Mandala Rundown

hey everybody today righto runs down mana dolla but hor you're going please turn your subtitles on to the Klingon channel so that when I make rules goose you know what they are and if you've done that then welcome to I'm gonna assume a Buddhist Tibetan temple where players are going to be collaborating to create two beautiful mandalas now mandalas are these wonderful sand sculptures that are famous for these incredible intricate patterns that once they're done they get washed away and sent to the river as a cycle of life and death or something like that the rules don't really go into too terribly much ah but that's what we're gonna be working on today I and my opponent Jen over there will be contributing to these two mandalas in an abstract area control style game so I've already got the game set up both mandalas have been seated with some sand some purple yellow sand over here and some yellow and black sand over here I got a hand of six more sand cards that I can use to build these mandalas up so does Jen and also as far as setup I have two secret cards a black and a yellow ma card that are in my cup these are what I will score points off of at the end of the game the more cards I have here the better but the problem is at this point I don't know how much a yellow or a black card is going to be worth over the course of the game I will be adding cards to my river starting over here and working my way up and Jen will be doing the same adding cards to her river if I were to eventually add say a red card to this slot that means every red card in my cup at the end of the game is worth one point and then later on if I were to add an orange card here every orange card I have is worth two points so whereas most points wins and controlling your river and your cup and the mandalas is what it's all about so let's get going this is a two-player only game and on your turn you're gonna do one of three actions you are either going to take a single card from your hand and place it to the mountain of either mandala the center strip is the mountain this is a place that both of us both players can play cards here and if you play a single car to the mountain as a reward you get to draw three more cards to your hand which is very important because if you run out of cards you're not gonna get much mana dolla building done so that's the main way you refill is by putting cards into the mountain now instead of that I could play multiple cards to my field again on either one of these mandalas so right now I've got two green cards what I do is I pick a color and I can play as many cards of that color as I've got in my hand up to as many and I can put over here and this is the area control thing I am now in control of this mandala because I've played two cards to my field and so far Jen hasn't played any cards to hers you notice I also have two purples so I could have played two purples over here and I'm trying to get in control over that and I didn't have to I could just play one card and I still have majority on this Mundell and maybe I'm saving my green for something else uh-hum but the tricky thing is when you're playing to your field you are not getting to redraw cards and so sooner or later you've got to play something to the mountain to be able to refill your hand now the third thing you can do is something you never want to have happen you can discard as many cards as you want of a single color to the discard pile and then draw back up this is something you do if you find yourself boxed in and you cannot play either to the mountain or to your own field if you're in that situation then you have no choice you've got a discard one or more cards of a given color and then redraw and that's your whole turn and that's terrible now why would you ever do that of course you would always play here well here's the problem there is one key restriction when we are creating these mandalas a given color can only exist in the mountain or my field or Jen's field so coincidentally our setup since both of the mountains of these two mandalas have a yellow card that means I've got a yellow card I am not allowed to play it to my field because yellows are already in the mountain the only place I could play this yellow would be to add it to the mountain which means I would then get more cards into my hand um and usually thing is let's start out I will go ahead and play these two green cards I've got I'll play it to my field and now like I said I've got control this mahn doll although Jen might end up playing more and green cards from now on can only be played to my field only I can play green cards here Jen could still play purple cards or red cards yellow cards or black cards must be played to the mountain and I'm the king of green over here and that was my turn because I don't get to draw any more up at the end of my turn whenever you place cards either into the mountain or onto your field you check to see was the mandala you built you helped build completed and what that means is is there an example of each of the six colors if there were we would immediately destroy this monde allah casting the sand into the river which is how he starts going points now are only three colors here so we still need the purple and the red and the what what's the yellow one we need the purple the red and the orange so this isn't ready to score yet my turn is over it is Jen's turn of course I have no idea what card she's got in her hand let's say Jen decides that she will play