A 2 Player Strategy Game from South Korea to Cheer For!
Transcript
times when I have a conversation with my friends, I talk about my love and my passion for board gaming and how I like to dive deeply into different types of games with different themes. And we often debate whether board gaming is actually considered a type of sport. I guess if you can engage in like a chess tournament, that is kind of like a sport. And so I guess I've never really thought it from that angle of playing board games in terms of a wider competition. I know when I went to Playcon early this year, they had like a harmonies tournament, which I didn't enter, but I was like, "Oo, okay, maybe board gaming could be a great form of sport that people might want to spectate and watch." So when this South Korean design game came along about soccer, I was like, you know what? It really evoked memories of uh getting invested into FIFA World Cup, watching, you know, the soccer ruse try and face off against Japan. And it just builds that memory of like, yeah, you know what? Maybe board games can encapsulate the feeling of a competitive sport game in cardboard and card format. Today, I'm going to be looking at a small box game for two players only called Magic Number 11. Hi, my name's Danny. I'm an avid modern board gamer from Australia. Love sharing my passion for this hobby with you and my friends and my family. And don't forget to subscribe for more wholesome board game content.
When I think of board games, I don't often think of sports as a theme. In fact, there's very few sports I'm actually into. I mean, when I was younger, I used to play, I guess, California games on Sega Master System, too, where you get to play surfing and do some roller skating. Actually, I did roller skate when I was a kid. There used to be a roller rink a couple suburbs away from here, and we used to go there all the time. Actually, come to think of it, I do like cycling, a bit of bush walking, and even swimming. When it comes to competitive team game sports, it's not really my forte because I'm often the person who goes, you know what, I don't want to be the striker. I'll stand back and be the defender and hope the ball comes to me. But over time, I've kind of learned to love the game. I have friends that play uh indoor soccer. Um I've been on a kind of a coach for a soccer team for quite a quite a few years and now I've stopped doing it. Something about this game really spoke to me. And when I think of a you know a sports theme game married in or expressed through a board game, I'm often like, "Oh, I don't know if I'm going to like it." And there's a few that's come by where I'm like not sure that's going to be the one for me. But something about the mechanics in this game infused that feeling of running a soccer team, engaging in a soccer match, but actually felt very uh euroesque in terms of its mechanics and how things are played out. I think in this game the soccer could be the theme, but really it could have been a different theme altogether and the game still would have
worked. It could have been two battle armies set in Middle Earth clashing against each other and the mechanics here would still be relevant. When you're playing the game, you're going to be starting with a base team of 10 players. You are also going to hire three star players at the beginning of the game, which kind of breaks some of the rules a little bit in terms of the icons and their little abilities. And you'll get to go through a drafting round in order to pick those celebrity players. Think of it as like Ronaldo or Messi. I don't know which one is more popular these days. Anyway, so you've got your three star players. You got your team of 10. You've got this section on the board where you can kind of sub plays in and out. And you're going to be playing across two halves. What you're going to be doing is you're going to be placing your players into positions on the field. Now, this board technically represents like a coach's demonstration board where they kind of draw like the X's and O's and they go, "Okay, midfielder, you're going to be moving up to this spot. Striker, you're going to make sure in your position you're going to be ready to receive the ball and try and hit the goal." It's not really the real time game, but more like the plan before the actual game begins. And then when you're looking at the game board, there's three basic lines. There's a red line, green line, blue line. When you're playing a player out onto the playing field, the red or striking players must be touching the red line, either the bottom of the card or the top of the card. If you've got midfielders, they must be touching the green line, either
the bottom or the top of the card. And same with defenders. And so you can kind of puzzle out the layout of your team, their positions, how the icons are going to match up. And then I guess you can kind of see how the game is going to unfold as you place your players out. So how the round structure is going to work is basically you're going to take a team action which involves drawing synergy cards or moving this marker and pushing it towards the other player. And then you're going to take a player action where you either just take a shot or you can play a card out onto the field, a player card, and then also try and make a shot as well. So you you're basically going to be trying to make shots every single turn so that you can have as many opportunities to be able to kick a goal.
You're going to be drawing lots of synergy cards. You're going to be playing these synergy cards off. You're going to be pushing this marker along. you. There's going to be about three different layers of trying to maneuver the field, maneuver your players, get the icons, and I guess try and get the right amount of stars to increase your number of points. As soon as the synergy deck runs out, that is the end of the first half of the game. And there's like an injury round that uh you play off to and then you reset everything and you have one more half of the game. At the end of the game, whichever player has the most number of points or goals wins. Each of these cards has different little icons on the perimeter. The blue icon represents defense. The green icon represents uh synergy, and the red icon represents pushing, I guess, the ball up towards the opponent's end of the field.
