Uncommon Card Games - Beat you to it, Shades!

[Some Schmo]

(Shades, please still do a miniatures thread - I was just waiting for this one).

I enjoyed Shades thread about rare board games - I'm not sure I'll ever get to playing any of the games talked about unless I find out a local friend who already has one, but I am intrigued. I'm not the board gamer I used to be, although I do still enjoy it on occasion.

Anyway, I'm curious about rare card games. My wife and I have been playing a game called Skip-Bo for many years. I find I have to teach most people because they've never heard of it. It's certainly not a complex game. It's more of a fun activity for casual conversation and music. I suppose the same could be said for most card games, unless gambling is involved.

Phase 10 is another such game, although that one seems to be a little more well known.

Alright, Shades. Enlighten me.

[Res Ipsa]

There are two genres of card games that I really enjoy. One is deck building. The basic mechanic is that each player starts with an identical, small deck of cards, usually from 8-10. A turn consists of playing a hand of cards, following the directions on each. At the end of the turn, the player discards all cards into their own discard pile and draws a brand new hand from their draw pile. Cards are recycled from discard to draw when the draw pile is empty.

As the game progresses, each player plays cards from their hand, takes some action depending on the cards, including buying new and more powerful cards to add to their deck or eliminating weak cards from their deck. As play progresses, each player's deck ideally grows to become a deck with cards that work together through synergies.

The classic example is Dominion, which has a base game and a zillion expansions that add complexity. I'm partial to Valley of the Kings, which requires that you "entomb" cards in order to score points, which removes them from your deck. So, it's a balance of building up a deck of powerful cards, but deciding when to entomb them to score points.

And pyramids and mummies.

The other genre is climbing trick games like The Great Dalmuti, Tichu and Haggis. In a climbing trick game, the person who leads plays a set of cards, like three 2s. Other players can play on the trick if they can play the same set (three cards of the same value) that uses a higher number (three sixes). Tichu and Haggis both use "bombs" -- combinations of cards that can be played to interrupt play in a specific way. Haggis is, hands down, the best three player card game I've ever played. It can be played with two, but is specifically designed to shine with three players.

Oops, it's Eldritch Time. I'm off to save the world!

[Physics Guy]

I'm not sure how rare these are, but they're fun:

I believe Race for the Galaxy was one of the first games to make it a tactical decision which phases of play should take place in each turn. It is indeed a race, rather than a battle; you can't directly attack other players. You can disadvantage them, though.

A silly but fun game of growing and harvesting many weird kinds of beans: Bohnanza ("Bohn" is German for "bean").

I don't know if this one is still in print: Illuminati. You play a secret society of some kind which is secretly taking over all the world's innocent organisations and groups. So for example the Gnomes of Zurich can take over the Mafia, then use the Mafia to take over the Boy Scouts, and then use both the Mafia and the Boy Scouts together to take over the International Communist Conspiracy (which is not secret enough to be a player group). It's maybe not really a card game as such, though, so much as a boardgame without a board and little cards as playing pieces.

The same company also makes the Munchkin card games, which are fairly complicated competitive card games that are also RPG send-ups.

For laughs there are quasi-games like Exploding Kittens and We Didn't Playtest This At All. Exploding Kittens is actually a game with real strategy, and it tends to get quite tense at the end, but for me at least all the ridiculousness somewhat overshadows the strategy and I need beer to keep playing. WDPTAA is more of an anti-game, hilarious if you're into games much because of how brutally it violates every good and right principle of game design.

A fun serious one we tried recently: Coup. It's nice because each game is short and has an ominous momentum: something quite bad happens to somebody every turn and it's obvious from the start that this will not last too long. What's not obvious is who will be the last standing.

A weird game: Hanabi. It's cooperative, but you never get to see your own cards, but only the cards of the other players, and you can't tell anyone else what they have. Nevertheless you have to decide which of your cards to play each turn. It's quite challenging.

A surprisingly good card game: the Pop-Tarts Game, made (or at least licensed) by Kellogg's. It's quick and easy but somehow fun and not trivial.

One that's always a go-to game for us with mixed groups of guests: Dixit. You deal out hands from a deck of truly weird images, and on each turn one player selects one card from their hand and says something—a word, a phrase, just a sound, anything. Then every other player selects a card from their hand, and all the cards are shuffled and laid out face-up. Each player except the one who chose first and spoke makes a secret-ballot guess at which card was that first person's card. The first person gets points if at least one other player guess correctly, but not if all of the other players guess right. The other players get points for guessing the first person's card correctly, and also for getting other people to guess their cards. So to win the first player has to match the card they select and whatever utterance they make, well enough that at least one other player will recognize the association as a clue and pick the right card. They can't just make the clue totally obvious, though, because then everyone will see it and they'll get no points. Meanwhile the other players are all trying to select the cards from their hands which could most plausibly be associated—somehow—with whatever the first person said, so that they can get points by enticing others to vote for their cards. Dixit works well with players of all different ages or with different native languages, because everyone has to try to take into account how the other players are likely to think. When you're the speaking player you're allowed to say something that you think is a private association that your spouse (or someone) will surely recognise and no-one else will; it's not considered cheating because it rarely works as expected.

