Our TOP TEN Trick Taking Games!

Hi everybody. >> Hello. I'm Ryan. I'm Bethany. And we are Ryan and Bethany Board Game Reviews. >> And today we're doing a top 10 list on our top 10 favorite tricktaking games. >> I feel like here in the Midwest, tricktaking is like in the soil. It's in our in our DNA. It's in our our very soul. >> It's in the corn.

>> It's That's right. The corn is mostly made of trick games. Uh according to us. >> Yes. >> And so we love them. We love classic card games. We love the new board gaming hobby style trick taking games. And we want to show you some of our favorites. Be sure in the comments below to let us know what your favorites are cuz if we haven't played them yet, we can.

>> Do you want to tell everybody what trick taking is just in case they don't know. >> This is a great idea. Uh but you put them on the spot and now I have to like say it right. So trick taking games are a game where you have a hand of traditionally, right? There's different takes on it. Traditionally, you have this hand of cards.

You're going to play them out there. One card is considered the trump or the highest suit. And basically what you're trying to do is you're trying to win those tricks. Sometimes you have a partner that's across the table from you and you are using working with your partner to collectively give it, you know, win tricks.

Sometimes you're trying to call out how many tricks you're going to win before you ever start playing. Uh you'll see some of that right away on our list. But basically, uh you're playing a card and you want to play the highest one. And the suit matters because there's that one big suit, the one that's always going to win called the trump suit.

You generally have to follow suit in these kinds of games. So you have to say if you start with let's using your classic card game start with hearts. If you have a heart in your hand you have to also play a heart and you only get to play a different suit if you don't have a heart. >> Yes. Awesome. >> That's the generic kind of overview.

There's obviously lots of twists on that which we'll be talking about. >> All right. So number 10 on our list is just the classic card game and that is spades. So this is a trick taking game where you're playing on teams and you are betting on how many tricks you think you're going to take. And so you keep going back and forth.

Obviously, you can um you want to achieve how many tricks or more that you say you're going to be able to take in spades between you and your partner. And then the first team that reaches 500 points wins. So, it's done over multiple rounds. This is just a classic card game, a classic trick taking game.

Um and one that gosh, before board games got to our table a lot. Yeah, I I love this one because you can go nil. Nil meaning uh you can choose zero as the amount that you're going to get. And if you happen to get it, if your partner's able to cover for you, you're going to get 100 points, which is fantastic.

Um what a classic game. I'll play it anytime. Love it. All right, number nine. This is on the opposite end of the spectrum. This is a very much a very new and a very hobby board game called Arcs. Arcs is kind of this this space opera, right, where you have all these different ships. It's area control thing going on and you're traveling all around the board, but the mechanism that kind of drives the whole thing.

It's this little hand of cards that is uses a trick taking mechanism. So, it's basically really interesting to see how uh you play this card. It kind of tells you what your action options are and as well as what based off the number of that card, it's going to tell you uh you know the strength of that and all different things that go along with that too.

So, it's very interesting to see how this trick- taking element made its way into a much bigger uh space opera style game. And just when I was being taught that game and I was like, "That is trick. You're right. That's so cool and weird, interesting." I love seeing those elements work their way into a bigger game.

Now, because it is such a small percentage of the game in terms of what you're actually doing and the actual goal, that's why I put it at number nine. Uh, it's a fantastic game, but trick Ticking is just simply ordering up your actions. Yeah. Not what? Not the point of the game. >> All right. Our number eight is MAD.

And this is one of the PCO game games. So, it comes in a box this big. It's one of those games. And in this trick taking game, some of the tricks are positive or negative. And what you're trying to do at the end of the game is the person who's closest to zero wins. So after every trick, you take a card from that trick and you add it to cards that you have and you're trying to even out.

You're trying to get to zero. So you might try to win something that has a really big negative number because you have a really high positive number and vice versa on that. So it's really cool how it kind of goes back and forth from being a positive to a negative trick as you're trying to also add that so you can get closest to zero.

Very, very fun little game in such a small little package. All right. So, my number seven, this is Skull King. Skull King is based off kind of the idea of a game that called from Oh Hell. Oh, Hell basically in that you everyone gets dealt one card and then you bet on you basically say I think I'm going to get one trick or I'm going to get zero tricks and then if you're right, you get, you know, rewarded points and then the next round you deal out two cards to everybody and you say, okay, how many tricks do you think you're going to win?

And then three cards, then four cards all the way up. So in Skull King, it's the same thing. you play 10 rounds and based off what number of rounds it is, you get that many cards and you have to, you know, bet on, you know, say how many cards you think you're going to win, how many tricks you think you're going to win.

Um, but it puts a a wrench in the works by having special abilities. So, some cards will do weird things and do special abilities. There are these ideas of there's these mermaid cards and these skull king cards that are kind of like higher and higher tiers and but this one knocks out this one and this one takes out this one and this one becomes higher if it's in the same grouping as this thing or whatever the case is.

