Magical Athlete

There’s a genuinely good little drafting game buried inside Magical Athlete, five picks to build your roster of ridiculous animal athletes, then four more decisions about who runs which race. That’s the actual game, when you count it up. Once the dice start rolling for a race, you’re basically watching, hoping the timing works out for whatever screwage power you drafted to actually matter this round. I didn’t expect how much of this is spectator sport dressed up as a board game until I sat through my third race doing basically nothing but reacting.

To be clear, reacting is still fun here. The powers interact in genuinely chaotic ways, somebody described it as a light racing version of Cosmic Encounter and that’s about right, the joy is in the collision of abilities rather than any strategy you’re executing. My group has laughed harder at this than at games with actual decision trees, which counts for something.

I do have to say it, the board is rough to look at. Not in a charming retro way, just genuinely one of the uglier things on my shelf, and I own some ugly stuff. Doesn’t ruin the game but it’s not doing it any favors either, especially compared to how much personality the character cards themselves have.

Three stars. A great little drafting exercise wrapped around a race that mostly plays itself, and a board that could use a redesign.