Day Three! Tricksy!

Gosh, that’s a lot of trick-takers. I’ve played so many. I think I will never stop.

Unfortunately, the broadside of new trick-takers means I haven’t revisited some of these. Specifically Aurum and For Northwood! I’ll have to trust my former self that they were worthy inclusions on a list such as this, because while I remember them with a vague fondness, they don’t exactly spark tangible recollection. Memory itself is a trick sometimes.

The others… what can I say? New printings of both Schadenfreude and A Very Civil Whist caused me to revisit them this year, which might seem to impose some recency bias, except both of them had definitely stuck in my head as excellent options. Schadenfreude in particular is still my favorite “pure” trick-taker ever designed, while A Very Civil Whist is just such a darn cool way to portray history. I think I would put both of them on a more updated list of top trick-takers.

That leaves two. Sail is one I haven’t revisited, despite my full intentions to play the legacy version by Taylor Reiner. Actually, that’s probably why I haven’t been back. Funny how that works sometimes.

The Barracks Emperors, on the other hand, is one I’ve used periodically to show people what a hybrid trick-taker can accomplish. That makes it a strange bedfellow to some of the other games on today’s list; it really has nothing to do with Schadenfreude or even A Very Civil Whist. We’ve seen a few other games use trick-taking to fuel their actions. Arcs springs to mind. More and more, I’m interested in games that hybridize systems like this to create something wholly new.

Whew, that was an easy one! Maybe the next page will be more puzzling.