Spite and Malice

Setup

Deal each player a pile of 26 cards facedown (the “goal pile”), then flip the top card up. Deal each player a hand of five cards, then set aside the rest of the deck as the stock.

Play

Players take turns playing cards onto the communal playing piles in the middle of the table. A play pile must be started by either an ace or a wild, and must go up in sequential order (ace, then two, then three). Once a playing pile reaches queen, it is removed from the play area. There may be a maximum of four active playing piles at a given time. Wild cards may stand in for any rank. Players may use cards from their hand, the top card of their goal pile, or the top card of any of their discard piles to play, and they may play as many cards as they wish per turn. If a player’s hand runs out during a turn, they draw five new cards from the stock and continue their turn. When a card from the goal pile is played, the new top card is flipped faceup.

To end their turn, a player must discard one card, then draw cards from the stock so that their hand has five cards. Play then passes to the left. Each player maintains up to four private discard piles, set in front of them. Cards are discarded faceup, and the pile may be splayed out so that all cards are visible. However, only the top card (most recently discarded) is available for play.

Scoring

When a player runs out of cards in their goal pile, the round is over. They take five points, and then one point per card left in their opponents’ goal piles.

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