a single purple over here alright so I am still winning I know and maybe she had more purples and she just decided not to play them but one thing Jen would not have been allowed to play her purple over here she could have played it to the mountain over here since there's already existing purple she could have played it to this mountain and if she had done either of those things she would have gotten to draw three cards although our maximum hand size is eight so she would have basically refilled her hand but Jen said nope I may have more Purple's you don't know but now Jen is vying for control of this mandala and now this mandala will be completed once somebody plays orange and red here alright so that was Jen's turn so Jen is trying to make a show of this one and by doing this jen has prevented me from being able to play purples here suddenly my purple cards are useless because she owns purple on this mandala I can't play to the mountain to get more cards I can't play to my own side only Jen can play purple and my purple cards I can't play them over here to try to get control i again could add a sing you can when you played it on you can only add a single I could add a single purple over here and that would let me draw more cards into my hand which wouldn't be bad but um I don't want to go gentle into that good night I'm getting low on cards and currently I am still the top dog of this Mon doll I want to maintain control of this mandala so I'm gonna play an orange and the only ones I've got and now I've got three cards invested in this mandala and I'm the clear leader I've got three two Jen's one and now we've got one two three four five as soon as somebody play's a red card either to their field or to the mountain this mandala will be destroyed and we will start scoring points all right so that was it and I'm running out of cards folks but we'll see what I do next turn meanwhile Jen Jen's got a red Jen could go on ahead and play this over here but it doesn't make any sense for her to do it because she's only got one red if she had like three Reds she might play them all and then she would suddenly take the lead this Mon dalla would be scored and Jen would get first dibs on what she wants but it does not behoove her to help me because if she finishes this mandala I will get the lion's share of the benefit so I think Jen is gonna turn her eye over here to the other monde Allah where Jen will say hey you know what I own green over there Jen owns green over here and so that was it for her now it's my turn I have no Reds if I could have her red now I would get it played and get it done and remember I cannot play these purples over here over here because uh I can't use them and this is how I could find myself in a situation where the only cards that I have in my hand I'm not allowed to play at all and that's when I have to waste a whole turn throw some of the way and draw so I don't want that to happen so what I'm gonna do now is because I'm in the clear lead on this mundo I want this mandala to be more valuable I'm gonna play a single card to the mountain and in doing that I get to draw three and there's that red I need alright so there we go and the more cards are in the mountain the more valuable the take because if one saman doll is completed remember once a red gets played over here players will take turns claiming individual colors out of the mountain and I'm putting them in their river and putting them in their cup to score points at the end of the game so now I can finish this whenever I want and I've got some more options because hey I could start putting oranges over here I could build this up if Jen want to try and make a run and take this away from me etc etc how's it for me it is Jen's turn and um Jen well first of all Jen cannot play either this orange or this black to her field she could play the black here which means she would get to draw some more cards and you might think why would she do that when I'm clearly winning here's what's the deal once this mandalas gonna be completed whoever played the most cards gets to pick a color from the mountain first and take all of those then the other player gets to go next so if Jen were to put this here all she's doing is ensuring that hey when I eventually win this thing I'll probably take two and Jen will get to take two as well and that could be pretty handy and if Jen were to do this oops if they were to play a second here not only is she setting herself up to score even though I'm in the lead she is giving herself one two three more cards okay and now it is my turn and hmm yes I'd say it is time for this mandala to be completed before Jen could try to make a run and again you know take the lead away from me yeah although what I would like to do is put before I score this mandala I would like to get more yellow and black cards in here because remember I get first dibs so if there are three black cards if I hang black cards I play one here so the when I win this thing I would get three cards to score instead of two so while I could I could finish this right now if I if I went like this hey I get to draw three cards we would fill up the Mond Allah and because I'd get to lead I'd probably take the other the two black or the two yellow Jen would take the other one I didn't take and then I would get the red so I would get to score multiple things I would get to score two colors while Jen would only score one but before then I want to get some more yellow or black in my hand so I can