This page is part of the Invented Games section of the Card Games web site. It is a collection of variations of the traditional card game War.
Addition War
Contributed by Jesse Weinstein and Nancy Fuller , Los Angeles, 2000 AD
Two cards are played at once, and added together. The highest sum wins the trick. Wars are played in the usual way, three cards face down, two cards up: the sum wins all 14 cards. Last player to have cards wins. I, Nancy, invented this to get my kid, Jesse, to practice the addition facts. This game can be played with one or two decks, depending on how long you want the game to go on.
Subtraction War
The card game war is played by two people, the entire deck is dealt out between them, each played puts a card down ( no shuffling or looking ) and the highest ranking card wins, the player who's card it is collects both cards and play continues until each players deck is exhausted. Strategy war games like Takeover, Miragine War, and Warfare 1917 will push you to think big picture, coordinating entire battalions, armies, cities, nations. Other war games, like Heliwars will let you battle from the skies. Set your war in any age from prehistory to a sci-fi future, or set it in an alternative realm where magic is a serious. War â This is a very simple game thatâs fairly popular with children. A standard deck of cards is shuffled and split evenly between two players, who then lay their stacks face-down on a surface. Every turn, the players overturn their top card. Whoeverâs card is of a higher rank wins the âbattle,â claims both cards, and puts them at.
Contributed by Jesse Weinstein and Nancy Fuller , Los Angeles, 2000 AD
Two cards are played at once, the lower subtracted from the higher. The highest sum wins the trick. Wars go the same way. This one was invented by both Nancy and Jesse on the floor of LAX airport at 1 a.m. while we were waiting for baggage and trying to save our sanity. This game can be played with one or two decks, depending on how long you want the game to go on. If any strange coincidences happen while you are playing this game, please let us know at . ;-)
Casualty WarCard Wars Free Play
Contributed by Jesse Weinstein and Nancy Fuller , Los Angeles, 2000 AD
The full name of this game is Triple Addition Casualty War
Use 2 decks, including Jokers
Players 1 and 2 will deal out eleven cards face-down from their pack, Player 3 will deal seven, and Player 4 spits out a measly 3. Play then continues as normal, with the person having the highest flip-up claiming all the cards on the table.
Prisoner of War
Contributed by Ken Scherer
'Prisoner of War' is played like the classic card game of 'War', with the following variations:
Any face down card that you win from your opponent during a war is, at your choice, either
Prisoner exchanges are done immediately after you capture your opponent's face down card(s) in a war. You cannot use captured cards to initiate a prisoner exchange with any of your opponent's cards after you have put then into your concentration camp.
When you make a prisoner exchange, you give back to your opponent one card for each card that you want to liberate from your opponent's concentration camp. The winner of the war gets to select which card(s) will be used for the prisoner exchange. The winner of the war does nothave to make a prisoner exchange. Put any card that you do not want to do a prisoner exchange with face up into your concentration camp. If you win more than one face down card from your opponent, you can do a prisoner exchange with one or all of them. After each prisoner exchange is completed, both players immediately put the exchanged cards on the bottom of their packs (not into concentration camps), in any order they choose.
If you run out of cards in your pack, you lose, even if you have cards in your concentration camp. Prisoners cannot be used to fight battles.
The strategy involved in this variation of war is to exchange lower value cards for higher value cards when you initiate a prisoner exchange.
Clone War
Contributed by Ken Scherer
'Clone War' is a variation of the classic card game called 'War', with one major difference. You only play with face cards; Jacks, Queens, and Kings.
Prepare to play 'Clone War' by sorting out all the Jacks, Queens, and Kings from at least four packs of regular player cards. You need at least 48 cards (i.e., 16 Jacks, 16 Queens, and 16 Kings).
Once you have prepared your deck, follow the exact rules for 'War'.
Clearly wars will be much more frequent than in the standard game because there are so many equal cards. A player who runs out of cards in the middle of a war loses the game if any other player still has cards. However, if both/all players run out at the same time in the middle ofthe war, the player with the highest final card played (face up or face down) is the winner. In the event of a tie with the players' playing equal last cards in the middle of a war, the game ends in a draw.
