Skytear, the MOBA Board Game | Skytear

Skytear, the MOBA Board Game

Magic: the Gathering meets League of Legends!

Skytear is a card-driven miniatures game inspired by MOBA video games.

  • Draft from 30 heroes
  • Customize heroes' decks to fit your style
  • Rally the minions on the lanes
  • Destroy the enemy Nexus to win!
Play it for free online
Review on boardgamegeek.com by bearyweary · Jun 2020 · Mississippi · United States

"A true MOBA on the table top with all the minion creeps, team fights, lane pushes, hero drafting, and all the ganks..."

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This game has so much depth and is incredibly simple. The strategy in deck building that this game offers is second to none. This is one the best games to place a MOBA on the tabletop. This is League of Legends, Dota 2, and SMITE on the table top. The models are incredible and extremely paintable with any acrylic paints. No game has truly put a MOBA on the tabletop until now. If you want to play a game where you can play a true MOBA on the table top with all the minion creeps, team fights, lane pushes, hero drafting, and all the ganks you want, Skytear is the perfect game for you. What a great game and an incredible design by PvPGeeks!! I am obsessed with this game and I cannot wait for the competitive scene and organize play to come out!

Choose Your Game Mode

One, two or three lanes map. Two to eight players. 20 to 120 minutes per game.

One-Lane Map

Best for quick challenges.

Inspired from the typical MOBA ALL-MID map, this battlefield has a single lane but two domes (domes would be jungles in traditional MOBA lingo)

  • PLAYERS: 2
  • HEROES: 3 vs 3
  • MINUTES: 20-30
Review on boardgamegeek.com by ares1618 - Texas · United States

"I don't think I've gone more than an hour or two without thinking about this game in the last 2 weeks"

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This game is next level! And the fact that it comes from a new, small publisher just blows my mind! The core mechanics are easy to understand and quick to teach new players. But the depth of the game, and the mechanics involved are UNBELIEVABLE!!! I got a demo of this game about 2 weeks ago, and I don't think I've gone more than an hour or two without thinking about this game. If you like cards games, board games, or miniature games, this game is for you! And if you don't like any of those, this game is probably still for you - YES, IT IS THAT GOOD! It is a beautiful combination of MtG and LoL that, honestly, is flawless. GO CHECK IT OUT!

Two-Lane Map

Best for ultra-competitive matches.

Designed for tournaments, this battleground has 3 randomly drawn victory conditions added on top of the default one of destroying the enemy Nexus.

  • PLAYERS: 2 to 4
  • HEROES: 4 vs 4
  • MINUTES: 30-60
Review on boardgamegeek.com by Moondraco - Madrid · Spain

"It takes around an hour when both players know the game, which is really low for the sensations it brings to the table."

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The best tabletop implementation of a MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) that exists in the market.

PROS
- Its ruleset is easier than expected.
- Its abstraction level is high enough to avoid annoying checks, minion movement and so on, allowing the players to focus on the fun part: the heroes and their interactions.
- The gameplay rewards both an strategic approach to the battle and a tactical adaptation to your opponent's general strategy.
- The amount of heroes and cards, and the different victory conditions, gives it a ton of depth and replayability.
- It takes around an hour when both players know the game, which is really low for the sensations it brings to the table.
- It is visually appealling.

CONS
- Even in its simpler version, it is not suitable for non-gamers and I wouldn't recommend it with casual gamers.
- It gains a lot with constructed decks. I wouldn't buy this game if only planning to play it with the preconstructed ones.

Three-Lane Map

Best for epic and memorable battles.

Inspired by the classic MOBA battlefield, this arena features three lanes separated by two Domes (that work like jungles).

  • PLAYERS: 2 to 8
  • HEROES: 5 vs 5
  • MINUTES: 60-120
Review on boardgamegeek.com by gimlianon · May 2020 · Ontario · Canada

"The card play is a lot of fun and the heroes are all very distinct."

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Amazing 1v1 card driven MOBA. Picked up in retail during COVID crisis and have been playing on TTS. The card play is a lot of fun and the heroes are all very distinct. The designers are also super active in the community and are incredible helpful and enthusiastic.

Dynamic Deckbuilding

Forget everything you know about building decks!

In Skytear, you build a deck of 10 cards for each hero that you are going to draft from.

This way you are essentially customizing the champions according to your taste and strategy.

At the start of each match, once the objectives are revealed, you will draft 4 heroes and shuffle together their cards to form the final deck you will play with.

This system is a radical evolution of the MtG sideboard, a huge game changer adding depth and diversity to each match.

