Quoth the Raven...

We returned to Noble Coffee & Tea today to play a game from Smirk and Dagger Games known as Nevermore.  This is a 3 - 6 player card drafting, hand management, set collection game with multiple take-that mechanics, subtle deception, and cunning trickery.  The raven has its eye out for you and we have a couple new players that have joined us for today's dark and dreary October morning.  Which of us will transform into ravens and which ones will be victorious?  Out of the darkness, our fate will be revealed in the cards.  Read on to learn about Nevermore. 

In Nevermore, there are two phases: the drafting phase and the resolution phase.  Players are using various take-that mechanics to turn other players into Ravens and be the last person standing with the most victory points.  Each player begins with 5 health points and one health token.  Each person will draw one shadow magick card, then 5 cards from the main deck consisting of victory point cards, attack cards, healing cards, radiance cards, and raven cards.  You want to draft as many of the same cards as you can per turn, as only the player with the most of a card type benefits from its affect.  By doing so, you can resolve the effects from the cards you've drafted during that round and play them to your advantage.  After the drafting phase is complete, you begin the resolution phase which works in a sequential manner.  The first token refers to conspiracy of ravens and if you can manage to draft all five raven cards, you will be able to play them at the very beginning of this phase, immediately canceling out the remaining tokens and everyone else automatically takes 1 damage and discards their hands.  Normally this does not happen too often, but it is always the first thing to check for in the resolution phase.  The skulking ravens token is also another token that is always static, except it remains at the end of the token path.  If there are left over raven cards in play, the player with the most will draw shadow magick cards.  The other four remaining tokens are quickly shuffled around and placed back in a face down, random order in the path.  This is done because it will change how everyone draws and executes their hands in every turn.  Some cards can be drawn and played to reveal this path at various times, otherwise the tokens are always revealed one at a time, sequentially from left to right.  Since the game is focused around player synergy, everyone is out to draft specific cards for attacking, healing, gathering victory points and radiance for allocating light magick cards.  The question is, are the cards from the main deck going to be in your favor?  

Today Karmen and Bethany joined us in multiple rounds executing cooperative methods, but much more back-stabbing affects.  Like other card drafting games, the cards rotated around the table slowly and gradually revealing our fate per round.  This is a really great little game.  The components are a nice quality, the artwork is really good, vibrant and detailed.  The portability makes it easily transferrable, and even easier to manage during gameplay.  The gameplay just flows so well in this one.  There's enough to the game mechanics that provide a fun experience for gamers, while also not overwhelming people too much.  Because of that aspect, it can be taught very quickly and most gamers who have never played it will catch on in minutes.  Thematically it's a game that we both naturally gravitate toward so that is all the more reason to purchase it if you admire folklore.  Out of all of the card drafting games that we own, Nevermore is definitely our favorite one and if you enjoy take-that mechanics with card drafting, you should buy this one too.

Nevermore
Overall Pumpkin Rating: 7.5/10

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