Now, these three icons are going to really matter. First of all, when you place your cards out, everything's going to be placed out on your side of the field only. And you're trying to connect these symbols together because when you complete these half symbols, you now get that particular bonus or ability on your turn. So, if you build a soccer ball icon, you'll be able to make a shot for the goal. If you get a green complete green synergy icon, you'll be able to draw synergy cards up to a maximum of five cards in your hand. And if you complete a blue defense shield, that's how much your team will defend if the opposing team is attacking you. Now, you've also got this red arrow icon that corresponds with this tug-of-war mechanic that sits between you and the other player. And the tug-of-war mechanic basically allows you to push this marker back and forth. And this will give your team the range of synergy cards that they'll be able to use if they're attacking the other player. So, if my synergy or my tug-of-war token is fire onto the home side, then I'll be able to use the full range of three synergy cards on my turn. If I'm trying to shoot a goal into the opponent's goal on the converse side, if the tugofwar marker is on my side, I'll only be able to use one of the spaces on my synergy track. And that means I'll only be able to use one synergy card in order to defend or attack. And so, why do the synergy cards matter? Well, the synergy cards have stars that range from 1 to
five. It is pretty much like your team's accuracy, their strength, and their skill. Think of it as like a battler. If you've got kind of like, you know, you this game was set in Middle Earth and you got two armies and the orcs and elves and they're fighting each other, this is kind of like their battle strength. And basically what you'll do is you'll have to flip one card from the top of the deck. So there is a little random element infused into the synergy track and then you'll be able to play up to two cards from your hand depending on where this marker is. You're trying to get the number of stars from to kind of total between 1 to 10. Uh if you get the number 11 exactly, you automatically get a wonder goal. And a wonder goal basically means you get a gold regardless of the number of defense icons the defending player has. And it's kind of like one of those shots where like, you know, when you watch like the finals of the Olympics or even a FIFA World Cup and, you know, one of the players headbutts the ball into the goal and they all cheer and they all start taking their shirts off. I'm like, "Woo, this game's getting a little bit hot for me." But yeah, it it it just encapsulates that cool feeling. There is one way for you to defend against a Wonder Goal, and that is basically to play a synergy card that has one star in it that says tackle. And if I you play a card like that, you basically forfeit the rest of the stars and you go off to a penalty kick. And a penalty kick
involves drawing a blue card if you are the defender and a red card if you're the person attacking. On the back of these cards are five symbols, soccer ball symbols there is. So, in this penalty kick, basically, if uh you reveal this card, the red ball is going to be kicked into this corner of the goal. If you're the defending player, you reveal a blue uh defender card and it will have two glove icons that hopefully will match up to the same position as the penalty kicker because if it does, then you've you've basically saved that ball from going into your goal. So, it's a bit of a chance potluck element to the game that does infuse a little bit of unpredictability and excitement. And so, the penalty kicker has a 1 in5 chance of getting it in. And the penalty defender, I guess, has a two out of five chance of pushing it or knocking out the way, which creates a huge level of tension and excitement in the game. I wanted to discuss the mechanics of the game and how they match up with this soccer theme. I think as a person who doesn't often play a lot of sport, yes, you can actually really get into this game quite tactfully. In fact, the card play and connecting the icons together really creates a little mini engine for like, ooh, I've connected the soccer balls together. I've been able to use this ability. Uh, I've got lots of shields so I can try and cancel some of
the stars that uh, you know, get thrown your way when you know the opponent's trying to make attack against you. That icon matching puzzle really helps to build this layout of your team on the playerfield. And seeing that kind of evolve turn by turn just really adds to the thematic nature of the game. And I can see why the theme of the game is more about the planning stages of where your players are going to be rather than the actual playing of the soccer game. Think of it as like a soccer simulation. I think this really kind of works very well. The other thing that I find interesting is the fact that if you neglect this little tugof-war element, you're going to limit the amount of range that you can use the synergy cards. And if you've got like, you know, five synergy cards and all with really quite high star values, it's going to be hard to really use those synergy cards if you haven't managed this effectively.
Also, on this synergy track, the the idea that you have to draw one from the top of the deck and top deck it is going to throw a little spanner in the works in your own plan. So, not everything is going to be perfectly calculated. You might have, you know, the Ronaldo Messi on your team, but you know, even then they can make mistakes. And I think that's such a cool little element of like, okay, I might need to hold on to my three or four. You know, if that top deck gives me a five, I'm going to have to really bank in using one of my other options in my hand. And if you don't have any other options, then you're going to have to just wing it. Or you might just play one less card. And so I think this game really encapsulates that theme of twoing and throwing, that jostling of the ball around the field.
And the fact that when you place these little shoot icons every time you make a shot and it covers up the soccer ball icon means those striker players are going to tire out eventually. And sometimes the midfielder plays too. And so you're going to think, "Oh, my striker player has no more icons or I've used their ability. I want to substitute one of my star players on. You can do that. And the star players are going to give you some really cool little actions. Like it might be evening stealing a synergy card from the other player and trying to disrupt their plans. And that kind of simulates like tackling for the ball, trying to steal the ball off the other player, getting it into your possession. Yeah, there's a lot of Eurobbased mechanics here that really match well with the theme and the aim of the game that this game is trying to capture and the feeling of playing out a soccer game, shooting goals.
It just has all those nice three ted elements to it. And I think the combo of the different star plays kind of gives you that asymmetric team nature every time you play because you've got 12 cards, but you're only really going to be using three each per game. And the combo of those three is going to vary quite widely from game to game. So, what did you think of Magic number 11? Is this small box game worthy of a spot on your shelf in your board game collection? I know I always have a strong place in my heart for awesome two-player games and I really love supporting indie game designers that are both international and also trying to trying to make their mark in the board gaming industry. Thank you once again for joining me for another board game sanctuary video. If you really found this video super helpful and enjoyable and wholesome, please consider liking and subscribing to my channel and even heading over to my patre page and consider buying me a coffee a month.
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