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Pirate Tricks box art
2019 Ranked #11,254

Pirate Tricks

This trick-taking game has pirate captains bid for cards and pursue changing treasure goals over three hands. Each hand rewards different trick counts and factions, so the best strategy shifts with every scoring card.

Card Game Trick-taking Hand Management

Players

3-5

Play time

30-45 min

Age

8+

Complexity

2/5

Rating

6.95

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 2.4/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 4.1/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.6/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.4/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

See all 5 specifications

How it plays

How does it play?

The Landor Syndicate, a pirate alliance in an area of space controlled by the Lunar Orion Order, needs a new leader. The outgoing Supreme Admiral is looking for his replacement.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

The Landor Syndicate, a pirate alliance in an area of space controlled by the Lunar Orion Order, needs a new leader. The outgoing Supreme Admiral is looking for his replacement. Players take on the role of rival captains recruiting crews, capturing rival pirates, and collecting treasure. Pirate Tricks is a trick-taking game for 3 to 5 players with a unique scoring system. The game is played over three hands. Each hand has different scoring goals. Once the scoring cards are revealed, the players are dealt five cards. Then players each bid on another 7 cards to complete their hands. As the players bid for cards, they will look to gain certain cards that will boost their scores. While taking tricks, the players will need to be mindful of the different factions of pirates as some will score higher than others or may be worth negative points. At the end of the hand the players will collect treasure based on how well they matched the treasure scoring card. During some hands the players will want to get as many tricks as possible, other hands they will want to have few to no tricks, or they may have to match a predicted number of tricks taken. Play continues for three hands. New scoring cards are revealed before each hand. After three hands, whichever player has gathered the most treasure will be proclaimed the next Supreme Admiral of the Landor Syndicate.

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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.

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Game and edition data

All specifications (5)

Play and group

Players
3–5
Best with
3–5
Play time
30–45 min
Age
8+
Complexity
2.0/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

2
Jeff Van Ness Craig Van Ness

Artists

1
JJ Ariosa

Publishers

1
Soaring Rhino

Linked items

No published linked games yet.