Comparatively speaking, Ken Shannon, Jody Barbessi, and Karen Boginski’s Tournament at Avalon is largely identical to their earlier Tournament at Camelot. They’re both trick-taking games with an Arthurian twist, they both tend to go wild halfway through, and as a result of said wildness they both occasionally require minor clarifications. In fact, they’re so similar that it’s possible to blend them together for even less certainty and greater player counts. Most of the time, the only way to identify what belongs to which is to look for the microscopic “A” adorning the bottom corner of Avalon’s cards, like telling apart identical twins via their disparate blemishes.

Which makes it doubly strange to point out that I heartily recommend one and only reservedly appreciate the other. But before we get to that, let’s talk about what all these tournaments are for in the first place.

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