The Best Strategy Card Games
Do you love critical thinking, problem-solving, and practicing patience? Awesome! Or maybe you don't but are looking for a way to unleash those skills (while also having a good time!). Strategy card games can help hone your strategic superpower while providing endless fun -- and a little friendly competition.
Strategy is one of those skills that is complex and develops over time. Learning strategy is not as linear as math or reading but is crucial for fostering ways to map out and achieve goals throughout your lifetime. A great way to sharpen your mind and strengthen those strategy muscles is through gameplay!
The Benefits of Playing Strategy Card Games
Strategy card games are not just about luck or chance. They require planning and forward-thinking, careful decision-making, memory and concentration, and even some math and teamwork. Let's embrace the challenge and dive deeper into some of the many benefits of playing strategy card games:
Critical Thinking
Through play, players will learn to analyze situations, evaluate options, and make decisions, sometimes based on limited information. This promotes critical thinking and the ability to strategize, which are essential skills that will help children both in school and into adulthood.
Problem-Solving
Gameplay helps children practice and learn to solve problems and actively look for solutions as they engage in critical thinking to overcome obstacles and adapt to challenging situations. Games that involve strategy and planning help sharpen decision-making abilities, empowering children to think ahead and consider different scenarios.
Memory
Board games are a fantastic way to spend quality time with family and friends while also improving cognitive abilities. Playing games exercises the brain and stimulates areas responsible for memory formation and complex thought processes. Engaging cognitive function is especially vital for brain development in children, and studies show it’s also critical for avoiding cognitive decline in adults.
Patience
Waiting for your turn in gameplay is hard, especially for children! Patience can be one of the more difficult skills to master but can be especially beneficial for children and adults who may have a tough time expressing themselves verbally or those with short tempers. Practicing patience - in both gameplay and life - helps develop emotional resilience.
Math Skills
When children enjoy themselves, they're more likely to engage in learning and grasp new concepts quickly. Virtually all games we play have a math component. Even when they don’t contain numbers, they likely contain an element of probability, which is a math concept. Strategy games can often help build math skills, such as number recognition, counting, and arithmetic.
Social Skills
Play allows children the opportunity to practice listening, compromising, and feeling empathy for others. Multi-player card games in particular encourage communication, negotiation, and teamwork. Learning to interact effectively allows players to collaborate toward common goals, and gameplay encourages healthy competition, teaching kids how to win gracefully and cope with loss in a supportive environment.
Creativity
Play is essential for fostering a child’s creativity and imagination. Through play, children explore the world around them and develop unique problem-solving abilities beyond structured learning.
Our Favorite Strategy Card Games!
Now that you know the many educational benefits of playing strategy card games - such as patience and problem-solving - let's uncover a few of our favorites.
Lend a paw and earn your share of acorns as the park squirrels gather all the loose acorns from around town and divide them up. Players select cards from their hands to try and receive the most acorns from the day's collection.
How to Play:
During gameplay, players will strategically select cards from their hand, aiming to secure the largest number of acorns from the day's collection. Who will be the clever squirrel who accumulates the most acorns by the end of 7 thrilling rounds?
The stakes are high, and the competition is fierce! In addition to enhancing division skills by calculating and distributing the acorns among themselves, this game also introduces the concept of probability as players make strategic decisions to maximize their chances of obtaining a bountiful harvest.
2-4 players • 15 min • 7 & up
Players use their memory to gather and collect an amalgam of ingredients to create the most potent potions in this wizard game that help kids build strategy and planning skills.
How to Play:
In Amalgam, players need to strategize and look closely at the board and cards to understand options and make good choices. It's a great game for helping children learn to examine carefully and evaluate multiple factors, as each turn involves thoughtful determining and strategic decision-making. Additionally, skills like analysis, reasoning, observation, and prediction are practiced throughout gameplay.
2-4 players • 30 min • 10 & up
Players compete as rival diner owners to seat and serve hungry customers. Different food types have longer cooking times, so planning and strategy are everything.
How to Play:
In Dish 'em Out, players earn the most points with correct and complete orders, while any wasted food, incorrect, or incomplete orders will result in lost points. After being assigned a new customer order card each round, players collect food tiles. The different food types have varying cook times, so planning is essential to ensure each order's items are ready to serve at the same time.
Players need to closely look at their boards throughout the game to plan and make decisions, building spatial reasoning, logical reasoning, analysis, probability, and risk/reward thinking skills. Because Dish 'em Out involves so much strategy and decision-making, it may help to encourage children to "Wait. Look. Think." This will help them consider options and implications of different possible decisions, helping with impulsivity and planning.
2-5 players • 30 min • 8 & up
As you play the fossil cards in your hand, see how many fossils you can discover before they become lost!
How to Play:
Players use strategy and decision-making to match the fossil layers on the cards in their hands to the card layers on the dig site. The goal is to get rid of as many cards in your hand before someone plays a “Sweep” card, ending the round. Since the dig site continually changes, players need to tap into their forward-thinking capabilities as each play impacts the options for the next player's move. Any cards still in hand at the end of a round are put into a 'lost' pile, which counts against you at the end of the game.
2-5 players • 20 min • 8 & up
Flex your prediction, planning, and strategy skills to pack your backpack, keep precious supplies, and stay on the hiking trail.
How to Play:
Players draw cards and choose which items to take with them on a hike. While hiking, players must match the play card with their items or be forced to discard. The last player to leave the hike collects the cards, adding miles to their score.
To be successful in Pack It, players must think about consequences beyond an immediate move. This type of long-term, sequential thinking is important for honing planning and prediction skills. Planning is an important skill for developing strategic thinking. In this game, children begin to learn risk-reward evaluations that will influence their ultimate strategy.
2-5 players • 30 min • 8 & up
Let's Play a Strategy Card Game!
Strategy card games are not only a way to unwind and disconnect from our often tech-driven lives, but also a way to connect with friends and family while having some low-stress fun. Beyond these benefits, strategy card games support a ton of hard and soft skills for all ages that undoubtedly support success in and out of school. Win-win! Be sure to make regular game nights a priority and get ready to create memories with the people who matter most.