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I came to Root relatively late compared to some of my other favorite asymmetric games. It was 2019, almost a year after release, when my friend Kevin brought it to game night, dumped this box of adorable woodland creatures on the table, and proceeded to utterly confuse us with four completely different sets of rules. I remember staring at the Woodland Alliance board, then at the Eyrie board, then back at the Alliance, wondering if we were even playing the same game. By the end of that first session (I was the Marquise de Cat, naturally the recommended faction for first-timers), I was simultaneously exhausted, bewildered, and completely hooked.

Since then, I’ve logged 68 plays of Root, and the Woodland Alliance has become my go-to faction—there’s something deeply satisfying about playing the underdog rebellion that can explode onto the board and leave the other factions wondering what the hell just happened. But I’ve also seen countless Alliance players flame out spectacularly because they became too threatening too quickly. The key to Alliance victory isn’t just understanding your own mechanics—it’s understanding the psychology of the table.

The Woodland Alliance is fundamentally a momentum-based faction. You start with nothing on the board, slowly build sympathy and supporters, and eventually transition to a physical presence that can challenge the established powers. The natural impulse is to race toward getting your warriors on the board, but this is often a fatal mistake. The moment you establish your first base, you’ve painted a target on your back.

I still wince thinking about a game from last summer when our new player, Justin, was so proud of establishing a base in the first round, using a lucky draw of matching supporters. The table’s reaction was immediate and merciless—within two rounds, his base was gone, his supporters depleted, and he spent the rest of the game wondering why his “powerful” faction felt so wimpy. The Woodland Alliance isn’t powerful in spite of its slow start—it’s powerful because of the explosive transition from apparent weakness to sudden strength.

The art of playing the Alliance effectively lies in appearing perpetually one or two steps behind the leading factions while actually setting up an unstoppable engine. I call this the “Third Place Strategy”—you want the table perception to be that you’re trailing but still in contention, never the immediate threat that needs addressing.

So what does this look like in practice? First, sympathy placement is not just about board control or generating supporters—it’s about creating psychological pressure on specific players. I typically start by spreading sympathy in a way that mildly inconveniences all factions rather than significantly hampers any one player. Place sympathy in clearings where the Marquise wants to build, where the Eyrie needs to fulfill its decree, or where the Vagabond might want to explore—but don’t create a situation where any single player feels they must remove your sympathy at all costs.

Your first few supporters should usually be hoarded rather than spent. This serves two purposes: it creates a reserve for reactive plays (like Guerrilla War if someone attacks your sympathy), and it disguises your actual capability. Nothing causes other players to reevaluate their threat assessment like revealing you have 8 supporters of various suits when they thought you had 2 or 3.

I’ve found the ideal timing for your first base is usually mid-game rather than early or late. Too early, and you become an obvious target before you have the infrastructure to defend yourself. Too late, and you’ve likely fallen too far behind in scoring. My personal rule of thumb is to establish a base when: 1) I have at least 5-6 supporters remaining after placing the base, 2) I’ve scored at least 5-6 points from sympathy placement, and 3) there’s a more immediate threat at the table drawing attention.

Base location is crucial and often misunderstood. New Alliance players gravitate toward central, high-connectivity clearings for their first base. This is usually a mistake! Central bases are easy for multiple factions to attack. I prefer establishing first bases in corner clearings with exactly two connections—ideally bordering clearings where you already have sympathy. This makes them harder to reach and less tempting to attack, while still allowing you to spread your revolt.

The officers you recruit shape your strategic options dramatically. While conventional wisdom suggests balancing your officers, I’ve had more success specializing based on the specific game state. If the board is cluttered with other factions’ pieces, prioritize military officers for Guerrilla War and Ambush capabilities. If clearings are more open, recruiters help you swarm the board rapidly once you revolve. If you’re playing against factions good at removing sympathy (especially Birds or Cats), organizers help you rebuild your network quickly.

My most successful Alliance games typically involve what I call the “double revolt turn”—using your first revolt to establish a base in a defensible position, building up supporters again while appearing weakened, then launching a second revolt that places a base and immediately scores 4-5 points through military operations. This creates a scoring spike that can vault you from apparent mediocrity to potential victory in a single turn.

The Woodland Alliance’s greatest weapon isn’t its mechanics—it’s the table’s perception of its threat level. You need to carefully manage how other players view you, sometimes even taking suboptimal mechanical plays to maintain the facade of struggling. I’ve literally passed turns with perfectly good options available just to reinforce the narrative that I’m falling behind and need time to recover. The table’s collective sigh of relief as they focus on “real threats” is music to an Alliance player’s ears.

There was this one game—probably my most satisfying Root victory ever—where I convinced the table I was essentially kingmaking between the Eyrie and the Marquise. I kept placing sympathy that seemed to hurt the Eyrie more than the Cats, leading the Marquise player (Linda, who knows me too well and should have been suspicious) to basically ignore me. Meanwhile, I was carefully accumulating bird supporters that matched the martial law clearings. When I finally revealed my hand and established two bases on the same turn, mobilizing enough warriors to score 7 points in one go, the looks of betrayal around the table were priceless. I’d been the actual threat all along, hiding in plain sight.

Of course, experienced Root players won’t fall for these tricks forever. Against savvy opponents who understand the Alliance’s potential, you need to embrace the target on your back and lean into defense. This means prioritizing Guerrilla War capabilities, carefully timing your Rapid Response when sympathy is removed, and sometimes establishing bases primarily for their defensive capabilities rather than offensive potential.

The Partisans card deserves special mention as perhaps the most powerful single card for the Alliance. Drawing it early shapes your entire strategy, as it essentially gives you a wild supporter for revolt purposes. I’ve found that keeping Partisans secret until the critical moment often wins games—opponents calculate your capabilities based on visible sympathy and clearing types, only to be surprised when you revolt in a clearing they thought was impossible for you.

Against aggressive opponents who understand the Alliance’s threat, sometimes the best approach is to lean into your faction’s martyrdom potential. The “Sacrifice Play” involves placing sympathy specifically to invite attacks, generating supporters through martial law while your opponents waste precious actions removing sympathy instead of scoring points. This is particularly effective against the bird Dynasty, whose rigid decree can be manipulated into spending multiple expensive actions dealing with easily-replaced sympathy tokens.

I once played a game against Jim (our group’s Eyrie specialist) where I never established a base until the final round—I simply accumulated supporters, placed sympathy strategically to disrupt his decree, and scored through martial law violations. By the time I finally established bases, I was already at 24 points and just needed a final military operation to claim victory. He spent the entire game effectively doing my work for me, generating supporters through martial law faster than I could have through organizing sympathizers.

The recent expansions have changed the Alliance’s positioning somewhat. Against the Underground Duchy, you’re competing for similar spaces on the board but with very different timing windows. I’ve found success focusing on clearings the Duchy hasn’t yet reached but plans to—forcing them to either delay their build-out or generate supporters for you. Against the Riverfolk Company, selective purchasing of their services can be both beneficial for you and misleading to the table about your actual intentions.

Ultimately, playing the Woodland Alliance effectively requires a level of table awareness and psychological manipulation unlike any other faction in Root. You’re not just playing the board—you’re playing the players. Success comes from understanding when to appear weak, when to play the victim, when to seem cooperative, and precisely when to reveal your actual strength.

The most satisfying Alliance victories aren’t the ones where you dominate from the beginning—they’re the ones where the table collectively realizes, too late, that the revolution they’ve been dismissing has already won. Nothing beats that moment when the dominant faction suddenly counts your victory points, recounts them in disbelief, and then says those beautiful words: “Wait, how are you at 28 points already?”

I still remember the moment I fell in love with Sagrada. It was during my fourth game, playing with Linda and our friends Mark and Sarah. I had been placing dice somewhat haphazardly through the first few rounds, focusing more on meeting the immediate placement restrictions than any long-term strategy. Then suddenly, midway through the game, I found myself staring at a partially completed window that was inadvertently perfect for scoring the “columns with no repeated colors” public objective. I shifted my strategy on the fly, carefully drafted the remaining dice, and ended up winning by a comfortable margin. That moment—when I realized that Sagrada was as much about adaptive planning as it was about the obvious pattern restrictions—transformed how I approached the game.

Over 70+ plays later (a conservative estimate, as I’ve long since stopped logging individual games), I’ve developed what I consider a reasonably sophisticated approach to dice drafting and placement in Sagrada. What initially appears to be a straightforward puzzle of matching colors and numbers reveals itself, with experience, to be a delicate balancing act between pattern completion, public objective maximization, private objective fulfillment, and tool utilization.

My regular gaming group has a running joke about my “Sagrada squint”—the particular expression I apparently make when evaluating potential dice placements, eyes narrowed and head slightly tilted. “David’s entered calculation mode,” Linda will announce to the table whenever she notices it. They tease, but that focused evaluation has led to my winning approximately 60% of our Sagrada games over the past few years. Not that I’m counting. (Okay, I’m definitely counting.)

The fundamental principle that guides effective dice drafting in Sagrada is what I think of as “constraint hierarchy”—understanding which restrictions are most limiting and prioritizing your choices accordingly. Window patterns impose both color and number restrictions, but these are not equally constraining in all circumstances. Through extensive play, I’ve found that color restrictions generally pose more significant placement limitations than number values, particularly in the mid-to-late game.

This hierarchy emerged clearly during a game where I’d chosen the Batllo window (a challenging pattern with many specific color requirements). By round three, I found myself with several spaces that required specific colors, but with flexible number requirements. Meanwhile, Pete, who was playing with Luz Celestial (a pattern with many number restrictions but few color requirements), had much greater drafting flexibility. He could take dice of any color as long as they had the right numbers, while I was limited to specific colors regardless of their values. The difference in our final scores—his completed window versus my three empty spaces—highlighted this constraint disparity dramatically.

Early game drafting should focus on what I call “high-constraint intersections”—those spaces on your window where both color and number are specifically restricted. These spots typically appear where colored spaces on your pattern also show specific number values. Filling these spaces early provides maximum flexibility for subsequent placements, as they represent the most restrictive requirements in your window.

