Announcing The Queen’s Mercy#

After far too many nights spent muttering about probability curves and talking to inanimate playing cards, I’m proud (and slightly relieved) to announce The Queen’s Mercy, a fast, asymmetric, two-player duel that answers the question: what if traditional card suits had personalities, grudges, and a flair for drama? Each player commands one of four houses: Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, or Clubs, and every house fights in its own delightfully inconvenient way. It is part strategy, part psychology, and part watching your opponent realize that losing gracefully is sometimes the only winning move.

In The Queen’s Mercy, every card has an ego. The Spades are aggressive glory hounds. The Hearts play the long game, winning by losing. The Diamonds gamble like a day trader on espresso. The Clubs quietly manipulate the flow of battle until everyone else wonders who is really in charge. Rounds are fought trick by trick until one house stands triumphant, or at least smugly ahead by a single point. The game can be played with any deck, whether a standard set, a Heckadeck, or a classic French design, as long as each player can claim a full suit and one special card. The rest is mercy, luck, and timing.

This is not your grandfather’s bridge night. It is a knife fight in the royal courtyard disguised as a polite card game. Whether you play to crush your rival or to bask in the elegant chaos of powers colliding, The Queen’s Mercy rewards cunning over brute strength. So shuffle your suit, steel your nerves, and prepare to find out just how generous your Queen truly is.

Meet the Queen! Visit the game rules.