7 Wonders Duel is an innovative twist on the original card-drafting and set collection favorite 7 Wonders. Both are designed by Antoine Bauza, but Bruno Cathala joined as a co-designer for this slick two-player competitive game.

And whether it’s the return of Bauza to his beloved 2010 tabletop classic or the fresh perspective of Cathala on the world of 7 Wonders, it doesn’t matter.

What does matter is the fact that something special happened. The standalone game doesn’t cheaply alter the gameplay in minor ways. It doesn’t clamor for attention with shiny components, unnecessary miniatures, or a big box.

7 Wonders Duel arrives in a small square package, recalibrates all of the ideas in the original card game, and delivers a sensational revision that fixes everything I didn’t like about the civ-building tabletop juggernaut.

What did it change and why does it work so well? Let’s see.

STORY

The story is not one that you add to. It’s one that you build. Each player brings nameless cities out of the dust and into existence by constructing buildings, wonders, and by trading with other cities.

Civilizations rise from the earth and craft a legacy. Will it be one of warfare? Of science? Or will it simply be one that recognizes the greatest city on the planet full of culture, knowledge, and power?

7 Wonders Duel is about two players going head to head and creating their own narrative.

GAMEPLAY

7 Wonders Duel is a simple game. It doesn’t take long to learn the rules, and it’s an intuitive card game that welcomes players of all ages.

Just like its predecessor.

A playthrough consists of three ages, each with their own separate deck of cards. Players select these cards until the deck runs out and a new age begins. A player’s turn can involve one of three actions: constructing a building, finishing work on a wonder, or discarding a card for coins. And the combination of buildings and wonders in a player’s city will determine the number of victory points at the end of the game.

Easy to learn. Easy to teach. Easy to play.

But Duel shines brightest in the ways it deviates from 7 Wonders. The varied card-drafting. The military and scientific victories. The progress tokens. The wonder selection. All of these innovative changes make for a better experience.

It might make sense for me to discuss why I don’t like 7 Wonders before I go into detail as to why Duel accomplishes more than the game it reimplements.

7 Wonders plays fast. Even with six or seven people, the game will end relatively quickly because of the simultaneous card-drafting. It’s a nice feature to some in that everyone is playing at the same time and there is little wait time between rounds. Everyone picks a card, passes the deck to the next player, and then picks a new card from the next deck. And so on. But it also means that there is little in-game player interaction. Yeah, people might talk, but everyone is virtually playing a game by themselves. The players to your right and left might have an interest in what you’re doing, but there are not varied options to really affect the other players. Yes, don’t feed military cards to the aggressive guy or scientific cards to the tech-heavy player, but other than that it’s a compartmentalized game. I want more face-to-face interaction. I want more conflict. It gets boring.

The military and technology cards in the original game provided alternate strategies with benefits that would come into effect at the end of the game. Having a stronger military gradually provided larger bonuses by the time that the game ended. Having robust technology trees rewarded players with endgame bonuses as well. But they also created one-sided playstyles. The girl who only focused on military cards. The guy who stole all the technology cards as soon as possible. And because the bonuses didn’t come until the end, these smaller groups of cards ended up not being very interesting within the grand scheme of things.

And the wonders were more one-dimensional. Each player is in control of a single wonder, and that wonder has three stages that can be completed throughout the game. So each player one gets three bonuses from their wonders and they might all be channeled into one style of play. It wasn’t varied enough for more strategy.

And card-drafting would go in the same direction for the entire Age. That means if a group of cards started several spaces in front of you, you would only ever get access to it once the player in front of you had time to look through it and select a card. So if the player in front of you was selecting similar types of cards, you could go an entire age without getting really anything you wanted. It’s an inconvenience in that sense, but it also forces you to develop a strategy of card selection from a reactionary stance. It doesn’t allow you to more actively build the kind of card engine you want.

