So this is the accompaniment article to last weeks disappointments of 2018. And, more than anything, I hope to bring attention to a little gem of a game that I feel has not received as much buzz or attention as it really deserves.

Last week I pointed out Artifact which is a digital card game by Valve Software and is really well made. Well, this time we’re looking at another game but this one is wholly physical.

For those that have followed the gaming posts on my blog, you are probably aware of my love for Summoner Wars by Plaid Hat Games. Despite being a bit niche amongst my board game friends – to the point I only know of Kait and myself who enjoyed the game – I managed to play a lot of games and actually buy many of the new armies for the game. It got to the point that Kait and I developed eight custom factions as well, so we could play decks both new and more tailored to our tastes.

The process of variant creation was an interesting one for me. It helped me to view the game through a different lens and I appreciated and despaired over different design directions key to Summoner Wars. On one hand, I came to really appreciate the element of luck and uncertainty that the dice provided. On the other hand, I did not like the use of high health walls for deployment and instantaneous response it provided along with the timing of discards and card draw.

Overall, however, I really enjoy Summoner Wars and my only regret is that I cannot find other people to play. Sadly, this carried over to Plaid Hat Game’s newest release: Crystal Clans.

I don’t know any other way to describe Crystal Clans other than it’s Summoner Wars version 2.0. This, unfortunately, turns off pretty much everyone I know because they do not like Summoner Wars. So a far more intuitive game with better balanced objectives and alternating game mechanics is not enough to alleviate people’s concerns. So, in order to do Crystal Clans a greater service, I shall attempt to describe it better.

Crystal Clans is an area control board game that pits separate clans represented by unique decks against each other to fight for the coveted crystals. Cards represent different forces of an army which move across a battlefield and vie for two of three crystal locations necessary to claim a crystal card. Players can contest crystal zones by moving their own armies into the space and duking out with their enemy.

Each clan deck is composed of six different commons and three hero cards. Two of the common cards form the backbone of the clan with six copies of those units while the rest have three copies each. There is only a single copy of heroes but heroes are generally stronger and cheaper commons.

Well, that’s the best I can really do. It is near impossible to discuss Crystal Clans while ignoring the Summoner Wars lens and, I feel, something only possible by a player who has never played Summoner Wars. But let me just tell you why I love Crystal Clans far more.

First, the game design is really slick. Clans have a reference card which denotes the signature ability of their faction. This ability isn’t found on all their cards but usually represents a core strategy for the clan. For example, the Skull Clan has Undying as their signature ability. This allows their warriors with that ability to be summoned from their graveyard as though they were in their player’s hand. Unsurprisingly, this represents the classic “undead” faction in fantasy games.

However, these aren’t your stereotypical graveyard robbing ghouls with an unhealthy obsession for black and mortification. One of my consistent gripes with Summoner Wars was how woefully shallow its theming was. Well, Crystal Clans is a terrifically beautiful game. While the style is a bit too cartoonish for my taste, I can’t deny how consistent and committed it is to that style. Those aforementioned necromancers are more Day of the Dead themed with lots of flowers, bright colours and – yes – an unhealthy obsession with skulls.

Curiously enough, only about a third of the undead faction is actually undead. The rest are units built around supporting them with necromancers allowing them to deploy outside of your clan’s home zone or devout cultists which allow a free undead unit summon to their space when they are killed.

Contrast the Skull Clan with their distant kin the Blood Clan. These swamp rednecks are most easily associated with the swarm like factions in fantasy battles. Typically its represented by goblins or something and not bayou farmers and their colossal crocodiles. This faction, however, is fun since they are not restricted by the number of units they can use to form an army. Stack them up as high as you can and form an old school Civilization III stack of doom to terrorise the board!

And this transitions into my next point about Crystal Clans. One of its immediately tangible departures from Summoner Wars’ formula is this squad formation mechanic. You can stack up to three units into one space (for most clans) with only the top unit contributing its special ability while every other unit lends its strength and defence to the whole. This eliminates the need for spells or buffs since any card can, essentially, turn into a persistent improvement to a single card’s power. But there’s more consideration here. Most battles will remove lost troops from the top so you may want to organize your forces to accommodate expected loses so the unit you want to live is buried on the bottom.

