Classroom of the Elite : New game

Total Cards (Part One)

Yoshino, Maeda and Chikako stood on the other side of the table. Yoshino took out three packs of laminated cards and put them on the table. He looked at his two partners before turning to Sora and Shiro.

"So, Total Cards is the name of a game I invented. I understand that playing a game that you may not be familiar with may make you feel uncomfortable, but I made an effort to keep it simple."

"As long as you explain the rules clearly, you don't have to worry Yoshino!"

Sora replied with a smile, showing his arrogance and carelessness about the situation. Shiro remained silent but had full confidence in her brother.

"Total Cards, it's a game played with the contents of 54 cards, in short there will be two teams of two players, each receiving 27 cards."

"54 cards? Normally it's 52. Do these packs contain jokers?

"Yes, they do. The distribution of the 27 cards per team will be done after shuffling.

"So far, we're following.

"Once you have all 27 cards in your team, there will be a second shuffle and a second distribution, assigning each person 5 cards.

"5 cards each, out of the 27 cards, that leaves 17 available."

"Yes, those 17 cards from your team will be shuffled with the 17 cards from my team, so there will be 5 cards in each hand and 34 cards in the middle of the table."

"All right, got it."

"Now about the game, the goal is simple, it will be played in turns and rounds, a round lasts 10 turns, the game will be played in 3 rounds. During a round, each player will have two choices: to pick a card from the opponent in front of him or her, or to pick a card from the pile of 34 cards in the middle of the table.

"Do we necessarily have to keep the card we draw or pick?"

"The card you take from an opponent, you must necessarily keep it and give him one. As for the card you draw on the table, you can put it back.

"Very well."

"You can only draw from the cards of the opponent in front of you, the opponent next to you is for your partner, you can't switch targets from one round to another."

"And so, what is the point of this?"

"The game is called Total Cards because it's a game of sums, at the end of the 10 turns ending a round all 4 of you will put your cards on the table. The team whose cards have the highest value wins the round."

"The highest value?"

Kushida who until now was not talking and trying to concentrate on the rules raised an important question.

"Yes, as you know the cards have different levels of importance, the cards with numbers take the numerical value of those numbers, as for the jacks, queens, kings and aces the arrangement is as follows: 11 for the jack, 12 for the queen, 13 for the king and 14 for the ace. As for the jokers, they are worth 15, taking the highest value."

"I understand, so we'll take the value of each of our 5 cards and add them together to make a score."

"Absolutely and the higher score wins the round as I said. A little clarification on the rules: you are obliged to pick from your opponent's hand each round, but you are not obliged to draw a card from the middle pile. So you can do either one action or both actions in the same turn. Also you can't draw the card your opponent took from you, not until the next turn anyway. Finally you can freely shuffle the cards in your hands to mislead your opponents and not have the same cards stolen from you next turn."