make this mountain even bigger so I am going to ignore this maan dollar for a while and focus on this one where I if I want to play purples they've got to come here to the sin but I could say hey you own the green I own the orange now I don't have to again I could have played one because maybe I don't care about winning I just want to make sure that when this Mon doll is scored I get something for my trouble because if I don't have any cards win amondawa is scored then I get nothing from the mountain although I can still manipulate the outcome so I'm gonna leave this here I'm not gonna play both because in case I don't know what Jen's got in her hand she might try to make a run and take this mahn doll away from me so I better keep an orange over here for to play over here just in case I need it so I've done that it is Jen's turn again right and so yeah Jen if she wanted to and this would be scary for me I don't know this Jen could play all three of these Reds and just like that this Mon dalla would be complete and Jen would win because Jen has four cards to my three although again Jen's not particularly doing that that's burning a lot of cards to get first dibs she'll end up getting two cards island up getting two cards that doesn't make much sense to her and even if she just played one if she played one I'd be the one who benefits cuz I would win I would take a pair of Jim would take a pair and then I would get the last one so Jen here's the deal Jen might want to hold on to these because if I start building up this mountain and making it more valuable Jen then might decide to say jump in surprise me and so I think she's gonna hold on to these to have a surprise over there and it meanwhile well here's the problem otherwise Jen's got orange Jen's cannot play these oranges here nor can she play one of them here because I own orange on this mandala so uh-huh this is a problem this is a real problem alright so Jen could I take one of her precious Reds that she was holding to be able to snag control dominance over here in case this gets more valuable this is sad she's gonna give one up is she gonna give one up to own read on this mandala because if she does this the mandala is over she will have paid two cards to get to scoring cards I'll have paid three cards to get to scoring cards that's not bad because ultimately I had pay more cards and I got the same return so maybe Jim does just want to go ahead and finish this right now because I will have overpaid and she will come out ahead in this because right now neither of us have a particularly strong interest in black or yellow yeah you know what if Jen had a you know if Jen had the what else would it be right we've got the purple there at the orange what do we need over here we need a black if Jen had a black card I suspect she would either play it over here so that she could make the mountain bigger because she knows she could win this if she later on played these or she would play it over here to start making this a bit more attractive but since all she's got his oranges that she can't play anywhere cuz I control orange so she must play a red she can either build this mountain up build up her control over here or into this mandala which is what she's going to do I mean she could burn through all of these and get the clear lead but that just means she gets first pick she's not gonna do that with one card she's gonna get to scoring cards and so Jen has played a card um and she didn't play to the mountain because that would have benefitted me not her and now at the end of return we realized that yes one two three four five six colors this mandala is going to be washed away so all these cards remember I have the majority I had the most cards so I get first dibs do I want to take these yellows or these black now let's come back over here hyukoh instantly I already have a yellow and a black waiting to score so these are equally valuable to me do I have what do I have in my hand I can see there's a yellow over there that gonna be it's gonna eventually be scored over here so for that reason for that reason I'm gonna take the black all right so I'm Tay I'm scoring I'm taking all these if there were more black I would get more of them now when the first time you score a given color out of mandala you take one of the cards you scored and you put it in the river so what this means is now every black card I have in my Cup at the end of the game is worth one point so as you can see I've got two points my yellows have not been determined to be worth anything yet I'm thinking later on if I can win this mod Dola and take this yellow and put it here then the yellow I already have will suddenly be worth two points so I have chosen to try I mean black uh sand cards are the least valuable cards in the world for me now I've set myself up for that I am less interested in winning black cards and which is I mean what's your ID rather win yellow later on meanwhile so that's how I did it I took one and put it here and the remainder of the colors I took go to scoring Jen meanwhile yellows are worth one point to her and she's kind of bummed about that because she just added another yellow card to her starting hand of three cards so she's sitting on three points she would have much rather because she already had two yellow cards had made yellow worth more later on but I didn't know that uh-huh and so that was it so that worked out and that was the end of Jen's turn she triggered the end and once a Mundell is emptied