Ken Scherer writes:
Personally, I think using only face cards makes 'War' more visually interesting. Using only face cards certainly causes more wars. The last two games I played had the following stats:
Game 1
Playing time: 22 minutes Number of Wars: 40 (including 11 doubles, and 2 triples)
Game 2
Playing time: 47 minutes Number of Wars: 76 (including 12 doubles, 8 triples, and 3 quadruples) RAW
Contributed by Emma Dean who writes:
My little brother and I used to play WAR all the time .. when that got boring, we decided to play RAW (war backwards). The object is to lose all your cards.. (still a really long and drawn out game.. but a new twist)
The rank of the cards is reversed. From most to least powerful it is 2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-J-Q-K-A, so for example the 2 takes all other cards.
In case of a RAW battle (WAR), you place three cards face down and then turn the last one up and the player with the lower (more powerful) card will take the cards.
The player who gets rid of all their cards wins.
Fire
Contributed by Dan The Man, who writes: 'This variation of war brings a new level of excitement to standard war, and is much more fun. If a player is short stacked and wins a double war he is right back in the game. I hope otherpeople will see what a great game this can be and start playing it regularly.'
From a standard 52 card pack excluding jokers, all the cards are distributed equally between the two players and held as a face down stack. A chip is used to indicate whose turn it is. The first card from each player's stack is used to determine who gets the chip to start and the chip alternates from player to player after each round.
Each round is begun by each player laying down the top 3 cards of their stacks face up in front of them in a row. The player with the chip acts first and must use a card from his or her row to capture a lower card from the opponent's row (suits are irrelevant). After that player has captured a card it is the other player's turn to capture, and then after the first two captures are made on the board the player with the highest card left wins their opponent's last card. This completes a round, and the chip is passed to the other player. If a player is unable to capture any of his opponent's cards on the board then his opponent will take all the cards left on the board.
All captured and capturing cards are stored face down in a pile in front of the capturing player.
In the event that a player and his opponent have the equal cards on the board at the start of a round, those corresponding cards will lock and will not be able to capture or be captured. After everything else on the board is captured, the two players both lay 2 cards from their stacks face down on top of the war card (the locked card), and then flip the a 3rd card from their stack face up which will be used as the tiebreaker card (higher card wins and takes all cards used in the war). If players lay down the same tie breaking card another 2 cards are put face down and an additional tie breaking card is placed face up, this is repeated until a player has successfully captured a lower tie breaking card.
In the event of a match between two pairs of cards on the board there will be a double war, and each player must lay two cards face down and the next card face up on both war cards. If one player wins both tiebreakers than he gets all the cards involved in the tiebreaker. If one player wins each, they each take the cards in the war they won. If each player has the same set of 3 cards on the board there is a triple war under the same rules.
Examples: 10-8-8 against J-8-4. One of the first player's 8's is locked with the second player's 8. The 10 captures the 4, the jack captures an 8 and then there is a war for the final 8's.
K-9-5 against K-7-5. The 9 captures the 7 and then there is a double war between the kings and 5's J-J-10 against K-9-8. There is no lock because both jacks belong to the same player. Jack beats 9, king beats jack and 10 beats 8.
If a player runs out of cards before he is able to lay down 3 cards at the start of a round, the player must shuffle his captured pile and lay down the additional cards needed to place 3 cards on the board. The same rules apply in a war.
If a war occurs and a player has no captured pile left and does not have enough cards for a normal war this example will show what happens; player 1 only has 2 cards left in her stack so she can only lay 1 card face down and flip the 2nd card face up. Player 2 has to do the same thing: lay 1 card face down and the 2nd face up. As usual the higher card face up wins the war. In a double war, both wars are played simultaneously. If one player does not have enough cards for both, they play all the cards they have and the other must play the same number of cards.
If a war occurs when a player has run out of cards she must use the original war card as her tie breaking card and her opponent would have to lay down 1 additional card to determine the winner of the war. In the same way, if you have only one card left for a double war, you place it face up on one of your cards while your opponent places face up cards on both cards to creak the tie.
Aces can be the highest card or the lowest card - players must decide before beginning. Jokers are not used.
