My first Reiner Knizia review and it’s a negative one. I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all. You know what else I don’t like? Ra. The appeal of this game is beyond me. You spend three quarters of your turns drawing a tile from a bag to no immediate effect. Pretty much the entire game is down-time. Its theme is pointless, its cadence is awkward, and its decision space is tiny. Honestly, this is probably my least favorite design of Knizia’s that I’ve played, and I’ve played a lot. I really do not understand why this is considered one of Knizia’s classics. His earlier titles Modern Art and High Society are significantly better auction games and laid the groundwork for many systems we see in games today. Knizia is practically a master of the auction genre. So what’s the deal with Ra? Why does it completely ignore everything that made both of those games work? Gone are the tempestuous economies, careful value assessments, and creative twists on pacing and scoring. Ra has no economy or valuation dynamics that I can see, and its scoring system is rote set collection of the blandest kind. What happened? First, let’s touch on Ra‘s overall structure. Before the game begins, players are each dealt a hand of “Sun” tiles, numbered between 2 and 16, and a starting score of 10 VPs. Another Sun tile with a value of 1 is placed in the center of the game board. Players then take turns drawing random tiles from a…