PLAYED FOR YOU

Cheaty MageS

Monster duels influenced by spells

Players are magicians who have a number of spells at their command. In an arena they bet on monsters fighting there and use spells to assist those monsters they did bet on. But there are judges who do not allow all of the spells, so sometimes a spell rebounds on the magician.

The game is played in three rounds. At the start of round you draw cards from the spell deck, 5-8, depending on the number of players. Five cards are drawn from the fighter deck and laid out, as is one card from the Judge deck. Then you place betting cards and can win double stake for one card placed, fighter value for two cards and half the fighter value for three cards bet.

Then you use cards from your hand to influence fighters to ensure your winning your bet: To "Enchant" a fighter you place a card face-down next to the fighter; "Direct" spells on a fighter are placed open-faced. "Support" spells can have a wide variety of effects and those effects are, in most cases, resolved immediately and the card is then discarded. This placing of cards continues until all players have passed. Then the Judge decides in case his Mana limit was topped by a fighter: Either all spells on this fighter are removed or the fighter himself is ousted from the round. Then fighting powers are compared, the strongest fighter wins and all those who did bet on him, win their bets.

Cheaty Mages is a good game of card comparison where bluffing and guessing at spells cast by others are a lot of fun. The option to bribe the judge in the last round is a nice feature and the game is a lot more tactical than you would suppose at first glance!

Players: 3-6

Age: 12+

Time: 45+

Designer: Seiji Kanai

Artist: Noboru Sugiura

Price: ca. 20 Euro

Publisher: Alderac Entertainment 2013

Web: www.alderac.com

Genre: Cards, value comparison

Users: With friends

Version: en

Rules: en jp

In-game text: yes

Comments:

New edition

First edition 2008 Kanai Factory

Unusual design

Bets are made without stakes

Compares to:

Card games with value comparison, Mage Wars for topic

Other editions:

Kanai Factory

Chance (pink): 2

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0