Marvel Splendor is a Marvel themed standalone version of the game Splendor with a few tweaks from the original game, in this learn to play, I’m going to assume you’ve never played Splendor, or the newer Splendor Duel and I’ll walk you through how to set up and play this version of the game.
Setup and how to win
The winner will be the first person to have acquired one of each infinity stone as a resource, including a green as well as a minimum of 16 points which will calculated from cards they have acquired and any possible locations in play for which they have met the requirements.
To setup, sort and shuffle the three sets of cards according to their level, 1, 2 or 3 and create 3 draw piles, revealing the top four cards from each deck to create a grid of 12 cards. Next place the Infinity Gaulntlet end game scoring card, the Avengers Assemble card and then locations based on the number of players in a space above the revealed cards. In a 4 player game, select 4 random locations, 3 in a 3 player game and 2 in a 2 player game.
Next take the stacks of Infinity Stone tokens and return some to the box based on player count. In a 2 player game of Marvel Splendor, remove 3 of each colour, except for green which is 2, and retain all grey tokens. With three players, remove two of each colour, 1 green and keep all grey tokens. Place the Infinity Stone token stacks within easy reach of the players, placing the green Time tokens and the grey S.H.I.E.L.D tokens adjacent to the location tiles at the top of the cards.
You’re now ready to play!
In Marvel Splendor, you will be gaining the Infinity Stone tokens, and using them to recruit characters from the display which are worth either points or/and provide a bonus token value to allow you to recruit future characters at a discount.
First determine a starting player, which in the rules says the youngest player, but you can determine this another way if you don’t wish to discuss your ages and then preceding clockwise, each player can take 1 of 4 possible actions on their turn.
Take 3 tokens of 3 different colours, but you cannot take a grey or green token with this action.
Take 2 tokens of the same colour, which can only be done if there are at least 4 tokens of that colour available in the stack when you take this action. Again green or grey tokens cannot be taken in this way.
Reserve 1 character from the display, taking 1 grey S.H.I.E.L.D token.
Recruit 1 character from the display or your reserve area, paying their cost using a combination of tokens or discounts that you have. You may substitute any grey tokens you have for any colour needed to pay the cost to recruit the character.
These are the only 4 actions you will take but there are other rules that underpin these 4 actions. Firstly at the end of your turn, you cannot hold more than 10 tokens, including grey or green tokens, if you do, you must discard down to 10. Note that you cannot discard green tokens.
Once you recruit or reserve a character, the space is immediately refreshed from the appropriate draw pile. You cannot have more than 3 reserved characters in your hand, and you can still reserve even if there are no grey tokens left.
Each character when recruited provides a bonus shown in the top right corner of their card. You can use these bonuses in place of, or in conjunction with any tokens you have to meet the cost of recruiting a new character on future turns.
Finally, the green Time Stone can only be acquired when you purchase a level 3 character from the top row of the display, and their is a limit to gaining 1 of these stone tokens per player.
The locations and Avengers Assemble tile can be gained during play. The locations will go to the first player who accomplishes the required number of cards printed on the tile, adding those points to their current tally. The Avengers Assemble tile will go the first player who has at least 3 Avengers symbol tags on characters they have recruited, if another player gains more tags than the player holding the tile, they take it from that player and will hold it and the points until it is possibly taken again.
End of the game
Once a player has gained 16 infinity points, from a combination of locations, possibly the Avengers Assemble tile and points on their cards, plus at least 1 card of every colour (except grey) and the green Time stone token they trigger the end of the game. You finish the current round so all players take an equal number of turns. The winner will be the player who has met the conditions, and has the most Infinity Points, if there is a tie, it goes to the player who holds the Avengers Assemble tile. If no player has this tile, it goes to the player with the fewest recruited characters and if there is still a tie, then those players share the victory.
If a player loses the Avengers Tile during this final round, and that takes them below 16 points and no player now meets the Infinity Gauntlet condition, the game continues until the score condition is met.
And with that, you should know everything you need to allow you to play Marvel Splendor!
