The Decktet Wiki

Alexander the Great charged across the racing water of the Granicus to attack the Persians. Will you be able to control the shifting river at the centre of this two player area-control game?

Setup

Only the aces and two-suited cards are used; set aside the other cards.

1. Shuffle and then form a central column with the six aces (Moon, Sun, Wave, Leaf, Wyrm, and Knot), arranged vertically in random order.
2. Divide the 24 two-suited cards into:
- Twelve odd-ranked cards (3, 5, 7, 9) for Player 1
- Twelve even-ranked cards (2, 4, 6, 8) for Player 2
3. Each player shuffles their twelve cards.
4. Each player randomly removes 3 cards from their deck without looking at them.
5. Players are left with 9 cards each to play.
6. Player 1 plays to the left of the column, Player 2 to the opposing side.

Game play

Players take turns, starting with Player 1 (Odd player).

### On Your Turn
1. Turn up the top card of your deck.
2. Choose one of the two suits on your card.
3. Place the card on your side of the column, next to the ace of the chosen suit.
4. According to the *other* suit on your card, you may:
- Leave the ace of that suit where it is, OR
- Swap that ace with the ace immediately above it, OR
- Swap that ace with the ace immediately below it
- Note: The column does not "wrap" - the top ace can only be swapped with the one below, and the bottom ace can only be swapped with the one above.

### Special Turn Rules
- First Turn: On Player 1's first turn, they place their card normally but do not perform the ace-swapping step.
- Last Turn: On Player 2's final turn (the 18th card placement), they place their card normally but do not perform the ace-swapping step.

### Primary Scoring
For each ace in the column:
1. Determine which player has the majority of matching suit cards on their side of that ace. They will score its points.
- If tied, see which player has more cards in total on their side of that ace (matching or not).
- If still tied, nobody scores the points for that ace.
2. The player with the majority scores points equal to the total number of cards in that row (left and right sides combined) that possess the suit of that ace.
- If no cards match the ace's suit, that ace (or that row) is worth zero points.

### Tiebreaker
If the total score is tied:
1. Find the row where the sum of the values on all cards (both sides) is highest.
2. In that row:
- Player 1 (Odd): Sum the values of all odd-ranked cards.
- Player 2 (Even): Sum the values of all even-ranked cards and add 2.
3. The player with the higher total wins the tie.

Credits

Thanks to P D Magnus for creating the Decktet system and making all the games of the system possible.
Thanks to PLB for assistance playtesting the first version of this game.

Links

Comments

I'm still not entirely happy with the tiebreaker rules, since they depart significantly from the focus of the main game. Would be more than happy to take suggestions for an alternative tiebreaker more in harmony with the main gameplay.