Matches is a fantastic modern card game that will really appeal to fans of games played with traditional playing cards, such as Euchre, Poker, Hearts, Crazy Eights, Gin, Rummy, etc.
The only problem with Matches is how difficult it is to classify it. We’ve taken to calling Matches a card burning game. While it has elements of card shedding, trick taking, and even bidding, it’s not fully any of those things. We’ve taken to calling Matches a card burning game.
Disclosure: Thanks to designer and friend of the show Daniel McKinley for hooking us up with a copy of his game. Some links in this post are affiliate links. Using these links doesn’t cost you anything extra and it helps support this blog and podcast. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
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- What is Matches about? (Theme & Components Overview)
- How does Matches play? (Rules & Gameplay Overview)
- If you dig traditional card games, you will want Matches (Review & Overall Thoughts)
What’s up with the card game Matches?
Matches was created by our friend Daniel McKinley. We met Daniel through the Everyday Board Games podcast, which you should definitely check out when you have time.
Matches is a non-collectible card game that features artwork by Gustavo “Goose” Gutierrez and is being published by Thing 12 Games. It plays two to six players, with games taking under an hour. The recommended age is eight plus and the game should be quick to pick up for traditional card game fans, as it has a lot in common with games like Gin, Spades, and Euchre.
Matches combines many elements from traditional card games and mashes them into its own unique thing, something that we like to call a card burning game. Players are competing for and escalating points which are earned for being the last player standing during each hand and for playing matches (pairs of matching cards). There’s also an advanced take-that mode of play where players can buy cards to burn the other players.
One of the most striking features of matches is its presentation. You can get a look at this in our Matches Unboxing Video on YouTube.
This card game comes in an oversized match box. The box is well constructed and features magnets to help keep it from randomly sliding open.
The components inside the box are just as good, with great card quality, clear iconography on the cards, nice chunky scoring tokens, a soft smokey bag for holding the tokens, a silk screened wooden lit match first player token, a very clear rulebook and even a bonus item for players of other Thing 12 Games’ games.
The actual deck in matches consists of cards numbered 1 through 10, where you get ten 1s and five of each other card. There are also five flare cards.
The only complaint any of us had in regards to the components was that the colours used for the scoring tokens, which come in yellow and red, look very similar under certain light. Yellow tokens are meant to be one point while red are five. These tokens would have been better if they were either in more distinct colours or came in different sizes based on their values.
Playing Matches the Card Game
A game of Matches is played over four rounds. This is tracked by setting aside four fire tokens at the start of the game. The game starts by shuffling the deck and dealing out ten cards to each player. The lead player (the person who most recently got burned), picks one card from their hand to play to the centre of the table and puts one fire token on it. This starts The Blaze.
The next player has to choose to pass or to play one or more cards. To be able to play you need to either play a single card that matches the blaze, any number of cards that add up to the value of the blaze, or a single Flare card.
If the card you play is an exact match to the number of the blaze, or you play a Flare card, the blaze grows and you put another fire token on it.
When playing with more than one card, to match the value on the Blaze, you have the option to play any number of cards face down where each counts as a one. This is called Running up the Blaze. Face down cards must be paired with something else, you can’t just play facedown cards.
All cards played are placed into a tableau in front of the player who played them.
Instead of playing cards a player may pass, which is called Burning Out. You must pass if you have no valid cards to play, but can also choose to pass even if you do have a valid play, which can often be worth doing.
When you Burn Out you collect one fire token per matching pair of cards you have in your tableau. This is part of where the name of the game comes from, when you pass you score your matches. After passing you are out for the remainder of the hand.
The first player to Burn Out also collects the start player marker and one of the set aside fire tokens. They will become the lead for next round (if there is one). This is one of the reasons you may want to pass, even if you have a valid play.
The round continues until all players but one have burnt out. That last player gets to collect all of the built up fire tokens on The Blaze, but they do not score their matches. Any players who still have cards left in their hand can decide to discard them or keep them, then everyone fills their hand back up to ten cards. The player with the first player token then gets the lead for the next round.
A game of Matches ends after four rounds. You finish at the end of the round where the last set aside fire token is taken. The player with the most fire tokens wins. In the case of a tie, the game goes to the tied player who last collected a fire token.
In addition to these basic rules, Matches comes with a set of optional Burn Cards. When using the Burn Cards you shuffle them all at the start of the game and deal out a four card market. At any point in a player’s turn they can purchase a burn card which costs one to four fire tokens based on how far down the card is from the deck. Each card does something different but all of them are designed to be nasty to the other players.
After anyone uses a burn card, it is discarded. The remaining cards in the market slide down, potentially making them cheaper, and a new card is added to the end of the market row.
When playing with burn cards, having played the least of them becomes the first tiebreaker at the end of the game.
Traditional card game fans are going to dig Matches
We got to try Matches at GAMA Expo 2024 with the Everyday Board Games team, which includes the designer of the game, Daniel McKinley. It is always a great pleasure and honour to learn a game from the designer. That’s not what made us instantly fall in love with this game though, rather it was the familiar but new and unique gameplay.
Matches really feels like a traditional card game. It feels like a trick-taking game, as well as feeling like a set collection game, like Rummy, but then there’s also an advantage to hand shedding and being able to burn out first.
This is the most interesting and amusing part of Matches for me. It feels like a traditional Hoyle style card game but then doesn’t really quite fit in with any of the traditional card game classifications. One of the jokes I made after trying the game is that Matches is what you get when you take the Hoyle Games Book and light it on fire.
There is something familiar about Matches that makes it immediately enjoyable.
Matches includes just enough card counting to be interesting but not enough that you have to focus too much on the game. I also love the ease of teaching the game, to both experienced playing card game players and board game fans. The small table space required makes it a great coffee shop or pub game, which is something both my wife and I look for in a game.
The only part of this game we didn’t love was the two player version. With two players it is too easy to just be the first to go out each round. The playing chicken aspect, the part where you try and bluff and stay in as long as possible, doesn’t really work with only two players.
Personally I also wasn’t a big fan of the the optional burn card rules. Though I’m glad they came with the game as I think they are the kind of thing that will appeal to gamers who enjoy some back-stabbing in their games, as well as hobby card game fans who like being able to shop from a market.
These burn card rules feel like they are there for the hobby board game crowd and I think most playing card players are probably going to want to leave them in the box.
Overall, we all enjoyed Matches. I was sold by the end of that first game, and have to thank Danny for gifting us with a copy. The game has been a hit with the three of us, with the family, and at our local public play events. It’s one I expect to stay on our regular game menu for quite some time.
If you dig traditional card games you have got to check out Matches from Thing 12 Games. This is a great example of how a modern card game can recapture the feel of traditional playing card games while still being something totally new.
If you like screwing over your opponents and enjoy take that style board and card games, you will probably enjoy Matches and will like it even more with the optional Burn Cards in play.
If you are sick of traditional card games and don’t want to play yet another trick taker, or have been Rummyed out, I encourage you to check out Matches. While this game does feel traditional, it is doing new and interesting things with old mechanics which makes it also feel quite fresh.
So now that you know what Matches is all about, what would you call it? Would you classify it as a trick-taker, as the publisher has? Would you call it more of a Rummy-style game as some of my friends have? Would you call it a bidding game, as the designer does? I want to know, what do you think Matches is?
To go with the theme of matches, we’ve got a hot deal for our fans. For the rest of 2024, you can use code BELLHOP10 at the Thing 12 games store to save 10% off on Matches and their other games!
Know what’s even hotter than matches? Our Patreon! Support everything we are doing and get access to some pretty cool bonus content over at patreon.com/tabletopbellhop.
