Band of Tricks (2020)

Overview

Band of Tricks is a "must follow" trick-taking game for 3 to 5 players. The game consists of four suits, with asymmetric ranks. (For instance, one suit consists of ranks 1 to 13, and another 10 to 16.)

Three of the suits have a rock-paper-scissors relationship, where rock cards will beat all scissor cards, paper cards will beat all rock cards, and scissor cards will beat all paper cards.

However, the RPS relationship only applies if a trick consists of two or less suits. Once a third suit is played to a trick, the highest ranked card wins the trick. The fourth suit, which has the highest ranks, can only win in tricks with three or more suits.

The players bid at the start of a hand how many tricks they will win in which they play rock, paper, or scissors, with tricks won in the fourth suit being wild. For each suit, if a player hits their bid, they earn one point per trick. However, if a player does not hit their bid exactly, they lose 1 point for each trick they were off. Zero trick bids are also possible.

The player with the most points after a certain number of rounds wins.