Card CommonsCard Commons

Goal

Score the most points over 4 rounds. You score in a round when your secret Commission card matches the hidden Nest Egg card.

Cards

Use 18 cards from a standard deck: the 2–5 of every suit, plus the Q♥ and the K♠. The Q♥ and K♠ are Wilds. A Wild is red or black by its suit, like any other card.

Setup

At the start of every round, shuffle all 18 cards and then:

• discard 3 to the discard pool, 2 face up and 1 face down in rounds 1 and 2, and 1 face up and 2 face down in rounds 3 and 4;
• put 1 face down as the Nest Egg;
• deal 7 to each player.

Each player then puts 1 card from their hand face down as their Commission. A Wild can’t be a Commission.

Play

The two players are attorneys. Each turn one is the Claimant and the other the Respondent, and the roles switch every turn. The first Claimant alternates from round to round. Cards played go into the tableau, which grows out from the Nest Egg toward each player, and the cards on your side of it are yours when the round is scored.

1. Trade, if the Claimant wants to. The Claimant can trade a card from her hand with any face-up card in the discard pool. After that, she can trade a card from her hand with her Commission. Each trade can be made once per turn, and only in that order.
2. Claim. The Claimant must play any card from her hand as her Claim.
3. Defense. The Respondent must answer with a Defense, a card of the same value or a Wild. Any card answers a Wild Claim. If he can answer, he must, and if his only answer is a Wild, he plays the Wild. The Defense goes on his side of the tableau and the Claim on the Claimant’s side.
4. No Defense. If the Respondent can’t answer, he discards a card of his choice face up to the discard pool. The Claimant must then answer her own Claim if she can. Her Defense goes on the Respondent’s side, the Claim goes on hers, and the Respondent discards a second card face up. If she can’t answer either, the Claim is discarded face up.
5. Switch roles. Keep going until both hands are empty, then score the round.

Scoring

Turn the Nest Egg and both Commissions face up. A Commission scores if it matches the Nest Egg’s suit or value. It then scores 1 point for each card on its owner’s side of the tableau that’s the Commission’s color, times the round’s multiplier. The multiplier is the number of face-down cards in the round’s discard pool, so it’s ×1 in rounds 1 and 2 and ×2 in rounds 3 and 4.

A Wild Nest Egg is swapped with a random face-down card from the discard pool, and that card is the Nest Egg instead. If it’s the other Wild, use the other face-down card. If no card but a Wild is left to use, both Commissions score.

After 4 rounds the higher total wins. A tie is broken by extra rounds, dealt like rounds 1 and 2 and scored ×1, until one player leads after a round.

Examples

The end of round 3, so the multiplier is ×2. The Nest Egg turns out to be the 4♣ .

Each row shows a Commission, then its owner’s side of the tableau.

• You score 6 Your 4♥ matches the 4♣ by value. 3 cards on your side are red like the 4♥, the Wild Q♥ included, and 3 × 2 = 6.
• Your opponent scores 4 Their 5♣ matches the 4♣ by suit. 2 cards on their side are black, and 2 × 2 = 4.
• You score 0 Had your Commission been the 3♦, it would match neither the suit nor the value of the 4♣, and score nothing for your 3 red cards.

Variants

Peek. A shorter game of 3 rounds, scored ×1, ×1, and ×2. Every round discards 1 card face up and 2 face down, and each player secretly looks at one of the 2 face-down cards. The round’s first Claimant looks at one, and the other player at the other. A Wild Nest Egg isn’t swapped. It stays, and a Commission of its color scores, red for the Q♥ and black for the K♠. Extra rounds to break a tie are scored ×1.

Playing with your own deck

Paper and a pencil to keep each player’s total from round to round.

How this version differs

• The Peek variant is this version’s own. The published rules have only the 4-round game. Peek replaces its discard pool, its multipliers, and its Wild Nest Egg swap, as Variants describes.