by W. Eric Martin

As the saying goes, nothing succeeds like success. If thousands of people are shining a spotlight on you because they like what you do, then you're more likely to have people watching for what's next, especially if what's next is similar to what you did before.

Michael Kiesling's game Azul has been a continued success since its debut in 2017 and has spawned five spinoff games over the past seven-and-a-half years, with the most recent such release being Azul Duel, which Next Move Games will debut on February 21, 2025.

While all previous Azul titles have been for 2-4 players, Azul Duel is for precisely two players, with an Asmodee representative telling me at SPIEL Essen 24 that they tested this design with three and four players, and the more involved drafting process made the game much slower with more than two players since you had more elements to consider, so they didn't think it would create a good experience with more than two players. Having now played the game three times on a review copy, I'll say that Asmodee, Next Move's parent company and distributor, made the right call.

As for whether you want to play with two, well, that depends on what you're looking for. The basic Azul experience has players drafting tokens one after another from shared "factories", with you being restricted to taking all tokens of one color from one location. You want more than you can grab, so you have to choose — over and over again — what's best at any particular time. What do you think your opponents will take on their turns, and what will be left for you?

When you draft tokens, you place them in a single row on your preparation board, and if you complete the row, then at the end of the round, you mark your progress by placing one of these tokens into a grid.


Azul Duel ups this challenge by having you and an opponent draft three things over the course of play: tokens (as expected), dome plate (a.k.a. ceiling) tiles, and bonus chips.

The main twist of the game is that your personal 6x6 grid starts empty, and you fill it in with 2x2 dome plates, starting with one and drafting exactly two more in four of the five rounds. You establish your own boundaries in terms of which colors can be placed where — something Azul: Queen's Garden touched upon and which can be more consequential in this game.

While colors are identical in terms of function at the start of play, as tokens are placed on the ceiling boards, some colors become scarce, which makes it harder to complete long rows. In the image above, six of thirteen red tokens are out of play, while three others are on my opponent's board, which means I probably shouldn't take any red unless I also draft a dome plate with red for my top ceiling row so that I have somewhere to use them.

Bonus chips are a smaller gameplay element. Each of the four small factories starts with a face-down chip at the start of a round, and once all tokens have been taken from this factory, the chip is revealed, showing one or two colors. Each player drafts two chips each round, and you can cash in these chips to fill empty spaces in a row. If I do draft one red token, for example, I can place it in the second row and if I don't scoop the second red token, I can use the two red chip halves to fill in for the missing token. (Alternatively, any three chips can be used to create any color.)

Final boards, with me using eight bonus chips to complete the bottom row
In practice over three games on a review copy from Asmodee, these three drafting choices have more often been one drafting choice followed by two others. Tokens are limited each round, whereas each person is guaranteed to take two ceiling tiles and two bonus chips...so why rush to take those when that gives my opponent more time to grab tokens?

You have six rows on your board — that is, room for 21 tokens — and each round only 21 tokens are put into play — five on the large factory and four each on the four small factories — so we haven't typically been threatened with taking too many tokens and being penalized, as in the original Azul, when sometimes you hope to dodge a large pile of tokens for which you don't have room. In Azul Duel, we have room to spare, both in the rows for tokens and on your ceiling, where you each typically end up with two tiles that have no tokens on them...which makes the drafting of them seem pointless.

I love playing Azul with only two players because the game lets you think of tokens as both tools and weapons: I want to grab tokens in order to complete rows, and I want to push tokens on my opponent to make them lose points or lock them into a color in a long row that they'll find difficult to complete. So far Azul Duel has not exhibited that same cutthroat feel, which is a letdown for me, while giving you more plates to spin as you patch that ceiling one token at a time.

For more thoughts on the game and examples of gameplay, watch this video:

Youtube Video