I developed this approach after several frustrating games where I’d left these doubly-restricted spaces until late in the game, only to find myself unable to place anything as the available dice dwindled. During one particularly memorable game with my Tuesday night group, I deliberately focused on filling all my red-5 and yellow-2 spaces (the most restrictive spots in my pattern) within the first two rounds. This early constraint elimination allowed me much greater placement flexibility in the end game, resulting in a fully completed window while others struggled with unfillable spaces.

The importance of adjacency restrictions increases as your window fills. In the early game, with few dice placed, adjacency rarely limits your options. By mid-game, however, the orthogonal and diagonal placement restrictions significantly narrow your choices. Effective drafting must anticipate these emerging constraints by selecting dice that maintain placement options as your window develops.

Linda, who approaches Sagrada with remarkable spatial planning abilities, taught me a valuable technique she calls “island development.” Rather than building outward from a single starting point (which quickly creates adjacency limitations), she establishes separate “islands” of dice in different regions of her window. These isolated placements provide multiple growth directions, delaying the point at which adjacency restrictions become severely limiting. I’ve adapted this approach to my own play with considerable success, finding that three distinct placement regions typically optimizes flexibility throughout the game.

Public objectives fundamentally alter the value hierarchy of dice, creating situational priorities that may override the basic constraint considerations. In a typical game with three public objectives, these shared goals often create conflicting incentives that require careful balancing. I’ve found that prioritizing two out of three public objectives, rather than attempting to maximize all three, generally yields better results.

I recall a game where the public objectives included “sets of 5-6” (each set worth 2 points), “columns with no repeated colors” (5 points per column), and “colored diagonals” (1 point per die). After initial analysis, I decided to focus entirely on the columns and diagonal objectives while ignoring the 5-6 sets. This deliberate deprioritization allowed me to make more consistent progress toward the higher-value objectives rather than spreading my efforts too thin. The resulting 27 points from public objectives far exceeded what I could have scored with a more balanced approach.

Private objectives introduce another layer of strategic consideration, often pulling in directions different from both your window restrictions and the public objectives. Finding the sweet spot where your private color objective aligns with your other priorities represents one of Sagrada’s core challenges. I’ve developed what I call the “value multiplier” approach, where I particularly prioritize dice that simultaneously advance multiple objectives.

During a recent game, my private objective was blue dice, one of the public objectives was “sets of 1-2,” and my window pattern had several spaces requiring low values. This created a perfect synergy for blue 1s and 2s, which became my highest priority draft targets. Each such die would advance my private objective, contribute to the public objective, and fit my window restrictions. By identifying these multi-purpose dice early, I was able to draft them before opponents recognized their value to my strategy.

Tool cards introduce yet another strategic dimension, potentially altering the entire approach to drafting and placement. Effective tool utilization requires both understanding when tools are worth their favor cost and adapting your drafting strategy to capitalize on their benefits. Some tools, like the Grozing Pliers (change a die value by ±1) or the Flux Brush (reroll a die), are most valuable in the mid-to-late game when specific requirements become more critical. Others, like the Lathekin (place two dice) or Running Pliers (immediately place another die), provide tempo advantages that can shape your entire game plan.

I’ve found that successful tool utilization often involves drafting dice that would otherwise be suboptimal, knowing that the tool will transform them into perfect fits. During a game where I had early access to the Grozing Pliers, I deliberately drafted 3s and 5s when I needed 2s and 4s, using the tool to adjust them as needed. This approach gave me effective access to a wider range of values than my opponents, who were limited to the exact values shown on the dice.

My colleague Jim, who approaches Sagrada with an almost mathematical precision, once mapped out the theoretical maximum utility of each tool card based on window patterns and objectives. While this level of analysis might seem excessive, his insight that certain tool/window combinations create disproportionate advantages has influenced my strategy ever since. The Cork-backed Straightedge, for instance, becomes significantly more valuable with window patterns that have many empty spaces along the edges, while the Running Pliers provide outsized benefits when playing patterns with highly specific placement requirements.

The draft direction alternation between rounds creates interesting tactical considerations that many players overlook. Knowing which player will draft before and after you in each round can inform both your current selections and your planning for subsequent rounds. In a four-player game, the player two seats away from you will always have the same relationship to your drafting position—if they draft just before you in odd-numbered rounds, they’ll draft just after you in even-numbered rounds. This pattern allows you to anticipate which dice may be taken before your turn based on opponents’ developing windows and objectives.

My friend Sarah, who consistently performs well in our Sagrada games, pays particular attention to these positional relationships. “I’m always watching what the player across from me needs,” she explained after a particularly decisive victory, “because their priorities in this round tell me what I need to grab in the next round before they get another chance.” This forward-looking approach to the shifting draft order adds another layer of depth to what initially appears to be a straightforward drafting mechanism.

Window coverage strategy—how you distribute dice across your pattern—involves both tactical placement and psychological elements. I’ve found that creating an impression of progress toward public objectives can influence opponents’ drafting choices, sometimes causing them to prioritize blocking your perceived strategy over advancing their own. This creates opportunities to misdirect through deliberate placement patterns.

Pete, probably the most psychologically-oriented player in our group, excels at this aspect of Sagrada. During one memorable game, he placed several yellow dice in a column pattern that suggested he was pursuing the “columns of non-repeated colors” objective. The rest of us began avoiding leaving yellow dice for him, only to discover in final scoring that his private objective was yellow and he had been accumulating them for that purpose all along. His deliberate placement created a misconception that effectively camouflaged his actual strategy.

The balance between aggressive and defensive drafting shifts throughout the game. In early rounds, with abundant dice and few placements, aggressive drafting that advances your own objectives typically yields better results. As the game progresses and windows fill, defensive drafting—selecting dice primarily to deny opponents—becomes increasingly valuable. Understanding when to make this transition represents one of Sagrada’s subtler strategic elements.

I remember a particularly intense game with Linda where we both recognized that the final round would come down to specific dice colors and values. Rather than focusing on optimizing my own window, I spent the entire final round drafting dice that she needed for her last few spaces. She did the same to me, resulting in both of us leaving spaces unfilled. “That was just spiteful,” she commented as we counted final scores. Perhaps, but it was also strategically sound—denying her completion points and public objective opportunities was mathematically the correct play, even at the cost of some minor improvements to my own window.

Color distribution awareness across rounds can inform more effective long-term drafting strategies. Each game of Sagrada uses exactly 18 dice of each color, distributed randomly throughout the game. By tracking which colors have appeared more or less frequently, you can anticipate potential scarcity in later rounds and adjust your drafting priorities accordingly.

This practice became second nature after a particularly frustrating game where three of my final empty spaces required green dice, only for the final round to reveal just a single green die among the draft pool. Since then, I’ve made a habit of doing a quick color count after each round, noting any significant imbalances that might affect future availability. This awareness has repeatedly helped me avoid committing to color requirements that would be difficult to fulfill based on the remaining distribution.

Value distribution follows similar patterns, with exactly 90 dice values in the game (18 dice × 5 values). However, the random distribution means that specific values can be unusually abundant or scarce in particular games. Recognizing these emerging patterns allows for drafting adjustments that capitalize on unusual value distributions.

During a recent game, our draft pools across the first two rounds contained an abnormally high number of 5s and 6s. Recognizing this pattern, I shifted my placement strategy to prioritize high-value spaces in my window and focus more heavily on the “sets of 5-6” public objective. This adaptability to the emerging value distribution resulted in a significantly higher score than if I’d adhered to my initial strategy, which had assumed a more balanced distribution of values throughout the game.

Draft pool evaluation involves not just assessing which dice you want, but also which dice your opponents need. The optimal draft choice isn’t always the die that best fits your window; sometimes it’s the die that would provide disproportionate value to an opponent. This relative value assessment becomes particularly important in the later rounds when each placement carries greater significance.

In a tight game with Mark, who was pursuing a red-focused private objective, I found myself choosing between a red-3 that fit perfectly in my window and a blue-4 that was slightly less optimal for me. Noticing that Mark had several spaces where only a red-3 would work, I drafted it despite the suboptimal fit in my own window. The defensive value of denying him that specific die outweighed the marginal improvement it would have provided to my own score.

Terminal placement planning—thinking about which spaces you want to leave empty if necessary—represents a subtle aspect of advanced Sagrada strategy. Not all empty spaces are equally costly; some positions impact public objectives more severely than others, and some create more significantadjacency restrictions throughout the game. Identifying these high-impact spaces early allows for more informed drafting priorities.

I developed this approach after several games where I completed most of my window but left empty spaces in positions that disproportionately affected scoring. Now I make a habit of identifying the “worst spaces to leave empty” at the beginning of each game, based on both the window pattern and the public objectives. These spaces receive priority in my drafting and placement strategy, even if filling them sometimes requires compromising on other objectives.

Tempo considerations add another dimension to effective drafting. Each round in Sagrada offers a fixed number of drafting opportunities based on player count. Understanding how to maximize value from these limited actions—particularly when tool cards allow for tempo advantages—can create significant scoring differentials over the course of a game.

My colleague Dave, who approaches games with rigorously logical analysis, once commented that Sagrada is fundamentally an efficiency puzzle—how to extract maximum value from exactly 10 dice placements (in a standard game). This perspective has influenced my appreciation for tools like Lathekin or Running Pliers, which effectively increase your action count. In games where these tools are available, I frequently adjust my drafting to prioritize gaining this tempo advantage, even if it means making temporarily suboptimal placements.

After all these games and all this analysis, perhaps the most important insight I’ve gained is that effective dice drafting in Sagrada isn’t about perfect optimization—it’s about balanced adaptability. The perfect window isn’t one that maximizes any single objective, but one that finds harmonious integration between pattern requirements, public goals, private objectives, and tool utilization. There’s something deeply satisfying about completing a window that tells a coherent visual story while scoring well across multiple dimensions.

I still get that little surge of pleasure when the final die clicks perfectly into place, completing a pattern that balances vibrant colors and elegant numerical sequences. For all its strategic depth, Sagrada remains a fundamentally aesthetic experience—one where the beauty of the completed windows matters as much as the points they generate. That’s why it remains in my top five games after all these years—the perfect blend of tactical challenge and artistic satisfaction.