7 Wonders Duel adjusts the gameplay mechanics in ways, though, that affects all of that.

The game is still fast, but now it’s a two-player game. So it’s over in twenty or thirty minutes, but the game possesses more intensity and competitiveness. With just two people, there is constant friction and conflict as both players go head to head. And because the cards for each age are laid out on the table, for both players to see, there isn’t any speculation or isolated gameplay. Everything happens in a visible manner. Both players have to react to the changing board as face-up cards are selected and face-down cards are revealed. It’s exciting and it strips away the barriers between players that existed in the original.

You can now win military and scientific victories. These end the game immediately when they occur, and they force players to consider their opponent’s moves the entire game. When military buildings are constructed, or military abilities are activated, the Conflict pawn is moved left or right along a track. As it progresses to one end, the weaker player will lose coins and the stronger player will lock in victory points if the Conflict pawn is still there at the end of the game. But if it ever reaches the end of the track on one side, the stronger player wins the game immediately. And the scientific victory doesn’t depend on a track, but it does have win conditions for the players. Every pair of scientific symbols a player takes results in a progress token rewarded to that player, which can influence other aspects of the game, including coins, buildings, and victory points. But if any player ever gets six different scientific symbols, between the cards in their play area and the progress tokens earned, then that player wins a scientific victory immediately.

Both of those changes add weight to the game. There are now more factors to consider when picking a card. Does it enable your opponent to gain a significant advantage in either of those two areas? Then maybe it’s not the right move. Discarding cards for coins now can help players get rid of a card that they know will help their opponent inch closer to a military or scientific victory. These two types of cards matter in a way that I didn’t feel when playing 7 Wonders.

Speaking of wonders, each player selects four of them to start the game. And they have varied benefits for later in the game. What’s nice about that is it gives players a chance to find wonders that have the same resources required for construction or with bonuses that feed into each other nicely. One might give coins and an extra turn that can help you construct a second wonder. There are so many possibilities. It’s another design decision that deepens that strategy and improves the gameplay.

And card-drafting is better because every decision matters. If your opponent needs a resource and you build it instead, it makes it harder for them to get it and more expensive for them to acquire it through trade. Discarding cards can help you create wonders and collect coins but it can also prevent your opponent from getting a card they desperately need. With just two players, every choice carries more gravity than it ever did in the original game.

Maybe that helps explain why I like this so much. All of my criticisms have been taken into account and the gameplay is better than ever.

It’s just more fun. All of the weaknesses have been whittled away and the remaining game is a sleek, sharp, sexy two-player card game.

VISUALS

The artwork is the same as other products in the world of 7 Wonders. The wonders are colorful illustrations of famous structures from all over the planet and the cards all feature depictions of past ages when smiths and masons and carpenters created cities and civilizations emerged.

And the small square box has condensed the contents into a much more manageable box.

Small cards, a small game board, and only one plastic component make all of this travel light. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, “Pack carefully and carry a small game.”

REPLAYABILITY

Only eight Wonders are used in each game but there are twelve in the box. Three Age cards are not used from each deck. Four Guild cards are not used in each game. Four Progress tokens are not used in each game.

All of those extra cards means that there are different combinations of cards picked every game.

So there is a lot of replay value.

And since the game is so easy to teach, and you only need one other player, 7 Wonders Duel can be a go-to game in just about every setting.

Kids can play. Old people can play. It’s very accessible which means very replayable.

WHAT IT COULD HAVE DONE BETTER

7 Wonders Duel already improves on a game in several ways, so the only thing I would want to make it better is more content. More cards and gameplay mechanics that deepen the strategy and increase the replay value of the game.

Thankfully, since release, there has been an expansion for the game that provides new cards and further innovates on the central design. And there is another one on the way.

So what it could have done better, it’s already done.

VERDICT

If you like 7 Wonders, then you’ll like 7 Wonders Duel. It’s more of the same world with a different style and designed with two players in mind. Buy it and you won’t regret it.

If you don’t like 7 Wonders, no problem Neither did I. But you might actually like this game. 7 Wonders Duel refines the gameplay and introduces new ideas that refresh the classic tabletop game and raise the bar higher for any further releases in this civ-building universe.

Antoine Bauza and Bruno Cathala have outdone themselves. This is good fun, and I’m excited to play more and more.