2014 · (Web published)
Mystique Guilds is a 2 to 4 player game for The Mystique Deck derived from Nestortiles Duel, by the same designer. You need one Mystique Deck to play the game.
In Mystique Guilds, the combination of suit+colour is called ‘guild’. So there are 12 guilds (3 colours times 4 suits). Your goal is to control the most guilds when the game ends.
Shuffle the whole deck and place it facing down in the middle of the table. This is the Draw Deck. Next to it a (now inexistent) Discard Deck will be created.
Determine the starting player by any peaceful means. Players take turns in anticlockwise order during the game until the endgame condition is reached.
On their turn, players must do only one of these 2 actions:
- Pick one card from the Draw Deck or the Discard Deck.
- Buy cards.
How to buy cards:
1. Place one of your cards facing up before you. This is the Influence Card.
2. Draw up to as many cards from the Draw Deck as the number on your Influence Card.
3. Place the Influence Card facing up on the Discard Deck.
If, at any moment, the Draw Deck gets exhausted, the game ends.
Each player adds up the values of each guild on their hand. The player with the highest value for each guild controls that guild and scores a point (tip: score the 12 guilds in order for clarity). In case of two or more players having the same value for a guild, none of them scores for it. The guild of blue suns is an exception and scores two points. So there are 13 available points in total.
Ties for the first place are broken by the lowest number of cards. If a tie persists then play again.
Variants:
Variant 1: Cards can be bought from both decks.
Variant 2 (the Market): You can buy cards from another player. Both players must agree on the cards being exchanged. The Influence card is given to that player instead of discarding it.
