Devious is an anti-set collection card game. Build the strongest faerie alliance over five rounds and win the Queen's crown. To do so you must play and hold in your tableau a single faerie from each of the 5 faerie bands, of the highest rank possible. But be wary, a second faerie of a given band negates your score - and more than two plunges your score into the negatives. Seek only the highest ranking faerie from each band for the strongest alliance possible. But each band has a unique power and the ability to manipulate faeries from around the table, including your own. Gaining the upper hand will be both chaotic and devious.

To set up before the game, players decide which five faerie bands to use in the game from the 13 suits included in the box. They can be mixed and matched so game play varies from game to game.

In each round, all players are dealt three cards. But interestingly, they are not yours, they are your opponents. You look at them, decide the order in which to stack them - and therefore in which order your opponent will later encounter them, then pass that stack in the direction of play. Likewise, you'll receive your stack in the same way.

Then, in turn, starting from the first player, look at the top card of the three-card stack and announce your intention to keep the card for your tableau or discard it, hoping for a better card your opponent may have buried deeper. If you choose to discard, you wait until all "Keep" players have played. They discard their remaining stack of cards, without seeing them, and announce the Rank of their faerie. The highest Rank plays their card into their tableau and executes the faerie's ability. Once all "First Card" plays have occurred, the previous "Discard" players look at their second card, choosing to play or discard it. If the first two were discarded, the third card MUST be played. Did your opponent trick you into playing the worst card at the bottom of the stack. Was the best card the first card, which you discarded? There is plenty of guile and craft in the game.

After the fifth round, players score each faerie suit in their alliances:

1 card of a Band: Score its Rank (from 1 to 5, depending on the card).
2 cards of the same Band: Score 0 points.
3-4 cards of a given Band: Lose points equal to the highest Ranking faerie in the Band.
5 or more cards of a Band: Score the summed value of all the fairies in the Band.
The player with the highest favor score wins.

Then, change the faerie bands in the deck, with their own unique powers for a new challenge and constant variety in play.

—description from the publisher

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