Badger's Court
Designed by evanievan
Players 2
Length TIME
Extra Material None

Casino-like game for Decktet

Vie for control of the Badger's royal court, carefully orchestrating events to sway personalities to your side!

Start

Choose which player will deal first. Shuffle the cards.
Deal one card face-down in front of the non-dealer, then one in front of the dealer, then one face-up in between (in the Court). Repeat until there are four cards in each hand and in the Court. Set the remaining cards aside near the dealer.

Play

The non-dealer starts and play alternates.
On each turn ONE card is played from your hand into the Court area. Players alternate until they exhaust their four card hand, then the dealer passes out a new four card hand (the Court is NOT refilled). The round continues until the deck is exhausted, i.e. there will be four deals per round.

The goal is to capture cards by matching rank. Aces are one, crowns are ten. Each player makes a face-down pile of his captured cards in front of himself.

Matching: The basic capture is a match—take a card from the court by laying its equal in rank from your hand on top. Take the pair and place in a face-down pile in front of you. A threesome, foursome, etc can also be made if there is more than one of the same rank in the Court.
+Example: your hand has a six and the Court has two sixes. You stack the two sixes in the Court, then play the six from your hand on top and place the stack in in your captured pile.

If you have more than one of the same rank in your hand and want to contiue building the stack on your next turn, declare “building” and leave the stack in the Court. The other player could take the stack on his turn if he has the same rank.
+Example: your hand has two fours, and the Court has one four. You play one of your fours on top of the four in the Court and say “building.” The other player takes his turn. On your next turn, lay your second four on top of the others, take the stack and place it in your pile.
+Example: your hand has two aces and the Court has one ace. You play one of your aces on top of the ace in the Court and say “building.” The other player takes his turn—unfortunately he has an ace as well! He plays his ace on top of the two aces in the Court and places the stack in his captured pile.

Adding: Cards in the Court can also be added together to equal the value of a card in hand. Any number of cards can be included in the addition.
+Example: The Court contains an ace, a two, and a five. You could stack those cards together and lay an eight from your hand to take the whole group.

Building: a player can place a card from his hand on top of a card(s) in the Court which adds up to the rank of another card in his hand. Once combined in a build the cards can not be separated. You must be able to take the number you build on your next turn. Any number of cards can be used to build and can be stacked with others of the same rank as well.
+Example: You have an ace and a nine in your hand. The Court has an eight. You play the ace from your hand on top of the eight and declare “building nines.” You hope to take the built nine on the next turn. However, the other player can take it (if he has a nine in his hand) or build it into a different number following the same rules.

Once more than one of the same rank is placed on the build it can not be “added” into a different number.
+Example: You have an ace and two fives in your hand. The Court has a four and a five. You put your ace on top of the four in the Court, then place the Court's five on top and declare “building fives.” The other player takes his turn (he could take the pile of fives if he had one, but he can not convert it into a different number by adding since there is now two “fives” in the pile). You place one of your fives on top of the pile in the Court and declare “building fives” again. The other player takes his turn. You lay your last five on top, take the stack and place it in your captured pile.

If you can not/do not want to build or capture on your turn, you must still place a card from your hand face up into the Court.

Scoring

On the final deal of the round, the player that takes the last stack takes all the remaining cards in the Court.
The players then count through their captured piles and score points for capturing the most of these cards:

most Crowns = 1 point
most Aces = 2 points
most Personalities = 3 points

There is no score on a tie.
Capturing all the cards in a category is worth double the points.
Winning all three categories is worth one bonus point.

After scoring, switch dealers and start another round.

Play until at least one player passes 17 total points at the end of a round. The player with the highest total points wins—he has mastered the Court to become the next Emperor!

The extended deck

Add the pawns and courts (this adds one deal to each round and three personalities). They have no numerical value, however an ace + pawn = court, and ace +court = crown.

Variants

Casino-like games have many possible variations.
*Alternate scoring: to focus more tightly on capturing personalities, they are worth one point each.

*“Royal” Court: all cards have numerical value and can be added. ace=1, pawn=10, court=11, crown=12.

*Alternate dealing: rather than exhausting hands of four cards and re-dealing, players draw one card at the end of their turn. Thus they always have a hand of four until the deck is exhausted.

*Add the big and little Casino: traditional casino awards points for capturing the big and little casino cards. The Origin (2 of waves/leafs) is worth one point. The End (crown of leafs) is worth two points.

*Very traditional (conventional casino with decktet quirks): ace=1, but pawn, court, and crown have no numerical value and can only be taken by matching. Deal and play is the same as above. Scoring: 1 for most total cards captured; 1 for most moons suit captured; 1 for each ace; 1 for The Origin; 2 for The End; 1 bonus point for sweeping all the possible points. Play to 25 (traditional is 21, however decktet's two extra aces add more possible points).

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