Duel Track: Controlling the Layout

This is a Duel track lesson for Level 3. The lesson before it covered card memory in 7 Wonders.

The beginner lesson taught one question: what does this card uncover? The midgame lesson added tempo. This lesson turns both into counting. Duel’s layout is a shared space, and the player who controls when rows open usually gets the best cards in them.

Rules here come from the 7 Wonders Duel rulebook.

Safe picks and opening picks

Every accessible card is one of two kinds:

• A safe pick frees nothing. The card above it is still covered by another card.
• An opening pick makes one or two new cards accessible. If they were face down, they are flipped at once.

Opening picks are not bad in themselves. If you open a card you do not mind your opponent taking, or a face-down card in a row you expect to be weak for them, that is fine. The danger is opening a card your opponent badly wants and then handing them the turn.

The safe-pick count

Look at the layout and count the safe picks available. Then think of the turns as a back-and-forth:

• If the safe picks run out on your opponent’s turn, they must open something for you.
• If they run out on yours, you must open something for them.

So, roughly, when it is your turn and the number of safe picks is odd, take one. You will take the last safe pick and your opponent opens. When the number is even, a safe pick only delays; consider an opening pick now, while you choose what to open.

This is a rule of thumb, not a law. A card’s value can outweigh the count, and opening picks often create new safe picks. But it gives you a reason for every pick beyond “this card is nice.”

Who takes the last card

Each Age lays out 20 cards, and players alternate. With no extra turns, the player who starts the Age takes cards 1, 3, 5, and so on, and the other player takes the 20th card.

A play-again Wonder changes that. Every extra turn shifts the order by one, so it flips who takes the last card. Theology, the Progress token that gives all your future Wonders play-again, can flip it more than once.

Why the last card matters:

• It decides who starts the next Age when the Conflict pawn sits in the middle. Otherwise the player with the pawn on their side chooses.
• A play-again on the last card is wasted. The rulebook says an extra turn with an empty layout is lost. Build play-again Wonders before the final picks of an Age, not with the last card.

Choosing who starts

The rulebook has you lay out the next Age before the choice is made. Use that. Look at the accessible cards before you decide.

• Age II starts narrow. Only 2 cards are accessible. Starting means taking one of two and opening part of the next row. Look at the 2 cards: if one is strong for you, starting may be worth it.
• Age III has the guilds and the biggest blue, red, and green cards. Read the face-up cards and ask whether starting lets you grab something your opponent needs to survive.

There is no fixed answer, so make the choice by looking, not by habit.

What the hidden cards can be

Each Age deck loses 3 cards to the box at setup, unseen. Age I and Age II have 23 cards each, so 20 are laid out. Age III has 20 cards; 3 go back, and then 3 guilds are added, so all 3 guilds drawn are in the layout.

That gives useful odds:

• A given Age I or Age II card is in the layout 20 times in 23, about 87%.
• A given Age III card that is not a guild is in the layout 17 times in 20, 85%.

Now add what you can see. The List of Cards pages at the back of the rulebook show every card in each Age. The face-up cards are known. Any face-down card must be one of the others, and some of those may be in the box. When you are deciding whether to open a face-down card, ask what it could be, and how many of the possibilities are good for your opponent.

Putting it together

Before each pick in a close Age:

1. List the safe picks. Odd or even?
2. Check play-again. Can either player still build a Wonder that gives an extra turn this Age?
3. Check what opening picks reveal. A known card, or a face-down one from a known list?
4. Count to the end. Who takes the last card, and does it matter this Age?

It sounds like a lot. After a few games, the first and last questions take a glance, and the middle two only matter when a play-again Wonder is in reach.