Description

In the trick-taking game Illusions of Prestige, the magician players battle it out on stage with their best tricks, with the winner of a trick receiving points while losers gain support from apprentices and gather props to use for rule-breaking illusions.

The game lasts one or three hands as you prefer. At the start of a hand, shuffle the deck of 54 cards — the standard 52-card deck, plus high and low jokers — then deal 13 cards to each player. (With two players, each player draws two cards, keeps one of them, draws two more cards, keeps one, etc. until each player has 13 cards.)

The lead player of a hand plays a card, and everyone must follow suit if possible; if they can't, they can play any card. The highest card in the suit led wins the trick, and whoever played this card places it to the right of their player sheet.

Every other player looks at the props depicted on the card they played, marks off each prop on their player sheet, then places their card to the left of this sheet. A player sheet has a number of special powers (illusions) listed on it, with 3-5 props underneath each illusion. As soon as you've marked off all the props on an illusion, you can use it, whether now or in the future. What's more, each player who lost the trick takes an apprentice token and places it in their reserve, where they can have up to three tokens. You can add these tokens to cards played in future tricks to increase the value of your played card. Transform a 10 into a Jack, Queen, or King!

At the end of the hand, score points as follows:

• For each card used to win a trick, 5 points.
• For each completed illusion, 3-5 points based on the number of props.
• For each suit, whoever has the most cards of this suit to the left of their player sheet scores 2 points for each card; ties are friendly.

After you've played the proper number of hands, whoever has the highest score wins.

In the solo game of Illusions of Prestige, you deal two hands of 13 cards, look at them both, then keep one of them, shuffling the other one to represent your opponent. When you lead a trick, you flip cards from the opposing deck until you find one of the matching suit. When the opponent leads, you deal two cards and use the higher one. Cycle through discards as needed.