Review on boardgamegeek.com by GoldenHero

"Every decision feels and is meaningful..."

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Skytear is a marvellously reminiscent of online Moba's and evokes the same feelings I experienced so many years ago. The freedom of execution, the abundance of viable strategies, and the sheer variation in-game setups is excellent.

Every decision feels and is meaningful, your strategies constantly require readaptations because of the actions of another player. As a result of several victory conditions, the game is tense and engaging up untill the last moment.

I played this together with someone who does not typically enjoy competitive games, but this one hit the mark perfectly. Would highly recommend anyone to give it a shot, also, the quality of components is outstanding, some of the best minis we own

Choose your faction... or not!

Choose just one factions or mix them as you like to form your final team of heroes.

Each faction has a unique gameplay mechanic adding strategic depth to the drafting phase:

  • Kurumo warriors mark enemies to defeat them with coordinated attacks
  • Taulot followers place pillars over the battlefield to play as a collective hive mind
  • Liothan shapeshifters hunt in packs and transform into magical animals
  • Nupten mages deceive their enemies with illusions of themselves
Review on boardgamegeek.com by theoperat0r - Alberta · Canada

"A fantastic game. Combines deck building and card play with miniature tactics."

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A fantastic game. Combines deck building and card play with miniature tactics. I can't get enough games in and look forward to some games in person.

Community First

Skytear is designed with organized play in mind from day zero, with interesting tournament prizes.

We also have an online league running with almost 100 players participating... while we wait for stores to re-open play spaces after the COVID19.

Join us on Discord to see how friendly (and chilled! :) we are. You can even interact with the creators directly, it cannot get more indie than this.

Review on boardgamegeek.com by Alexws - Norway

"Can’t stop playing this."

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This is something truly special. It’s very rare for a game to be so easy to learn yet so deep. Can’t stop playing this.

Buy Skytear

Stock is running out quick, do not miss your chance to play Skytear!

Visit the shop
Review on boardgamegeek.com by Rob Mordak from Ontario, Canada

"Honestly, this is a steal of a price and probably the most cost effective game on the market today (I would know, I own hundreds of them)."

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OK, to start off, this is a M"O"BA (Multiplayer "Online" Battle Arena) Type game so your protecting your "bases" with your heroes and you generate little autonomous soldiers to assist.

While never really liking the video game version of this type of game, I actually quite enjoyed the table top version.

Wanting to test the waters before diving too deep, my fiancee and I sat down, watched the 5 minute tutorial video followed by her sleeveing the cards while I read the rules out-loud.
The 5 minute video does an excellent job showing you a super quick over view of parts, areas and heroes but it does miss out on important facts (especially for first game players) for:
1. How to build a deck (Yes, an example is provided in the tutorial in the rules but a quick flash on screen of the deck would have been nice)
2. How to use the outsider (the wording on the card is a little strange and the fact that, if you don't know there will be other outsiders, and you read the provided outsider card "set up, they can't move" followed by his possible actions: MOVE, Skirmish (a action that you can move up to two times), etc you can get very confused.
3. Missing this as an opportunity to display the game as shown in the tutorial to help the two parts flow together

That being said, we followed beginners draft, I was elected first play (which is only a bonus because you get a card that...lives on the table...or in your hand (unclear) and you never switch roles (maybe this is to allow 2nd player to always have the final hero activation?
I chose....red, she chose yellow and blue and I got the remaining green (Everything here has a specific name for the faction, their god and etc but they are complicated and super hard to remember), we build our decks as was exampled in the book, set up the board, got the objective cards and ....started

Truth be told, the game actually is super simple to play on the basic rules, without a worship action you do lose depth but you greatly gain quick action. We were killing either others minions and heroes right away and enjoying the strategy of hero placement and the like.
The outsider (while being complicated to use the first time around) wasn't as powerful as the lore led us to expect (which is actually a great thing as to not allow a huge power shift) and the mechanics and everything flowed very well.
We played a very forgiving game of take back actions, draw cards we forgot to grab etc, and it was actuality enjoyable. The tower attack never happened as we always managed to just be close enough in "mana" strength to avoid tower damage but we understood the concept relatively easily.

I ended up winning by completing the secondary objective of double kill on turn 5 and we both had an enjoyable time through the whole process. I wish we weren't as intimidated by the worship action and the the more advanced character sides but we were actually both very glad to have played the basic game first to understand the core concepts.

