Splendor Duel Might Be Our Favorite 2-Player Game
My wife and I have been dutifully keeping up with our newest tradition of playing one board game each Sunday to help us decide our chores. Originally it was called our Laundry Game, but we’ve since changed the name to Trash Game - because now it decides who has to get all the trash and recycling ready and take it down to the curb every week. And Splendor Duel is far away the game we’ve chosen the most for our Trash Game.
To be fair, that’s mostly my fault. The loser gets to choose next week’s game, and my wife continually beat me in Splendor Duel - many weeks in a row. On top of this, I refused to choose a different game until I finally exacted my revenge. I think I lost 4 weeks in a row if anyone’s keeping count - but you’ll also be happy to know I finally came out on top in this beautifully little game of jewel crafting.
And after playing the game week after week we kind of fell in love with it too. So much so that I’ve decided to make it our Game of the Month for June. I’ve written before about our favorite 2-player games - and Splendor Duel not only belongs among them, but I might even go so far as to say it’s our current favorite 2-player game.
I think it speaks very highly of the game that we keep returning to it, because we have a silly plethora of games to choose from, and we have limited time to play games just 1 on 1 with the two of us. Sometimes the Trash Game is the only game we play together in a week, so I like to think that the number of times we’ve chosen Splendor Duel as our game of choice speaks for itself.
Splendor Duel has a wonderful combination of mechanics that appeal to my wife and I. You basically draft gems and precious stones and use them as your currency. And you use that currency to purchase jewelry cards. The cards you purchase can also serve as inexhaustible currency, so it’s also a game of building your economy, which is always something I tend to really enjoy the challenge of.
And, perhaps best of all, Splendor Duel has multiple win conditions. I adore games that have multiple ways to win, because it adds to the complexity and seems to make it much harder to predict not only whose going to win, but also what you’re even going to try to do before the game gets going. I will say that my wife and I typically finish the game with the same win condition - but I appreciate the other options just the same.
In Splendor Duel you are the master of a guild of jewelers, and you are creating jewelry for powerful leaders of the Renaissance, but you also have an ambitious rival that you need to outperform. It’s a solid theme with very nice components. The gem tokens in particular are very nice and solid, and their quality is a big part of the great aesthetic of this attractive little game.
How to Play Splendor Duel
On your turn you have a few choices to make. You can draft 3 gems or stones from the board, you can grab one piece of gold and reserve a jewelry card for later, or you can purchase a jewelry card and pay the required gems.
The cards you purchase have a few special possibilities you need to pay attention to. Some are marked with points, some give you inexhaustible gem currency for future purchases, some are marked with crowns, and some even have special powers like allowing you to immediately take another turn.
There are a handful of more intricate details, but that’s the vast majority of the game. And there are 3 possible ways to win the game. You can be the first one to earn 10 crowns, the first one to earn 20 total points, or the first one to earn 10 points all from the same color jewelry. And that’s basically it! It’s wonderful because it’s one of those games that can be learned quickly, but still offer incredible replayability and an unpredictable strategic challenge.
What Is the Age Recommendation for Splendor Duel?
In our household, Splendor Duel is primarily a game played by my wife and I, but it’s officially recommended for ages 10+, and it’s a wonderful family game. My son is 10 now and I think this is one of those times that the age recommendation is pretty spot on. It’s not a difficult game to learn, but I don’t think our 7-year-old has as much interest in the mechanics of it yet.
I do think our 7-year-old could learn all of the rules and play the game, but it is actually a very strategic game - and it doesn’t have those significant elements of luck in it that makes some family games balanced between young and old. Many rounds of this game are decided by a single turn and therefore basically a single choice, so for that reason I think the age recommendation is a good one.
And along those same lines, almost every time my wife and I finish playing, the loser points out that they could have won next turn, or at the very most 2 more turns. After playing so many times, this clearly speaks highly of the balance in the game - and also speaks to why younger kids might possibly get discouraged against the parents.
It’s also interesting to point out that all but one of our games have been won by collecting 10 crowns. So far it seems to clearly be the best strategy to go for, but I’m not willing to call that an oversight or an imbalance or anything that drastic. All of our games are still so close, and there also seem to be rare occasions that pivoting to collecting points is a good idea too.
Of course the one thing about Splendor Duel that’s obviously a drawback for family game night is that it’s a 2-player game. But that’s easily solved by choosing the original version of Splendor instead - with more players and similar gameplay. You won’t get as cute of a little box but what can you do.
We made Splendor Duel our Game of the Month for June for a pretty simple reason. We’ve been playing it a ton lately, and I simply like to write about our favorite games. If you need a date night game or you want a strategic, head-to-head battle with an older kid, it’s simply one of our favorite 2-player games we’ve ever played.
Have you played Splendor Duel before? Do you like it as much as we do? Do you have any more recommendations for my wife and I for our Trash Game? Let us know in the comments!
