Arcane Arena

2020 | Card Game | Fantasy | Fighting

"You are an aspiring gladiator seeking to win the Tournament of Champions in the Arcane Arena. The Arcane Arena is a secret temple where fighting techniques are practiced, magical spells are taught and martial arts tournaments are held. Spend the time before the big event training in your favorite combat tactics and competing in satellite tournaments to test your mettle and gain the approval of the temple's caretakers."

In Arcane Arena, each player starts with an identical small deck of cards. Gameplay takes place over 3 rounds each consisting of two phases. The first phase is a Training Phase where players play their cards to generate currency and choose which techniques to add to their decks. A Combat Phase follows where these decks are used to move around the tactics boards and engage in combat with other players to curry favor with the temple trainers. The last player standing in the Arena in the final round, The Tournament of Champions, is the victor.

The game comes with 170 cards including core cards for set-up, base cards that are always on offer, and trainer cards. The game reveals random trainer cards in any given play through which leads to substantial variety from session to session. The game also includes a board, dual-layered character tokens, favor tokens, and five 20-sided dice.

—description from the designer