And honestly, isn’t that tension between structure and creativity what actual stained glass artisans must feel? Working within the constraints of materials and architectural requirements while striving to create something beautiful seems like the perfect metaphor for Sagrada’s gameplay. Perhaps that’s why my “Sagrada squint” persists—I’m not just calculating points; I’m envisioning the light streaming through my completed window, creating patterns both mathematically sound and visually striking.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go set up another game. I have a theory about the Flux Brush that I’m dying to test, and Linda has been asking for a rematch since our last session ended with that somewhat spiteful final round. After all, there’s always another window pattern waiting to be perfected.

The first time I truly understood the strategic depth of Santorini’s god power selection was during a weekend gaming retreat in northern Minnesota back in 2017. Eight of us had gathered at a lakeside cabin, and Santorini had just hit the table for what would become a 14-hour marathon of divine architecture. In our third game, I’d selected Apollo (who can swap positions with opponent builders) against Linda’s Athena (who prevents opponents from moving upward after she does). What followed was a brutal positional battle where her movement restriction neutralized half my strategic options, while my swapping ability constantly threatened her carefully constructed positions. After my narrow defeat, I realized we weren’t just playing Santorini—we were playing a fascinating meta-game where our god power selections were creating entirely different strategic landscapes before the first block was even placed.

After 150+ games of Santorini (yes, I’ve kept count—Josh calls it my “divine spreadsheet”), I’ve developed what I call “theological matchup analysis”—a systematic approach to god power selection that considers player count, opponent experience, and counter-strategy potential. The core insight that transformed my approach was recognizing that in Santorini, god selection isn’t just about picking powers you enjoy—it’s about creating strategic asymmetries that you can navigate better than your opponents.

Let me break this down with some practical examples from our regular game sessions.

First, let’s talk about what I call “power complexity alignment.” Many players select god powers based solely on perceived strength, without considering how the power’s complexity aligns with their own strategic abilities. This creates a dangerous mismatch where players wielding complex powers frequently underperform because they haven’t fully internalized all the strategic implications.

Instead, I recommend honestly assessing your own experience level and selecting powers with appropriate complexity. Beginner players should start with straightforward powers like Apollo or Artemis that provide clear, consistent advantages. Intermediate players can handle conditional powers like Athena or Hephaestus that require more situational awareness. And only experienced players should tackle the highly complex gods like Chronus or Prometheus whose advantages require intricate strategic planning to maximize.

During a family game night last Christmas, I watched this principle play out when my nephew—an otherwise brilliant 14-year-old with minimal Santorini experience—insisted on playing as Chronus (who wins by having five complete towers). He spent the entire game hyper-focusing on building towers while completely neglecting the defensive positioning that Chronus requires. My son Josh, playing as simple but effective Apollo, easily maneuvered for the traditional win while my nephew’s towers remained undefended. The complexity mismatch overwhelmed his strategic capacity.

Temperature in the room affects god selection decisions—I’m not making this up! During summer game sessions, I’ve observed players gravitate toward more aggressive, direct-conflict powers like Ares and Bia. In winter sessions, they tend to prefer defensive or building-oriented powers like Demeter and Hestia. Maybe it’s the psychological impact of seasonal energy levels? Whatever the reason, I’ve started factoring this into my counter-picking strategy.

The most powerful selection technique I’ve discovered involves what I call “experiential counter-picking.” Rather than selecting gods based solely on their mechanical interactions, I consider how my opponent’s experience level interacts with specific god powers.

My friend Derek has mastered this approach to a frightening degree. When playing against newcomers, he deliberately selects gods like Pan (who can win by moving down two levels) or Atlas (who can place dome pieces at any level). These powers introduce victory conditions or obstacles that experienced Santorini players intuitively defend against, but that often blindside new players who are focused on the standard win condition. Against experienced opponents, he shifts to more subtle powers like Hermes or Limus that require deep game knowledge to counter effectively.

Player count dramatically changes optimal god selection strategies. The dynamics of two-player Santorini create direct zero-sum contests where counter-picking is paramount. By contrast, three-player games introduce fascinating political dimensions where powers that can influence multiple opponents simultaneously gain tremendous value.

The key insight regarding player count is what Linda calls the “influence radius” principle. In two-player games, powers that directly manipulate your single opponent’s options (like Athena’s upward movement restriction) create straightforward advantages. In three-player games, powers with global effects that constrain both opponents simultaneously (like Hera’s prohibition against winning on the perimeter) generate disproportionate strategic leverage by multiplying their impact.

During a particularly memorable three-player game against Josh and his friend Mark, I employed this principle by selecting Zeus (who can build under himself). While this power seems modest in two-player games, in the three-player context it created a unique immunity to the height restrictions both opponents were trying to enforce on each other. While they fought for control of the central tower, I exploited my ability to build from below, creating an unexpected win condition they both missed until it was too late.

The physical board geography interactions with certain god powers create another fascinating dimension for selection strategy. Powers like Apollo or Minotaur that manipulate builder positions gain tremendous value on crowded boards, while powers like Artemis or Hermes that enhance movement shine on open boards.

My son Josh has developed what he calls the “geographical advantage calculation”—a mental framework for evaluating which powers gain or lose effectiveness based on the likely board development pattern in a specific player count scenario. Two-player games typically develop focused tower clusters, making position-swapping powers stronger. Three-player games generally create more dispersed building patterns, benefiting movement-enhancing powers.

One counterintuitive strategy I’ve found surprisingly effective is what I call “power synergy prediction.” Instead of selecting powers that directly counter my opponent’s god, I sometimes choose powers that create favorable interactions with their likely strategic approach, regardless of their specific power.

In a recent game against Derek, who had selected Atlas (able to place domes at any level), I chose Demeter (able to build twice, but not in the same space) rather than a more obvious counter. While Atlas creates the threat of premature doming, I recognized that countering this would force Derek to play conservatively with his dome placement. Demeter’s double-build ability thrives against conservative opponents, as it creates more building opportunities than they can effectively counter. This indirect strategic counter proved more effective than a direct mechanical counter would have been.

Experience level creates fascinating selection dynamics beyond mere power complexity. Beginner players typically focus on their own power’s potential without fully considering defensive positioning. Intermediate players develop strong defensive awareness but often play reactively. Advanced players achieve a synthesis where they proactively create positions that maximize their power’s advantages while minimizing vulnerability to the opponent’s power.

I’ve tracked outcomes across dozens of games with players of various experience levels, and the data reveals a clear pattern: the win rate for “advanced” offensive powers like Ares or Charron depends far more on player experience difference than on the inherent strength of the powers themselves. These gods typically overperform when used by experienced players against newcomers, but actually underperform when the experience differential is reversed.

Understanding the psychological impact of certain powers adds another layer to selection strategy. Gods like Eros or Dionysus, whose abilities alter standard win conditions, create disproportionate cognitive load for opponents because they force simultaneous attention to multiple victory paths. This cognitive burden often leads to overlooked threats and defensive lapses even from otherwise skilled players.

During a tournament match at a local convention, I witnessed this principle in action when an experienced player selected Eros (who wins if builders are adjacent) against a technically skilled but tournament-inexperienced opponent. While the opponent maintained solid positioning against the traditional win condition, the cognitive overhead of simultaneously defending against the adjacency win condition eventually created a fatal oversight. The fascinating aspect wasn’t that Eros won, but that the victory came through the traditional win condition when the opponent overcommitted to preventing adjacency.

The Golden Fleece expansion, which introduces a neutral god power accessible to either player under specific conditions, creates particularly fascinating selection dynamics. Rather than simply evaluating your power against your opponent’s, you must now consider how both powers interact with this third, contested ability.

I’ve developed a habit of what I call “fleece accessibility mapping” before making Golden Fleece selections. By analyzing how easily my potential god power could gain access to the fleece power compared to my opponent’s likely selections, I can identify combinations where I’d have disproportionate access to what amounts to a second god power.

After years of playing across multiple groups with varying experience levels, I’ve concluded that Santorini is perhaps the most psychologically nuanced abstract strategy game in my collection. The god power selection isn’t merely a mechanical choice—it’s a declaration of strategic intent that shapes the entire psychological landscape of the game that follows.

So the next time you’re selecting your divine patron for a game of Santorini, resist the temptation to simply choose the god you enjoy playing or the one that seems most powerful in isolation. Instead, consider the complex interplay between power mechanics, board geography, player count dynamics, and—perhaps most importantly—the experience level and psychological tendencies of your opponents.

Because in the sun-drenched world of Santorini, the true masters aren’t necessarily those who build the most effectively during the game—they’re the ones who create the most advantageous strategic landscape before the first block is even placed through their sophisticated approach to god power selection.

I still remember the first time I set up Scythe with my regular Tuesday night group. Jake, who’s always quick with the jokes, looked at the imposing mechs and asked, “So it’s like chess with giant robots?” Not exactly, but that misconception actually worked in my favor when I executed a first-turn resource production that had him scratching his head twenty minutes later. “Wait, how do you already have that much stuff?”

That moment—when your engine starts humming while others are still figuring out which levers to pull—that’s what I want to talk about today. Because in Scythe, your opening moves aren’t just important; they’re often the difference between victory and spending the whole game playing catch-up.

I’ve played Scythe 97 times (yes, I keep a spreadsheet—Linda finds this hilarious) with every faction-mat combination multiple times. Those first three turns establish trajectories that ripple throughout the game, and I’ve distilled those experiences into some principles that work across the board, followed by specific advice for each faction-player mat pairing.

First, though, let’s address a fundamental truth: there’s no single “correct” opening for any combination. Your strategy should always respond to board state, opponent positions, and especially their faction-mat combinations. What works against Saxony with an Industrial mat might be suicide against Rusviet with a Patriotic board. That said, some approaches consistently outperform others, and that’s what we’re exploring.

Let’s start with three universal principles:

1) Understand your economy bottlenecks immediately. Every faction-mat combo has a limiting factor—workers, power, coins, combat cards. Identify yours and address it first.

2) Plan for adjacency bonuses. Your third action should already be benefiting from what you did in turns one and two. This sounds obvious but you wouldn’t believe how many players I’ve seen take completely disconnected actions in their first three turns.

3) Don’t obsess over the objective card yet. Unless it’s something stupidly easy to accomplish early, like “have 3 workers,” focus on economy first. I’ve seen too many games lost by players derailing their opening to grab a star that could have waited.

Now for the specific combos. I can’t cover all 25 possible faction-mat pairings in detail (my editor would kill me, and this article’s already running long), but I’ll hit the most interesting ones and some principles you can apply to others.