Somewhat similar in spirit is Codenames, where a bunch of cards with random words (or in another version, pictures) are laid out on the table. On each of two teams one player knows a subset of the cards to be their team's codenames; in each turn this player has to say one word which their teammates will associate with one or more of those cards, but not with any other cards that aren't in the team's codenames set. You also announce the number of cards to which your clue is supposed to apply. The two teams take turns speaking clue words and pointing to cards, until one team has found all its correct cards. So in each turn you're trying to find the magic word that will simultaneously pick out as many of the right cards as possible while not mistakenly indicating any of the wrong cards. Our family record is six cards with one word. In one case it worked because the clue-giver realised that six of his cards were in some sense a place, while none of the wrong cards could be considered a place, and so he just said, "Place: six." The other time we made six, the associations were all kind of tenuous but the clue-giver and I were just on the same wavelength somehow and I managed to make all six right guesses.

The current winner for us, though, is The Crew. This one has kept a portion of my family up into the small hours several times. It's a trick-taking, suit-following game with Trump, like Bridge or Whist, but it's cooperative. You can only give the other players very limited information about what cards you hold, but over the course of each hand you have to manage together to accomplish a number of missions, typically involving one particular player taking a trick containing one particular card. You get to use all the great old card-playing tactics like establishing voids and returning leads, only now you're all working together. Some of the later missions are really hard, like getting each person to take their assigned cards while ensuring that no player's trick count ever gets ahead of any other player's by more than one trick. Or ensuring that none of the highest cards ever manages to take a trick, or that all of the lowest cards do take tricks.

[Dr. Shades]

Alright, Shades. Enlighten me.

Oh boy, strap yourselves in . . .

Magic: the Gathering is my favorite game of all time. I've been playing for 22 and 1/2 years and I attend local casual tournaments twice a week. It's a collectible card game that many people have heard of but not everyone has played. It was the very first game in the collectible card game genre and, amazingly, is still by far the most popular, despite the many imitators that have come and gone over the decades. With some minor exceptions, it "got it right" the first time.

SUPER TL;DR: Unlike most card games, players assemble their own cards into their own decks in advance of the game, then they draw and play from their deck alone, not anyone else's. The trick isn't so much to assemble all the best cards as it is to find cards whose effects synergize with each other, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. In short, the idea is to make 2 + 2 = 5 or more. The player who does this the best is most often the winner.

TL;DR: You've heard of black magic and white magic. This game invented and incorporates blue, red, and green magic as well. Arranged in a five-pointed star, each color of magic has two allies and two enemies:

• White is the magic of protection and defense. Knights and angels feature heavily.
• Blue is the magic of manipulation and trickery. Water-based creatures feature heavily.
• Black is the magic of death and treachery. Zombies and demons feature heavily.
• Red is the magic of chaos and mass destruction. Goblins and dragons feature heavily.
• Green is the magic of nature and balance. Elves and large terrestrial creatures feature heavily.

So, the type of strategy you wish to pursue will usually dictate the colors of magic, which equate to the colors of the cards, you'll wish to incorporate into your deck. There are three major strategic archetypes--Combination, Control, and Aggro--but there are only two primary ways to win: Knock your opponent's life total to zero, or empty his or her deck so that he or she can't draw one when required. This sounds simple, but the methods by which you can achieve those goals are, quite literally, quasi-infinite.

NORMAL: Each player takes the role of a powerful wizard known as a "planeswalker." Your deck of cards is called your "library," and each card therein is either a land, representing you expanding your domain, or a spell. The more lands you have, the more powerful spells you can cast. Often these spells represent you summoning a creature to fight and/or use its abilities on your behalf. Your discard pile is called your "graveyard."

Some cards are easier to find than others. Each of them is printed as either Common, Uncommon, Rare, or Mythic Rare. The rarer a card is, often the better it is, but that's by no means the rule. Although the company sells pre-constructed decks, most of the cards are packaged in "booster packs" of fifteen cards. You're guaranteed a rare, but one out of eight packs contains a mythic rare instead, but that's most often what you want anyway. After that you're guaranteed three uncommon cards, then the rest will be common cards. To get the specific cards you want, some people buy lots of booster packs but most trade cards with each other or buy previously-opened cards from sellers online.

The rules are deceptively simple. As such, if you restrict yourself to certain cards you can keep the game in general as simple as you want it to be. It's the card interactions that create the incredible complexity for which this game is well-known. Unlike any other game we've discussed so far, the company will give you free cards to get you into the game. Just go to your local game store, say you want to learn Magic: the Gathering, then they'll hook you up with two 30-card decks, one color each, that you can combine into one deck and begin playing. Sort of like Parker Brothers giving you a free copy of Monopoly so you'll be persuaded to buy more of their games. Hell of a deal, eh?

This game, too, is incredibly addictive. Players often refer to Magic: the Gathering as "cardboard crack." I've taught numerous people how to play it over the years and can't recommend it highly enough.

[Xenophon]

For card games we like a few different ones.

