Epic – First Impressions

First game of my con was playing Epic with a mate in the bar. The bar will be a recurring feature in the con, for no reason whatsoever.

Epic is basically Magic the Gathering (MTG) turned up to 11, emphasising the powerful combos you see in that game with a simpler resource system. On your turn and your opponents you get 1 gold to spend. Cards will cost either 0 or 1 and may do something when they arrive in play or trigger when other cards are played. As you get this gold on your opponents and you turn you can do all sorts of clever things, Ambushing opponents, playing counters etc.

We only played with the mono colour decks that the game comes with but there was a lot to dig into even in those simple decks, with combos becoming more apparent as we played and learnt what different abilities did. There are other ways to play the game as you can construct your own deck or draft with multiple boxes. At only ten pounds per game you can certainly see the appeal of this over the rare-chasing nature of MTG.

The designers are both Magic pros as I understand it and that definitely shows through in the design. The game is certainly not as immediately accessible as Star Realms was but there is a lot more to get stuck into and I look forward to trying out the other mono colour decks and maybe even giving draft a go soon.