Base price: $12.
2 players.
Play time: 10 – 15 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy directly!
Logged plays: 3
Full disclosure: A review copy of Potions Class was provided by Button Shy.
While I love Button Shy games, I have to space out the reviews I do for them or this would essentially become a Button Shy review blog. There are worse fates, but, trying to cover a variety of games for y’all. So there’s this one this week, one two weeks ago, and likely going to be another two or four weeks from now. Keep some spacing. Plus, I’m headed on a trip this week, so Button Shy titles are exactly what I want to keep in my bag. I need to find my copy of Agropolis, though; I’m worried that I lost it when my family came and visited. That would be genuinely frustrating; I love that game. Alas. Let’s dive into Potions Class and see what’s what!
In Potions Class, players take on the role of students blending three of the classic elements to try and make a variety of potions under their instructor’s careful eye. The problem is, these things tend to be pretty exacting, and if you don’t get the ratios just so, they can explode pretty dramatically! Combine ingredients and try to brew the perfect blend, and hopefully keep your eyebrows on along the way. Which of you will be the superior potion crafter?
Contents
Setup
This one’s got a pretty quick setup. First, shuffle up the Element Cards:
Then, flip some of the Potion Cards over so that you have six distinct Potions:
Shuffle those into a stack as well. Take the top three Potion Cards and place them face-up in a line, and place the Element Card draw pile nearby. You should be ready to start!
Gameplay
It’s Potions Class! Your goal is to be the first to make three potions. How do you do that? You take turns!
On your turn, you can start by attaching any Element Cards in your Private Reserve to any potions in the center row. You can attach different cards to different potions, if you want (maybe mildly inadvisable?).
Next, you’ll draw three element cards, one at a time. You’ll place each before you draw the next one. Each must go into one of the following three locations, and each location may only have one card placed into it per turn:
- Your opponent’s Private Reserve
- Your Private Reserve
- One potion in the center row
You may place them in any order. If you complete a Potion, take it and place it in front of you, refilling the Center Row with a card from the Potion Deck. To complete a Potion, you must place the final matching element on the Potion Card (you or your opponent may have placed Element Cards on Potion Cards in previous turns).
If a player ever places an incorrect Element Card on a potion, it explodes! Flip the Potion Card over to the opposite side and place it on the bottom of the Potion Deck. Refill the now-empty space with a new Potion Card from the deck. All Element Cards on that potion are discarded. Similarly, a player’s Private Reserve may only hold three cards; if a fourth is added, their Private Reserve explodes and all Element Cards in their reserve are discarded.
The game ends as soon as one player completes their third Potion Card! That player wins!
Player Count Differences
None! This is a specifically two-player game.
Strategy
- Seriously. Blow up some potions. If you’re worried that your opponent is about to take a potion, explode it. That changes up what they get to go after next, that puts a new Potion Card in the center, and it burns all the Element Cards on that Potion. It might only delay the inevitable, but it’ll at least shake things up in the process!
- Think of what card you’re going to draw last and where to place it. Surprises are pretty much always bad in this game. If you don’t plan ahead, you might risk giving your opponent the Element they need to win the game!
- Count cards. You should have a good sense of how many of each Element remain in the deck. There are only eighteen cards in the game and six of them are Potion Cards; I believe in you. That will tell you the rough odds of drawing certain Element Cards, which can help you plan a bit better.
- Remember to deplete your Private Reserve. That can be a helpful way to set yourself up for certain Potions you want, but also, it’s wasteful to let your opponent explode your Private Reserve and just dump all of those Element Cards down the drain. You don’t want to do that.
Pros, Mehs, and Cons
Pros
- It’s a quick little game. Not much beyond drawing a card and deciding where it goes, so you can play that one pretty quickly.
- I really like the art style a lot! The colors are rich and deep and the potions have a lot of personality just in their art styles, which is really great. Marty Cobb did a great job with this one; it’s a great-looking game.
- Another striking wallet, too. The red and yellow really pop on the wallet! Makes it catch the eye pretty well.
- Very portable! It’s not just that it’s only 18 cards; it also has a very small play footprint, so you can pretty easily play it most places. Some of the Button Shy games can take up a lot of space despite being pretty small packages, so you have to watch out for those if you’re playing on the go.
- The tit-for-tat back and forth of the game is pretty interesting. You’re trying to give your opponent unhelpful cards, but you may not be able to do that based on what you draw. Then, they do the same for you.
- There’s a lot of luck to the game, but I think it’s mitigated in interesting ways. I particularly like how important counting the cards you’ve seen is so that you know how likely drawing certain cards is. There’s still an element of randomness, but you know how you’re predicting so it feels like an educated bet.
Mehs
- It’s hard to feel like you’re shuffling a deck of six cards well. That happens with these games, sometimes.
Cons
- It can take a few games for the variety of strategy to unfurl, which may cause players to dismiss it if they’re not exploding potions. The game runs a bit of a risk in that it seems a bit simpler than it actually is. To that end, if players avoid exploding potions whenever possible, there’s a boring back-and-forth that emerges where you just kind of play a very rote and luck-based game. I worry that this may cause players to think that the game isn’t for them when there’s still depth to plumb.
Overall: 7.25 / 10
Overall, I found Potions Class interesting! It falls into a dangerous category of games that I refer to as “nim-adjacent”, similar to the classic game of nim, which I hate. I don’t think it’s fun, personally, and I don’t love games that reduce down to nim. Thankfully, Potions Class does a few clever things to give it a similar feeling but allow for a more diverse range of strategies, which I appreciate. I particularly like the strategic value of exploding a potion that your opponent might get just to keep it away from them. It’s interesting! Keeps things from ending too quickly, though players may be loath to explode potions as a defensive move when they’re still getting used to the game. They’ll learn. One thing that does stand out particularly well for Potions Class is the art. Marty Cobb’s work really shines in this game, and the Element Cards look excellent and the Potion Cards are equally engaging and interesting. It’s a good-looking game, and the bright red wallet is eye-catching, too. I appreciate when Button Shy knows what they’ve got. Beyond that, though, I do enjoy Potions Class for some of the classic Button Shy staples, as well. It’s quick to teach, has a pretty small footprint, and plays quickly, as well. These types of games make for a great thing to play while you’re waiting for a table at a restaurant or while you’re traveling on a plane if you can convince your game partner to take the middle seat. Maybe you play for it. I don’t know your life. But either way, it’s another solid staple in the Button Shy library. If you’re looking for that, you enjoy a bit of two-player strategy, or you just like colorful games, I’d recommend checking Potions Class out!
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