Behind the Magic [Preview] – What’s Eric Playing?

Base price: $XX.
1 – 4 players.
play time: 20 – 45 minutes.
BGG Link
Check it out on Kickstarter! (Will update link when Kickstarter is live.)
Logged plays: 2

Full disclosure: A preview copy of Masters to Mythics: Behind the Magic was provided by Baskerville Productions. Some art, gameplay, or other aspects of the game may change between this preview and the fulfillment of the Kickstarter, should it fund, as this is a preview of a currently unreleased game. 

Okay, we’re back in crowdfunding season! There will likely be more of these in the preorder / crowdfund stage moving forward, especially as we approach Origins and Gen Con. People like having an active campaign for the big cons, which, stands to reason. You can actually go and try the thing, sometimes, or at least see it in action beyond what the content folks (myself included) can show. Not everyone makes it to the shows, but I think the prevailing wisdom remains. Either way, more crowdfunding in the future! Let’s dive into one now.

In Masters to Mythics: Behind the Magic, players take on the role of apprentice magicians vying to become the greatest magician of all time without having to clone themselves, have an identical twin, or hang out with Jesse Eisenberg. No disrespect; I’m sure he’s a nice dude. To do so, you’ll have to learn from magic masters and the occasional mythic being, just because, well, they are pretty good at magic. Stands to reason. Will you be able to become a modern mage?

Contents

Setup

There’s a bit but not a ton. Everyone gets a mat and a set of Prestidigitation Chips that have to start in this specific configuration:

Then, split the Legends cards into decks based on the gem color on the back of the card. Shuffle each deck and allow each player to draw two cards of the color of their choice to form their starting hand (don’t let them look at the fronts before they draw). Reveal the top card of each deck to form Legends Lane.

Shuffle the Mythic cards and reveal three to form the Mythic Lane.

Finally, shuffle the Master cards; you’ll reveal those later.

Give the starting player the wand and you should be good to go!

Gameplay

Over the course of several rounds, players will work to acquire Mythic cards (and points) by moving their Prestidigitation Chips around to form various configurations. The challenge is: you might not be the first player to get there!

To kick off a round, reveal two Master cards from the deck. These will have Basic or Advanced Actions on them, like:

Basic Actions

• Move any chip orthogonally into the currently-empty space.
• Flip any chip over.
• Swap any two orthogonally adjacent chips.

Advanced Actions:

• Flip any two chips over.
• Swap any two chips.
• Swap any two diagonally-adjacent chips.

If you don’t like either of the actions on the Master cards, you can ignore them and take one Basic Action of your choice. That said, as soon as the Master cards are flipped, play starts in real-time. You can use each Master card once. If you make any configuration pictured on a Legend card (it can be along any axis or reversed), you can take the Legend card and place it face-up on the left side of your board. If you use one of the two in your hand, immediately draw a replacement.

If you make a configuration pictured on a Mythic card, check to see if you have the Tomes required to pick it up (Tomes are on Legend cards of their respective colors). If you do, take the Mythic card and place the Legend cards whose Tomes you’re spending on the right side of your mat, so that the Legends can’t be used again.

Once every player has finished their play, start a new round! play continues until any one player hits a certain point threshold, as listed. It’s polite to let everyone know as soon as you do.

• 2 players: 42 points
• 3 players: 38 points
• 4 players: 32 points

As soon as the round ends, the player with the most points wins! If there’s a tie, all tied players must participate in a Magician’s Duel! Flip the top Master card and let each tied player take an action in real-time. The first player to get back to the starting configuration wins!

Player Count Differences

This one’s going to be significantly more intense at higher player counts for a few reasons. For one, the market doesn’t expand based on player count, so more players competing for a few visible resources is going to make it much more strategically useful to take the cards you think you’ll want and keep them in your hand where nobody can grab them. For the Mythics, you’re just going to be on your own. The other challenge this poses is that you’re also not going to be able to keep track of your opponents’ board states as easily as you could in, say, a two-player game. Them’s the breaks, I suppose, but it’s going to be another one of those games that breaks mostly on play style preference. If you’re looking for a high-chaos game with some unintentional take-that as players steal cards out from under your nose, try higher player counts. If you want a more strategic game where you can track most things and plan ahead before executing, try lower player counts. I tend to lean lower, myself, just in terms of play preference.

