Open Mercy strategy How to lose less often

Managing your hand

Your big draw cards are your shield

On official rules, you can only answer a stack with a draw card of equal or higher value. That makes a Draw 10 more than an attack. It is the one card that lets you pass on any stack that comes your way. Playing it for fun on an empty table uses up your only defence. If you hold one, think of it as insurance first and a weapon second.

The same goes, a little less strongly, for Draw 6. A Draw 2 or Draw 4 is much weaker as a shield, because it stops working the moment someone above you adds a bigger card.

Discard All is a clean-up card, so let the mess build first

Discard All throws out every card of its color at once. It is worth far more when you hold five greens than when you hold two. If you can play something else and keep collecting that color, it often pays to wait.

Remember you also pick which card lands on top, and that card's effect fires. Holding a Draw 2, a Skip or a 7 in the same color turns a clean-up into an attack. Jo dumping four greens with a green Draw 2 on top gets rid of the cards and starts a stack on the next player in the same move.

Keep a way to change color

Being stuck on the wrong color means tapping the deck, and in this game you keep drawing until something plays. A plain Wild, or a number that matches across colors, gets you out of that. Try not to spend your last color-changer early unless it wins you the game.

Risk and reward

Draw 10 now or later?

Say Marcus holds a Draw 10 and the player after him has 3 cards. Playing it now hurts that player badly, unless they or someone after them has another Draw 10, in which case the stack keeps going and the penalty grows. If it comes all the way back to Marcus, he now has nothing to answer with.

Holding it has a cost too. If a stack reaches Marcus first, the Draw 10 saves him, but it gets spent on defence instead of on the player he wanted to hit. A reasonable rule of thumb: play the big draw when the next player is close to going out, and hold it when nobody is threatening to win.

The 25-card line changes the maths

Anyone holding 25 or more cards after a draw is out. Near the end of a game, a player on 18 cards is one decent stack from elimination. That makes them a target, and it also makes them desperate, so expect them to spend every draw card they have.

Timing

Watch hand sizes, not just the top card. Before you play, look at how many cards the next two players hold. A Skip that stops the player on 1 card is worth more than a clever color change.

Save the 7 for the right moment. Priya has 8 cards and Sam has 2. If Priya plays a 7 now and swaps with Sam, she is suddenly the one close to winning and Sam is stuck with her mess. The same 7 played while everyone holds 6 or 7 cards barely changes anything. You can always press KEEP MY HAND if no swap helps.

Think before you play a 0. A 0 passes every hand one seat along the direction of play. If your hand is bad and the player before you is holding very few cards, a 0 hands you their small hand and gives yours away. If the player before you is loaded up, the 0 hurts you.

Tactics with more players

Skip Everyone is a free extra turn. Everyone else sits out and you go again. It is at its best when you can follow it with a card that sets up your next move, or when you need two plays in a row to go out.

Color Roulette only hits the next player. They choose the color, then draw until that color turns up. You do not control the color, so you cannot aim it well. It is strongest against a next player who is close to going out, because even a short draw sets them back. It cannot be played while a draw stack is live, so it is no help when a stack is coming at you.

Aim swaps at the leader. With a 7, the player with the fewest cards is usually the right target, even if their cards are not a great fit. A small hand is almost always better than a big one.

Remember that stacks travel. With five or more players, a Draw 2 you start can grow past 20 before it lands on anyone. Starting a stack when you have nothing higher left in your hand is a gamble that it will not come back around.

Two-player games

Heads-up games play differently, and the solo bot games are all two-player.

• A Reverse acts as a Skip. With only two of you, flipping direction hands the turn straight back, so a Reverse gives you another play.
• Wild Reverse Draw 4 still hits. With two players it flips direction, but your opponent still takes the draw. It does not bounce back onto you.
• Skip Everyone is simply a Skip. There is only one other player to skip.
• A 0 is a forced trade. With two players, rotating hands just swaps them, so only play a 0 when your hand is the bigger one. A 7 at least lets you press KEEP MY HAND.

How the stacking mode changes things

The host picks a mode when creating a room. It changes how much you should value your draw cards.

The stacking guide has worked examples for each mode.

Mistakes that cost games