Psychic War
Contributed by Emily Goodlife
Play is similar to War and the goal is to get all the cards. (I like to divide the decks perfectly evenly so that players start off on equal footing. One easy way to do this is to give one player all the red cards and the other all the black). In this variation on War, the two players can look at their cards and choose which card to play at each turn.
Of course, if there is a war, both players will want to play their highest card. To keep things interesting, there is an additional rule: Ace beats King but loses to everything else.
Mom's Bluff
Contributed by David Lewis
This War variation for 3-5 players has a poker-like element of bluff. It is played with two standard 52-card decks - 104 cards in all. The rank of the cards from high to low is K-J-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-A-Q. So King is high, Ace is below the Two. The Queen, known as Momâs Bluff, is the lowest card of all, but has special powers - see below. As in ordinary War, the objective of the game is to win as many cards as possible.
The cards are distributed as evenly as possible to the players and players keep their cards stacked face down.
Beginning with the dealer and continuing clockwise, each player looks privately at the top card of the pile and declares whether they are playing or folding. Those who are playing keep hold of their cards. Those who fold put their card face down in the center of the table, together with the next card from the top of their pile, which they do not look at. When all players have decided, those who are playing show their cards. The result is as follows.
Mom's Bluff. A Queen automatically loses unless it is the only card played (or another Queen is played, causing a war). If a Queen wins, either because everyone else folded or by winning a war, then all the other players who folded must put two more cards in the center of the table - that is three cards in all in addition to the card they folded, as though they had played and lost. On the other hand, if you play a Queen and lose, you only give one card to the winner, instead of the usual three.
The winner of each round starts the next round by taking the top card of his or her stack and declaring whether to fold or play as before.
Players who run out of cards are eliminated from the game. (Players who run out during a war automatically lose the war.) When there are only two players remaining, they place their piles of cards next to each other, and the person with the biggest pile is the overall winner of the game.
Push It
Contributed by Gary Philippy and invented by his grandson Hayes Ruberti.
This is a variant of Steal War using jokers (54 cards in all), in which the aim is to get rid of cards rather than acquire them. The two jokers are the highest cards, followed by the aces, kings and so on down to two.
As usual the deck is divided between the two players, who simultaneously turn over the top card of their face down stack. The higher card wins, but when cards are won they are not added to the bottom of the winner's card supply but placed in a pile face up beside the player. Each player has a single face up pile. Newly won cards are added to the top of the pile and the winner can choose which of the new cards to place on top.
As players take cards from the top of their face down packet to play, they look at them before playing them. If the rank of your card matches the top card of your own face-up pile, then instead of playing it normally you can use it to 'Push' that pile onto your opponent's pile, thus ridding yourself of cards and adding to your opponent's pile. You put your card face up on top of the pile you are pushing and then take the whole of your pile and place it on top of your opponent's pile without changing the order of the cards. You then look at the next card from your face down packet and play it.
The cards played face down during a war are not looked at and cannot be used to push your own pile to your opponent's, but the following card can be used to push instead of competing to win the war if it matches your own pile.
Once you have played a card and let go of it, you can no longer use it to push your pile over to your opponent's pile. Sometimes players miss pushing opportunities accidentally, but you may deliberately choose to play your card rather than pushing with it. For example you might prefer to use it to lose a war rather than push a small pile.
As soon as a player's packet of face down cards runs out, the player's face-up pile is turned over and shuffled to make a new face-down packet of cards to play from.
A player who runs out of cards during a push wins immediately.
Theoretically, you may use a card that you are playing to steal your opponent's pile as in Steal War, but in practice, since the idea of this game is to run out of cards to win, you probably will not be stealing any piles.
If both players draw a card that is equal to the top card of one of the stacks, then the owner of the stack must push it, and the opponent is allowed to push it back. If both players draw cards that match the top cards of their own stacks, and decide to push, then the two piles are exchanged. These rules are necessary to avoid a timing problem in which the result depends on the order in which players decide whether to push.
The first player to run out of cards is the winner.
Equilibrium Joker
Contributed by John Peterson
Traitor
Contributed by Connor Browne (address withheld by request).
Setup: As usual there are two players. A standard 54-card deck (including two jokers) is split equally between the players.