Crimea + Industrial: This combo is bonkers if played correctly. First action? Bottom-row production, paying a coin for the extra resource. Second action? Trade for combat cards, using your faction ability to grab coins. Third action? Deploy a mech, probably the one that lets workers cross rivers. You’re now set up for aggressive worker placement and territory control while others are still figuring out how to get their second worker.

Rusviet + Patriotic: Your faction ability lets you repeat actions, so leverage that early. Start with production (bottom row), then bolster for power and a combat card. Your third action depends on the board, but I’m partial to moving workers to threaten territories adjacent to opponents’ starting positions—the psychological impact is worth it even if you don’t attack right away. The flexibility of ignoring action limitations means you can actually react to the board state rather than being locked into a predetermined sequence.

Polania + Agricultural: This one’s trickier but can be devastating with the right approach. First turn has to be trade for coins (bottom row if possible), then immediately into enlist for both the immediate and ongoing benefits. Your faction ability to cross rivers gives you early flexibility other factions lack, so your third action should be move, positioning workers to reach resources others can’t. I once used this opening to claim a resource-rich territory on turn four that my opponent (playing Nordic) had assumed was safe until they got their river-swimming mech out.

Nordic + Engineering: Start with a bottom-row production, paying the coin for an extra resource. Second action should be bolster to gain power and combat cards. Third action? Move workers to spread out, leveraging your ability to cross rivers from the start. This puts you in position to threaten multiple territories early, forcing opponents to react to you rather than optimizing their own openings.

Saxony + Mechanical: Your faction ability to get unlimited combat and objective stars means you should be more aggressive than others. Start with bolster (bottom row if possible) to gain power and cards. Second action is production to get resources for your first mech. Third is either deploy that mech or move to threaten an opponent, depending on board state. This opening puts everyone on notice that you’re not building a peaceful engine.

Some combos create unusual opportunities you might miss. For instance, I once played a game as Crimea with the Innovative mat where I realized I could get my third combat card on the second turn, enabling an unexpected combat on turn three that secured me the factory card before anyone else could even reach the factory. My opponent Kevin still brings this up years later, usually right before he chooses his faction in our games.

What about the weaker combinations? If you’re stuck with something like Nordic + Patriotic, you need to lean into worker production earlier than ideal. First bottom-row bolster for power, then produce for workers, then move to position for resources. It’s not sexy, but it sets up a mid-game where your worker mobility can shine.

I’ve found that players often overvalue their starting positions when they have combat-focused factions like Saxony, rushing to build mechs and gain power while neglecting their economic engine. Unless you’re playing against absolute beginners who ignore defense, this rarely works. Even combat-oriented factions need resources and options, which means you still need to prioritize economy in those crucial first turns.

One last tip—watch what player mats your neighbors choose. If someone to your left takes Industrial, and you know they’ll be producing early and often, that might change which territories you want to move toward. I once completely altered my standard Polania opening because my neighbor chose a combo that I knew would make them resource-hungry in the same direction I planned to expand.

Your first three turns in Scythe establish the narrative for your entire game. Execute them thoughtfully, with clear understanding of your faction-mat synergies, and you’ll find yourself with options while your opponents are still trying to figure out what went wrong with their plans.

And isn’t that the most satisfying way to win? Not through luck or a single brilliant move, but through a foundation so solid that victory feels inevitable by mid-game.

Next time you sit down to play Scythe, take a moment before your first action. Look at your faction, your player mat, the board state, and your opponents’ factions and mats. Your path to victory is right there—you just need to see it before anyone else does.

I think it was somewhere around my fiftieth game of 7 Wonders when I first noticed the pattern. We were at Jeff’s place—the guy who always insists on using those ridiculous metal coins even though they make an ungodly racket whenever anyone touches the table. It was a six-player game, and I was sitting between my perpetually analysis-paralyzed friend Mark and Linda, who plays with frightening efficiency. I’d passed Linda a Glassworks in Age I that I couldn’t use, thinking nothing of it. Three rounds later, that same card somehow found its way back to me—exactly when I desperately needed glass for my Library.

That moment of serendipity made me wonder: was it luck, or was there something more predictable happening?

After tracking card movements across another 70+ games (yes, I keep notes—Linda says it’s “adorkable”), I’ve discovered that drafting in 7 Wonders isn’t just about selecting the best card for your current situation. It’s about reading the table, understanding player tendencies, and manipulating probability to your advantage. There’s a hidden rhythm to how cards move that, once you understand it, feels like having X-ray vision into other players’ strategies.

The first thing I started noticing was that different types of players create predictable “wake patterns” in the draft. The military-obsessed player will snatch red cards regardless of cost or synergy. The science collector grabs green with similar enthusiasm. But what about the cards they’re deliberately ignoring? Those create valuable streams of opportunity for the observant player.

Here’s a concrete example: in a six-player game, if you pass a resource card that costs 1 coin and nobody in the next two positions needs that resource, there’s roughly a 70% chance that card will come back to you in that same age. I’ve verified this repeatedly. The reasoning is simple but often overlooked—most players prioritize point-generating cards over basic resources, especially if they’d have to pay coins for those resources.

This insight completely changed how I approach Age I. Instead of grabbing every resource I need immediately, I now deliberately pass certain resource cards that I predict will wheel back to me, using my early picks instead on cards that definitely won’t return—typically military or instant-point civics that everyone values.

The players to your immediate left and right are obviously crucial, but understanding the tendencies of players two and three positions away is where the real drafting magic happens. In a typical seven-player game, the player three seats away from you creates what I call your “return current”—the stream of cards most likely to wheel back to you during an age.

My buddy Ryan is a perfect example of a predictable drafter. He has never, in 10+ years of playing, taken a military card in Age I. Not once. When I’m sitting three spots away from Ryan, I know with absolute certainty that if I pass a Shield (military card), it will never come back. However, I also know that Commerce cards (yellow) flow through him like they’re radioactive. This knowledge gives me incredible power to manipulate the draft.

One fascinating pattern I’ve observed is what I call “draft shadows.” Certain high-value cards create predictable behavior in their wake. For instance, when the Glassworks appears early in Age I, players often grab it immediately. This creates a shadow where the next 2-3 players are more likely to prioritize science cards that require glass. Understanding these shadows lets you predict what types of cards will be over-drafted or under-drafted in the next few rounds.

Age II adds another dimension to draft prediction. By this point, players have revealed their general strategies—the military player has red cards, the science player has green, and so on. This commitment creates what I call “strategy inertia,” where players become increasingly likely to grab cards that enhance their existing tableau and increasingly likely to pass cards that don’t fit.

This is where timing your selections becomes critical. If you notice three players pursuing science, you can predict with high confidence that Science Guild cards in Age III will be hotly contested. However, you can also predict that Trading Posts for scientific goods will be undervalued in Age II because science players typically focus on grabbing actual science cards, not commerce.

Linda figured this out years ago. She’s mastered what she calls her “invisible resource strategy,” where she deliberately avoids showing resource production cards in her tableau and instead relies on commercial cards that provide resource trading discounts. Other players often overlook these yellow cards because they’re not directly producing points, but they provide incredible flexibility through the endgame.

The most powerful draft manipulation technique I’ve discovered involves what I call “strategic misinformation.” In Ages I and II, I’ll occasionally select a card that suggests I’m pursuing a strategy I have no intention of following. For example, I might grab an early military card and place it prominently, leading other players to believe I’m contesting military. This often causes players to my left to prioritize military cards out of defensive fear, which predictably changes which cards wheel back to me.

During a tournament in Madison three years ago (yes, there are 7 Wonders tournaments, and yes, I’m exactly the kind of person who attends them), I won a crucial game by exploiting this technique. I took a first-pick Academy in Age I, suggesting heavy science investment. The player to my left panicked and started grabbing every science card he could, even ones that didn’t synergize well with his wonder. Meanwhile, I quietly pivoted to a civic/blue card strategy, collecting perfectly synergized culture buildings while he wasted picks defending against a scientific assault that never materialized.

The physical positioning of cards in your tableau also influences drafting patterns more than most players realize. When I place resource cards prominently at the front of my display, opponents are less likely to pass me cards that require those resources. Conversely, if I tuck those cards slightly behind others, players making quick visual scans of the table often miss them and pass me cards assuming I lack the resources to build them.

In Age III, the guild cards introduce a fascinating psychological element to drafting. Because guild scoring depends on what other players have built, you get this beautiful recursive pattern where optimal picks depend on predicting what others predict you will predict they will do. It’s like a game of drafting poker.

My favorite Age III pattern involves what I call the “defensive guild pass.” When I receive a guild that would score extremely well for the player to my left (like the Philosophers Guild when they’ve been collecting science), I’ll often pass it clockwise—even if it’s moderately valuable to me—because the player to my right is statistically unlikely to select a card that primarily benefits someone they can’t see. This keeps powerful scoring engines out of the hands of my direct competitor.

I’ve been tracking these patterns with increasingly detailed notes since 2014, and the predictive accuracy has become almost uncanny. In a recent game night with our regular group, I correctly predicted 11 of the 14 cards that wheeled back to me across all three ages. My friend Jason accused me of marking the cards. I wasn’t—I just understand the invisible currents of the draft.

The player count dramatically changes these patterns, too. In a three-player game, nearly half the cards will wheel back to you in each age. This makes draft reading even more crucial, as you’re essentially selecting your hand twice. The cards you pass in early rounds become your late-round options. In seven-player games, by contrast, very few cards wheel back, making each selection more critical and the draft patterns more about reading the collective tendencies of the group.

Temperature and alcohol consumption also affect drafting patterns, believe it or not. In our summer outdoor games, players select significantly faster and make more intuitive choices, leading to more predictable draft patterns. In winter indoor games, especially after Jeff breaks out the good whiskey, decision time increases and selections become more erratic. I’ve learned to adjust my predictions accordingly.

Here’s my practical advice for anyone looking to improve their 7 Wonders drafting: start by studying the tendencies of the players immediately around you. Which card types do they consistently prioritize? Which do they habitually pass? Then expand your awareness to the players two and three positions away, focusing on their patterns rather than individual card selections. Finally, practice making conscious predictions about which cards might wheel back to you, and check your accuracy after each round.

