Splendor Duel – The Tabletop Times Review

Splendor Duel is a 2 player exclusive game based on the popular gateway game Splendor! In Splendor Duel, players will take turns collecting gems and buying cards in a race to meet the victory conditions before their opponent!
🟢🟢🟢🟢Overview🟢🟢🟢🟢
At the start of the game, players will randomly distribute all of the gem tokens on the main board, filling it in following the order of the arrows printed on it. Then, the 3 decks of cards (containing level 1, 2, and 3 cards) are shuffled and dealt out to build the public market. There are 5 level 1 cards, 4 level 2 cards, and 3 level 1 cards in the market at any given time. Lastly, the victory tile, privilege tokens, and royal cards are placed nearby.
Players take turns performing actions until a player meets one of the victory conditions:
⚪️ 20 prestige points
⚪️ 10 crowns
⚪️ 10 prestige points on cards of the same color
On a player’s turn, they can choose to perform either or both of the following optional actions:
🔵 Spend 1 privilege token to take 1 non-gold token from the board.
🔵 Replenish the board’s empty spaces, but your opponent takes 1 privilege.
Then, a player can take 1 of the following actions:
🟠 Take up to 3 adjacent non-gold tokens from the board in a row, column, or diagonal.
🟠 Take 1 gold token from the board, then reserve 1 card.
🟠 Purchase 1 card from the market or 1 reserved card.
Cards that a player purchases go face-up into their personal play area, while reserved cards are kept face-down and hidden from the opponent. Cards can have several attributes printed on them, such as a prestige point value, a number of crowns, a color bonus, and gem costs. The color bonuses on a player’s cards act as permanent discounts on future card purchases.
Cards might also have special abilities, such as allowing a player to take an additional turn, or marking the card as a ‘wild’ color that the player declares when they purchase it. Additionally, when a player obtains 3 or 6 crowns, they can take a royal card from the supply. These cards are worth extra prestige points and sometimes have special abilities.
In general, player’s will take turns taking gem tokens from the board with a plan to purchase certain cards from the market. Since the privilege tokens give your opponent an advantage, players will likely hold off on refilling the gem board until they absolutely need a certain gem token for a particular card. Players might also notice what cards their opponent seems to be building toward, and may try to take tokens off the board to stop them. Players can focus on buying level 1 cards because they are cheaper and offer reasonable gem bonuses to help purchase more expensive level 2 and level 3 cards.
🟡🟡🟡🟡Thoughts🟡🟡🟡🟡
🔴🔴🔴🔴Kim🔴🔴🔴🔴
I was very interested in Splendor Duel since Devin and I game a lot with just the two of us. I was a little hesitant though because I know Splendor is on the lighter side, so I wasn’t sure if Splendor Duel would offer enough ‘meat’ for us to get to the table often. However, I really like this game and it’s now one of my favorite 2 player games behind 7 Wonders Duel!
Gameplay offers a good amount of strategy and depth in a pretty short play time. After our first play through, each game took around 30 minutes.This game falls somewhere between Jaipur and 7 Wonders Duel (two other popular 2-player only games) in terms of complexity and depth of strategy. I really like the multiple ways to victory because you and your opponent can be focusing on different things, but if you’re not paying attention to what they’re doing they can sneak past you to victory.
If you play a lot of games at 2 players I highly recommend trying Splendor Duel!
🟣🟣🟣🟣Devin🟣🟣🟣🟣
I always wanted to play Splendor, but never quite got around to it. I understood that it was more of a family-style game, so I wasn’t expecting a very deep level of strategy from Splendor Duel. I ended up pleasantly surprised! The tense game of chicken that can happen when neither player wants to refill the board to give their opponent a privilege token is really fun!
The gem tokens themselves are very high quality poker chips. They’re sturdy, weighty, and satisfying to handle. The art on the cards is pleasant to look at, with a variety of unique images for different types of cards.
Overall, I really enjoy our time playing Splendor Duel. We’re big fans of games made specifically for 2 players, and Splendor Duel manages to deliver a fun, satisfying strategy game in a short amount of time, in a small box, with a small footprint. I could see us pulling this out when we want to play a 2 player strategy game, but want something a little shorter and lighter than 7 Wonders Duel.

Written by Kim Gonzales & Devin Skelton, writers from The Tabletop Times