already have 3 or 4 2 player only games (including Splendor Duel) in my collection.

[@sharonmazor9531]

Thanks!

[@DeepFriedDave]

I bought this game recently based on all the gushing reviews on this and other channels and ... I was disappointed. This game quickly gets samey and boring. There just arent any crunchy meaningful decisions to make. No real clever combos, very little if any tension, and virtually no interaction. Sure there are some cards that let you steal a gem from the other person and you can reserve a card you know they want, but its really not that big a deal. Each turn you'll either take some gems or buy a card and add it to your tableau. Rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat for 40+ minutes until one of the win conditions is met. I've played it three times now with no desire to play it a fourth time. On the other hand, some two player games i love are Targi, Battle Line, Katarenga, Watergate, Lost Cities, Mandala, etc. Those are waaay better than Splendor Duel and I would rather play any of those before I play Splendor Duel again.

[@BoardGameCo]

Every single one of your choices would be a choice I agree with. I think this game is fine, but the games you mentioned are all great.

[@BoardGameCo]

Wait, did you say the gushing review on this channel? I gave the game a 3.5 out of 5, I don't think that's gushing...

[@RudolphCookie]

to me there’s a thrill in drafting games that other games don’t have