Review: DUEL OF WANDS is a Fun 2-Player Deduction Card Game
Renegade Game Studios recently released Duel of Wands. This card game is part of the Kids on Brooms universe and is designed by Luke Muench and Doug Levandowski with art by Heather Vaughan. The game is designed for 2 players and can even be incorporated into your Kids on Brooms RPG sessions if you so desire. Renegade was kind enough to send me a review copy of the game, but you can purchase a copy for yourself from your local game store or Renegade’s store for $20.
Casters have long used magic to settle their disputes, often with disastrous effects. Over the years, these duels developed into the codified contest of skill and cunning that we have today: the Duel of Wands.
In Duel of Wands, players are attempting to prove themselves the superior caster, slinging spells at each other to try and remove their opponent’s Psyche and win the duel. Don’t grow too confident in victory; between rounds, the loser will have the opportunity to study and improve their spells!
Duel of Wands is a really cool game. It feels like a combination of a very simple card game with a deduction game. You and your opponent take turns casting spells to get rid of the other’s Psyche or by not being the first one to not be able to draw cards. Gameplay is very simple with a (usually) play one draw one mechanic. You play a spell, resolve the spell, and then everyone draws up to 4 cards. It’s very simple.
Both players have the same deck as well for the most part. Each player does get 2 random Unique Spells at the start of each round, but other than those, the card names are the same. Also, as cards are played or banished, they are supposed to be piled in a way where everyone can see what has been played. This is where the deduction comes into play. You can have slightly different cards with upgraded versions of spells, but the names and ratios are the same and therefore don’t influence this part. These very slight variations in the decks do help add a lot of replayability.
I found the gameplay to be a lot of fun. I loved the deduction aspect mixed with the almost trading card game like gameplay. I was shocked at how long some rounds took. I initially thought that this was going to be an extremely quick game, but some of the rounds took a while since you can shuffle your cards back together to recover and sometimes you just need a bit of time to think.
As mentioned before, this game can be incorporated into your games of the Kids on Brooms RPG and I think that’s very clever. I’ve never played the RPG, so unfortunately that’s where my thoughts ends.
Duel of Wands is a great 2-player card game if you like deductive games. There’s no health or life that you’re trying to knock down, it’s just being able to guess when your opponent has the right cards in their hand. If you’re looking for a new 2-player game, I would recommend this one. I am interested to see if they’ll be able to make expansions for this game, but right now it’s a great standalone.
