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Shandalar, The Magic Card Board Game

This is a 2-8 player board game that brings many many hours of classic MTG fun.
It's based on the old Magic Card video game, Shandalar.
You start with a very bad sealed pool, but you buy/sell cards and win antes and complete quests to improve your deck.
On your turn, you move to an adjacent tile, then a play game of Magic against a pre-constructed enemy deck based on the color of the terrain you're on. Another player temporarily controls the enemy deck to play against you.
The goal of the game is to take over all 5 castles. Each castle involves a randomly generated dungeon with mythic rares you can find.

Try the demo

Magic Cards Included

There's 4 of every card in the video game. These are the sets printed before Fallen Empires. Except a few cards have been removed because they stall the game too much (Circle of Protections). A few that are really bad have also been removed except you can still get them for free from explore cards (Glasses of Urza, Marsh Viper).

I've also added a few cards that are in the old sets but were never added to the video game for some reason. Dust to Dust, Recall, etc.

Each card has a rarity based on how good it is, not actual MTG rarity. There is a random pile for each rarity. So for example if an explore card tells you to "Get a random green rare." You flip cards from the random rares pile until you find a green one, then you keep it.
Full list of cards »

Game Rules

Game Setup

  1. Take the Village tile and put it face up on the center of the table.
  2. Shuffle and deal the world tiles face down around the village tile in a 7x5 grid.
  3. Shuffle each pile: the random commons, the random uncommons, the random mythics, the quests, the quest prizes, the world tiles, the explore cards.
  4. Give each player 30 random commons, and 10 random uncommons. They can look at them.
  5. Roll to see who goes first.
  6. Reveal a random rare for each player. Each player picks which 1 of those rares they get. In reverse turn order.
  7. Each player builds their deck. 40 card minimum, basic lands are free.
  8. Put all players on the village tile. The first player takes their turn.

Turns

  1. If there are any adjacent world tiles that are face down, flip them face up.
  2. Draw an explore card. If you are starting your turn on an empty tile (not a town or castle), draw an extra explore card.
  3. If you're starting your turn in a town you just discovered, put in it for sale 2 rares, 3 uncommons, and 4 commons, and put a quest card in the town. Anyone who visits the town and doesn't already have a quest may take the quest.
  4. You may edit your deck if you're in a town, or a castle that you own. You may also buy/sell from the town you're in.
  5. Move 1 tile any direction, diagonal allowed.
  6. You will duel a random enemy of the color of the terrain you're travelling to. Your turn will end after this duel.

Buying and selling

You can buy and sell inside towns only, or nomad's bazaars.
When you sell a card, it goes into that town so anyone who visits there can buy it.
Cards sell for half their value, unless the town you're in states otherwise.
Commons cost 2 gold, so you can sell them for 1 gold.
Uncommons cost 8 gold, so you can sell them for 4 gold.
Rares cost 32 gold, so you can sell them for 16 gold.
Mythics cost 128 gold, so you can sell them for 64 gold.
Players don't start the game with any gold, and the only way to get gold is to sell cards.

Duels

  1. If you're traveling to a tile that has a player on it, you must duel that player instead of any enemy deck. Otherwise face a random enemy deck:
  2. When you travel to a new tile you determine the enemy you'll face by rolling a D-6.
  3. There's 5 decks of each color. You will face a deck of the color of the terrain you're traveling to. If you roll a 6 it's always that mono color deck.
  4. Another player that isn't busy right now uses the enemy deck to play against you.
  5. Both players shuffle and ante the top card of their deck that isn't a basic land.
  6. After seeing your antes, and before seeing your starting hand, you may pay off the enemy with 8 gold or cards from your sideboard worth 8 gold to cancel the duel. If so the enemy deck keeps those gold/cards until someone beats it and takes those from it.
  7. You play first in duels. (you = the person who's taking thier turn in the board game)
  8. To save time, there's no mulligans. Instead each player draws 10 and then puts 3 on bottom of thier library.
  9. Latest MTG rules except there is mana burn.
  10. Starting life is 14 plus any mana links you have.
  11. The winning deck gets the ante. The player controlling the winning deck gets 4 random commons also. If the enemy wins, your ante is stored along with the enemy deck so that if a player later beats that enemy, then that player also wins all cards that enemy has previously won.
  12. If any castles have ever been discovered, the winning player can choose to get a dungeon clue instead of the 4 commons. If so they can either look at a castle's mythics, or add 3 random mythics face down to a castle that doesn't have any, and look at them.
  13. In a tie, nobody wins and the decks keep their antes.
See rules for dungeons/castles

Also play in Tabletop Simulator

Ideally buy all the real cards and meet up to play but if you can't, all you need to play right now is these files. On Windows, drag them into your C:\Users\[username]\Documents\My Games\Tabletop Simulator\Saves\Saved Objects folder. Then in Tabletop Simulator click saved objects. Random commons Random uncommons Random rares Random mythics World tiles Dungeon tiles Dungeon entrances Dungeon dice cards Explore cards Quests Quest prizes