TLDR:

Tom’s review seems heavily biased, and factually incorrect.

I’m listing below things he said that were incorrect, as well as opinions he gave which seem to show that he didn’t play Ignite enough to give it the emotion-filled review he did.

Things Tom Got Wrong:

1) 0:23 Pumped about Ignite
Claim: “Taking a look at a game I was pretty pumped about called Ignite”
Fact: In his unboxing video, Tom obviously doesn’t know what this game is. “Huh, maybe this is a deck building game… I don’t know what this is.” https://youtu.be/ZHZ_L-55ipE?t=247

2) 6:32 Water Minion Movement –
Claim: You move your water minions 1 space after death
Fact: Water minions can move 2 spaces
Reasoning: This (a) helps keep players involved as they can still get trophies (b) helps constrict the board for the remaining players so that it doesn’t become 2 players chasing each other around.

3) 9:13 Bazaar vs Town –
Claim: “You have to have your character in a city space to do so [sell a card], when they are in a city space they take extra things [I’m assuming he means damage]”
Fact: You can’t sell in the city, only in the 2×2 Bazaar in the center of the map.
Reasoning: The Bazaar in the center allows you to thin your deck while also upgrading cards. It’s extremely powerful and thus in the middle creating a central conflict zone for many players (depending on strategy and player count). The whole crux of the game is centered around the Bazaar, and he doesn’t even mention it once.

4) 10:29 Unbalanced Player Powers –
Claim: The Panda’s special power isn’t as powerful as the Catfolk
Fact: Tom used the weaker of the Panda’s 2 special abilities (culling 2 cards for 2 lesser “4 cost” cards) instead of the more powerful ability (culling 1 card for 1 super powered “8 cost” card right at the beginning of the game). He didn’t even mention this choice or the other ability in his review.
Reasoning: Pandas can trash an Old Wooden Shield which has 0 economy to get a card worth up to 8 which usually have an economy of 3. This is like starting a game of Dominion by trashing an Estate for a Gold.
Question: With all of these inaccuracies in this review, did Tom play enough games of Ignite to say this unequivocally?

5) 12:36 Shields –
Claim: “… the shields you have to discard out of your hand which cost 3…”
Fact 1: The only shield which costs 3 is the Old Wooden Shield which is trashed, not discarded.
Fact 2: You only have 3 at the beginning of the game and you can’t buy more, so their cost is irrelevant.

6) 11:29 Unbalanced Cards –
Claim: Tom says that there is an expensive bow which you need arrows to use, but you could just use the lightning spell instead which has the same effect.
Fact: These cards are very similar in their effects. Except the bow he’s talking about (the Long Bow which costs 8 not 9) has 3 Honor, while the Lightning Bolt has 0 Honor.
Reasoning: The Long Bow is essentially a Gold in Dominion, even if you have no arrows, you’ve got economy with it. The Lightning Spell has 0 Honor, essentially an Estate in Dominion. So effect wise they are very similar, economy wise they are night and day different.
Further Reasoning: The Lightning Bolt can do nothing for you unless you want to use it to do damage. And in Ignite, unless you’re playing 2 player, you will not always want to do damage even if you can, because you’ll just be softening up the unit for another player to kill. That’s why we made the game where only the final kill mattered. Otherwise you’d always attack if you had the option.

7) 12:43 Combat –
Claim: “This is combat: hit hit hit hit dead”
Fact: Out of 63 cards/titles in the base game, only 7 of them are melee type weapons.  We specifically made the “last hit wins the trophy” system because we didn’t want you just exchanging blows back and forth like this (as we feel too many skirmish games are). In Ignite this leaves the opponent open to be killed by another player. But there are so many better ways to kill players in Ignite.

• Pull them into lava with a Vine Pull
• Push them in lava with a Wind Arrow
• Block them with an Ice Wall
• Eat them instantly by placing a kraken in a water space they’re in/next to
• Knock them down with a horse then kill them instantly with a Warhammer
• Block them with a Pike when they try to knock you over with a horse
• Trample them by moving through them with a Unicorn
• Unleash a Water Missile barrage from a far distance
• Lightning bolt the water they’re standing in
• Freeze the water they’re standing in so they are defenseless
• Burn the forest they’re in with any fire attack
• Scorch Earth the land around you so they can’t get close, then hit them repeatedly from a distance
• Use a Gladiator Net to stick them in place and then call down a meteor
• Teleport to switch places with an enemy and get the final hit on a wounded unit
• Use a Magic Potion Bomb to keep other players at bay while hitting them from a distance
• “Kite” people with a thin/trimmed arrow/bow deck, not allowing them to get close

And all of these are just in the base game.

Note: We now move into ones which are more opinion than fact, but I’m going to try to point out inaccuracies in even these statements.

8) 7:50 Useless Terrain –
Claim: “The terrain doesn’t do much”
Fact: Terrain can (a) lava – kill you instantly (b) forest – protect you from long ranged attacks (c) acid – cause you to discard a card (d) water – carry lightning and freezing effects as well as card specific effects for krakens and water minions (e) snow – double movement cost
Reasoning: This claim really makes me wonder how much Tom actually played Ignite. There are board/card setups where the terrain doesn’t do as much, but if he’s played “at all player counts” as he claims by saying it “doesn’t play well at any player count” then someone at some point should have been using terrain to their advantage.

9) 8:08 Just Give Us a Board –
Claim: Tom says he just wants a static board instead of the module tiles
Fact: We did this so that the board looks different each game, an attribute Tom has praised in other games (ex. Clank! Catacombs). This does increase setup time slightly (maybe 2 minutes) but (a) allows the game to play differently every time someone played it (b) keeps Ignite from having an “optimal” starting location (c) allows us to add expansion tiles with new terrain later.

10) 12:27 Card Costs –
Claim: Tom complains that the cards are really expensive.
Fact: How is this a complaint? Cards being expensive are necessary as they’re much too powerful to get early in the game. This is true of any deckbuilder.
Idea: My only thought is that Tom wasn’t playing with the Bazaar (see point 3) where he could’ve trashed a card in order to gain it’s entire cost as honor for that turn.

11) 11:57 Arrow/Bow Combo –
Claim: Tom complains that the arrow and bow combination doesn’t work at all.
Fact: The arrow and bow combination is a very difficult strategy to pull off and requires a lot of deck thinning to use well.
Idea: Again, if Tom wasn’t playing with the Bazaar (see point 3) then he wouldn’t have been able to thin his deck well enough to use the strategy, that doesn’t mean the strategy is useless.

Side Note: For Tom’s comments of tigermen riding Tiger Mounts, it’s actually explained in the lore section of the rule book 😉

Other Players Feedback:

Sharing this so you can see other’s responses to Ignite as well.

Conclusion:

I hate to say it, but I think Tom did this review for theatrics. I personally think he played 1 game as the Panda’s vs. the Catfolk, went heavy in the bow & arrow strategy, didn’t thin his deck enough for that strategy (probably due to not playing the bazaar correctly) and then got frustrated and went on a ranting review knowing that we, Ginger Snap Gaming, are a small enough that he can step on us without repercussions.