Pros:
+ Cost: for $99 you get a FANTASTIC supply of unique and well detailed miniatures, quality tokens, GAME TRAY and board. Honestly, this is a steal of a price and probably the most cost effective game on the market today (I would know, I own hundreds of them). The content here is close to a CMON KS level of product.
+ Community: I was able to find answers to all my questions within seconds of googling the answer, on top of that their are tons of support vidoes online and a very active discord and facebook community.
+ Insert: This cannot be stressed enough, super well done, the plastic isn't the best, nor is it always easy to remember where very hero fits, but this is just a fantastic bonus, plus it fits sleeved cards (sort of).
+ Miniatures: you get so many cool unique sculpts (YAMI oh my), and the detail and quality is excellent
+ Future support: not only has it been said from day 1 that leagues and new releases will occur ASAP and frequently, they have lived up to it. Today we received an email with a new campaign that has started that allowed us to input our game scores to see which faction has more control over the continent.
+ Variety: Different secondary objectives, card drafts, many hero choices, many outsider choices, etc, etc. The game gives you so much flexibility be it tactical, objective, etc that it makes every game unique and exciting.

Cons:
- Rulebook Flow: I have to put this first as I think that the rule book is the most important thing in a game, and this one just doesn't have all the information I need. While i know its impossible to list every possible question and situation, I think some major examples (such as setting up the outsider on the game board) are missing and that really hurts. (Yes, there is a FAQ and errata page set up, but it kinda sucks that those things couldn't have been in the rule book that's only a few months old). I also feel that many more example situation explications and diagrams should have been included for game play. The card drafting is a tiny 1 paragraph at the end of the book yet its ...1/3 of the game play? Shouldn't it be front and center? Do I always play with all 4 factions or was that just my tutorial game, can I just play 1 faction...These are my current questions. Again, yes, I know that their are probably answers online and a giant FAQ etc, but this is not a board AND ONLINE game, I should have these answers out of the box.
- Skirmish action: I strongly dislike that I cannot hit minions with this action, while I'm sure its fundamental to some game play mechanic, it's such a bad feeling that my damage 4 +2 card character has to use that attack to blow up a 1 wound 0 Armour nobody dealing 7 damage but then draws a 0 when attacking the hero 1 second later.
- Main Game objectives: So the main, always on objective is break the enemy nexus and you win, woo, but in a 5 turn game, as far as I can tell, unless your opponent leaves one flank completely unprotected and ignores you bulldozing in on that side, it's not going to happen. I guess it's not a huge deal when you have the 3 other mission objectives, I just think that Nexus only win is not possible in a 5 turn game. (Obviously the game designers have play tested this WAY more then my 1 attempt and it must be possible, it just think it's an un-achievable goal, and its the main win condition).

Final Thoughts
If you enjoy board games with minis and don't hate the MOBA style of game play, you'd be foolish not to pick this up. The game has a small footprint, tons of content, infinity replay-ability, awesome miniatures, asymmetrical factions, uniqueness, community, etc, etc, it really is a great game. While my cons list has more quantity in it than the pros, that's only my first thoughts and changeable aspect. This game has a LOT of potential and I recommend you pick it up and suggest your FLGS start supporting it. Plus I think they offer world wide free shipping on orders of $99 and up (aka the base game) and if that's not customer service, I don't know what is. Very excited to watch this community grow.

-Rob

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Review on boardgamegeek.com by Rob Mordak from Ontario, Canada

"Honestly, this is a steal of a price and probably the most cost effective game on the market today (I would know, I own hundreds of them)."

SHOW FULL REVIEW HIDE FULL REVIEW

OK, to start off, this is a M"O"BA (Multiplayer "Online" Battle Arena) Type game so your protecting your "bases" with your heroes and you generate little autonomous soldiers to assist.

While never really liking the video game version of this type of game, I actually quite enjoyed the table top version.

Wanting to test the waters before diving too deep, my fiancee and I sat down, watched the 5 minute tutorial video followed by her sleeveing the cards while I read the rules out-loud.
The 5 minute video does an excellent job showing you a super quick over view of parts, areas and heroes but it does miss out on important facts (especially for first game players) for:
1. How to build a deck (Yes, an example is provided in the tutorial in the rules but a quick flash on screen of the deck would have been nice)
2. How to use the outsider (the wording on the card is a little strange and the fact that, if you don't know there will be other outsiders, and you read the provided outsider card "set up, they can't move" followed by his possible actions: MOVE, Skirmish (a action that you can move up to two times), etc you can get very confused.
3. Missing this as an opportunity to display the game as shown in the tutorial to help the two parts flow together

