Card CaptureBeta

Goal

Clear the enemy deck and all four positions of the Enemy Row. You win at the end of a Capture Phase in which both are empty.

You lose the moment an Ace, King, Queen, or Jack reaches the Enemy Capture Pile. You also lose if a Capture Phase begins with no action that keeps every royal out of that pile.

Cards

Use a 54-card deck with both Jokers. Your deck is every 2, 3, and 4 plus both Jokers, 14 cards. The enemy deck is the other 40 cards, the 5s through the Aces. The 16 Aces, Kings, Queens, and Jacks are the royals.

Ranking

A card is worth its number. A Jack is worth 11, a Queen 12, a King 13, and an Ace 14.

Setup

Shuffle both decks. Deal 4 enemy cards face up in a row, the Enemy Row, as Positions 4, 3, 2, and 1 from left to right. Position 1, on the right, is the front. Put any royal among them on the bottom of the enemy deck. The first Enemy Phase fills the gaps.

Play

Each round has four phases.

1. Enemy Phase. The cards in the row move right, toward Position 1, to close any gaps. Then deal enemy cards into the empty positions, nearest Position 1 first. Once the enemy deck is empty, the row still closes up and nothing new arrives.
2. Discard Phase. Discard any number of cards from your hand to your discard pile, or none.
3. Draw Phase. Draw back up to 4 cards. When your deck runs out, shuffle your discard pile to make a new one.
4. Capture Phase. Do exactly one of these three things.
   • Capture a card in the row by spending cards of its suit from your hand whose values total at least its value. Each Joker you spend counts as another copy of the highest card you spend with it, so a 3♣ and a Joker are worth 6. A Joker can’t be spent on its own. The spent cards and the captured card all go to your discard pile, so the captured card joins your deck.
   • Give up the front card. It and one card from your hand go to the Enemy Capture Pile, out of the game.
   • Sacrifice two cards from your hand to the Enemy Capture Pile, and put any card in the row on the bottom of the enemy deck. You may not sacrifice a royal.

How this version differs

• The row closes up after the enemy deck runs out. The published rules skip the whole Enemy Phase once the enemy deck is empty.
• You may look through your discard pile and the Enemy Capture Pile. The published rules forbid looking through either one.

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