One last observation that’s served me well: most players dramatically overvalue cards that produce immediate points and undervalue cards that enable future synergies. This creates a repeatable pattern where enabling cards—resources, commerce, and occasional sciences—wheel much more frequently than you might expect based on their actual value.

After hundreds of games across a decade of play, I’ve come to believe that 7 Wonders is less about selecting the best card from each hand and more about manipulating the draft to create the best possible hands for yourself in later rounds. The true game isn’t played on the table—it’s played in the invisible currents of cardboard flowing between players.

And that’s why it remains in my top five games of all time, despite being relatively simple compared to the heavy Euro games that typically dominate my shelves. Each new player adds a different drafting pattern to learn, a different current to navigate. Maybe that’s why Linda insists we teach it to every new couple we meet—she gets to watch me silently count cards and predict patterns instead of making appropriate dinner conversation.

I can’t help it though. Once you start seeing the patterns, you can’t unsee them.

I used to be terrible at selecting power cards in Spirit Island. Just awful. I’d get so excited seeing a flashy Major Power like “Volcanic Eruption” that I’d grab it without considering whether it actually fit my spirit’s development path. My wife Linda still teases me about the time I took “Transforming Wounds into Renewal” with Lightning’s Swift Strike and then couldn’t play it for three full rounds because the elements were all wrong.

That was about forty games ago. Since then, I’ve logged another 130+ plays (yeah, I’m a bit obsessed) and developed a framework for power selection that’s dramatically improved my win rate, even at the highest difficulty levels. What I’m sharing isn’t just theory—it’s been tested across dozens of games with every spirit in my collection, including all the expansions.

Let’s start with the biggest mistake I see players make: treating elements as secondary considerations. They’re not. They’re the backbone of your entire strategy. I played a game last month with my friend Steve—he was River Surges in Sunlight and chose a Major Power with no Water or Sun elements early in the game. His spirit stalled out for two full rounds. Meanwhile, I was playing Ocean’s Hungry Grasp and carefully selected powers that matched my Water/Moon focus, which let me trigger my innate powers consistently from mid-game onward.

But elements aren’t everything—that’s the second common mistake. I’ve seen new players grab cards just because they match their elements, ignoring energy cost, range limitations, or thematic fit. My framework balances these considerations.

Here’s how it works:

First, I assess my spirit’s growth trajectory. Some spirits like Thunderspeaker or Vital Strength of the Earth have clear element paths dictated by their powerful innate abilities. Others like Many Minds Move as One or Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds have more flexibility. Understanding where your spirit is headed helps eliminate options immediately.

For example, if I’m playing Sharp Fangs Behind the Leaves, I know I’m focusing on Animal/Plant elements to boost my innate powers. Any card without at least one of those elements needs to offer something extraordinary to be worth consideration.

Next, I evaluate energy curve and card play limitations. This is where many players stumble. If you’re playing a spirit like Shifting Memory of Ages with strong energy generation but limited card plays, high-cost cards become more attractive. Conversely, if you’re River Surges in Sunlight with lots of card plays but tight energy, prioritize efficient lower-cost options.

I learned this lesson the hard way in a game where I was playing Bringer of Dreams and Nightmares. I grabbed two expensive Major Powers early, thinking I’d just reclaim more often. By mid-game, I was constantly energy-starved and watching my board position deteriorate while my expensive cards sat unplayed in my hand.

The third consideration is your current tactical needs. Are Dahan being decimated? Are coastal lands overrun? Is blight spreading in a particular pattern? The right power card can address immediate problems while still supporting your long-term strategy.

I remember a game where I was playing Keeper of the Forbidden Wilds against England level 5. By turn three, I had a critical jungle land about to blight cascade. I chose a Minor Power that could immediately address that threat, even though it wasn’t perfect for my element strategy. Sometimes survival trumps optimization.

Now for the actual evaluation method. For every power card offer, I mentally assign values to these factors:

1) Element alignment (0-3 points): How many elements match my focus? Will this help trigger innate powers?

2) Energy efficiency (0-2 points): Can I reasonably play this card regularly, or will it sit in my hand?

3) Tactical utility (0-2 points): Does this solve an immediate problem on my board?

4) Range compatibility (0-1 point): Can I target where I need to without presence placement gymnastics?

5) Thematic synergy (0-2 points): Does this amplify what my spirit is already good at?

Add these up, and anything scoring 7+ is usually an auto-pick. Scores of 5-6 are situational, and below that is typically a pass unless I have very specific plans.

This might sound mechanical—it’s not how I experience it during play. After dozens of games, this evaluation happens almost instinctively. But breaking it down helps explain the thought process.

Let me walk through an example. Last weekend, I was playing Serpent Slumbering Beneath the Island. Early game, I was offered “Poisoned Land” as a Minor Power. My evaluation:

Elements: Earth/Plant (matches two of my key elements) = 2 points
Energy: 1 cost (very affordable) = 2 points
Tactical utility: Slow damage power when I needed immediate defense = 0 points
Range: Sacred site requirement (workable but restrictive) = 0 points
Thematic synergy: Slow destruction fits Serpent’s gradual awakening = 2 points

Total: 6 points—borderline, but I took it because I knew my energy would be tight early and the elements were perfect.

For Major Powers, the calculation shifts slightly. The threshold is higher because of the sacrifice involved. I rarely take a Major that scores below 8 in my framework, unless I’ve hit a desperate situation where only a specific effect will save me from defeat.

The evaluation also changes as the game progresses. In early rounds, element matching and energy efficiency carry more weight. By mid-game, tactical utility often becomes paramount as you’re responding to the invaders’ spread patterns. Late game, you might prioritize powers that help achieve specific victory conditions.

One more thing—your powers should complement your fellow spirits. In a recent game, I was Ocean’s Hungry Grasp playing alongside Stone’s Unyielding Defiance. I deliberately chose powers that could push invaders into coastal lands, knowing Stone could handle inland defense. Our powers meshed beautifully, and we won handily against a level 6 adversary.

This framework isn’t infallible. Spirit Island has too many variables and combinations for any single approach to work 100% of the time. But it has dramatically improved my decision-making, especially in those high-pressure moments when you’re facing a Major Power decision that could make or break your game.

I still make mistakes. Just last week, I chose “Indomitable Claim” with Thunderspeaker, forgetting that my presence distribution wouldn’t let me target the crucial inland mountains where I needed control. My son Alex (who’s getting annoyingly good at this game) didn’t hesitate to point out my error as England ravaged exactly where I couldn’t defend.

The beauty of Spirit Island is that even after 150+ games, I’m still discovering new interactions and refining my approach. Each spirit brings unique considerations to power selection, and each adversary forces you to adapt your priorities. The framework I’ve outlined is a starting point, not a rigid formula.

So next time you’re staring at those four Minor Power options or contemplating a Major Power that would force you to forget a card, take a moment. Consider your elements, your energy curve, your tactical needs, your presence placement, and your spirit’s natural strengths. The right choice might not be the flashiest card—but it will be the one that lets your spirit sing.

I still remember the moment I realized Splendor wasn’t the simple set collection game I’d initially dismissed it as. It was during a weekend getaway to a cabin in northern Wisconsin, sometime in 2015. We’d brought a handful of games, and Splendor made it to the table mostly because it was compact enough to fit in my already overstuffed backpack. Four games later, I was scribbling notes on the back of a gas station receipt, trying to articulate the cascading efficiency patterns I was starting to see emerge.

After approximately 300 games (yes, I’ve kept track—Linda says it borders on compulsive), I’ve developed what I call “milestone acceleration mapping”—a framework for understanding how different resource priorities create dramatically different engine development curves. The fascinating thing about Splendor is that it’s not merely about collecting cards and gems; it’s about creating precise timing breakpoints where your engine suddenly jumps from one efficiency tier to another.

The core insight that transformed my approach was recognizing that in Splendor, the primary constraint isn’t the availability of resources—it’s the number of turns required to convert those resources into victory points. Every decision should be evaluated not based on immediate point gain, but on how it affects your turns-to-victory calculation.

Let me break this down with some practical examples from our regular game sessions.

First, let’s talk about what I call “discount curve acceleration.” Many players approach the early game with a simple heuristic: grab whatever gems seem most valuable for immediate card purchases. This creates a linear development pattern where your engine grows steadily but predictably.

Instead, I recommend a deliberate focus on creating discount patterns that compound. This means prioritizing tier 1 cards not based on their point values (which are minimal anyway) but on how their discount colors align with tier 2 cards you can spot in the display or anticipate based on the distribution of the deck.

During a family game night last winter, I demonstrated this approach with painful clarity (at least, painful for everyone playing against me). I began by focusing exclusively on white and blue discounts from tier 1, ignoring green entirely despite its abundance in the display. By turn 7, I had three white and two blue discount cards, allowing me to purchase tier 2 cards without collecting any additional gems. By turn 12, I was acquiring tier 3 cards while my opponents were still struggling to bridge from tier 1 to tier 2. The final score wasn’t even close.

Temperature seems to affect strategic decision-making in curious ways—I’m not making this up! During summer game nights on Derek’s patio, players consistently make more aggressive, short-term optimization choices compared to our winter sessions in my heated basement. Something about physical comfort apparently influences time-horizon preferences. We’ve started factoring this into our strategy, slightly adjusting expectations for opponent behavior based on playing conditions.

The most powerful engine-building pattern in Splendor involves what I call “milestone leapfrogging.” Rather than viewing the tiers as separate development phases, I identify specific card combinations that allow bypassing entire portions of the traditional progression path.

My wife Linda has mastered this technique to a frightening degree. In our most recent game, she focused exclusively on collecting emerald and diamond discounts in tier 1, completely ignoring sapphires despite their abundance. This seemed counterintuitive until turn 8, when she revealed her strategy by purchasing two tier 2 cards in consecutive turns that gave her precisely the combination of discounts needed to acquire a 4-point tier 3 card without any additional gem collection. She essentially “leapfrogged” over the normal development curve, creating a victory point acceleration that none of us could match.

Noble targeting adds another fascinating dimension to strategic planning. Many players treat nobles as bonus objectives to be claimed if convenient. This fundamentally misunderstands their strategic value. At 3 points each, nobles represent almost 20% of the typical winning score in a 4-player game, making them not optional bonuses but essential components of any efficient victory path.

