Wild Card Hoarding Strategy Is Breaking the Game

[Vandeson]

Some players — often those with very high Elo scores — are simply not playing the game. They draw cards, hoard wild cards, refuse to make meaningful moves, and wait until the opponent is blocked before dumping all their cards at once. While this might look like a form of strategy, it actually breaks the flow of the game and creates a deeply unfair experience.

This behaviour isn’t mentioned or framed anywhere in the rules, so players do not start a match with the same expectations. It quickly becomes impossible to play normally when the opponent stacks ten or more wild cards and never engages in real gameplay. Wild cards also aren’t evenly distributed, which gives a massive and unfair advantage to the player who hoards them.

When someone ends up with more than twenty cards piled up, the imbalance becomes so extreme that the endgame is essentially unplayable. This kind of behaviour falls into anti-play and goes against the intended spirit of Spite & Malice. It also inflates Elo scores in a way that undermines matchmaking fairness for everyone.

I believe there should be a rule, or at least an optional setting, to prevent this kind of exploit — for example limiting the number of wild cards a player can keep, or requiring players to make a move when one is available, as many other BGA games already do.

Right now, matches can drag on for nearly an hour without real gameplay, creating unnecessary frustration in a game that should be fun. I hope this issue can be addressed to improve the experience for all players.

[Oazo]

+1

J'ai déjà joué contre ce type de joueur et la partie étaient inintéressante au possible !
Je lui ai d'ailleurs fait la remarque et je l'ai blacklisté !

[sallymezzo]

I absolutely agree!!!!!!

[Cortraption]

This strategy is specifically where I believe the spite and malice parts of Spite and Malice show up in the game. It's not necessarily a guaranteed win and carries its own risks.

I think that the play option that allows for play from either player's side corrects for the parts of the game you're not enjoying but perhaps if enough people want it, a game play option that limits overall discards to a max of 12-20 (somewhere in there). Requiring available moves to be played would break the game, imo.

Good luck, have fun!

[Le_Bear]

Simply hoarding cards while waiting for the other player to act is anything but a strategy. It's a lazy way to play and a waste of other players' time. It should be illegal to play like that.

I just played with a player with over 350 Elo points. He claims to have a "different" strategy, which is precisely to hoard cards, including wilds, and wait for someone to act.

Do something please against this. It's just unfair.

[matthcs]

well, i thumbs down those players and never have to play with them again. maybe you can do that too. much better experience cuz most people dont play like that

[ufm]

First of all, the game is also called "Screw Your Neighbor". Card hoarding itself is well expected.


Either 'deck exhaustion is widespread', 'deck exhaustion strategy is optimal', or 'deck exhaustion delays the game' is unconfirmed:

- I checked the recent 100 games of each top 10 EAS/Elo players.
However, only a very small fraction of games ended up with deck exhaustion - less than 10 games in nearly 2k samples.

- Afaik the mentioned scenario frequently occurred only by a specific player and in a specific mode - 2 players, 30 goal piles.
Around 1/5 of that player's games were finished by deck exhaustion, and that player won ~90% of such games.
However, whether that player simply outperformed the opponent or the strategy is overpowered in the given game mode is inconclusive.
Btw, such games actually ended much faster than normal games - less than 10 mins in average, while the current average time spent is 16 mins.


As Cortraption already said, changing rules carelessly causes new problems rather than solving one, especially when the proposed change is a completely alien concept in real-life games.
Therefore, Vandeson's both ideas have been rejected.
I considered increasing the number of decks used in 2 players 30 goal piles mode, but it actually worsened the issue by slowing down the overall game.

Currently, you have three options:
- Give the player in question a red thumb
- Avoid 2 players 30 goal piles games
- Enable 'May play from any player's side pile' option (I recommend this one personally)

[cksaar]

+1

I also find this was of playing really unfair.
And it isn‘t always a Solution to Mark this player red or change Game options. I play the Game in the Arena and lost some Games because my opponent Play it this way. And that is double frustrating because you lose your place and elo and it isn‘t making fun too

[Jellby]

Oh no! Someone played a game following the rules and beat you? And in addition to losing and not enjoying the game you also lost elo and arena ranking? How terrible! Surely the other player should be banned for that.

[BinDFW]

+1

I also find this was of playing really unfair.
And it isn‘t always a Solution to Mark this player red or change Game options. I play the Game in the Arena and lost some Games because my opponent Play it this way. And that is double frustrating because you lose your place and elo and it isn‘t making fun too

Adding a deck would mostly fix this issue. The standard Skip-Bo deck is 3 decks with all 6 jokers and 12 Kings.