So you have all these special abilities that kick in giving a lot more interesting and intrigue. So as you look at your hand you might think these are all high cards, these are all good. I'm going to say I'm going to win a lot of tricks based off of this. But then there's other things that can happen.

So you have to be aware of that as well. Uh it's a very interesting take on trick taking games. I like that it's not just suits and numbers. There's special abilities and weird stuff that can happen too. >> Um, our number six is the crew. This is one that almost everybody talks about and everybody has played, but in this game you're all cooperatively taking taking the trick, but you need to have cards played in certain numbers.

They have to be sequential and you don't know what your teammates have. So, you're trying to play cards in the right order, but you don't know what everybody has. So, you're just kind of like staring at each other like >> just like that >> the whole time you're playing. And then, um, as the rounds go on, they get more and more challenging with how many cards you have and how many tricks you have to go and sometimes certain people have to win things and just do weird things like that.

It is so stressful, but in like the most fun way possible. >> There's a few different the crews out there. Um, we have Mission Deep Sea and we have Quest for Planet N. >> Yeah, those ones that we play and also there's the Family Adventures, but it doesn't really feature trick taking the same way. >> Yeah.

>> All right, our number Oh my goodness, we're already on the halfway point. This is number five. Diamonds. Diamonds is an interesting one because uh it very much feels like a classic card game, right? And this is kind of one of the first trick taking games that came out to the hobby world that like I I was aware of.

And there's other ones obviously before that, but this is one that kind of hit me and I was like this. Okay, it's name is diamonds. So it's a suit of cards kind of like hearts or spades, right? Those are already tricking games that exist. But in addition to just the deck of cards, it had these this player shield and these little diamonds that you were working with as well and again had special abilities as you were kind of hiding these diamonds and trying to like bury them in your vault and doing all these different things with them.

So it to me this was the perfect blend of a classic trick taking game mixed with a hobby tricking game. It was right there in the in the middle of that and I really like that because of that. I can play this with my family who plays tricking games or I can play with board gamers who play tricking games and it works for both settings very very well.

>> All right, our number four is us cheating and that is Fox in the Forest and Fox in the Forest Duet. We're putting them in the same spot. We are cheating. We always try to get an extra game in and this is how we're doing it this time. So, in in the competitive version of this game, you are trying to earn tricks like normal, but you only want to earn a certain amount of tricks.

If you take too many tricks, you're seen as greedy and you actually don't score that much. And if you take a few amount of tricks, you're seen as benevolent and you actually score more. So, you're trying to get this sweet spot of either getting like nothing or getting right in the middle. And then after the end of the round, based on how many tricks you took is how much you score.

So, I just thought that was really, really, really interesting how they could make trick taking um a twoperson game. In Duet, it's kind of the same idea. You're on this board and what you're trying to do is move this token back and forth and wherever it lands, you get to remove a token. And you want to finish the game with no tokens on the board.

Whoever wins, that's the direction you move the token. So, you're trying to get certain people to win in a certain order so the tokens can move to remove tokens from the board. It is a lot more challenging than you would think it would be because you're beholden to the cards, but the cards all have and both versions all have special abilities that can manipulate gameplay.

>> All right, our number three trick taking game. This is a game called Wicked and Wise. Uh, first of all, it is has amazing art. usually don't think of like card games like this as you thinking about the art, but it was very very sharp, very very cool, very eye-catching. Uh, but then uh the idea is you have these teams or two-player teams kind of like in spades or something like that.

>> But you're uh one of them is a mouse and one of them is a dragon and the mouse is helping the dragons. Uh so the dragon's doing the heavy hitting, the heavy fighting I guess you could say and the mouse is kind of playing a support role. So it's not just like a collective thing. you both are play have the exact same thing.

You're both trying to win tricks and you know, no, there's very much a support role and and then the leader role and they're both extremely important. So, you're working together uh in order to to take on the other teams. >> I thought that was a very clever take on that uh who plays what card matters at what time.

And again, it looks stunning as well. So, it had an interesting take on trick taking plus being the first one on this list that like the card art mattered to me. >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, our number two is Ghosts of Christmas. And this is such a fantastic game. So, you're bidding like you are in spades how many tricks you're going to get, but they're also being played in the past, the present, and the future.

And at the end of the round, they get resolved in that way. So, you might think you're winning certain tricks, but you're not based on how the game resolves previously. It is so cool and so interesting and so thinky. And one of the things I really loved about this game is if you live in the Midwest or if you live around people who play a lot of card games, they are familiar with trick- taking.

Trick- taking is a weird concept. And so if you're teaching somebody a brand new board game, you're not going to teach them a trick- taking game plus. But if they already know the trick- taking mechanism, you can teach them the plus. And so that's why I loved this game is it had it was very weird with how it all resolved, but it worked out really well.

