Everything is missed in the Challengers board game, but we still have fun

In Challengersyou try to build the best team, evolving it over the seven rounds that a game lasts.

At the start, everyone has the same cards: characters, with a strength, and sometimes a power. Magician, superhero, teenager, dinosaur… the roster is eclectic.

But, before each match, you can add up to two new cards, taken from a small sample, and above all remove any cards from your deck.

Then you face an opponent, or possibly face one again, depending on the number of participants.

The game itself is disconcertingly simple. Even worse than that, since we decide on absolutely nothing. Everything is played like a battle, in mode auto battler.

The first player turns over the top card of his deck, resolves his effect if there is one, then takes the flag. His opponent then turns over cards until he equals or exceeds the strength of the card in front, then seizes the flag in turn. And so on.

When one of your cards is eliminated, you place it on one of the six spaces of your bench. All identical cards only take up one space, but if you run out of them, you lose the confrontation.

Likewise, if you play the last card of your deck, but fail to defeat the opposing force, you also lose.

Each round you win earns you a trophy, equivalent to more or less victory points. At the end of the seven rounds, the two players with the most face off in the final: the winner wins the game.

Why play Challengers ?

Everything is failed in Challengers ! The illustrations, of course, which we notice first, are ugly. The quality of the cards, rather fine. The storage, not practical at all. Ergonomics problems, with information present on some cards, but not others (why?), or a font in which the 1s and 7s are too similar. Even translation errors and misused terms in the French version. In short, a disaster.

Really, everything is missed in this game? No. Because despite all these editing flaws, which usually would have automatically eliminated it from our selection, Challengers offers an exhilarating gaming experience and a gameplay really original.

This is obviously not the most interesting confrontation part. Even if we like to see our cards come out in the right order, and that they interact as we intended. Conversely, it’s a little frustrating when they come out at the wrong time. All the interest of the game lies in the construction of its package, before each match.

Indeed, the cards are divided into different families, each with its type of power and its specificities, and in level, from A to C. Level A cards are generally weaker, but with synergies with more impact, while C-level cards have higher brute force, but lower powers, or even flaws.

The important thing is therefore to manage to put together a deck with cards that work well together, to alternate between raw powers and interesting powers, while trying not to have too many different cards, so as not to clutter up your bench. It is also necessary to know how to remove the cards that have become too weak or useless, without either cleaning up your deck too much, so as not to find yourself dry at the end of the battle.

Pay attention to the number of players indicated on the box. Forget the single player mode, uninteresting. It turns to two or three, but it is especially from four that the game takes all its interest. And the more of us there are, the better it becomes. It’s obviously nicer to be an even number of participants, to avoid playing against a bot. But the games against the latter are not uninteresting, especially since he is rather tough.

In short, despite its slew of faults, prohibitive in normal times, we have to admit that Challengers offers a gameplayoriginal, really playful, intriguing, and quite addictive. We then begin to dream of a second edition, purged of these problems, and, let’s be crazy, dressed in a license worthy of the name (Pokémon, Marvel, Star Wars…). The game would then go from very good to excellent.

Note: the photos come from the English version, but the game is fully translated into French.

• Challengersis a game by Johannes Krenner and Markus Slawitscheck
• Illustrated by Jeff Harvey
• Published by Z-Man Games
• For 1 to 8 players from 8 years old
• For games of about 45 minutes
• Priced at €35.95 at Philibert

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