Card Capture
Card Capture Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Game Setup
Take all 2s, 3s, and 4s, as well as both Jokers from the deck. Shuffle them together and set them aside. These will be your Personal Draw Deck. Shuffle the remaining cards and create a second deck. This is the Enemy Draw Deck. Place it on the left side of your playing area, as in the picture below.
Draw four cards from the enemy draw deck. Place the first card face up in Position 1, as shown above. Place the 2nd card in Position 2, the 3rd card in Position 3, and the 4th card in Position 4. After placing all four cards, if any of them are Jack, Queen, King, or Ace cards, remove them from the row and place them at the bottom of the enemy draw deck. We will re-fill any emptied Positions soon. But for now, the game is set up and you are ready to play. Your setup might look something like this (but probably won't exactly).
Game Play
Each round of the game is separated into four phases. The first phase is the Enemy Phase.
Enemy Phase
In this phase, the Enemy refreshes their forces. To represent this, if there are any empty positions in the Enemy Row, move cards to the right, in order to fill them, then draw replacement card(s) from the Enemy Draw Deck to refill the empty Position(s). In the example, move the 5 of Hearts to the right, then draw a replacement card from the Enemy draw deck to fill Position 4.
Towards the end of the game, there will be a time when there are no more cards in the Enemy Draw Deck. When you get to that point, simply skip the Enemy phase.
Discard Phase
In this phase, you may discard any number of cards from your hand. A common use for this phase is to remove cards from your hand that will likely not be of much use for you during this round. These discarded cards simply go into a pile next to your Personal Draw Deck. (You are NOT allowed to look through your discard pile at any point during the game.)
Draw Phase
Now, draw cards from your Personal Draw Deck until you have four cards in your hand. These will be the cards you will have available to use in the Capture Phase.
If you run out of cards in your Personal Draw Deck, and need to draw more cards, shuffle your discard pile and make a new Personal Draw Deck out of it, then continue drawing cards until you have four cards in your hand.
Capture Phase
(Below is an example hand of four cards.)
In this phase, either you will capture one card from your enemy or they will capture one or more from you. With the above setup, there are actually many options you could choose from.
A Joker acts like any one other card in your hand.
So, we could choose to consider the Joker to be a 3 of Clubs, a 2 of Hearts, or a 4 of Hearts. In order to capture an enemy card, you must spend (discard) an equal or greater value of cards from your hand than the value of the card you want to capture. These cards must be of the same suit as the card being captured. For example, you could spend the 3 of Clubs and the Joker (the Joker would act as an additional 3 of Clubs). This would equal 6 Clubs, which is more than the 5 of Clubs. Your spent cards as well as your captured cards go into your discard pile, next to your Personal Draw Deck. Alternatively, you could spend your 4 of Hearts, your 2 of Hearts, and your Joker (acting as an additional 4 of Hearts) to equal 10 Hearts. This would allow you to capture either (but not both of) the 5 of Hearts or the 10 of Hearts into your discard pile.
For Face Cards, Jacks are considered to be an 11 value card, Queens are worth 12, Kings are worth 13, and Aces have a value of 14.
If you cannot (or do not want to) capture a card from the Enemy Row, there are two more options available to you. If you let the Enemy capture one of your cards, the Enemy card in Position 1 as well as a card of your choice from your hand are removed from the game and placed in the Enemy Capture Pile. This may be used to remove unwanted cards from your deck, but beware, if any Ace, Jack, Queen, or King cards ever ends up in the Enemy Capture Pile, you immediately lose the game. So do your best not to let that happen.
In order to prevent an important card from being captured, you may make a Sacrifice. To do this, take any two cards from your hand and place them in the Enemy Capture Pile. If you do this, you are able to choose one card from the Enemy Row and place it at the bottom of the Enemy Draw Deck. You may NOT sacrifice an Ace, Jack, Queen, or King card, as this would cause you to immediately lose the game.
At the end of the Capture Phase, there will always be an empty Position in the Enemy Row. This will be filled in the Enemy Phase.
NOTE: You are not allowed to look through the Enemy Capture Pile during the game.
Winning the Game
At the end of the Capture Phase, if there are no more cards in the Enemy Draw Deck, and no more cards in any of the four enemy Positions, and you have successfully ensured that no Ace, Jack, Queen, or King cards got captured, Congratulations! You have won the game!
If there are any cards left in the Enemy Draw Deck or the Enemy Row, begin a new round. Go back to the Enemy Phase and continue until you win the game or until you get stuck in a position that forces you to lose the game.
Round Summary
- Enemy Phase. (Move cards to the right, then draw to replace)
- Discard Phase (Discard any number of cards from your hand)
- Draw Phase (Draw until you have four cards in your hand)
- Capture Phase (do one of the following)
- Capture an enemy card (spend a number of cards that equal or exceed the value of the enemy card, in the same suit as the enemy card. All cards involved go into your discard.)
- Let your card get captured (take the Position 1 enemy card and one card from your hand and place them in the Enemy Capture Pile)
- Sacrifice two cards from your hand to send a card from the Enemy Row to the bottom of the Enemy Draw Deck.
Point Values
- Jack = 11
- Queen = 12
- King = 13
- Ace = 14