Mystique (2013)

Mystique, the default game for The Mystique Deck, is a climbing game for 2 to 6 individual players that can be also played in pairs (4 or 6 players).

In Mystique, the players are spellcasters in combat who start each skirmish with a hand of spell cards; each card includes a number (1-5), a color (red, blue or yellow), and a suit (Suns, Moons, Arms, or Crowns). The first spellcaster opens a round by "casting a spell" – that is, she chooses up to five cards from her hand that have something in common (either the same number, the same suit, or the same color), then announces the number of cards she's chosen and what they have in common as she places them face up on the table; e.g., "three crowns" or "four yellow". The following player must either:

• Cast an equal or stronger spell of the same type as the previous player (i.e., the same number of cards — or more — with the same common feature), thereby passing the turn to the next player, or

• Take all cards that have been played during this round and place them face down in a pile next to herself. These are her "burns". This ends the round. She becomes the new "spellcaster" and opens a new round.

When a player must open a new round but has no cards in hand, the skirmish ends and the player with the fewest burns wins. Ties are possible. The game can be played to the best of three or five skirmishes. Mystique includes two advanced rules, covering "aces scoring" and "spell deflection".