Charity Challenge Week 3 Night 3- 7 Wonders Duel
Week 3 is currently sitting at 2-0 for me and Rachel has had two strong game picks go against her this week. It really feels like I’ve maybe turned this around, for the first time in a long time in the competition (going back beyond this year!).
Just a reminder of why we are here – Rachel and I are doing a month long board game challenge to raise funds and awareness for Toronto’s Sick Kids hospital. We’ve got a ways to go on our goal and we would very much appreciate any donations to help us get there! If you would like to learn more or donate please visit our Extra Life campaign page.
The Choice
Rachel has decided that if I’m going to win week 3 she’s going to make sure it’s an epic battle. For Night 3 Rachel has elected to pick the game where we are most competitive and close in skill, the game that has produced some of our most epic gaming moments: 7 Wonders Duel.
7 Wonders Duel is a game with a deep history in this competition – it’s the first game we ever played in year 1, and last year it was the game that Rachel mathematically eliminated me from the competition. We are playing for it all here.
The Game
7 Wonders Duel is the two player re-implementation of the very popular 7 Wonders, a drafting game where you pick cards to build out a civilization from resources, to commerce and more. In 7 Wonders Duel two players take turns picking cards from a structured pyramid to build their civilization. Some cards give you resources, some cards give you science, or military and some give you economic advantages. There are three ways to win: by having the most points at the end of the game OR collecting 6 different sciences (the game ends immediately when you collect a sixth science breakthrough) OR militarily by defeating your foe (if your military grows a certain strength beyond your opponent the game ends immediately).
There’s a lot going on in this fantastic two player package. If you’d like to learn more please check out this excellent video from PEI’s Rodney Smith.
The Result
This is far and away the most intense game of 7 Wonders Duel we’ve ever played. It was very clear that the result was going to be both very tight and very low scoring. On your turn you can take a card or you can discard a card to gain money and prevent your opponent from getting that item. Our game was brutal, we discarded more than we ever have, being as focused on denying each other needed cards as we were on building our own civilization.
Rachel was really struggling. She did not manage to get the resources that she needed and had trouble building up her civilization, constantly needing to buy resources for cash, a costly approach. The one thing she did have on the go was right through the whole game she was doing very well on both the science and military victory conditions.
In the third and final age I was feeling very confident. Rachel was very close to the military victory but I shoved her back, building up my military in a counter to hers. Then all of a sudden Rachel managed two very lucky random draws of military cards and BOOM. Out of no where she had landed the military victory for the second year in a row, unbelievable, what an ending!
We decided to play out the game as if Rachel hadn’t won the military victory because we knew the score was insanely tight and unusually low. In the end we ended up tied 38-38. Any way you slice this this was an incredible game of 7 Wonders Duel, delivering on the promise of Rachel’s game selection.
Regardless, Rachel gets the win and brings us to 2-1 for Week 3. See you tomorrow where hopefully I manage to get one over on Rachel to take the week, she’s sure putting up a fight.