Age of EON is a duelling card game for 2. It reminds me of games like Battle Line and Omen: A Reign of War as players will be vying for control of 3 lands. Nothing new so far, right? No worries, there is more, and lots of it! The game comes with 4 ready-to-play decks, consisting of 10 attack cards, and 3 demigod cards. The attack cards are identical for each deck and are numbered 1 to 10. These cards are played to your side of the lands in order to win the battle. There are 4 land cards in the game, one for each color in the game (blue – red – yellow – green), but only 3 are used per battle round, chosen randomly. If the land of your color is one of the lands in play, this represents your homeland. Some cards are more powerful when they are played to their homeland, and in case of tie at the end of the round, the owner of the homeland wins the tie.

Powerful asymmetrical abilities of demigods

The demigods are leaders with a powerful ability that can be used once per battle. You can only trigger the ability of a demigod when the total power on your side of the play area is equal to or higher than the threshold of that demigod (14 – 16 – 18). At the start of a match players determine the order in which their demigods will come out, only one demigod can be active per round. The active demigod of the player losing the battle is removed from the game, revealing the next one. The game ends when the 3 demigods of one player have been defeated.

Strategy, tactics, mindgames, trickery: it’s all there

At the start of a round (battle) players draw 7 cards from their deck of 10 – the remaining three cards will not be used in this battle, unless the player controlling the red demigod triggers their ability. The fact that three cards are left out of each player’s hand, makes it harder to guess what cards are still left in the opponent’s hand as the game progresses.
Players will be adding the attack cards to their side of the play area, adding it in front of the land cards. On each player’s side each land card has 3 slots for cards. You play one card per turn. Each land card also has a card added to it to indicate whether you can add cards with magical or physical attack to them – each of your attack cards has either physical or magical attack power, so that’s another thing to keep in mind as you strategize and manage your hand of 7 cards.

Two elements add even more strategy: the abilities of attack cards and the use of sacred seals. There are ways to deceive and manipulate your opponent as some cards let you flip cards on the battlefield, be it your own cards or your opponent’s cards. Face-down cards do not contribute their power to the battle and with only 3 card slots per land flipping one card can have a big impact on the outcome of the battle – but timing is important: flip a card too early and your opponent might have options to flip it back face-up, wait too long to flip it and you might no longer be able to do so because the slots on your side are filled. This is where I should mention the Sacred Seals. These cards are added to an opponent’s side, effectively filling up one precious slot, and also lowering the total power of your opponent’s attack cards making it more difficult for them to invoke their demigod’s power, in exchange for you playing a card face-down to your side of that land. Each player can only play 2 Sacred Seal cards per match, so use them wisely. And who knows, maybe you manage to pull off a master play by playing a powerful card face-down to fill the last slot on an opponent’s side of a land, meaning they can’t react to anything you do on your side of that land, and then you fill your final slot of that land with a card that lets you flip back face-up the card you played face-down in order to play the seal. Boom! It is this type of mindgames and trickery that make Age of Eon feel tense, and rewarding if you can pull it off.

Verdict and takeaways

I really enjoyed my plays so far. This game will especially please players who are looking for a fast-paced and interactive card game. A game lasts about 20 to 30 minutes, and chances are you will immediately want to play again, because you want to change your strategy, or you want to try your chances with a different demigod.

Even though you have only 7 cards to manage each round, the game offers you plenty of choices. Age of EON offers a delightful mix of strategy and tactics. The card abilities are great to get some strategy in your game, but you will also be reacting to whatever your opponent does. The fact that there are only 3 slots per land card makes each battle feel tight.

The abilities of the demigods are another fun way to explore different strategies, and all three abilities of each demigod work around a certain theme/ability, be it protecting cards and adding to their power (green), switching cards (yellow), drawing cards (red), and flipping cards face-up or face-down (blue). It is fun to explore these different strategies.

The balance between cards with and without abilities make every decision meaningful. The split between physical and magical attack cards adds another strategic layer to the game. It might feel limiting at first but then you remember that cards can be played face-down in order to put out a Sacred Seal, so in that case the attack type does not matter. As a bonus, if you manage to flip the card face-up in a later turn, its power will still be added to the total power, even though the attack symbol does not match.

The fact that each deck is identical, except for the demigods, makes this a game that easy to get familiar with. This does not detract from the tactical and strategic depth – the better you know the cards, the more interesting it becomes in trying to deduce what cards the opponent still holds and what your chances are in winning a battle. Given that there are 3 cards out of the game, you can never be absolutely sure if your opponent still has a card with a flipping ability, so it remains tense until the final card gets played.

Last but not least the art, also by the designer, is gorgeous, I really like it. It reminds me of Magic: the Gathering cards.