My 20 Favorite Trick

I last published a list of my top 20 trick-taking games back in 2021. There have been several additions to the list, in large part due to the recent explosion in interest in the mechanic. Without further ado, here is my latest list, updated for 2024.

For context, these are the top 20 in a category I very much love, I estimate that I’ve played at least 300 trick-taking games (and possibly closer to 400, depending on how public domain games are counted). I’m picky about what I buy, but I still own about 100 of the designer titles (plus I have printed rulesets for numerous public domain games). I myself have designed more than 20 tricksters (but have left those off this list).

To clarify up front, I didn’t count “climbing games” in this list, although if I had, Seers Catalog and Tichu would have made it. I also didn’t count games where the trick taking was incidental to play, as in Brian Boru or Honshu (though none of those games would have made the list). 

They are listed in alphabetical order. I apologize for the lack of pictures: gathering 20 different images and putting them in this blog is a challenge!

7 Prophecies – This is one of my favorite “lane” games. The suit led each round is pre-determined (i.e. that’s the lane), and players predict how many times they will come in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. in the tricks. It is a clever twist on the bid-before-your-hand mechanic, because you’re not just bidding on the number of tricks, but where you’ll rank in them. The game is being remade by New Mill Industries. 

9 Lives – Full review here. I absolutely love the sub-genre of trick taking games where the back of the suits are visible, and this is arguably the finest game in that group. The added twist is what makes it so clever: the winner of the trick gets to pick up a card other than the one they played, allowing them to change the strength of their hand. The result is a game where you have plenty of information and opportunities to try to hit your bid, and where each trick has several interesting factors to evaluate. 

Aurum – Full review here. I consider this the finest of the must-not-follow games. There are different viable strategies, including either winning tricks or not winning tricks. I’ve had fun thinking through and discovering all of the little nuanced paths to victory. Every aspect of the game has been well considered, which is why I’m interested in just about anything that Shreesh Bhat puts out.

Bargain Hunter – Bargain Hunter gets better and better with each play, and this Uwe Rosenberg classic is still one of the coolest games ever in the genre. Thenovelty here is that you’re collecting one number in the deck, and those are positive points, but at the end of each round you can “clean” and put out a different number to collect, discarding some but keeping some as positive points. At the end of the game, you get to clean twice.

The game shifts nicely between trick gathering and trick avoidance. If I could pick one game that is undervalued by those newer to the trick-taking obsession, it is Bargain Hunter. The game is a masterpiece!

Cat in the Box – Full review here. Cat in the Box is easily one of my 10 favorite trick taking games, and it might even be in my top 5. It is clever, really clever, and it is a delight to teach the game because of the smiles that come across people’s faces when they see what the twist is: that they get to choose the color of the suits they have in their hand.

Control Nut – Control Nut is an amazing partnership game. The unique aspect here is that there are “control cards” that modify the normal rules of the game, and these are auctioned off, with them being paid for via cards from your hand. The control cards change the game in different ways, leading gameplay to be different between hands, and really ramping up the strategy.

Ghosts of Christmas – One of the best trick-taking games I’ve ever played. Thematically, it is a nod to the Dickensian novel A Christmas Carol. Players can play into one of three tricks — the past, present, and future — and winning a prior trick can help with winning a later one. Not only is it mechanically innovative, but the gameplay is tense and engaging, and the artwork is striking. As a bonus, the theme matches the mechanics, which can rarely be said for trick-takers.

Nokosu Dice – Players play a combination of dice and cards, but they must hold one die until the end of the hand, at which point it shows the number of tricks that you bid. I love — love, love, love — games where you can bid in the middle of your hand, and the mechanic here is just exceptional. This inspired my own game, Magic Trick, with its use of the mid-hand-bid mechanic. 

Pala – Most trick taking games have a theme, but in general, the theming is nominal at best. The theme in Pala — that you are art students mixing pigment to make new colors — works in a beautiful way, as you’ll actually combine cards of different colors to have the same effect as what they’d mix to form. Plus, there are two different ways to play — Pointillism (a trick bidding game) and Impressionism (a trick avoidance game) — and both are excellent.