Even more interesting, every card also has a “battle effect” tied to it. See, Crystal Clans removes the oft maligned dice mechanic from the game. But to maintain that same element of uncertainty, when two armies battle, each player provides a battle card to their side in an attempt to turn the outcome to their side. The battle effects are split between two options and serve as a simplistic rock-paper-scissors mini-game. At the start of a battle, cards are revealed and you compare your chosen battle card with your opponent. Bold beats Guarded, Tricky beats Bold and Guarded beats Tricky. Generally speaking, stronger effects are regulated to the stronger pairing. For example, Big (Blood Clan Hero) provides an additional 8! attack if you happen to play him into an enemy’s guarded card. But if your opponent played a tricky or bold themselves, then you only receive 4 attack for the fight.

For most games, this little contest will typically be treated as a random effect that you pay little attention to. However, as your understanding and skill with the game improves, you may realize that you can pop your Dandelion Knights out from a horrible Meteor Clan knight stack in your home zone and scurry to crystal zones for the final score by initiating a battle and utilizing your Pollen Faeries battle effect.

And this is what I most love about Crystal Clans. It looks like a cutesy, simplistic version of Summoner Wars with streamlined decks, clearer objectives and much smaller battlefield. However, my experience has been anything but. Crystal Clans mechanics are simple to understand but much harder to optimize. I still don’t know how to “properly” play the game – which is to say I am never certain which action is the best one to take at any turn. This is very similar to Artifact where the mechanics are simplified by the strategy is far more compelling.

Compounding Crystal Clans decision making matrices, its resource system is far more elegant and far more tricky than Summoner Wars. Crystal Clans uses an “initiative track.” There is a numbered ladder on the side of the board and you track your spending by moving a marker up this track towards your opponent. Once it crosses the 1 threshold on your opponent’s side, it is their turn. However, actions cost different amount of initiative. For example, you make take a summon action which allows you to play 1 to 3 cards from your hand to your home zone. This alone can cost anywhere between 0 to 9 or more initiative depending on what you play. If you were on the neutral 0 space of the tracker, that could give your opponent a whopping 11 initiative (since play will only pass back to you once it cross your 1 initiative space on the track)! Scoring is likely the most expensive action since you need to pay the cost of a crystal in order to grab it for your side. Crystals are, on average, about seven initiative themselves and this is not accounting for the initiative you need to spend to control two of the crystal spaces.

Sadly, despite digging how sly its mechanics are plus the unique and coherent design of its clans, Crystal Clans simply does not seem to be catching. I know Kait was pretty lukewarm to it and my friends who didn’t care for Summoner Wars weren’t big fans either. Somehow Crystal Clans managed to alienate both those that loved Summoner Wars and those that hated it. There was a delicate line to walk between too familiar and too different and from my experience Crystal Clans failed to attract those turned off by its predecessor or draw along its ardent fans. I’m really digging their expansion clans who provide very interest twists to the basic game mechanics. I’m also eager to see how Plaid Hat Games finalizes their deck building rules before I start dropping too much money into the game.

And I certainly have not played enough of the game to do a deep dive into its balance but my initial experience seems that while the core box offers pretty good options, there’s a few standout clans. Stone and Flower are distinct among the rest but for opposite reasons. Stone Clan is all about building a strong board presence with immovable armies that destroy the enemies. But all their units and activations cost far too much to really get that board built. On the flip side, and perhaps the fuel for my bias, Flower is incredibly tricky and fast. It’s a pretty frustrating match-up (that I’ve played too many times) and Flower is both able to run circle around Stone (and the other clans for that matter) while also providing rather powerful punches given the power of their signature clan ability Sleep. If you want to try Crystal Clans and really enjoy rolling a game, I suggest picking up the faerie clan.

As of today, however, I’m very happy with Crystal Clans with my only disappointment being that I have no one to play and, given the battle card component of its battles, I’m unable to play by myself. I’ll shamefully admit that I’ve played Summoner Wars on my own many times with only mild conflict of knowledge. But truly randomising the battle cards really strips out a key component to the game.

Of all the things I’d like to see the most in later releases, however, are more crystal cards. To win, one side needs to collect four and they’re purchased from an open set of three. So you can see quite a lot of the same ones through multiple games especially if they’re close. I’d also like to have the option to remove some crystals from rotation and allowing customization of the crystal deck would be fantastic.

So… yeah, if this long rant piqued your interest, I encourage you to give Crystal Clans a try. It might not click at first which is its biggest weakness. But it’s such a lovely little refinement that I just want it to do well enough to see even more!