we immediately draw two more cards so it can start to be built again it is now my turn and all of a sudden we have a wide open opportunity here we can't play purples or greens to our fields yeah so my purples hmm and I'm getting low on cards and it's earning I still now have this red I was having to play and use the red Dana myself but Jen ended it ahead of time let's go on ahead and say I don't want to give up I'm just gonna play another orange over here I was holding on to that in case I needed it over here but now it doesn't matter so I'll play my other orange over here and kind of do a wait-and-see for what Jen does so we are now tied for this mandala and we're waiting for the black and the red to appear over here Jen's turn okay so um Jen can't play these oranges she could play these reds so she could go ahead and play red and suddenly she's winning and now when a black comes over there or I think Jen is going to try to take control over that mandala that was it and Jen is running out of cards now only two red cards in her hand this could be dangerous because I've on her next her and she word is not able to play these red cards she would be stuck and she'd have to discard them and draw but Jen knows she's safe because even if I played red to one or the other Jen could still play red to the other place so she's safe my turn okay I've still got these purples let's go on ahead and make this mandala a little bit more interesting now there are two purples and one yellow to be scored there because I played to the mountain I get to draw one two three Jen's turn okay Jen says mmm that is interesting now I've made this a little more attractive because my putting this here Jen says she will play one red now what you are not even though Jen has two cards in theory she should be able to play both of these and get a real domination you are never allowed to take an action that would leave you with no cards in hand so Jen cannot play both of these reds but she will play one and this is dangerous too this is dangerous I mean Jen is taking control so that she can get the double purples and leave me with the one yellow because she would rather win this and get two cards instead of one Plus remember yellows are only worth one point to her so she's less interested in winning those yellows but here's the deal if she does this on my turn if I have a red and if I play this red to my field when it comes back to her she will not be able to play her red over here cuz I'll own red she won't be able to play her red over here because she'll be out of cards because really this other red she wants to play it to this mountain cuz then she'd get to draw more cards up it is very dangerous for Jen to play this because because I know she's got one card I don't know what it is but if I lock red out she would really be so I think this is too dangerous jen is not gonna try to take majority jen is it said gonna take one of her reds and make this mountain more attractive there are three colors to win over here and Jen gets one two three more cards okay back to me very interesting suddenly I can no longer play red here all right so now we're just waiting for the yellow and the black and then this mahn doll will be scored again I have no yellow I have no black I have Reds that I I could play here and make this mountain even more valuable I can't play these Reds down here to get control I can't play these purples down here to control I cannot play any of these cards to get control over this mandala and that means I'm in danger because uh-huh if Jen could y'all play the rest of the colors such that everything is here and I don't have anything well then Jen will get to score and I will still get to manipulate stuff but yes it is all I can do is make this mountain more valuable so I have to turn away I need to come over here I need to get some more cards I can't play this green here I could play these Reds and that would be one two three four five we would still need the black I need to find a black card I need more control I'm gonna make this mountain even more valuable more we can only play one and that gives me three more cards a green oh my gosh No all right back to Jen Jen has black oh baby oh baby baby right so this needs a yellow alright Jen's gonna play a black here now if yellows get played it's over for this Mon dalla and she gets to draw three more one two three now this is a dangerous move for Jen because for all she knows I've got three yellows in my hand and I could play them here and then I would be the winner but Jen is hoping I don't you spend a lot of time trying to guess what your opponent has in hand and unbeknownst to Jen I have one yellow Wow okay if I'd had no yellows Jen on her next turn would have played this yellow here and all the colors are here she would have won this whole mandala but fortunately for me I did get a yellow I think I better play it boom so the second time we finished another Mon doll here cuz we got one two three four all right one two three four five six so this mandala is still waiting to be completed and this is where all the big rewards are but I just played this this mandala is finished and unfortunately Jen is winning she will get first dibs let's see here now all she has his yellow so out with any of these cards what she's gonna be doing is she's gonna be saying that card is worth two points she would like to get this purple but she would like this purple to be worth three points so that she could win these three Purple's