That being said, we followed beginners draft, I was elected first play (which is only a bonus because you get a card that...lives on the table...or in your hand (unclear) and you never switch roles (maybe this is to allow 2nd player to always have the final hero activation?
I chose....red, she chose yellow and blue and I got the remaining green (Everything here has a specific name for the faction, their god and etc but they are complicated and super hard to remember), we build our decks as was exampled in the book, set up the board, got the objective cards and ....started

Truth be told, the game actually is super simple to play on the basic rules, without a worship action you do lose depth but you greatly gain quick action. We were killing either others minions and heroes right away and enjoying the strategy of hero placement and the like.
The outsider (while being complicated to use the first time around) wasn't as powerful as the lore led us to expect (which is actually a great thing as to not allow a huge power shift) and the mechanics and everything flowed very well.
We played a very forgiving game of take back actions, draw cards we forgot to grab etc, and it was actuality enjoyable. The tower attack never happened as we always managed to just be close enough in "mana" strength to avoid tower damage but we understood the concept relatively easily.

I ended up winning by completing the secondary objective of double kill on turn 5 and we both had an enjoyable time through the whole process. I wish we weren't as intimidated by the worship action and the the more advanced character sides but we were actually both very glad to have played the basic game first to understand the core concepts.

Pros:
+ Cost: for $99 you get a FANTASTIC supply of unique and well detailed miniatures, quality tokens, GAME TRAY and board. Honestly, this is a steal of a price and probably the most cost effective game on the market today (I would know, I own hundreds of them). The content here is close to a CMON KS level of product.
+ Community: I was able to find answers to all my questions within seconds of googling the answer, on top of that their are tons of support vidoes online and a very active discord and facebook community.
+ Insert: This cannot be stressed enough, super well done, the plastic isn't the best, nor is it always easy to remember where very hero fits, but this is just a fantastic bonus, plus it fits sleeved cards (sort of).
+ Miniatures: you get so many cool unique sculpts (YAMI oh my), and the detail and quality is excellent
+ Future support: not only has it been said from day 1 that leagues and new releases will occur ASAP and frequently, they have lived up to it. Today we received an email with a new campaign that has started that allowed us to input our game scores to see which faction has more control over the continent.
+ Variety: Different secondary objectives, card drafts, many hero choices, many outsider choices, etc, etc. The game gives you so much flexibility be it tactical, objective, etc that it makes every game unique and exciting.

Cons:
- Rulebook Flow: I have to put this first as I think that the rule book is the most important thing in a game, and this one just doesn't have all the information I need. While i know its impossible to list every possible question and situation, I think some major examples (such as setting up the outsider on the game board) are missing and that really hurts. (Yes, there is a FAQ and errata page set up, but it kinda sucks that those things couldn't have been in the rule book that's only a few months old). I also feel that many more example situation explications and diagrams should have been included for game play. The card drafting is a tiny 1 paragraph at the end of the book yet its ...1/3 of the game play? Shouldn't it be front and center? Do I always play with all 4 factions or was that just my tutorial game, can I just play 1 faction...These are my current questions. Again, yes, I know that their are probably answers online and a giant FAQ etc, but this is not a board AND ONLINE game, I should have these answers out of the box.
- Skirmish action: I strongly dislike that I cannot hit minions with this action, while I'm sure its fundamental to some game play mechanic, it's such a bad feeling that my damage 4 +2 card character has to use that attack to blow up a 1 wound 0 Armour nobody dealing 7 damage but then draws a 0 when attacking the hero 1 second later.
- Main Game objectives: So the main, always on objective is break the enemy nexus and you win, woo, but in a 5 turn game, as far as I can tell, unless your opponent leaves one flank completely unprotected and ignores you bulldozing in on that side, it's not going to happen. I guess it's not a huge deal when you have the 3 other mission objectives, I just think that Nexus only win is not possible in a 5 turn game. (Obviously the game designers have play tested this WAY more then my 1 attempt and it must be possible, it just think it's an un-achievable goal, and its the main win condition).

Final Thoughts
If you enjoy board games with minis and don't hate the MOBA style of game play, you'd be foolish not to pick this up. The game has a small footprint, tons of content, infinity replay-ability, awesome miniatures, asymmetrical factions, uniqueness, community, etc, etc, it really is a great game. While my cons list has more quantity in it than the pros, that's only my first thoughts and changeable aspect. This game has a LOT of potential and I recommend you pick it up and suggest your FLGS start supporting it. Plus I think they offer world wide free shipping on orders of $99 and up (aka the base game) and if that's not customer service, I don't know what is. Very excited to watch this community grow.

-Rob

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