Seas of Strife (Texas Showdown) – Two things make Seas of Strife unique (or close to it): it has eight suits, and it has a mechanic where players can follow suit of any suit previously played, so even playing off suit can be dangerous, since subsequent play put you in the majority suit and thus cause you to take points in the trick avoidance game. Gameplay feels fresh, think-y, and just a bit mean.

Short Zoot Suit – In this game from Taylor Reiner, players earn points for not following suit. They create a draw deck at the start of the hand, which helps with the short suiting. They also get to bid mid hand by trying to match the number of tricks they win to the number of times they play off suit. The game is clever, highly original, and engaging. I wrote about Of What’s Left earlier this week, and while I absolutely adore that game, I personally think this is Taylor’s masterpiece.

Sluff Off – Sluff Off! (a.k.a. Wizard Extreme) goes by various names (perhaps most comically “Steven Seagal”). The game largely follows standard trick-taking fare, and it is an exact bid game. The catch is that you have to bet on the color of tricks you’ll take, hence the “extreme” part of the Wizard Extreme name. At the start of the hand, you take chips in those colors, returning them to the supply as you take tricks in the appropriate color. You lose points for taking extra tricks, taking tricks in the wrong color, or not taking the tricks you said you would.

Sticht Oder Nicht – If you look down this list, you’ll notice I love games where you can vary the rules (Stich-Meister and Tezuma Master appear below, and Control Nut is above). Sticht Oder Nicht remains the most family friendly of the trick takers with rules variations. It is probably my family’s favorite trick-taking game — they get so excited when I bring it out — because of how fast-paced and engaging it is. 

Stich-Meister – Stich-Meister is my favorite of Friedemann Friese’s many trick taking games, and I consider it the king of the let’s-vary-the-rules games. There are two decks in the game — the 60 cards showing 1-15 in four suits — plus sixty rule cards. Each player has three rule cards in hand, and they each play one for each trick, giving variable goals and gameplay. Some cards alter trump; others alter scoring or basic rules. Some people say they dislike this game because some of the rule combinations aren’t that fun; I say that they are ignoring the opposite end of the spectrum, which is the extraordinarily fun combinations possible with the game. 

Stick ‘Em – Full review here. This has long been my favorite trick-taking game. It has everything I look for in a trick-taking game: simple rules, deep gameplay, big moments, and some innovative mechanics. If you want to see me fawn over a game, go read the full review. 

Tezuma Master – In this exceptionally beautiful game, you draft many of the rules of the round, including how you score, plus a special power, plus a trump. This design gives the players several fun little decisions to make, and it is a fresh take on the vary-the-rules-every-hand games. It also has a few novel mechanics along the way, like some of the scoring systems and a unique system for how trump plays. 

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine – This is not just a masterpiece of cooperative trick-taking design, it is the masterpiece. As a designer, I’m not even sure it is possible to make a more engaging and lasting cooperative trickster. I’m still in awe at the design!

Tricky Time Crisis – One of the newer games on this list, in this can’t follow trick-taker, one player at the table will play a villain, and the rest are trying to exceed its value by playing heroes. This one-versus-many mechanic is a brilliant idea, plus it is well-executed.

Voodoo Prince (a.k.a. Marshmallow Test) – Sometimes an idea is so simple and pure that you just know it is going to be a modern classic. That was my experience with Voodoo Prince. In short, every player except the final player will capture three tricks. After you capture your third trick, you get as many points as the other tricks captured around the table, but if you’re the last person standing (i.e. you’re the person who doesn’t capture three tricks), you only get as many points as tricks you’ve captured. That means you need to really time the tricks you win: you want to go out second-to-last.

Yokai Septet – This partnership game features a tiered deck (1-7, 2-8, 3-9, etc.) where each tier has a 7, and the goal is to capture those 7s. The deck does a lot of the work that makes this game so fascinating. (In later versions of the game, you can find a ruleset to play one of my games with the deck.) Partnership trick taking games have always worked exceptionally well — there’s a reason Spades is so popular — and Yokai Septet is among the finest partnership games I’ve played.