Strategy

• It generally pays to see what your opponents are going for, lest you get swooped. If another player is much closer to a Legend or Mythic you’ve been eyeing, chances are you’re not going to get that short of some very lucky card pulls or some wild real-time play shenanigans.
• You also probably want to have a few of each Legend card type handy so you can trade them in for Mythics. Very few things worse than finally getting the configuration right for one of the Mythics, only to realize that you don’t have the tomes necessary to actually land the darn thing. Make sure you’ve got things lined up so that doesn’t happen.
• Have a backup plan; you’re not always going to be able to get the card you want. Especially with more players, there will be a lot of contention for the cards that score a bunch of points. You might need to be thoughtful about how you can go after multiple different cards to get what you want.
• As annoying as it can be, it’s sometimes best to just take the single Basic Action rather than try to figure out how to use two actions you don’t even want. Sometimes that’ll be all you need, and other times it’s better to make some progress than just rearranging deck chairs.
• You may not see many ties at low player counts, but at higher player counts, remember they break to the left of the starting player. This is great when it’s you, but it’s terrible when you’re the starting player. You might even consider, from that, that some cards aren’t worth pursuing. Unfortunate, but sometimes a wise assessment.
• If you’re going for a certain Mythic, it may be worth taking the relevant color Legend cards into your hand if you can to make it harder for other players to follow. Both because it might make it more difficult for them to predict who you’re going for (until you play them, which you’ll have to) and because that way you can work on two possible routes towards getting those tomes (the cards in your hand and their face-up counterparts in the market).
• Similarly, if a card has been sticking around in the Market for a while, it might be worth leaving it there; let someone else flip the card and give you the benefit of random chance. Sometimes someone flips a card and it’s exactly a card you’ve already got the configuration for. That rules and all, but if you’re taking a card, it’s unlikely that the card below it will also be one you can get. So if a card isn’t getting taken, let someone else reveal the new card; it might be one for you.

Pros, Mehs, and Cons

Pros

• The first player component is a magic wand. Effortlessly charming, don’t care who you are. Should first player markers be needlessly unwieldy and only relevant to the theme? Honestly, yes. It’s just more fun that way.
• It has a bit of the same mental puzzle that those old tile-sliding puzzles has; it’s a lot of fun. I think a few games have used that sliding puzzle kind of thing as a component lately, and I’ve been really liking it. I was terrible at those puzzles as a kid. Thankfully, here, you’re not doing as much explicit sliding, so even folks who don’t excel at spatial orientation puzzles should be fine.
• Plays more quickly than I expected. The semi-real-time components help a lot on that front, though you will find that the rounds are always limited by the slowest player. Not a problem when I was playing it but if you have a player who struggles through spatial challenges it may make the flow of the game a little less smooth.
• The box fits the components quite nicely, too! You can store tokens for players in the order they need to be set up, which moves things quickly. I love a thoughtfully designed insert.
• I like that the tiebreaker is just to get back to the starting board configuration as quickly as possible. It’s an interesting spin on the core puzzle of the game, and I love that. It’s also more novel than some other arbitrary condition and is actually interesting enough to override my usual house rule of “all tied players win unless anyone remembers the tiebreaker without looking at the rulebook”.
• The ability to create patterns in squares or across various axes makes for a fun spatial puzzle. It’s a nice challenge and the various angles of attack let you play in the space in a very satisfying way.
• It’s cute that they provide resources for learning magic tricks online. Again, a game’s appreciation for its own theme is always nice. It’s like eco-conscious games being made with green components; it shows that you’re not just pasting a theme on but you genuinely care about the theme as an idea.

Mehs

• It can feel a bit annoying when you draw two Masters with Basic Actions that can’t help you, though I appreciate that you can take any one Basic Action instead. It just ends up feeling like a wasted round, especially if other players are getting more utility out of them. Though honestly if everyone hates the cards, that can also feel like a waste.
• The art style blends a bit of photorealism with some more fantastic elements, which kind of occasionally hits the Uncanny Valley. It seems like an art direction choice, to some degree, but a few of the heads feel almost a bit too large for the bodies? I’m not sure what strikes me as a bit unnerving. Will be interested to see how the full game looks.

Cons

• Some of the real-time elements are a bit strange; I think I’d almost rather have some kind of turn-based mode. Most are okay, but the elements where both players want the same card leading to an odd tiebreaker feel a bit not-great for the player who loses. I also watched one of my opponents just really not vibe with the real-time elements in their first game. They still enjoyed the game overall, but it feels like the real-time elements can be a bit strange. Thankfully, there are some alternate rule sets that seem to address that to some degree, either by drafting Master cards or just letting players use two Basic Actions each round without cards. I’d be interested in what a fully turn-based variant looks like, though.

Overall: 7.25 / 10

Overall, I think Masters to Mythics: Behind the Magic is promising! I’ll be interested to see how the game turns out in its final iteration, as it does feel like there are some places where a bit of polish would help, but I do like the core fundamentals of the game! I think it presents a nice and interesting spatial puzzle, and while the real-time element can be a bit divisive for players, I do enjoy having to think quickly or risk seeing the card I need get taken. I wonder if there will be more turn-based play in the final version. With regards to the theme, I think they’re taking it both seriously and whimsically. While moving tiles around may not seem very magical, everything feels more magical when you have a magic wand as the first player token, and the game offers a number of ways to learn magic tricks inside the rulebook at their website. It’s a charming approach that makes the theme seem thoughtful rather than just slapped on. I do wonder if the art style is designed to make it easier to integrate backers into the game itself, but honestly, that kind of campaign management stuff is largely beyond me. What we have is a quick and pleasant game of magic token switching, and I’ve enjoyed my plays of it. If that’s something you’re looking for, you love the concept of stage magic, or you just want a magic wand for your own purposes, you might enjoy Masters to Mythics: Behind the Magic!

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