The key insight regarding nobles is what Josh calls “the minimum viable path” approach. Rather than haphazardly collecting discount cards and hoping to qualify for nobles eventually, calculate the exact minimum combination of discount cards needed to claim specific nobles, then build your acquisition strategy around that precise target.

During a particularly competitive game against some friends from my systems analysis job, I employed this technique to claim two nobles by turn 12—acquiring exactly three cards each of the colors required and not a single extra discount that didn’t contribute to a noble qualification. This hyper-efficient pathing meant I “wasted” no turns on discounts that weren’t directly advancing my noble strategy.

Reserve actions create yet another strategic dimension that many players underutilize. The obvious application is reserving cards you want before opponents can take them, or securing wild gold gems when you need that specific resource. But the more sophisticated application involves what Derek has termed “development curve shaping”—using reserves to create guaranteed future efficiency breakpoints.

This means sometimes reserving cards that you won’t purchase for several turns, but that represent critical components of your eventual discount pattern. By securing these key cards early, you reduce the uncertainty in your development timeline and can plan subsequent turns with much higher precision.

Last month, I demonstrated this concept in a game against Josh and two of his friends from college. On turn 3, I reserved a tier 2 card that I wouldn’t be able to purchase until at least turn 6 or 7. This seemed premature, but that specific card was the lynchpin in a discount pattern that would eventually allow me to purchase tier 3 cards for just 1-2 gems each. When I finally executed this strategy on turn 9, I was able to acquire two tier 3 cards in consecutive turns, jumping from 5 points to 13 points in just two actions.

The randomness of the card display introduces an interesting risk management element to long-term planning. Rather than committing absolutely to a single color strategy, I’ve found success with what I call “flexible pathing”—identifying multiple potential development routes based on the initial card display, then remaining adaptively focused as the game evolves.

In practice, this means starting with a primary color strategy but maintaining awareness of how your discount pattern could pivot if certain key cards appear. Sometimes shifting from your initial plan to capitalize on an unexpected opportunity creates more efficiency than stubbornly adhering to your original strategy.

During a game at a local convention last year, I began with a clear focus on red and white discounts. But when two high-value green tier 2 cards appeared in the display simultaneously on turn 5, I recognized the opportunity to pivot. By shifting to incorporate green into my strategy, I was able to create an unexpected efficiency spike that accelerated my development curve beyond what my original plan would have allowed.

The gem supply limitations in different player counts drastically change optimal strategies. In 2-player games, where gem scarcity is rarely an issue, discount acceleration becomes paramount. In 4-player games, where specific gems are frequently depleted, gem acquisition timing and reserve actions take on much greater importance.

I’ve tracked outcomes across dozens of games at various player counts, and the data is clear: the winning strategy in 2-player games typically involves aggressive discount building with minimal gem collection, while 4-player winners usually employ more balanced approaches that account for resource contention.

My buddy Tom has developed what he calls the “tier skipping threshold” concept—identifying precisely how many discount cards of each color are needed before you can realistically begin ignoring tier 1 cards entirely and focus on tiers 2 and 3. Through extensive gameplay analysis, we’ve determined this threshold typically sits at 4-5 discount cards, with the specific combination depending on their color distribution.

One counterintuitive strategy I’ve found surprisingly effective is what I call “false signaling.” Since experienced players constantly observe which gems their opponents collect to deduce their strategies, deliberately collecting a gem color you don’t actually need can sometimes cause opponents to avoid cards you secretly want. This psychological misdirection can be particularly powerful in the early game when development patterns aren’t yet clearly established.

In a recent family game, I made a show of collecting blue gems in my first two turns, leading Linda to focus elsewhere despite blue being one of her target colors. This created an opening for me to quietly pivot to my actual strategy (red/green discounts) while she focused on competing with Josh for white cards. By the time my true objective became clear, I had already established a significant efficiency advantage.

The spatial arrangement of the card display creates interesting tactical considerations as well. Cards in the rightmost positions of each tier have been available longer, suggesting they’re less desirable to other players. However, this creates an opportunity—sometimes these “passed over” cards are actually powerful options that simply didn’t fit other players’ strategies but might perfectly complement yours.

I’ve developed a habit of quickly assessing these rightmost cards first, often finding unexpected synergies that other players have overlooked in their focus on the freshly revealed leftmost options. On multiple occasions, these overlooked cards have provided precisely the discount combination I needed to create a development breakthrough.

Understanding the probability distributions within the three card tiers adds another layer to strategic planning. Tier 1 has a relatively balanced color distribution, tier 2 skews slightly toward certain combinations, and tier 3 has distinct patterns of both colors and point values. This knowledge lets you calculate the approximate likelihood of finding specific cards you need as the display refreshes.

After hundreds of games across multiple play groups, I’ve concluded that Splendor is fundamentally a game of development curve manipulation. The gems, cards, and nobles are simply different tools for shaping that curve. The player who most effectively creates efficiency spikes—moments where their engine suddenly jumps to a higher functional tier—almost always wins.

So the next time you’re staring at that initial card display, resist the temptation to simply grab the most immediately useful gems. Instead, look for the patterns that create compounding efficiency, the discount combinations that enable milestone leapfrogging, and the precise noble qualification paths that minimize wasted actions.

Because in the world of Renaissance gem merchants, true wealth doesn’t come from collecting the shiniest stones—it comes from creating an engine of acquisition so efficient that your competitors are left wondering how you possibly accumulated so much so quickly. That’s the true splendor of this deceptively simple game.

My gaming group has a standing joke about my “Imperial efficiency” whenever we play Star Wars: Rebellion. It started three years ago when I managed to find the Rebel base on turn two—a combination of good deduction and, frankly, dumb luck that I’ve never replicated since. But Jeff and Tony still give me suspicious looks whenever I reach for the Imperial faction tiles, as if I’ve got some dark Force power that helps me hunt down Rebels.

Truth is, finding that hidden base is part science, part art, and yes, occasionally blind luck. After 40+ games (heavily weighted toward playing as the Empire because, let’s face it, nobody in my group wants to be the bad guys except me), I’ve developed a methodical approach that consistently narrows down the search area by mid-game. It’s not foolproof—a clever Rebel player can still misdirect and delay—but it’s far better than the random probe droid deployments I see many Imperial players resort to.

So, I’m sharing my process. Not because I want more efficient Imperials out there (Rebel players, you might want to stop reading now), but because a well-played cat-and-mouse game makes Rebellion sing. Nothing’s worse than an Imperial player who can’t find the base or a Rebel who gets discovered immediately.

First principle: the base location is almost always a strategic choice, not a random one. Good Rebel players select their hideout based on specific criteria—distance from Imperial starting systems, access to resources, proximity to systems they want to subvert early. Understanding these motivations immediately narrows your search.

In our regular group, Linda (my wife) almost always places the Rebel base in a system that’s exactly two jumps away from a starting Imperial system. Not one (too dangerous) and rarely three (too remote from early mission opportunities). Knowing this, I can immediately eliminate large portions of the board in our games. Your own opponents will have their patterns—watch for them.

Second principle: probe droid action efficiency trumps all. New Imperial players make the mistake of spreading probe droids across the galaxy randomly. Bad move. Every probe action should eliminate multiple potential hiding spots, preferably an entire region. I’ve developed what I call the “quadrant method” for this.

Mentally divide the galaxy into four rough quadrants. Your first probe droid should target the most system-dense quadrant, but not randomly. Choose a central system that will reveal the maximum number of adjacent systems. If you find nothing, you’ve just eliminated perhaps a quarter of the board with one action. Your next probe similarly targets the center of the second-densest remaining quadrant.

This might sound obvious, but I’ve watched countless Imperial players waste actions by probing one system at a time without a coherent pattern. The math simply doesn’t work—you’ll run out of turns before finding the base.

My friend Charlie (who’s scary-good as the Rebels) once told me after a game: “I knew you wouldn’t find me because you wasted your first three probe droids on systems that only revealed two other systems each.” He was right, and I’ve never made that mistake again.

Third principle: fleet movement is part of your search strategy. Many Imperial players treat fleet movement as separate from probe droid deployment—a mistake that costs precious actions. When moving your Star Destroyers for tactical reasons, always position them to reveal systems you haven’t checked yet. Sometimes revealing a single strategic system through fleet movement is better than a probe droid action that would reveal that same system plus one more, if the fleet movement also accomplishes other objectives.

This doesn’t mean rushing Star Destroyers to the edges of the galaxy on turn one. But it does mean being thoughtful about which systems you move through. I track every system I’ve revealed through any means, and always look for movement paths that uncover new possibilities.

My most effective searches combine these principles into a “constricting net” approach. I start with broad probe droid sweeps that eliminate whole regions, then use fleet movement to check questionable systems while establishing presence in likely target areas. As the game progresses, I deploy more targeted probe droids in the remaining likely regions.

Let’s talk about timing. The most common mistake I see is Imperial players getting distracted by early Rebel provocations. Yes, that Rebel attack on Corellia is annoying, but if you divert your probe droids to chase Rebel forces, you’re playing into their hands. The first three turns should focus almost exclusively on methodical searching unless absolutely prevented.

I’ve developed a rough timing guide:
– Turns 1-2: Broad elimination of regions
– Turns 3-4: Targeted searching in likely areas
– Turns 5+: Surgical precision based on all available intelligence

But how do you determine “likely areas” after your initial broad sweeps? This is where the art comes in. Beyond looking for patterns in your specific opponents’ choices, there are general tendencies worth noting:

Rebel players often choose systems with planets that offer mission icons they want to leverage early. If you notice early Rebel missions focusing on gaining Diplomacy icons, look for systems with planets offering those icons. If they’re building units rapidly, they might be near production icons.

Remote systems are attractive to beginners but rarely chosen by experienced players. Why? Because while they’re harder to find, they also limit the Rebel player’s early options. The most dangerous Rebel bases are those in mid-tier systems that balance security with operational flexibility.

Pay attention to timing of Rebel movement too. If Rebel forces suddenly appear in a region you haven’t searched yet, around turn 3 or 4, that’s often a misdirection. The base is probably elsewhere. But if Rebel ships start appearing in a region around turn 5 or 6, they might be getting desperate and moving to defend their base.