Maybe it’ll even encourage Plaid Hat Games to put the rest of their clans on their card browser which, to date, still only has their launch cards listed. Or maybe it they could even release more scenarios which also haven’t been seen since launch. There’s so much promise here, I would hate to see it squandered.

So, it’s been awhile. Kait and I have been very busy. Derek hasn’t been seen for years. Thus, our blog has sort of been neglected for a bit. For that, I am sorry. We’re working on something… that should be announced soon. Hopefully. It’s been taking a lot of time and we’re desperately short on that resource.

However, I have something to share today. If you’ve come for gaming news, you might have noticed that I talked quite a bit about Summoner Wars here. Well, for those not up-to-date, Summoner Wars is dead. The company that made it has retired the game after releasing the last second summoners for the factions that hadn’t received it. It was perhaps a touch bittersweet. I’ve been playing and thinking about Summoner Wars for a couple of years and now it is finished. The cards, of course, still exist and we can play it at any time but there’s something to be said for the excitement of new releases.

On the other hand, however, Summoner Wars had some issues which I’ve discussed. It was a flawed little gem. It was fun, different but held back by intrinsic design flaws that could never truly be designed around. In some sense, it was like Team Fortress 2.

Unlike Team Fortress 2, however, Plaid Hat Games has announced a sequel.

Alright, that’s a lie. Plaid Hat has done no such thing. But they have released a new game that contains a number of similarities that it’s hard to not draw a line between the two products. I’m talking about Crystal Clans and I’m excited to share some of my initial thoughts with you about the game.

Crystal Clans represents a first for me. It released in March and I’m talking about it in June! That has to be a record for relevancy from me. Typically I’m a year or more behind on the latest hotness. Three months makes me almost cutting edge! It’s also the first game I’ve purchased sight unseen. I typically like to try things before I buy them. I’m a cautious consumer and hate “wasting money.” Anything I get needs to be used enough for the purchase to be worthwhile. So if it’s something that isn’t enjoyable I’ll still feel a compulsion to play it.

Which makes things difficult if the game is two player.

I had been meaning to hit up a boardgame cafe and try Crystal Clans. I was eager about it when Plaid Hat announced it almost a year ago. Unfortunately, there’s been very little floating around after its release so I was a touch nervous committing to my purchase. But I recently bit the bullet and here we are.

Consequently, I haven’t put enough time into the game to provide a proper review. You’ll have to wait for that whether you want it or not. What I can do is talk about my initial reactions and feelings. Because those are valuable, right?

Let’s start off with a general overview. Crystal Clans is a competitive two player battle card game that involves moving your cards across a board. Each deck represents a unique clan with their own heroes and units. Sounds familiar right? Crystal Clan’s relationship to Summoner Wars is both a blessing and a curse. It offers a level of familiarity that puts off those originally unsatisfied by the predecessor and lures in those that wanted a bit more of the same.

However, outside of its superficial qualities, Crystal Clans is very much its own game.

For one, there is no enemy summoner. In Summoner Wars, the game was one only once the commander of your opponent’s army was killed. In Crystal Clans, you are fighting with your opponent over the game’s namesake. There’s a dozen or so crystal cards (sorry, I don’t actually have the game beside me and I’m too lazy to get up and count them) that form a deck, three of which are ever available for acquiring. To get these crystals, you must march your little armies out and hold two of three special crystal spots on the board, king-of-the-hill style.

And when I say army, I don’t mean some strange metaphorical extraction of game pieces into a fantastical representation. You can literally stack three of your units into one cohesive force. This adds their defence and attack together, while also slowing the battalion down by the most sluggish unit amongst the lot. However, only the top card of the stack benefits from its unique ability (generally speaking). Thus, there’s some strategy to how you organize your units. For example, if you’re the Meteor clan, you probably want your Titan Knights leading charges across the battlefield because they reduce the activation cost of your battalion while they lead. But once you reach the frontlines, you want to swap things around so that your Citadel Knights benefit from both their tactical expertise and allow you to trigger the clans unique ability, Prediction.

But it’s not just stacking your units that is a massive departure from the Summoner Wars formula. Your deck is only composed of units. There are no events in this game so everything can be thrown on the board. There’s also no dice. This may seem like combat is a boring deterministic affair where the person who draws the best squad first wins. However, when two armies meet, both players must play one card from their hand (or their deck if they are unfortunate enough to have no hand). These units now act as battle cards and each unit in your deck has different effects depending on the relationship of the symbols played between you and your opponent.