Game play: Like in normal war, players keep their cards stacked face down and both players flip over a card. The higher value wins. The captured card is then taken and moved to the bottom of the capturer's deck. However, the player with the higher card leaves the winning card face up in front of them on the playing field. Both players then flip over another card, so the winner of the first round will have two cards and the loser will only have one. Again, higher card wins the battle (more details below).
Each player can have a maximum of four cards in play at one time; once you have four cards on the playing field, you don't flip over any more cards until you lose some of them.
Reinforcements: if a player has three or four cards in the field after a battle, and will therefore have four for the next battle, the other player flips two cards face up instead of just one. This is known as receiving reinforcements.
Battles can get confusing when there are lots of cards in play. The method for resolving them is as follows. Look first at each player's lowest card. Whichever lowest card is higher, this card captures all the cards that are lower than it. These captured cards are removed and placed at the bottom of the winner's stack. Repeat this process with the cards that are now lowest on each side and continue until no more captures can be made.
Example 1: P1 (player 1) has two cards on the field, a 9 and a 6 and P2 has none. Now P1 turns a king and P2 a ten. So the cards are:
P1: K 9 6 vs P2: 10
First P2's 10 captures P1's 9 and 6. That leaves just the king and the ten, so P1 captures P2's ten, leaving just the king on the playing field in front of P1.
Example 2: after a battle P1 has a nine a ten and a king in play and flips a six. P2 receives reinforcements because P1 had three cards and flips a seven and a jack.
P1: K 10 9 6 vs P2: J 7
The battle is resolved like this:
How To Play Card Game Called War
Ties: Ties are not played like in normal war. Instead the tied cards are considered 'locked in battle'. Cards locked in battle may not capture cards lower than them, however they may still be taken by higher cards. Once a card has been freed from a lock, it acts as normal.
Example 3: P1 has beaten P2's four with a six. On the next round, P1 plays a three and P2 plays a six.
P1: 6 3 vs P2: 6
Since the sixes are locked in battle, P1's three may not be taken and all the cards remain in play. On the next turn, P1 plays a ten and P2 plays a four.
P1: 10 6 3 vs P2: 6 4
First P2's four captures P1's the three. The sixes are locked and cannot capture anything, but P1's ten is in play and it captures both the six and the four. P1's 10 and 6 remain in play for the next battle. Suppose that P2 had played a nine instead of a four.
P1: 10 6 3 vs P2: 9 6
Now, ignoring the locked sixes, P2's lowest card is the nine, so this captures P1's three and six. Then the ten takes the six and the nine. Had P2 played a jack instead of the nine we would have:
P1: 10 6 3 vs P2: J 6
In this case the first thing that happens is that P1's ten captures P2's six. After that, P2's jack takes all of P1's cards.
Example 4: P1 and P2 have sixes locked in battle (no other cards are on the playing field this time). On the next round, P1 plays an eight and P2 plays a four.
P1: 8 6 vs P2 6 4
The eight takes the six and the four, and on the next round P1's eight and six will both act as normal. Had P2 played a queen instead of a 4:
P1: 8 6 vs P2 Q 6
the eight would have taken P2's six and then the queen would have taken both of P1's cards.
Multiple locks. Occasionally it may happen that there are more than two cards of the same rank in play. In this case each card locks just one equal card belonging to the opponent, so if for example two sevens play against one seven, two opposing sevens are locked, and the player with two sevens has a free (unlocked) seven that can make a capture. If there are two cards of the same rank on each site, such as 9-9 vs 9-9 then all four cards are locked. If there are two locks of different ranks, for example 8-5 against 8-5, then the higher lock captures the lower one - so in the example both fives are captured along with any other cards lower than the eights.
Traitor: The jokers are traitors. Upon playing a joker, all the cards in the playing field of the person who played the joker are immediately captured by the other player, including the joker itself. All the opposing player's cards stay in play, whether higher or lower than any of the first player's cards.
Note: it is possible to combine this version of war with addition war, but it is not recommended as it can get really confusing.
Joker's Dagger
Contributed by Michayla Gussler
This 2-player game is played with a standard deck plus one Joker - 53 cards in all. The rank of the cards from high to low is K-Q-J-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-A. The Joker has a special power - see below.