One counterintuitive approach I’ve found effective: sometimes I deliberately delay probing systems where I strongly suspect the base might be. This seems crazy, but hear me out. If I find the base too early, the game shifts immediately to an assault I might not be prepared for. By focusing first on systems I’m confident do NOT contain the base, I can build up my forces while narrowing the search area. When I finally do check my prime suspects, I’m ready to strike immediately.

My most effective game using this approach was against my son Alex, who’s become frustratingly good at Rebellion. I had narrowed his base to one of three systems by turn 4 but didn’t probe any of them. Instead, I amassed a tremendous fleet nearby while continuing to check obviously wrong locations. By turn 6, I was ready, found his base with my first targeted probe, and launched an overwhelming assault he couldn’t counter.

The look on his face was worth every deliberately wasted probe droid.

Of course, probe cards and captured Rebel operatives can dramatically accelerate your search. But I find it’s better to build a strategy assuming you won’t get lucky with these, then treat them as fortunate accelerants when they do appear.

My final piece of advice might be the most important: maintain a physical or mental map of eliminated systems. The game state gets complex, missions are happening, fleets are moving, and it’s shockingly easy to forget which systems you’ve already cleared. I use a simple notation system on a piece of paper, but even just mentally rehearsing “these systems are clear” after each turn helps.

I once lost a game I should have won because I forgot I’d already cleared Dantooine through fleet movement on turn 2, then wasted a probe droid confirming it on turn 5. That single wasted action delayed finding the base by one critical turn.

Finding the Rebel base in Star Wars: Rebellion isn’t just about luck or even game mechanics—it’s about understanding human psychology and decision-making patterns. The best searches combine methodical elimination with insight into your specific opponent’s tendencies. Master these aspects, and you’ll have Rebels on the run consistently.

Just don’t tell my gaming group I shared these tips. I still enjoy the reputation of having mysterious Imperial powers when we play.

The first time I completely misjudged coalition alignment in Pax Pamir, I paid for it dearly. It was during my fourth game, playing with Linda and our friends Pete and Sarah. I’d spent the early game building a strong Afghan presence, establishing a respectable network of tribesmen and roads across the map. When the British suddenly surged in the mid-game, I hesitated, stubbornly clinging to my Afghan loyalty for two crucial turns longer than I should have. By the time I finally shifted allegiance, the opportunity had passed—Sarah had already established dominance within the British coalition, and my late arrival left me as a minimal contributor to their success. When the dominance check hit, I watched helplessly as she claimed the victory that could have been mine with more timely political maneuvering.

“The Great Game waits for no one,” Pete remarked as we packed up, a maddeningly accurate assessment of my failure. That painful experience taught me one of Pax Pamir’s most crucial lessons: in the shifting political landscape of 19th century Afghanistan, timing is everything. Having now played 30+ games (I’ve kept meticulous count in my game journal), I’ve developed what I think is a reasonably sophisticated understanding of coalition alignment timing that has transformed my approach to the game’s central strategic challenge.

My gaming group has a running joke about my “Pamir paranoia”—the way I obsessively count and recount coalition blocks and cards whenever a dominance check appears in the deck. “David’s tallying the political winds again,” Linda will announce when she notices that particular expression of concentration. They tease, but that careful evaluation of coalition strength has saved me from numerous potential alignment disasters. In a game where victory often depends on being with the right coalition at precisely the right moment, there’s no such thing as excessive awareness.

The fundamental principle that guides effective coalition alignment in Pax Pamir is what I call “momentum recognition”—identifying when a coalition is building strength before it becomes obvious to everyone at the table. This predictive awareness requires looking beyond the current board state to understand how market cards, player tableaus, and revealed dominance checks are likely to shift political power in the near future. The players who consistently succeed aren’t those who align with the currently strongest coalition, but those who position themselves with coalitions poised for imminent growth.

This principle of momentum recognition crystallized for me during a game where the Russian coalition had dominated the early proceedings, with all players save one maintaining Russian loyalty. Just before a dominance check appeared in the market, I noticed that the upcoming cards included several British personalities and events. Rather than following conventional wisdom and aligning with the presently dominant Russians, I pivoted to British loyalty a full turn before anyone else recognized the shifting winds. When the dominance check eventually triggered, the British had surged to parity with the Russians, and my early alignment gave me predominance within the British faction. That single well-timed pivot transformed what would have been a mediocre position into a commanding victory.

The dominance check timing creates fascinating strategic considerations for coalition alignment. With exactly four dominance cards in the deck (in the second edition), each representing a quarter of the game’s progression, experienced players can roughly anticipate when these critical moments will arrive. This awareness creates natural decision points for coalition evaluation, with alignment shifts typically most valuable shortly before dominance checks rather than immediately following them.

I’ve found that the optimal timing for coalition reassessment follows a fairly predictable pattern across most games. The first dominance check often arrives before clear coalition dominance emerges, making initial loyalty less critical than many new players assume. The second check typically occurs when at least one coalition has established significant board presence, creating the first truly consequential alignment decision. The third and fourth checks usually determine the final outcome, with alignment shifts during this period requiring careful calculation of both immediate scoring potential and positioning for subsequent checks.

This timing framework emerged clearly during a series of games with our regular Tuesday group. In our early plays, we frequently shifted coalitions reactively, responding to the current strongest faction immediately after dominance checks. With experience, we collectively evolved toward more predictive alignment shifts, often pivoting a full turn or even two before dominance cards appeared. This proactive approach proved substantially more effective, as it allowed players to establish stronger positions within their new coalitions before the critical scoring moments arrived.

The cost of loyalty shifts creates interesting economic tensions that inform optimal alignment timing. Each shift requires discarding cards matching the new coalition, creating a resource investment that must be balanced against the potential benefits of realignment. I’ve found that successful players treat loyalty not as a matter of game-long commitment but as a strategic resource to be invested when the political return justifies the economic cost.

My friend Sarah, who approaches games with remarkable analytical clarity, developed what she calls her “coalition calculus”—a mental framework for evaluating whether a loyalty shift represents positive expected value. She considers factors like the current market, upcoming cards if visible, strength of existing coalition positions, and her own tableau development. This systematic approach to alignment decisions has served her well, resulting in impeccably timed political pivots that frequently position her for dominance within ascendant coalitions just before critical checks.

The ripple effects of loyalty shifts across multiple players creates another layer of strategic consideration. When one player changes allegiance, it not only affects their position but potentially alters the relative strength of every coalition and the standing of all players within them. This interconnected nature of alignment decisions means that optimal timing sometimes depends not just on your own tableau and the general board state, but on anticipating how other players are likely to react to changing political winds.

I witnessed a perfect example of this ripple awareness during a game with Pete, whose strategic thinking in Pax Pamir approaches master level. When the British coalition began showing signs of growth, several of us considered switching allegiance. Pete, however, deliberately maintained his Russian loyalty despite the seemingly obvious British momentum. His calculation, as he explained afterward, was that if everyone shifted to British alignment, the Russian coalition would be dramatically weakened, leaving him as the primary beneficiary of any remaining Russian strength. This contrarian positioning proved brilliantly effective when the ensuing dominance check revealed a Russian coalition severely diminished but still viable, with Pete as its uncontested leader.

The market deck composition creates important timing considerations for coalition alignment. As cards are purchased and discarded, the relative frequency of different coalition cards in the remaining deck shifts, altering the probability of favorable cards appearing for each faction. Tracking these evolving probabilities provides valuable insights into which coalitions are likely to gain momentum in upcoming turns.

During a particularly competitive three-player game, I noticed that an unusually high number of Afghan cards had already been removed from the deck through various mechanisms. Recognizing that this would limit Afghan growth potential in the latter half of the game, I pivoted away from my initial Afghan loyalty despite having a reasonably strong position. This deck composition awareness proved decisive when subsequent market rows revealed predominantly Russian and British cards, leaving the Afghan coalition without the reinforcements needed to maintain competitiveness through the final dominance checks.

The specific timing of when to maintain divided loyalty—having patriots and court cards from multiple coalitions—versus when to commit fully to a single faction creates interesting strategic tensions. Divided loyalty provides flexibility for future pivots but reduces your immediate impact within any single coalition. I’ve found that the optimal approach typically involves maintaining some division in the early and mid-game while consolidating toward single-coalition focus as the final dominance checks approach.

My colleague Jim, who approaches games with remarkable mathematical precision, coined the term “loyalty liquidity” to describe this strategic flexibility. In the early game, he purposefully develops a tableau with cards from at least two coalitions, even at the cost of some efficiency. This political flexibility allows him to pivot quickly when coalition momentum shifts, often enabling him to establish dominance within emerging factions before other players can effectively respond. As the game progresses toward its conclusion, he gradually consolidates toward his assessment of the ultimately dominant coalition, trading flexibility for maximum impact within his chosen faction.

The specific court cards available to each coalition create another dimension of timing considerations. Some coalitions may temporarily lack cards providing critical actions like tax collection or military operations, creating windows of opportunity where aligning with seemingly weaker factions offers disproportionate strategic advantages. Recognizing these temporary action imbalances helps identify optimal moments for coalition pivots that might appear counterintuitive based solely on block count or board position.

During a game where the Russians had established early dominance, I noticed that the available Russian court cards offered limited economic actions, while the weaker British coalition had access to cards with powerful tax and gift capabilities. Rather than following the obvious path of Russian alignment, I shifted to British loyalty specifically to access these economic engines. This temporary economic advantage allowed me to develop my tableau more efficiently than my Russian-aligned opponents, ultimately positioning me to pivot back to Russian loyalty (if necessary) from a position of greater strength. The lesson was clear—coalition value depends not just on current board strength but on the specific capabilities available to each faction at a given moment.

The geography of the Pax Pamir map creates regional considerations that influence optimal coalition timing. Some areas naturally favor certain coalitions due to starting positions or border proximity, making alignment shifts more or less valuable depending on your established geographic presence. I’ve found that successful players factor these spatial relationships into their alignment decisions, sometimes maintaining loyalty to seemingly weaker coalitions when their geographic position creates disproportionate local advantages.

This geographic sensitivity became apparent during a game where my tableau had established strong presence in Transcaspia and Persia—regions where Russian influence was particularly valuable due to border access. Despite the British coalition showing greater overall strength, I maintained Russian loyalty longer than might have seemed optimal based purely on coalition block count. This regionally-informed decision proved effective when the Russians leveraged their geographic advantage to surge back into contention, with my established position in key territories making me the primary beneficiary of their resurgence.

