The Quacks of Quedlinburg : The Duel

Quacks of Quedlinburg is, in this author’s opinion, a timeless classic. A deck builder and push-your-luck combo, players compete to be the most morally dubious and technically incompetent doctor from the 16th Century, stabbing in the dark with mysterious ingredients to make the best potion possible. Buy ingredients (coloured cardboard chips), draw them blindly from your bag, put them in your potion (a spiralling board of points) and hope you don’t accidentally put in too many explosives (the white chip firecrackers). More ingredients in the potion means more victory points and more money to build your pool. Rinse repeat until a winner is crowned.

If you’re reading this you probably don’t need this explanations; it’s an enormous success and you know its joys. It’s easy to teach, gorgeous and tactile. The silly catch-up mechanisms (‘rat tails’ for those that are behind) make it a good way to entice board-game-sceptics to the hobby, but the quality expansions and huge variability make it replayable and strategic without alienating casual players. Given this success it’s perhaps inevitable that a smaller two player Quacks was just around the corner, following in the footsteps of two players 7 Wonders, Splendour, Codenames and Wingspan.

This might sound like an obvious move for a game this popular, but here’s the rub: Quacks of Quedlinburg is already a great game at two players. On Board Game Geek, 90% recommend it at two. So what does Quacks of Quedlinburg: The Duel add to the quacks experience? The developers had two choices – an entry-level short and simplified Quacks (something that could definitely work, given base Quacks can run well beyond an hour with a slow group), or something twistier and complex for existing fans. This is firmly the latter: a more developed and intricate two player Quacks for lovers of the game, and one that takes the same time or longer.

The basic mechanics are mostly the same. Players take it in turns to fill potions with hopefully-not-explosives, but the way to earn money and win the game have been replaced. Gold-producing black chips are now the way to earn funds to buy new ingredients. The unfortunate patients are now the foreground, through a new tug of war mechanic: instead of giving victory points, making a better potion moves patients along a track closer towards your stall on a map of the town square. Undecided patients shuffle back and forth as each player completes their potion, only treated if they reach a stall. There are other additions. To start the round players flip coins and grab one each for a round-long bonus. To end the round there’s a choice between bonus chips and upgrades to the black money-chips – the player going first decides the ratio between rewards and upgrades, the second chooses.

So Quacks Duel is a deck builder, a push-your-luck, tug-of-war with a smattering of interactive bonus mechanics. If that sounds like a lot for a game famed mostly for its accessible, light and joyful gameplay, that’s because it is. Quacks Duel is comparable to base Quacks with an expansion added, and even for experienced players there is a lot of testing new strategy here. It can also, unfortunately, be fiddly, as with the tug of war outcomes often depend on who moves first, requiring a fair amount of rule book cross referencing the first few plays.

That also creates a shift in tone. Where base Quacks is chaotic yet relaxed, as all players move at once in an amateurish scramble (it rarely matters who does what first), here the importance of timing makes it more tactically dense. The outcome of the tug of war is less about the points total and more about counting out who moves first, adding weight to decisions to stop adding to your potion and new trade-offs between more money, a stall that’s easier to get to, and greater points. The catch up mechanics are less generous than in the base game, which combined with the tug of war gives the game a sharper competitive edge. Experienced players can more easily run away with the game, and it’s a more visceral fight over patients rather than a laid back adventure that focuses mainly on your own pot. To some this might be welcome tactical crunch for a game with a very soft edge, but magic may be lost for diehard fans.

This sounds more negative than it should – the problem is it’s impossible not to compare this with one of the best games of the last decade. The production quality is still impeccable, and Quacks does well to keep its lovely visual language going. The new ingredient abilities stick with the themes of the original game but still feel fresh and add another big bundle of replayability. I especially love the new Dragon Blood chips, which apparently have the ability to corrupt the local mayor into pushing its players’ merchandise.

The problem with this Duel version, really, is that it’s difficult to figure out who it is for. Those who love Quacks should probably just buy the expansions. New players will have an easier time with the base game, even if they only want to play it at two. Only if you’ve truly exhausted what base Quacks has to offer and remain hungry for more might this be the best next stop (an impressive feat, given how much is on offer with the Quacks Big Box) but my hunch is that few reading this will fit into that category.

Even though Quacks Duel is difficult to recommend, it still leaves space for a smaller Quacks box out there, one that simplifies rather than complicates. I would jump at the chance to play a streamlined half-hour Quacks with simpler set up and a sharper more elegant set of rules, for when I’m short on time. Until that happens, I’ll be sticking with the Quacks I know and love.

Market Square, Quedlinburg. Two doctors talking the talk. But are they snake oil salesmen or true healers? Only one can prevail and become the next Guild Master. It’s down to you to beat your biggest rival in this two player version of the fab family push your luck, bag building Quacks of Quedlinburg.

What’s up Doc?