Quiddler is a great one if you like word games. It is effectively gin meets Scrabble. You build a hand to spell out a word or words. The round ends when the first person can play all their cards and then each player also gets an opportunity to "play out". The rounds add up and the hands get larger each round. A little faster paced than scrabble and suitable for slightly larger groups.

The Great Dalmuti is another favorite, it is better with a group, 6 is about perfect. If you ever played the game President this is it but with a custom built deck. The goal is to obtain the office of Great Dalmuti by playing all your cards first, subsequent placements get you lower ranks. The ranks come with various benefits or penalties, a rich get richer kind of scenario. For better immersion let the Great Dalmuti sit in your nicest chair and the peons on the floor, or other thematic variances beyond the standard card swapping penalties.

ETA: I'll also throw my hat in for Exploding Kittens. A lot of fun with some absurdly drawn artwork by Matthew Inman of "The Oatmeal" fame. Definitely based played with some beers. The good news is too there have been several expansions since first launch so if you're just now getting into it it can feel like 2 or 3 games in 1.

[Some Schmo]

Man, a lot of these sound fun. I like the games where you're trying to pick the best card to match something else (Apples to Apples, Cards Against Humanity, etc).

We have a card game called Joking Hazard which is along the same lines, except you're trying to build a three panel comic strip. Whoever's turn it is picks a random card from the big draw pile and lays it down, then picks one of their own cards (out of seven) to place either before or after the drawn card. These two cards make the cartoon setup. Then everyone chooses what they think is the funniest card to complete the panel. The person whose turn it is chooses the one they like best, and that card becomes a point for whoever played it. First player to 5 or 10 (or whatever number you choose) wins. Simple but good for a few laughs.

There's another card game called Smart Ass, but it involves a board, so I think Shades would likely consider it a board game. It's kind of like Trivial Pursuit, except each card has 10 clues on it. Whoever's turn it is rolls a colored die to start, and reads a card from the colored pile they rolled (three different colors for three categories: What Am I? Who Am I? or Where Am I? They read one clue at a time. Everyone else can guess at any time, and whoever guesses it right first wins the round and gets to roll a die for movement. If you guess wrong, you're out of that round, so you may think you know the answer after two or three clues, but you don't want to answer until you're sure. There's always the tension between wanting to answer first but also not be wrong. The first one to the donkey's butt (ass's ass?) wins. This is another great game with beer.

[Some Schmo]

Magic The Gathering is another game I tried to get into but couldn't. I might try it again, though. At the time I tried it, I was heavily into Hearthstone, and I just didn't feel like learning a new deck builder. Since then, I think they've sort of ruined Hearthstone with all the new mechanics introduced with the expansions they release every four months, so the game no longer appeals to me (way too much reliance on RNG).

[honorentheos]

Magic The Gathering is another game I tried to get into but couldn't. I might try it again, though. At the time I tried it, I was heavily into Hearthstone, and I just didn't feel like learning a new deck builder. Since then, I think they've sort of ruined Hearthstone with all the new mechanics introduced with the expansions they release every four months, so the game no longer appeals to me (way too much reliance on RNG).

Another game my daughter and her friends have been into for a long time. I also have a friend who started playing it in the mid-90s and is still playing, now with his own kids. But like you I never really got into it. I have a few decks given to me that I'll play with when asked by my daughter or one of her friends. But honestly it feels a little "pay to win" in the mechanics. Building the deck seems synonymous with buying higher value cards.

[Dr. Shades]

Some Schmo:

I've played both Skip-Bo and Phase 10. They're pretty simple, in my opinion.

At the time I tried it, I was heavily into Hearthstone, and I just didn't feel like learning a new deck builder. Since then, I think they've sort of ruined Hearthstone with all the new mechanics introduced with the expansions they release every four months, so the game no longer appeals to me (way too much reliance on RNG).

"RNG" = "Random Number Generation?"

Either way, please tell us about Hearthstone. You said that it doesn't appeal to you anymore, but you never told us anything about the game itself.

Perhaps based on the board game Titan mentioned in the Advanced Board Games thread, another card game I very much enjoy is Titan: the Arena, later bought out by Fantasy Flight Games and re-published as Colossal Arena. Players bet on which three of the eight fantastic creatures (Cyclops, Dragon, Hydra, Ranger, Titan, Troll, Unicorn, and Wizard) they think will survive combat in the arena. They place numbered cards below them each round, and when there's a card below each creature and there ISN'T a tie for the lowest, the lowest-numbered creature is eliminated. If you're the "backer," i.e. the player who has bet the most money on a creature, you can use its unique special power to your advantage if you play a card on it. It's a LOT of fun and, like The Settlers of Catan and Quo Vadis?, I always keep my copy in the trunk of my car so I can play it whenever and wherever the opportunity arises.

[Res Ipsa]

I love Titan the Arena. I own a space themed version of the game that is a little more complex.

One trend that I’m seeing more of is board games that release a card-based version. The first one I recall is San Juan, a card game based on Puerto Rico. There’s a two-player card game that is a version of Catan. And one for Castles of Burgundy. And a bunch more.