over here so she's gonna take something other than purple and then hope she can get purple so a further three so Jen will go on hit Ness is interesting Jim knows I don't like black so she figures I'm not gonna take this card because if I take it I already have it black here so they'll just go here just be worth one point she figures um you know she knows I don't want that one so you know what I don't think she wants to mess around she's just gonna go on ahead getting the first choice on a color she takes the purple Purple's are worth two points to her this is a six point Mountain for her she can get these three cards now because he figured you know what if she didn't take it I would have taken it because there's all these Purple's just waiting to be won over there so Jenna's chosen one now I'm gonna chose one now here's the interesting thing say Jen had been the one to play the last card and she'd put this in the mountain and draw on more cards etc etc oh by the way is Jen gone over hand limit one two five six no no she's fine say Jen had done this when we started resolving this mandala as the winner Jen would have picked one and then I would have picked one not to take for scoring but to discard I would still take stuff but I would just be taking things to deny them for Jen but as it is I did get on the ground floor so I'm gonna grab one of these things and I gently I don't want these black cards already have enough them I will fix it so that green cards are worth two points to me and now Jen says I will Jen says I'll make red cards worth three points and now Jen has left me this one I can't already put on my River so I can't make black or three so I just scored one point out of all that and these get washed away and so that was that and now Jen wants to win purples and reds she doesn't care so much about and there's these here and we all know it I triggered the end of that round so a new mountain starts getting built it is Jen's turn and Jen does not want to mess around she wants to win this I mean heck alright how many colors do we have here we got one two one two three four so we're still missing the Reds and we're missing the blacks Jen in two turns could make this thing done and she could get the big sweet purple for her and because if I get that purple I'll make those Purple's worth three points and if I win this I'll make these work three and I'll have scored six points so Jen is desperate to not let me win these Purple's even though they're only worth two to her they'll be worth a lot more to me and Jen can really she could really dominate this mandala but she burned through almost her entire hand which means she'd have to start playing to the mountain but she doesn't listen to burn them all she could just say excite - so Jen is putting a strong lead I would have to work very hard to take this Mon dalla and let's see so what could I do well hey I've got a couple of Reds I could tie her and oh my gosh now things are getting crazy and we're just waiting for one black because again this cache of purple is a big deal it's worth 6 points to me it's worth 6 points to Jen all right so I just made a big counter move and here's the deal if Jen has a black card I don't so that was pretty much all I could do was just play those right I could have I could have played the orange instead but I made the big move and I'm hoping Jen doesn't have a black card because if she does and she does Jen is gonna finish this thing this for finally this maaan dollar will be finished and Jen could put this here which makes this a more attractive Hey somebody'll get the purple somebody got the black somebody get the yellow but she doesn't want to and she'll get three cards but she knows here's the thing if she puts this here to draw three more cards we're tied who wins in a tie who gets first dibs in a tie the player who didn't finish so if Jen puts this here creates a tie I'll get first dibs I'll take the Purple's Jen says no she finishes it boom nuke Jen scores six points worth of purple and I have just made yellows worth three points for me and that was a big move right and so a new one comes out and it's my turn and hey I want these yellows Jen doesn't care about yellows earlier with one point there were three points to me that's six points but Jen knows that she wants to take these yellows because that's six points I'm not kidding okay so that was Jen's turn it is my turn and I've got two fresh new mandalas to continue working I could go either way and the game is going to continue until one of two things happens either somebody completely fills up their river or we make it through this deck of cards and then when it's all done we'll reveal all the stuff in our cups we'll line them up to see how many points we've got the river cards don't count for points just the ones that are in our cup and somebody will be declared the winner of mandala and that's the basics folks and in case you're wondering what Jen and I think of the game well we love it oh my gosh this game is amazing it just kind of came out of nowhere and totally blew our socks off Jenna we played this a few times now and oh wow here's the deal folks I already did my top 10 games for 2019 back in December I always do that and the four months later in April I do a follow-up because there's always a few games from the given year that I haven't played yet when I make my preliminary top 10 this is the reason I do those because I think mandala is gonna creep into my top 10 games of 2019 I wish I'd