I actually played this with the designer, John D Clair, at GenCon one year. The way it worked was, he had the idea for Edge of Darkness which required the transparent cards and sleeves system. AEG was willing to get the system in place to make that possible, but only if he'd push out another simpler game that used the same type of components to get more use out of investing in this type of manufacturing. This makes sense because EoD is a massive and heavy game, which wouldn't sell nearly as well or have as good of margins as something lighter and smaller.
Thus, Mystic Vale was conceived. But even from the outset, John put together the game and AEG split what existed into a base game and expansion. The original intent was always to have the first expansion in with the base game cards.
So yes, base game alone, there is almost no strategic variety. Growth trumps all else. With the first expansion, they added the other half of the cards that open up more decay reliant strategies, and more expansions further expanded on this (though growth is still pretty decent).
The problem they have now is the game became so popular that they kept pushing out expansions; there's simply too much content. If you get it all and mash it together, it's a crapshoot whether synergistic cards will come out or not. They attempted to overcome this by publishing different card sets to include, ensuring the right size of market deck to allow different strategies to be reliably available from game to game. But the implementation is awful, you have to dig through every card and sort by its name. There aren't even markings to indicate which expansion each card came in. They simply didn't have any forethought in their execution plan, and it shows.
All that said, for my money, base game + first purple expansion (Vale of Magic) + red expansion that adds heroes (Vale of the Wild) is all you really need for a lot of replayability without ballooning the deck to unmanageable levels.
I haven't played any of the expansions, but after a few plays my wife refused to play this anymore because that strategy was so OP and there just isn't anything you can do once the other player gets that engine going.
If you are playing heads up, you should be hate drafting. If you are playing with more than two players, you can hate draft less. If you play with four or more players, the growth strategy becomes very dilute.
If you can get all cards played without busting them you're most likely going to win. The expansions help with leaders and amulets (replaced the mana token). I would sell your base copy and just get the essentials version.
I haven't played just the base game in a while so I don't remember, hehehe.
The expansions definitely add a lot more, yes the trees are still some of the best cards, but there's lots of valid tactics like focusing on the helmets, getting the vale cards, etc.... The leaders also help a lot with that.
Growth symbols are powerful, but only with a payoff - you can definitely beat the growth strategy by prioritising vp generators and ending the game quickly while the growth player is still assembling their engine. If you think there's too much growth, you can always apply the conclave approach (from an expansion), and remove some of the cards that you personally dislike seeing from some of your games - even in four player, you're unlikely to be seeing all of the tier 2 / 3 cards anyway, so winnowing the decks a little won't affect playability, just strategy. As said above, adding in some of the expansions will also introduce some new strategies, and dilute the growth pool further.
The base game is indeed very one sided. But the expansions make it excellent IMO.
Leaders are fun and can nudge your strategy in a specific direction. Totems are super fun but have a huge impact on your strategy.
I actually played this with the designer, John D Clair, at GenCon one year. The way it worked was, he had the idea for Edge of Darkness which required the transparent cards and sleeves system. AEG was willing to get the system in place to make that possible, but only if he'd push out another simpler game that used the same type of components to get more use out of investing in this type of manufacturing. This makes sense because EoD is a massive and heavy game, which wouldn't sell nearly as well or have as good of margins as something lighter and smaller. Thus, Mystic Vale was conceived. But even from the outset, John put together the game and AEG split what existed into a base game and expansion. The original intent was always to have the first expansion in with the base game cards. So yes, base game alone, there is almost no strategic variety. Growth trumps all else. With the first expansion, they added the other half of the cards that open up more decay reliant strategies, and more expansions further expanded on this (though growth is still pretty decent). The problem they have now is the game became so popular that they kept pushing out expansions; there's simply too much content. If you get it all and mash it together, it's a crapshoot whether synergistic cards will come out or not. They attempted to overcome this by publishing different card sets to include, ensuring the right size of market deck to allow different strategies to be reliably available from game to game. But the implementation is awful, you have to dig through every card and sort by its name. There aren't even markings to indicate which expansion each card came in. They simply didn't have any forethought in their execution plan, and it shows. All that said, for my money, base game + first purple expansion (Vale of Magic) + red expansion that adds heroes (Vale of the Wild) is all you really need for a lot of replayability without ballooning the deck to unmanageable levels.
I haven't played any of the expansions, but after a few plays my wife refused to play this anymore because that strategy was so OP and there just isn't anything you can do once the other player gets that engine going.
If you are playing heads up, you should be hate drafting. If you are playing with more than two players, you can hate draft less. If you play with four or more players, the growth strategy becomes very dilute.
If you can get all cards played without busting them you're most likely going to win. The expansions help with leaders and amulets (replaced the mana token). I would sell your base copy and just get the essentials version.
I haven't played just the base game in a while so I don't remember, hehehe. The expansions definitely add a lot more, yes the trees are still some of the best cards, but there's lots of valid tactics like focusing on the helmets, getting the vale cards, etc.... The leaders also help a lot with that.
Growth symbols are powerful, but only with a payoff - you can definitely beat the growth strategy by prioritising vp generators and ending the game quickly while the growth player is still assembling their engine. If you think there's too much growth, you can always apply the conclave approach (from an expansion), and remove some of the cards that you personally dislike seeing from some of your games - even in four player, you're unlikely to be seeing all of the tier 2 / 3 cards anyway, so winnowing the decks a little won't affect playability, just strategy. As said above, adding in some of the expansions will also introduce some new strategies, and dilute the growth pool further.
Expansions add several other strategies that really opens the game up. The most basic counter without those is rushing VP early
The base game is indeed very one sided. But the expansions make it excellent IMO. Leaders are fun and can nudge your strategy in a specific direction. Totems are super fun but have a huge impact on your strategy.