Thank you Fearless Non-Profit for sending us two player boxes and multiple booster packs!

Victory 7: Fuel the Flame has been in development for six years and is a God-honoring alternative to other magic-based trading card games out there. The Genesis series features Biblical characters found in Genesis chapters 1-11. As expected, the more prominent the character, the more powerful their card will be. Up to four players can play at a time and they’ll each need their own player box to participate.

So far I have only played two-player matches. In this scenario, each player rolls a D10 or D6 to determine who goes first. The first player will get to draw one card while the second player can draw two and can discard one if they choose to do so. After the playing order is determine its time to begin the game and follow these steps during each turn:

1. Reset - Reclaim any tokens or coins used in the previous turn, if applicable.
2. Maintenance – Reduce any counters in use and follow any card instructions necessary for this turn.
3. Draw – Grab three tokens from the pouch (unless you already have your maximum of twelve) and take two cards.
4. Play – Play any cards that you can afford to use and activate any you deem necessary. You can counter your opponent during this time.
5. Pass – Let the next player know that you have completed everything you can and that it’s their turn

Each player box contains a thirty-card-deck with matching wooden trait tokens. A turn step reference card and armor card are also included separately. There are three silver-colored coins that represent acts of God, and one gold-colored "choice of man" coin. You’ll be keeping score on the scoreboard and you can choose between a male or female game piece. There are lots of dice, including four white D6, four black D6, two white D10, two black D10, and one red D6. I like that they include a booster pack, which includes fourteen cards that can possibly contain holographic cards, art collector cards and trivia cards.

The game’s backstory is that you find yourself in a dark room with a Bible nearby. There’s a flickering lamp that you’ll need to illuminate to vanquish the darkness, and the first player to do so fully will win the game. The game board has seventy spaces broken into seven rows of ten.

To illuminate your lamp, you’ll need to play light character cards. These cards have a cost of tokens and/or coins. There are different types of tokens and you have to make sure that the cards in the deck are compatible with the tokens in your pouch. There are universal cards that don’t need certain tokens but accept any good/bad traits or coins to put them into play.

There are various card types including:
Build – Significantly powers up a base card (similarly named) that has to be in play already
Character – Most are dedicated light or dark, but some are universal
Condition – The card can only be played if certain conditions are met
Event – A unique option to do a useful thing like viewing your opponent's cards for one turn
Resource – Usually provides a nice buff
Scene - Can often grant a perpetual (steady) ability
Unique – Uncommon, but useful abilities like rejecting an opponent’s card in play

Cards in play don’t have to be activated during that turn. It’s a good strategy to have dark cards “paid for” but deployed when your opponent(s) are gathering up light points that you want to negate. Along with preventing your opponent from advancing you can also stop them from using tokens by cursing them with blindness or preventing them from using other abilities. Some cards will set a timer where a card has to be used or discarded within a certain amount of turns. You can use a die to keep track of the number of turns left to use the card.

Like all card games, your deck is as good as you make it, but you’re limited to a maximum of forty to draw from. You’re also not allowed to have more than three copies of the same card in your deck. Having four Noah cards in play for twenty-one light points would end the game in a jiffy. While I have only played Victory 7 a few times, they have all been over forty-five minutes apiece. The box says that games are roughly twenty minutes. Maybe with more experience under my belt, I’ll get quicker. Be sure to plan for an hour or more for your first match. Like any other board or card game, there’s a learning curve.

Victory 7 has a super friendly and helpful Discord community where you can ask questions, arrange online games, or join tournaments. I’m a visual learner and if you don’t have any friends or a card shop with people to play against, you can check out their helpful YouTube videos here. If you enjoy card games and are looking for a well-made Christian one, be sure to check out Victory 7.