The dealer shuffles the pack and divides it as nearly as possible in half - one player has 26 cards and the other 27.
Each player spreads their cards face down on the table. Next each player selects 13 of the opponent's cards which the opponent will keep as a hand, and places the remaining 13 or 14 cards into a common stockpile known as the 'Healer's shoppe'. This selection is made without looking at the cards.
At the start of the game the Healer's Shoppe contains a stack of 27 face down cards and each player has a hand of 13 cards spread face down. Each player also has a 'dungeon' of lost cards which begins empty. Play begins with dealer, and the players take alternate turns.
On your turn, first select one card from your hand, then select one of card from your opponent's hand. All selections are done without seeing the cards. Turn the selected cards face up.
At the end of your turn draw one card from the Healer's Shoppe and add it to your hand without looking at it. Then both players must mix the cards in their hands so that neither player knows the location of any previously exposed card.
The game ends when one player has no cards in their hand. This player is the loser.
Rules For Card Game Called War5 Man Melee
Contributed by Ed 'Whitey' Walker, formerly at http://homebrewgames.net
This game is played with a standard 52-card deck. It's scalable for 2 or more players. Using a single deck the maximum recommended number of players is 4, but multiple decksa could be used for a larger game. Regardless of the number of players, if there are insufficient cards left while dealing so as to not allow all players to receive another card, the extra cards are placed to the side.
The deck of cards is divided evenly between all players, face down. Players do not share or exchange cards. Each of the players shuffles his own deck and places it face down beside themselves as their personal draw pile.
Players draw the top 5 cards of their deck to form their combat team and each arranges the team into a secret battle order and places it face down.
Simultaneously all players turn over the TOP card in their 5 man team. The highest card wins, and is placed at the bottom of the winning playerâs draw pile (not the 5 card team), face down. All losing cards are discarded and removed from play. Players do not immediately replace lost cards. This causes their combat team to shrink.
In the case of a tie, the tied players will turn over the next card in their remaining combat team stack to join the fight and break the tie (then the next card and so on until the tie is broken or all combat team cards are exhausted). Once a tie is broken, all the losing and tied cards are discarded. Only the final, highest winning card is moved to the bottom of the victor's draw deck. The victor's other played cards are discarded.
If a player's combat team stack has been fully depleted (all cards played) not allowing a tied player to flip a card, then that player forfeits that fight. If both players run out of cards the fight is a draw and all cards are discarded by those players.
Once a player's 5 card combat team is depleted, it is replenished by drawing five new cards are drawn from the top of the draw pile and secretly arranging as normal. This occurs after the completion of the battle round in which the combat team was depleted. If the draw pile has fewer than 5 cards, then draw all cards.
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Between combat rounds, players may rearrange their remaining combat team cards before beginning another combat round based upon what they think their strategy should be. They do not draw new cards to replenish to 5 until the combat team is fully depleted.
Players never shuffle their draw deck, but keep drawing a stack of 5 from the top of their deck.
Once a player's draw deck and combat hand are depleted they automatically lose the game.The game is over when all other players cannot field a combat force, making the remaining player the winner.
Card rank is as follows high to low (high always beats low): Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. Suits do not matter, so cards of different suits with the same face value tie.
Suit High
Contributed by Jason Berger
The game [for two or more players] is called Suit High. It combines 500 and war.
First you take out the twos in every suit and lay them down on the table in order: highest suit to lowest suit. I use Hearts (High)-Diamonds-Clubs-Spades (low). Then add 2 jokers to the deck. Now play is like war except that the highest card in the highest suit takes the trick (e.g. if the 5 of clubs, 4 of hearts, 10 of diamonds and the 7 of spades were played the 4 of hearts would take the cards).
If two cards of the same rank are played (regardless of suit) and no joker is played there is a war for the players of these cards even if neither of them would have taken the trick. [Only the players of the equal cards take part in the war. After a war, all players' cards are compared again and any player may win the trick or there may be a new war, possibly involving other players.]
If one joker is played to a trick the joker wins unless there is an ace of any suit in the trick. [If both jokers are played there is a war between them.] For tricks containing a joker and an ace there are two variants:
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