How to Play War Card Game
Think you’ve got what it takes to win the ultimate card showdown? War’s the game for you!
Get ready for fast-paced battles, epic wins, and hilarious chaos. This guide will teach you all the tricks, whether you’re a card game rookie or ready to declare yourself the War champion. Shuffle up and let the games begin!
How to Play
Objective: Quite simply, be the first player to collect all 52 cards in the deck!
Start by shuffling the deck, ensuring all cards are well mixed up. Then, deal all the cards evenly among both players. Each player should have 26 cards.
Each player then puts their stack down in front of them. This is now their individual draw pile.
Gameplay
War now commences.
At the same time (maybe count down from 3 if you want to add to the suspense), each player reveals the top card of their deck. These are your battle cards.
Quite simply, the player with the highest ranking card wins the battle and takes both played cards as their own. These won cards go face down on the bottom of the draw pile.
Thus, your army has grown bigger, your company has won more land, the spoils of war, however you want to view it. Get creative.
Value wise, Ace is the highest value, followed by King, Queen, then Jack, then the numbers from 10 to 2, with two being the lowest value.
If you have a tied value, then another battle commences!
In the Event of a Tie
In the event of a tie, war really begins. Each player must now draw three cards, keeping them face down. These are your “war cards”, followed by one face up card, known as your “turning card”.
Again, if you want to do a countdown for revealing your turning card at the same time, do so. It makes the game play far more intense!
Now, whoever’s turning card is the highest rank wins the entire set of war cards from both players. These cards are collected and placed on the bottom of the winner’s draw pile.
Neither player will see what the face down cards are.
After this, the game resumes as normal, drawing and flipping one card at a time with the highest ranking card winning. In the event of another tie, this process begins again.
The first player to collect all the cards wins!
Tips and Strategies for War
War is very much a luck based game, aimed at quick movements, a fast pace, and an enjoyable, Top Trumps-like ride.
For maximum fun, get dramatic. Countdown card reveals, drum roll on the table, and get anybody watching to hype up the players.
If you don’t like the name of the game and you want to play with your kids, the British version is called “Battle”, but you can give it any name you like, from Mittens to Splat. It’s all about having fun.
Can you play war with 3 players?
Yes, you can absolutely play War with three players! Just ditch the classic split, deal out those cards (17 each!), and get ready for three-way battles and potentially epic wars. The wild, unpredictable fun just got amplified!
