Tournament at Avalon

Tournament at Avalon (and its older sibling Tournament at Camelot) is a trick-taking game that is also a fight to the death – each player begins with a certain amount of health (you can vary it depending on how long a game you’d like to play) and as soon as any player’s health hits zero, the healthiest player at that point wins.

Each player begins as a protagonist from the Arthurian legends, and each protagonist comes with its’ own individual power or ability. Players are dealt 12 cards each, but before play begins pass three of their hand to the player on their left – allowing you to dump cards you don’t want, and also access a little insider knowledge about one of your opponent’s cards.

There are three suits, and standard trick-taking rules apply: when a card of a certain suit is led, you must follow suit if you can, either with a direct match or one of the Alchemy cards, which are considered wild and always match. The catch here is that you don’t get the cards by winning a trick – you get them by losing it: playing the lowest numbered card. And taking a trick is actually bad: cards in a trick deal damage, and when one player has run out of cards, everyone’s collected trick cards deal damage to their health. Some tricks are relative scratches, others… less so. (If you can’t follow suit on a trick, you must discard a card from your hand and also – lose health!)

So there’s a relatively simple game here, but Tournament at Avalon builds a lot of room for tactical manouevering on top of the basics. For a start, there are your character powers, which help you during the game either by giving you a constant edge, or some boost when your health hits a critical point. The least healthy players can also be helped out by Godsend cards, which come to their aid when they’ve had a bad round, and each protagonist has a companion card who will join you when your health drops below a critical point.

Also in the deck are a number of special cards that can play havoc with expectations, jettisoning already-played cards from the trick or flipping the lowest-takes rule temporarily, so a player who played highest gets damage instead.

Last but not least, a low on-suit card and a low alchemy card can occur as the same number in the same trick. When this occurs the ‘lowest cards’ actually cancel each other out, and some other unsuspecting player who thought they were safe has to take the cards instead!

Although players can’t ever trade cards, they can strike (and renege on) deals – if someone is clearly winning the battle, alliances can be forged to deal them significant damage and level the playing field. Of course, this is Avalon: there’s no guarantee anyone can – or should – keep their word!