There are three types of battle cards. I don’t really care what Plaid Hat calls them, they’re the Bull, Turtle and Fox. Generally speaking, Bull battle cards add attack to your squad. Turtle adds defence to your squad. Fox does random things. But there’s more interaction between these types for each battle card has two effects whether its played against its antagonist symbol or not. One effect is typically stronger than the other. Bull (attack) beats Turtle (defence). Turtle (defence) beats Fox (random). And finally, Fox (random) beats Bull (attack).

It’s an interesting sort of guessing game wherein you’re trying to either wipe out your opponent or save your stack while figuring out what your opponent is going to play. There’s an emphasis here on attack that makes exchanges generally a bloody affair. There’s a reason for this: it makes the game all about the cost of exchanges.

For there’s a very interesting mechanic that separates Crystal Clans not just from Summoner Wars but most other games I’ve ever played. The economy of Crystal Clans is built and played out by a shared initiative track. Whenever you summon a unit, you pushed the little crystal down the track towards your opponent. Once it passes a neutral band, your turn ends and your opponent’s begins. It’s a fascinating exchange wherein the more you spend, the more you give your nemesis. Expensive turns produce explosive counter plays. But this doesn’t necessarily mean that conservative play will rule. The specialized design of the clans means some benefit from rushing while others want to slow down and grind things out. Furthermore, crystal scores are highly expensive acts, costing upwards of eight or nine initiative to snag a crystal. Lastly, ignoring crystals and constantly butting heads means you’ll eventually run out of your deck. When that occurs, you shuffle your discard and make a new draw deck but your opponent gets a free crystal without needing to pay or control two zones.

And every action costs you. You want to draw cards? That’s three initiative. Want to move your units. Depending on your battalion, that’s one to three initiative. Attacking requires spending initiative (unless you perform it at the end of a move). You can also force your opponent to discard cards if you control their home zone but this action also costs you three initiative.

There’s a strange flow in this initiative passing that I haven’t quite wrapped my head around. Intuitively, it makes sense to try and leave your opponent with as little initiative as possible. But sometimes a large summon can force your enemy to spend more to respond to it. In fact, because drawing cards requires spending initiative, I feel that the game is less about favourable economic exchanges in terms of summon costs but more about economic exchanges in terms of card usage. If you can win a battle using two units to your opponent’s three, then you can force them to draw more than you. Do that enough times and they’ll run out of deck and you’ll get a free crystal.

Alternatively, if you score three crystals, then you effective put your opponent on a timer. If they run out of deck, you’ll automatically win when they have to reshuffle and claim the fourth and final required crystal. There’s a tempo here that’ll take time to understand and utilize and it’s one of the things that leaves me most excited for Crystal Clans.

As I’ve said, Kait and I have only just begun to play the game. Of all the changes to the Summoner Wars formula, I feel the biggest is in Crystal Clan’s simplicity. Summoner Wars struggled with some fairly counter intuitive mechanics and play elements like killing your own units for economy and the dangers of crossing the middle line due to reinforcement and board control based on wall plays. In this regard, Crystal Clans makes sense. You want to rush your units out and claim those crystal zones. You want to win battles. You want to beat your opponent’s units. The hardest thing to grapple, outside of learning the strengths and weaknesses of six fairly unique decks, is figuring out when to do these. Winning a big battle and taking board control is great but if you score a crystal without a hand, you could open yourself up to a rather brutal counter attack as you have no control over your battle card plays. Learning when to discard cards in your hand, when to replenish, when to push and when to score definitely takes some time.

I’m happy to say, however, that the game doesn’t feel as unfair. Without dice, there’s always a sense that you could have done something else to take back the match. There’s still some element of luck. You can’t control what crystals are available for claiming. You can’t control what order your cards come up in your draw pile. But really outside of that, it’s all on you. And at least for now, it feels a lot more fair.

Hopefully later I’ll be able to go into more detail about the clans, once I have more experience playing with them. But I’m excited that I could spend a whole post just talking about the mechanics without any mention of all the unique cards or the clans special mechanics. Each one changes a fundamental aspect of the game and while some are certainly far better than others, that they give each clan an identity is great design.

Plus, Plaid Hat Games has announced six new clans to be released at a future date so there will be plenty more Crystal Clans to discuss in the months to come!