Board Game Arena

Due to the lack of player interaction, YRO is effectively Candy Land Tier in strategy that makes you feel big brain for connecting the dots. You do need to do some math, so if Candy Land is a 1/5 in strategy, I'd give YRO 2.

"Good job, you put the square peg into the square hole. You're so smart. Too bad your opponents didn't get the right shaped blocks for their holes- they must not be a master strategist like you."

Without the pick and pass variation of play, the only skill this game offers is card counting for probability management (which is slightly better than card counting in Wing Span lul). With the pick and pass variation, you could actually hate/counter draft your opponents. Unfortunately, BGA doesn't have the pick and pass drafting variation available to try out.

Unless my local game store has a demo of this game available for my squad to try out, I might just stick to Fairy Tale for a quick play, engine builder. It's hard to tell at a glance if the pick and pass variation would remedy the Candy Land vibes, as some cards feel like they're "always good" or explosive in the end game. Meanwhile, in Fairy Tale, your big cards always have the opportunity to get disabled. Fairy Tale can get passed up on game night, as it can require too much attention. So a lighter version (that has more substance than Shushi Go) could be appreciated.

Just my thoughts after playing a dozen or so games of YRO here. I just feel a lack of agency aside from the base line "don't be bad at basic math."

I have the physical version of the game and I always try to force the draft method whenever we play, feels way better with a more competitive mindset. I would like to see it in Arena at least.

Btw you got me curious and I will go and try Fairy Tale

Good to hear. I might order YRO in the near future then. I've been playing it too much on BGA to not pay my respects.

Fairy Tale is kind of the goat for pick and pass set collection games (not that I'm that well versed in the genre, I've only played 2 other games like it). I feel YRO's engine builder style is distinct enough where you won't feel like you bought two too similar games, should you decide to pull the trigger on Fairy Tale.

Well, I'm #1 on the leaderboard now. I stand by my OP- without "pick and pass" drafting, the game is almost entirely luck based.

The "almost" rests in the math. I wouldn't say the majority of my opponents are bad at math- many appear to be unaware of the opening combat trends I've picked up on (i.e. getting those 4 points from combat, the probability of your opponent opening with X power). If they followed that better, I'd wager my win rate would dip to ~55% (currently 61%) just from the handful of replays I've looked at.

Then there's a bit of money math and planning ahead. I've seen L's on both sides due to little oopsies of being 1 coin short of a bigger play that you already have in hand. Combined with the above, I'd probably go down to ~53%.

If it is luck based, then how am I still 3% above? Well, even with the above going well for my opponents, there are a decent many that aren't threading the needle to this game's math well. Bad openings, bad fallow-ups, bad bets. I have too many games under my belt and spent time going over my losses, so I can't blame less experienced players too much for not having more experience.

The problem with "pick and pass" is it would be awful 1v1. For BGA's arena, it wouldn't add that much skill expression, unless it was 3v3 or 4v4. That would make the games last ~10x longer, and could introduce king making and win trading. Still, I feel "pick and pass" as an optional feature for non-arena games would be well worth it, and would be optimal for tournament play.

Either way, Studio Supernova won in the end. I have ordered my copy of YRO. Now I can play my big smart pick and pass games with my friends lol. I am also designing travel sized assets (box is way too big, zero chance I'm lugging that whole thing to conventions). If I do it well, I'll probably post about it on BGG for people to print. I haven't made stuff for my games in over a decade, but it's fun to dive into it.