played it sooner so I could have crowed about it sooner but wow there is so much goodness in this box there is so much going on it is brilliant um you know the the way that you know you know the Battle of which this is definitely a battle of wits it's a two-player on the game and that's a really common thing in two player only games to basically have area control fights you know I'm going back to battle lines you know or lost cities and I mean there's so many of these games where oh I play cards to my side of line you play cards to your side of the line whoever ultimately when things are resolved has the most wins you know whatever it is the beautiful thing about this game is yeah it is definitely a battle for dominance in this really peaceful and tranquil and meditative setting yet we are just like really trying to get each other's heads and oh my god what are the chances you've got that red because if I play this other thing here and wait one more turn um but the beautiful part is after a the only thing is scored and there is a clear winner and a loser that's not the case there's two winners both players end up getting stuff out of the mountain and yeah you might not have gotten what you wanted but you'll still get something something that you seeded into that mountain or your opponent seated in that mountain that will go on to you ever go into your cup and help you score points at the end of the game and that is a wonderful for Care Bear players like me and Jen then it doesn't have to be all or nothing it is brilliantly implemented and just makes I mean this game is infinitely replayed well anyway and if it had been like any other to air a two-player area control game they wouldn't have gone that extra mile but the fact that everybody is you'll I'm but and there's the fact there's two mandalas and they're both building up with different things different scoring opportunities that are radically different you don't care about yellows yellows are worth five points to me that means we both care about yellows because I know vying for control over those every five points I don't get at the end of the game is effectively points you earned so the zero-sum nature this makes everything so tense but it all comes down to what you have in your hand and you know taking Gamble's taking huge Gamble's trying to you know just to push the envelope a little bit more so you can make for a better because I think I can win this one I totally think I can and can i push it even a little bit more not knowing what you've got in your hand and then you waited and then boom you sweep in with a big suite of cards I didn't think you had it and then something all that work I did you end up taking it and I get well I get seconds which is still something oh boy you know the game of course is gorgeous any of these lovely Amendola designs I mean look at pictures of them on Google folks they are so gorgeous in real life I don't know anything about the notion of a mountain versus Fields I assume that's based on real Buddhist naming conventions for how they make these but I do like the thematic touch that the whole point of these in real life is they make these beautiful sculptures or you know patterns designs that take them hours days weeks months and then when they're done it's all part of the process they wipe it away and you know as you know part of that eternal cleansing birth and death cycle that's the real world thing and that theme comes through because we build up we build up we build up and then we wash it all away and some of it ends up in our River and III they didn't have to they could have made this a 100 percent pure abstract but I really appreciate going the extra mile and finding a theme that fit the actual mechanism I wouldn't be surprised if the theme actually informed the mechanisms no but the other cards are lovely the gameplay is crackerjack one of the best of the year it's really nice they didn't come with a board but it came with this lovely cloth player mat which makes this game super portable forget about carrying the box around it's just a tiny deck of cards and a piece of cloth you could throw into your backpack and play this game anywhere on uneven surfaces and stuff like that makes it an ultimate travel game if you're two players my only complaint about this game and it's a stupid little one is you need to shuffle these cards very very well because of course you end up having you know a whole bunch of kind of other kinds y'all all clump together as part of final scoring you really need to shuffle this and these cards are really high-quality they're very stiff and very difficult to shuffle but that's it that's the only complaint I can have in what is otherwise one of the best two-player only games I have ever played and the reason for that is because it bucks the trend that 95% of all other two-player only games you'll follow which is the battle line method of oh well there can only be one winner here everybody wins it's not until your reveal our final cups that we see who is the real winner and that makes mandalas something very special and that's the rundown folks thanks for watching have a very nice day talk to you later so long a buh-bye

Channel: Rahdo

Views: 11,230

Rating: 4.9659576 out of 5

Keywords: board games, baord game, game, rahdo, boardgame, baordgames, review, board game, radho, boardgames, baordgame, baord games, rhado

Id: qdUsBxxXuzM

Length: 32min 44sec (1964 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 02 2020