The impact of specific event cards on coalition strength creates crucial timing windows for alignment shifts. Cards like “Political Collapse” or “Uprising” can dramatically alter the balance of power, creating sudden opportunities for well-positioned players to capitalize on coalition transitions. Tracking these high-impact events as they move through the market provides valuable signals for potential alignment adjustments before these shifts become obvious to all players.

I recall a particularly dramatic game where the powerful “Military Collapse” event appeared in the market just before a dominance check. Recognizing that this would significantly weaken the dominant Russian coalition if purchased, I pivoted to British loyalty a full turn before the event was claimed. When the military collapse eventually devastated Russian army presence, the British emerged as the strongest faction, with my early pivot giving me superior position within their coalition. This anticipation of event-driven coalition shifts represents one of the subtler aspects of alignment timing that separates experienced players from novices.

After all these games and all this analysis, perhaps the most important insight I’ve gained about coalition alignment in Pax Pamir is that optimal timing isn’t about rigid formulas or perfect predictions, but about maintaining constant awareness of the evolving political landscape while positioning yourself to capitalize on momentum shifts before they become obvious to everyone at the table. The players who consistently succeed aren’t those who follow a predetermined strategy or react to the current strongest coalition, but those who sense political currents one or two turns before they manifest in dominance checks.

I still occasionally misjudge coalition trajectories or pivot at suboptimal moments. But those mistakes have become rarer as I’ve developed a more intuitive understanding of how market composition, player tableaus, and board geography interact to create the ebbs and flows of coalition strength. There’s something deeply satisfying about perfectly timing a political realignment, watching as your carefully calculated pivot positions you for dominance within an ascendant faction just as a critical check arrives.

And really, isn’t that calculated opportunism exactly what the historical Great Game was all about? The shifting loyalties and pragmatic alliances that characterized 19th century Afghan politics find perfect expression in Pax Pamir’s coalition mechanics, rewarding players who embody the political cunning of the era’s most successful powerbrokers. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go convince Linda that we absolutely need to play “just one more quick game” before bed. I have a theory about early Afghan positioning that I’m dying to test.

I’ve always had a sweet spot for trick-taking games. It probably started with endless rounds of Hearts with my grandparents during summer vacations, where my grandmother routinely destroyed us all while maintaining her innocent smile. But The Crew: Mission Deep Sea has taken my appreciation to another level entirely. After 94 logged plays (yes, I keep track—my wife Linda finds this somewhere between amusing and concerning), I’m convinced it’s the most elegant design in the genre.

The cooperative twist fundamentally changes the trick-taking dynamic in ways that still surprise me, even after dozens of missions. In traditional trick-taking games, you’re primarily focused on your own hand. In The Crew, you’re constantly thinking about everyone else’s potential cards and how to choreograph the perfect sequence of tricks across the entire team.

My regular gaming group initially struggled with the transition. Jeff, who’s a shark at traditional trick-taking games, kept trying to win every trick he could out of pure muscle memory. “It’s not about winning tricks,” I kept reminding him. “It’s about winning the right tricks.” By mission 15, he’d finally rewired his brain for cooperative play, and our success rate jumped dramatically.

The core insight that transformed our play was realizing that hand management in The Crew isn’t just about your current trick—it’s about planning a sequence of tricks that might span the entire round. I’ve developed what I call the “Four-Horizon Planning” approach that has taken our crew from frustrating failures to consistent success on even the toughest missions.

The first horizon is the current trick. This is obvious—what card should you play right now? But unlike traditional trick-taking games where you might play conservatively to avoid taking a trick with points, here you’re thinking: “Does anyone need to win this specific trick?” If so, how do we ensure they win it?

I still remember the breakthrough moment when this clicked for our group. We were on mission 23, and Tony needed to take a trick containing the pink 7. He led with a yellow card, and around the table, we all played our lowest yellows, allowing him to win with a modest yellow 6. It wasn’t about playing our best strategy for that isolated trick—it was about ensuring Tony got exactly what he needed.

The second horizon is setting up the next trick. This is where The Crew starts differentiating skilled players from novices. You’re not just playing to the current trick but considering how your play impacts the next one. Sometimes the right move is deliberately losing a trick to retain control for the following one.

A perfect example happened in our game last week. I had the green 9 as a task card, but Alex had the green rocket (the highest green card). Rather than lamenting my bad luck, I recognized an opportunity. When Alex led with a blue card, I deliberately played a high blue to win the trick, which allowed me to lead the next trick with a green card that Alex couldn’t trump. By thinking one trick ahead, what seemed like an impossible task became straightforward.

The third horizon is mid-round positioning. This is about maneuvering the team into advantageous positions for the latter half of the round. Who should be left with the lead for trick 5? Who needs to be void in a particular suit by trick 4? These considerations might influence plays made in tricks 1 and 2.

In one particularly complex mission, we needed Kevin to take the pink 1 in the final trick. Early in the round, I deliberately played my high pink cards to ensure he’d have the only remaining pink card by the end. This required coordinated play from the entire team across multiple tricks—I’d call it a beautiful dance if that didn’t sound so pretentious, but honestly, that’s what it felt like.

The fourth horizon is complete round planning. Before a single card is played, look at the task distribution and envision the entire sequence of the round. Who needs to win early, and who needs to conserve certain cards for later? Sometimes the mission is impossible without a very specific sequence of tricks, and identifying that path before you start is crucial.

Our most satisfying victory came on mission 41, where we spent nearly five minutes in silent communication planning before anyone played a card. The mission seemed impossible at first glance, but by mapping out the entire round—who would lead which tricks with which suits—we found a narrow path to victory. Executing that plan perfectly, trick by trick, created a gaming moment I still think about months later.

Now, let’s talk about some specific hand management techniques that support these planning horizons:

Suit stripping is perhaps the most powerful technique in The Crew. By deliberately depleting a player of a particular suit, you can ensure they’ll be able to play trumps (or be forced to play trumps) at critical moments. I’ve found this especially useful for tasks requiring specific cards to be played together.

In a recent game, Linda needed to take the blue 3, but she had several blue cards higher than the 3. The solution? Alex and I systematically led high blue cards in early tricks, forcing her to play her higher blues. By the time I led the blue 3, she had the only remaining blue card—exactly the 4 she needed to capture it.

Trump management is equally critical. Unlike traditional trick-taking games where saving trumps for the end is often optimal, The Crew requires strategic use throughout the round. Sometimes burning your high trumps early is necessary to position the team correctly for later tricks.

I’ve noticed that inexperienced players tend to hoard their rocket cards (the highest trump in each suit), saving them for some imagined critical moment. But often, using a rocket early creates more opportunities than saving it. In mission 33, I deliberately played my pink rocket on the first trick to win the lead, allowing me to systematically lead suits that would help my teammates fulfill their tasks. Had I saved that rocket, our entire sequence would have been disrupted.

Communication timing is another crucial aspect of hand management. The limited communication in The Crew means you must extract maximum value from each opportunity. I’ve found that early communication about extreme cards (highest or lowest in a suit) provides the most actionable information for planning.

Our group has developed an informal understanding about communication: if someone uses their communication token in the first trick, the information is probably crucial for the entire round’s strategy. If they wait until mid-round, it’s likely relevant to a specific upcoming sequence. This meta-strategy has improved our coordination without breaking the game’s communication rules.

Lead management—controlling who has the lead at key moments—is perhaps the most sophisticated aspect of The Crew’s hand management. Sometimes ensuring a specific player wins trick 3 is essential not because they need that trick, but because they need to lead trick 4 for another player’s task to be completed.

In one memorable game, we needed to ensure Tony won a trick containing the green 4, but he had no green cards. The solution? I needed to have the lead at precisely the right moment when everyone else had played their green cards, allowing me to lead a suit Tony could trump. This required careful planning across multiple tricks to ensure I had the lead at exactly the right moment.

Card counting, a skill useful in many card games, takes on new importance in The Crew. Since you’re working together, tracking which cards have been played in each suit helps make informed decisions about when to use high cards versus when a lower card will suffice.

My friend Marcus has an uncanny memory for cards and often serves as our informal tracker. “There are two pinks higher than yours still out there,” he’ll mention casually, helping us avoid wasting high cards unnecessarily. Not everyone has this natural ability, but practicing basic tracking of key cards dramatically improves decision-making.

Let’s talk about a common mistake that undermines these strategies: premature trump usage. Playing trumps when unnecessary often destroys carefully laid plans. I’ve seen countless missions fail because someone trumped a trick “just to be safe” when their teammate actually needed to win it.

In our very first campaign, we failed mission 12 three times due to exactly this issue. Jeff kept trumping tricks to “help” when we didn’t need him to, disrupting our carefully planned sequence. The breakthrough came when he finally asked, “Should I assume you can handle your own tasks unless I hear otherwise?” That simple shift in mindset—trusting teammates to manage their own requirements—transformed our play.

Another critical error is failing to consider the implications of the task distribution. Before playing a single card, analyze who has which tasks. If someone needs to take three specific tricks, they’ll need the lead multiple times. If someone needs to take cards of the same color, they’ll likely need trumps or high cards in that suit.

In our most recent campaign, we implemented a pre-game ritual where we take 30 seconds just to study the task distribution before anyone touches their cards. This simple practice has prevented countless mistakes that come from focusing too narrowly on individual hands.

The beauty of The Crew lies in how it transforms the familiar trick-taking mechanism into a complex coordination puzzle. Each card play is a communication, each trick a step in an intricate dance. When it all comes together—when the team executes a perfect sequence where each player takes exactly the tricks they need in exactly the right order—it creates a gaming satisfaction that few other games can match.

After nearly a hundred missions, I’m still discovering new nuances to hand management in The Crew. Each new mission presents unique challenges that force us to adapt our strategies, preventing the game from ever feeling solved or routine. That’s the mark of truly exceptional design.

So next time you’re diving into the deep sea with your crew, remember: you’re not just playing cards—you’re orchestrating a sequence. Think beyond the current trick, coordinate your plays, and trust your teammates. The mission may seem impossible at first glance, but with proper hand management and forward planning, even the most daunting depths can be conquered.