Phase 10 Card Game: Rules for How to Play

Looking for specific Phase 10 rules? | Setup | Playing the Game | Draw a Card | Lay Down a Phase | Playing Cards to Completed Phases | Discard One Card | Card Meanings | End of Round | Winning the Game | Variant Rules |

Setup

• Place the four Phase Reference cards on the table so each player can see at least one of them.
• Choose one player to be the dealer. They will shuffle all of the cards and deal ten cards facedown to each player. You can look at your own cards, but you shouldn’t let the other players see them.
• Place the rest of the cards facedown on the table. Flip over the top card of the Draw Pile to form the Discard Pile.
• The player to the left of the dealer starts the game.

How to Play Phase 10

Each of your turns consist of four steps:

1. Draw a card
2. Lay down a Phase (optional)
3. Play cards on completed Phases (optional)
4. Discard one card

Draw a Card

To begin each of your turns, you will draw one card. You can either take the top card from the Draw or Discard Pile. You will add the card you drew to your hand.

Lay down a Phase

The objective of Phase 10 is to create a specific “Phase” each round. When you have cards in your hand that can create your current Phase, you will lay them down face up on the table in front of you. You may only lay down one Phase each round. You cannot lay down a Phase until you have the whole Phase in your hand.

To begin the game each player will try to create Phase one in the first round. Whenever you create a Phase, you will have to try and complete the next Phase in the next round. For example you complete Phase one in round one. In the second round you will try to complete Phase two. It does not matter if you win or lose round one.

Should you fail to complete your current Phase in the round, you will have to try and complete the same Phase in the next round. For example in round four you fail to complete Phase four. In the fifth round you will have to once again try to complete Phase four.

Phase Rules

In the game there are ten different Phases which require you to collect specific combinations of cards. Phases can either require you to create sets, runs, and/or a group of cards of the same color.

Sets: Sets are a combination of two or more cards that are the same number. The color of the cards do not matter. For example you can create a set of three by having two red threes and a blue three. Most Phases require you to create two or more sets. Each set can be different numbers, or they can be the same number.

Runs: Runs are a group of four or more cards in numerical order. The color does not matter. For example 2, 3, 4, 5 is a run of four.

All One Color: Finally Phases may require you to collect cards of the same color. The numbers do not matter. For example you need to create 7 cards of 1 color. You could collect seven green cards.

The order of the ten Phases are as follows:

1. 2 sets of 3
2. 1 set of 3 + 1 run of 4
3. 1 set of 4 + 1 run of 4
4. 1 run of 7
5. 1 run of 8
6. 1 run of 9
7. 2 sets of 4
8. 7 cards of 1 color
9. 1 set of 5 + 1 set of 2
10. 1 set of 5 + 1 set of 3

Play Cards to Completed Phases

After you have laid down your current Phase in the current round, you will try to get rid of the rest of the cards from your hand in order to win the round.

At this point in the game you can play cards to any Phase already on the table. You can add cards to your own Phase, or Phases played in front of the other players. You can only play cards in this way during the third step of your turn. When you add a card to an already completed Phase, you are “hitting”.

You can play multiple cards on your turn. You can play cards to as many different Phases as you want. Multiple cards can be added to the same Phase. The only rule is that the cards you play have to match the Phase you are adding them to. Wild cards can be added to any Phase already played to the table.

Here are a couple of examples of how you can hit.

Discard One Card

To end your turn you will choose one card from your hand to discard to the top of the Discard Pile. Your turn then ends. Play passes to the next player clockwise/left.

Phase 10 Card Meanings

Most of the cards in Phase 10 are number cards in one of four cards. There are a couple unique cards in the game though which have a special action.

Wild

Wild cards are unique in that they can represent any number or color. These cards are useful in completing Phases as you can use them to replace any card that you are missing to finish off a Phase.

For example you are trying to create a run of four. You have a 2, 3, and 5 card. You can use a Wild card to fill in for the four card that you are missing.

Here is another example. Say you were trying to get seven cards of the same color. You have six green cards. A Wild card could be added as the seventh green card that you need.

You can use as many Wild cards as you want in a Phase as long as there is at least one number card.

Once a Wild card is added to a Phase, it remains there for the rest of the round.

Should the Discard Pile start with a Wild card, the first player can choose to pick it up and add it to their hand.

Skip

The Skip card is used against other players. When you want to play the card, you will place it in front of the player you want to lose a turn. You can pick any other player unless that player already has a Skip card in front of them. A player can only have one Skip card in front of them at a time. This counts as the card you discard on your turn. After you play a Skip card, you turn immediately ends.

When a player has a Skip card in front of them, on their turn they will take the Skip card and place it on the Discard Pile. This is the only thing they can do on their turn. Play then passes to the next player.

A Skip card can never be used to create a Phase.

You may never take a Skip card from the Discard Pile. If the top card on the Discard Pile is a Skip, you have to take a card from the Draw Pile. Should the dealer flip over a Skip card to start the Discard Pile, the first player loses their turn.

End of Round

A round ends as soon as a player plays the last card from their hand (goes out). You can play the last card from your hand by either hitting (adding it to a Phase) or by discarding it to the Discard Pile at the end of your turn.

Any player that completes their current Phase moves onto the next Phase in the next round. Anyone who was unable to complete their current Phase, has to repeat the same Phase in the next round.

Players will then score points based on the cards left in their hands at the end of the round. The player that won the round scores zero points. The rest of the players score points for each card left in their hand. Each card is worth the following points:

• #1-9: 5 points each
• #10-12: 10 points each
• Skip: 15 points each
• Wild: 25 points each

Each player writes down their score for the round.

The player to the left of the dealer becomes the dealer for the next round. All of the cards are shuffled together in order to create the deck for the next round.

Winning the Game

The game ends after a round where one or more players have completed Phase 10. If only one player completed Phase 10, they win the game.

Should two or more players complete the tenth Phase at the end of the same round, the tied players compare their scores. The tied player with the lowest score wins the game. If there is still a tie, the tied players play the tenth Phase again. The first player to complete Phase 10 and go out wins the game.

Variant Rules

There are two ways you can tweak the rules if you want to change up the gameplay.

You can choose to play a total of ten rounds. Each player advances to the next Phase each round even if they are unable to complete a Phase in one of the rounds. In each round all of the players will try to complete the same Phase. After the ten rounds are completed, the player that scored the least points wins the game.

Players could decide to play only certain Phases. Before the game begins the players have to agree on which of the Phases that the players have to try and complete.

Components

• 96 Number Cards (2 sets of 1-12 in each of the four colors)
• 8 Wild Cards
• 4 Skip Cards
• 4 Phase Reference Cards
• Instructions

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Year: 1982 | Publisher: Fundex, Mattel, Ravensburger, Winning Moves | Designer: Ken Johnson | Artist: Lüders & Baran

Genres: Card, Family, Set Collection

Ages: 8+ | Number of Players: 2-6 | Length of Game: 45 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: High

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