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Dead Man's Draw: Captain Carcass box art
2015 Ranked #1,290

Dead Man's Draw: Captain Carcass

Push-your-luck card game where pirates draw loot and combine special abilities for bigger hauls. You can stop safely or keep flipping, but matching a suit already seen can cost the entire hand.

Family Games Card Game Pirates Push Your Luck Set Collection

Players

2-4

Play time

Not listed

Age

13+

Complexity

1.33/5

Rating

6.86

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

Is this game right for my group?

ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.3/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.7/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

Dead Man's Draw is a simple and strategic card game of risk and reward for 2 to 4 players. Players take turns drawing cards and combining their special abilities to plunder the most loot without busting their entire hands.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

Dead Man's Draw is a simple and strategic card game of risk and reward for 2 to 4 players. Players take turns drawing cards and combining their special abilities to plunder the most loot without busting their entire hands. The core of your turn in Dead Man’s Draw is all in the flip: pulling the top card off the deck and using its special ability. Your turn isn’t over until you say it is, though. You can keep pulling cards as long as you like – until you play a card of a suit already seen, at which point you lose everything. Knowing when to stop and "bank" your cards is the biggest decision you make in Dead Man’s Draw, but being too timid lets braver opponents pass you up with bigger, more profitable turns. The cards’ special abilities are key to success in Dead Man’s Draw, and they build off of each other. Each suit in DMD has an effect that the player can target when they flip a card of that suit. Anchor – Keep everything you drew before the Anchor even if you bust. Cannon – Destroy one card an opponent has previously banked. Chest – Double your haul by banking as many cards directly from the discard pile as are in the river when you bank the Chest – but only if you also bank a Key. Hook – Play one of your previously banked cards. Key – Enables the Chest special. Kraken – Oh no! You’re forced to draw at least two more cards. Map – Draw three cards from the discard pile and play one. Mermaid – No ability, but worth more points (Mermaids are numbered 4-9 instead of 2-7). Oracle – Look at the next card before deciding if you want to play it. Sword – Steal an opponent’s previously banked card and play it. Many of these work well together, like using a Hook to re-play a Sword from your hand to steal an opponent’s Chest to go with your Key – racking up huge points by playing abilities well and not solely through the luck of the draw. As soon as the deck is depleted, players total up the value of the highest card they’ve banked from each suit. High score wins.

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Editions

Language and publisher variants currently recorded in the catalog.

Edition Year Language Publisher / Region
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Player resources

Rulebooks, player aids, FAQs, and solo resources.

No files imported yet.

Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
2–4
Best with
2–4
Play time
15 min
Age
13+
Complexity
1.3/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Artists

2
Felideus Bubastis Vincent Dutrait

Publishers

4
BoardM Factory Bombyx Conclave Editora CSE Games

Linked items

No published linked games yet.