Out of the box things look familiar but also quite different. In each game there will be a mini market board, 3 randomly selected ingredient books from 4 sets, bags, ingredient tokens, wooden patients, a mayor (expansion content) personal bottle boards, coins, gold pieces, and round (bonus) cards.

You’re still adding and pulling out ingredients from your bag and placing them on your own bottle board (neck down). Colours are good – they will give rewards depending on their value and what the relevant ingredient book says. White are just bad (or should that be boom!). Too many of those and your potion will explode. Plus it doesn’t take long as there are limited spaces for them and each new white chip is placed a number of spaces away equal to its value away from the previously placed one!

Rounds are divided into 6 phases and the market board has a handy infographic which acts as an easy reminder of them all; Flip coins for starting bonuses, draw chips and brew potions (for as long as you are….or can without exploding!), activating ingredients left in your bottle neck, neighbourhood market-watch (i.e. end of round bonus), shopping spree for more jubby ingredients, and finally clean up.

Duelling Docs

How far you dare to go with adding ingredients is down to the strength of your medical mettle. But now, if you have been able to place enough ingredients to fill your own bottle neck without collecting too many white tokens, you get to move the active patient closer to your own stall. Once there, you can heal him and add him to your side of the patient track (triggering another bonus). The game ends when a player has healed their 6th patient, or the 7th round has been completed. Then the doc who has healed the most patients wins!

Final Thoughts

Firstly, let’s get the elephant out of the waiting room and back onto the reserve. Do we need a duel version of Quacks? For us, absolutely. Wow, game reviewing has become a lot simpler in 2025! Haha Okay, I’ll put a little more meat on this particular opinion bone.

My husband loves OG Quacks, and we mainly play games together as a couple. Or I play with our son. Sometimes we go all in as a three, but I would say the majority of the games played in our house is still in the 2 player zone. And whilst OG Quacks can be played with two, playing it at its lowest player count doesn’t let it shine at its most brilliant. Particularly if your only opponent gets an early lead or is just plain lucky.

But, in Quacks Duel, the changes to the gameplay are enough to make it work really well and add a bit of spice to the well-known and winning formula. It’s still a double dose of push your luck and bag building. So your fortune will be affected by elements out of your control. But when life hands you a lemon, make a super powerful explosive potion!

The tug of war over patients also forces competition, regardless of your play-type. Whereas you can kind of cruise along in OG Quacks, picking up points and rubies here and there, predominantly minding your own business as you carefully snake ingredients around your cauldron. Duel, however, is not so polite. If possession is 9/10ths of the law (BTW as a lawyer I most definitely cannot agree!), scrabbling over the same active patient shopping for medicaments in the market square is going to raise your risk profile and your temptation to brew up!

Now, there is a bit of in-round maths to get used to in Duel. If you manage to fill your bottleneck with 3 coloured tokens without going boom, the value of those get added to the value of the latest white chip you have collected. That figure is then the amount of spaces the patient moves around the game board closer to your market stall. If it reaches your stall, fab – you’ve healed that one, and you may even have enough movement points left to entice another patient to start walking your way. And if you have been savvy in pushing your market stall towards the centre of the market board, you may end up healing more than one patient in a single turn! Only once that’s done, can you resume collecting chips. I quite like that as it means less chance of you losing all progress in a given round. Plus you get to dive in again on your next turn. Mind you, never forget that every dip into that bag means a greater chance of fishing out a white token that will take you from best to boom to bust! Outnumber those white chips with bonus bringing coloured ingredients though by buying them up for the gold you have been collecting, and hopefully you’ll be attracting patients faster than a poster offering free dental care! You can’t take the gold with you so you might as well go on a shopping spree!

Conversely, if you do explode, you’ll have to choose between losing half your gold and moving the active patient back towards your opponent’s market6 stall the same number of spaces as the gold you would sacrifice. Giving the lagging player first dibs on the bonus coins at the start of each round is also a nice touch, as is the fact that you trigger a bonus for your opponent whenever you add a healed patient to your side of the patient track. Similarly, giving your opponent first choice of the end of round bonus (which you set) is neat. I also like the ability to move the market stalls along the paths (forwards and backwards), and these touches remind me of the rat tails and other efforts in OG Quacks to stop a runaway leader at higher player counts. Here, however, they work better for two players than they do in OG Quacks.

We are having great fun with Quacks Duel. It feels more dynamic and balanced at 2P. And even if you have a bigger gaming group, there are enough twists and tweaks to make your experience different in a good way.

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SCORES:

Likes

More dynamic and competitive than 2P mode in OG Quacks

Encouraging spending sprees as gold can’t be carried over to the next round

Ways that your progress rewards your opponent reducing the risk of runaway leader effect.

Dislikes

There’s no avoiding the whims of lady luck completely.

Component Quality: 4

Complexity: 2

Replayability: 5

Player Interaction: 4

Overall: 80%