Review: Wiz-War 8th Edition

I finally got a chance to play the 8th edition of Wiz-War. Some of my friends had a homemade copy of the 5th edition which was a blast to play. It was a very light game. The purpose was to kickback, relax and hopefully have some awesome stories to tell. The minimalistic design of the older version really emphasized this as the cards had no art and the tokens simply had the name of what they were. All the visuals were inside your imagination. I was really excited to play the new 8th edition because of how great the previous version is.

Overall my reactions are mixed to the game. It is still a fun game to play, but it doesn't capture the spirit of the 5th edition that I was hoping for. Granted, I only played the 8th edition with 2 players and this game really shines with 3+. But I think that I got a good taste of the modern mechanics to make a decent judgement.

What I liked was there was still an emphasis on being creative with spells. Things that manipulate the board were especially fun like Rotate Sector or Destroy Wall. The creation elements were a bit lack luster by comparison because of the new maintaining spells rule. But this can be easily corrected using a variant or two at the end of the rules.

The flavor of the game also stays very true to the original. All the new, fancy art and high quality pieces really bring you into a fantasy world. Nothing really seems out of place for a wizard battle royal. The card art has a lot of anime influences. But this is not a bad thing as it reminds you not to take the game too seriously.

My main complaint is this game is not swingy enough. While most modern games aim for balance by having nothing really overpowered, the strength of the 5th edition was balance achieved by extremely overpowered cards. Essentially all the cards that were not utility cards in the 5th edition were extremely powerful. It wasn't hard to torch someone within an inch of death. But the balance came in they would be able to return the favor in the not to distant future. In the 8th edition, all the advantages and cool plays build on marginal advantages over a number of turns. Doing something to absolutely wreck another player is much harder now. Overall the cards are at a more uniform power level and the counters are more prevalent than in the 5th edition.

I think this leads to a less memorable play experience. It is still very enjoyable to build up small advantages until the win is inevitable. Especially trying to do it under the nose of other players who have the same goal. I love Magic: the Gathering for this type of play, but am not really looking for it when I break out Wiz-War. I would prefer more swing and randomness. This generates much better stories. No one remembers the time that you kept a card advantage over your opponent and just won because you had more actions. But everyone remembers the time you were fried almost well done, but managed to teleport to safety and then fry the offending player with lightning to return the favor a few turns later.

There is still a lot of strategy and creativity in the latter type of play, just far less planning due to the chaos that multiple players can unleash. It feels good to not have to feed the Spike in me all the time. Sometimes Timmy wants his time with the massive attacks and flashy tricks. And the 5th edition of Wiz-War was just such a game. While I like the new 8th edition, there is just too much room for Spike to come out. Hopefully, this is less of a case when playing with more than 2 players. But I think that with the flattening of the spells' power Spike still has ample room to come out an play.

EDIT: There is a fan art version of the 5th edition with both official expansions and a community expansion which looks really nice on Board Game Geek. I recommend that those interested in making there own copy use that over the scans linked previously.