But we were able to teach it to people who understood tricktaking and so we were able to introduce this plus to them and they were able to play it. Whereas if we had brought it to people who weren't gamers, it just it would be too confusing for them to understand. So Ghost of Christmas, do not be fooled.

It is. It has a Christmas theme because of how the tricks take place, but you can play it any time of the year because it's that good. >> But also play it at Christmas. >> Well, yeah, obviously. >> All right. The number one game on our list, the best trick taking game in our opinion. Um, I'm going to I'm going to pause.

I'm not going to tell you what it is yet. When we were first getting to know each other, we were uh friends. I had a crush on her, but you know, whatever. Uh, we played this game constantly with with our friends and family and I grew up playing this game. She grew up playing this game. So, this game is very near and dear to our hearts as individuals and as a couple as we kind of grew together.

>> Uh, and if it was just because of that, it still wouldn't make the list, but it helps it, you know, >> it would be on the list. >> It would be on the list. >> Uh, but on its own, it's also a great game. And that name is Uker. >> Hi kids. >> Uker is a standard deck of cards. In fact, it only uses half of the standard deck of cards.

I've seen it being played to where you can play it to 10 points. I've seen it where be played to 15 points. I've seen it to where you play it until you run out of time. So, it's very customizable with all these different kinds of special abilities you can throw in house rules that you can make happen with it.

And I've played with a bunch of them and they're all silly and they're all fun. Um, but really what it comes down to is it's a partner game. It's two versus two. There's other iterations of it, but that's the main one. Two versus two, and uh you are just trying to call out what you want trump to be based off of a card that gets turned over.

And then you and your partner have to get the majority of tricks in order to score. It's pretty straightforward. There is a wrinkle where the jacks of trump and the become the highest card. So normally it's a ace, king, queen, jack, 10, nine, that kind of thing. In this game, the jacks change their positioning if they are the trump suit.

So, let's say spades is trump. >> Yeah. >> The highest card in the game is the jack of spades. It gets even weirder. The same color opposite suit becomes the second highest card in the game. So, in this scenario, the Jack of Clubs becomes the second highest card in the game. Then, Ace of Spades, then King of Spades, then Queen of Spades, then jumps out to 10 and nine of spades.

So, so it's hard to get some people have their mind around that. It is a little weird. It's a little wonky, but once you know it, it's like ingrained in your mind. You might call them the right or the left, the top two cards of the game, or the bowowers is another way they're called. >> Just like how in Skull King, you have like those the mermaids and the skull king themselves.

I would call those bowowers. Works the same way. There's just ultimate high cards basically. >> Um, and the amount of talking and communicate, you know, just having fun around the table. You can't talk about the cards themselves. You cannot table talk with your partner, but what you can do is talk about >> cash talk the entire time.

>> You can talk about the weather. You can talk about how much you have a crush on this girl that you're playing against. You can talk about all kinds of things. Um, >> did you talk about that? >> I really doubt it. It's very coded if Wow, you're doing a great job. >> I love the way you played that and I love you too.

>> That is like No, that's not what happened. I can't team up with Ryan in this game. We're never partners when we play Uker. >> That's why I want to sit next to you. >> Sure. No, the real reason why is because Ryan has played with my brother for like I don't know 30 years. And so they don't even they they have a language.

They have a Uker language. They understand what each other has like all the time. It is impossible playing with them >> without cheating. By the way, >> they're not cheating. I'm just saying >> there's ways to cheat and we don't do not cross that line. >> Unless we're playing against cheaters and we crush them.

Yes, that's something that you guys do because you have like this Uker language. It is crazy. >> There's Uker tournaments all over the Midwest and I played in a few of them and there's a Uker club in high school. Boy, Uker is just that good. I love it that much. And again, it's part of our story. >> I mean, it's half the reason why we're married.

I had a list of things qualifications I wanted and they had to be a card player. So, worked out. >> Yeah. It turns out I play lots of card games and board games. Yeah, like I said, it worked out. Well, anyway, we want to hear from you. You don't want to hear more from our past. We want to hear from you right now.

What is your favorite trick taking game? Is it any of the classic card games that you use with just a 52 deck? Is it any of the games that we mentioned? Are there other trick- taking games that we haven't mentioned on our list that you're like, why didn't you mention that? Let us know in the comments below.

>> Guys, thanks so much for watching. Look forward to reading those comments and we will see you next time. Bye >> bye. You guys, thanks for watching our shenanigans. As always, we appreciate it. Over here, if you follow this link, you're going to find a playlist that we've hand selected, handcrafted just for you, uh, because you watch this video.

>> And if you check over here, this is a video that YouTube thinks you might like. So, you can check that out if you want as well. >> All right, we appreciate it, guys. Thanks so much for watching, and we will see you next time. Bye bye.