Sequence Stacks Card Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

Objective of Sequence Stacks

The objective of Sequence Stacks is to complete five Sequences before the other players.

Setup

Choose a player to be the Dealer.
If there are only two players remove the following cards:
- 1 Block card
- 2 Steal a Chip cards
- 1 Steal a Card card
- 1 Skip card
Shuffle all of the cards and deal five cards to each player. Players can look at the cards that were dealt to them. They shouldn’t show the cards to the other players.
Place the rest of the cards face down in the middle of the table. Leave room on both sides of the pile for two additional piles.
Place the red and blue chips into separate piles in the middle of the table.
The player to the left of the dealer starts the game. Turn order will proceed clockwise/left to start the game.

Playing Sequence Stacks

On your turn you will play cards from your hand in order to try and complete Sequences. A Sequence is formed when a pile of cards is created featuring five cards played in numerical order starting with one.

Playing Cards

To start a Sequence pile you must play a one card or a wild card. Players may only have two Sequence piles of each color at a time.

Starting a Sequence Pile — On the left a blue Sequence pile was created with a blue one card. A player created a red Sequence pile on the right with a red Wild card.

On your turn you can play as many or as few cards as you want to the Sequence piles on the table. Each card you play must be one higher than the top card on the pile you play it to. It also has to match the pile’s color. You can play cards from your hand, or the top card from your personal discard pile.

Playing A Card — The current player played a blue two card from their hand on top of the blue one already played to the table.

Wild cards can act as any number. You can only play them to piles that match their color though.

Playing a Wild card — The current player then chose to play a blue Wild card to act as a blue three on top of the blue two.

If you play a card from your discard pile, you can then play the discard pile card that was just revealed.

Playing a card from a discard pile — The blue pile on the left currently has a three on top. This player has a blue four on the top of their discard pile. They can play the card from their discard pile to the Sequence pile.

Should you be able to play all five cards from your hand (this does not include the card you discard at the end of your turn), you get to immediately draw five more cards. You can then continue your turn by playing any of these cards from your hand or discard pile.

Discarding A Card

After you have finished playing cards, you will choose one card from your hand to discard. You will discard this card face up in front of yourself to form your own discard pile. On future turns you will discard your card on top of any other previously discarded cards.

After discarding a card, you will draw new cards until you have five cards left in your hand. If you fail to draw cards, you will have less cards until the next round.

Cards of Sequence Stacks

Most cards you can only play on your own turn. The one exception is the Block card which you can play on other players’ turns.

When you play a special card (any card that is not a number card), you will take a special action. You will then add the card to the pile where you set aside all of the completed Sequences. Playing a special card does not end your turn.

Numbers

Number cards have no special ability. You can only play them on top of a Sequence pile if they are one number higher than the last played card and they match the color of the pile.

Skip

The next player in turn order loses their next turn.

Reverse

The direction of play reverses. If play was moving clockwise/left, it will now move counter-clockwise/right. If play was moving counter-clockwise, it will now move clockwise.

Wild

Wild cards can be played as any number card. The color of the Wild must match the pile that you are playing it to though.

Steal a Card

Choose another player. You may either steal the top card from their personal discard pile or from their hand.

Steal a Chip

Choose another player. You can steal a chip from them. You cannot use this ability to win the game.

Block

A Block card can be played at any time. When you play the Block card, you will prevent a player from completing a Sequence. Once a player plays a five card on a Sequence pile, you can play the Block card. The player that completed the Sequence does not receive a chip for completing the Sequence. The Sequence pile is still discarded though.

Completing A Sequence

Whenever you play a five on a Sequence pile, you complete that Sequence. All of the cards in the pile are set aside into a discard pile. You will then take a chip corresponding to the color of the Sequence that you completed.

If the draw pile ever runs out of cards, you will shuffle the cards set aside from completed Sequences.

Winning Sequence Stacks

In order to win Sequence Stacks you need to acquire five chips from completing Sequences or stealing them from other players. Of those five chips at least two need to be red and two need to be blue.

The first player to get five chips that meet these requirements, wins the game.

Sequence Stacks FAQs

If you have any questions about how to play Sequence Stacks, leave a comment below on this post. I will try to answer any questions asked as best and as quickly as possible.

Sequence Stacks Components

120 cards
20 blue chips
20 red chips
Instructions

Year: 2021 | Publisher: Goliath

Genres: Card, Family

Ages: 7+ | Number of Players: 2-6 | Length of Game: 10-30 minutes

Difficulty: Light | Strategy: Light | Luck: Moderate-High

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For more board and card game how to plays/rules and reviews, check out our complete alphabetical list of board game posts.

Brian

Thursday 10th of August 2023

2 questions for interpretation 1 What do you do with the steal a chip card when you already have 4 chips? Could you just discard it but the action doesn't happen? Do you steal a chip, but it's not the color you need to win thus you would need to win at 6 chips (so you'd steal a chip and have 4 blues and 1 red or something). This also raises questions about finishing a sequence where you already have 3 of that chip color - can you have more than 5 chips?

2 The rules state that when you "Are able to play all 5 cards from your hand without discarding" you can draw more, but what if you play the "steal a card" and then the other 4 - do you redraw 5 even though you have the 1 card left you gained from "steal a card"? You have played all 5 cards from your hand, RAW so I feel like you should be able to draw and continue

Eric Mortensen

Saturday 12th of August 2023

Unfortunately I don't think the official instructions have answers for either of your questions. Therefore it comes down to how you would interpret the rules.

For your first question there are a couple of options. First you could choose to keep the card in your hand and play it in the future if another player tries to steal one of your chips.

If you want to play the card I am not sure how you should handle it. The rules specifically state that you can't use the card to get the fifth chip that you need to win the game. If you use the card to take a chip it should be a chip that wouldn't help you win the game. If you would take a chip that would win you the game, you would have to ignore that you won the game and keep playing until you acquired another chip that would win you the game. This seems messy though so I would recommend only taking a chip that wouldn't win you the game. The rules don't say anything about playing a special card and not taking the associated action. While it doesn't address this in the rules, I think this should be allowed as it helps find a workaround for this situation. I would say to either keep the card in your hand, take a chip that won't win the game, or play the card and not take the action. I would handle this situation however the players agree as it isn't specifically addressed in the rules.

As for acquiring more chips of a color than needed, when we played the game we allowed it. It usually won't help you much, but it is protection in case another player steals one of your chips. We thought this should be allowed as the rules don't state that you can't take more than three chips of one color.

As for your second question that is another good question that the rules don't specifically address. I think the question comes down to whether you would have to play the card that you stole to trigger the ability to draw new cards, or whether you would just draw four cards. I would say that you wouldn't draw five cards as the rules specifically state that when drawing cards you only draw until you have five cards in your hand. Therefore I don't think you would ever draw a sixth card for your hand.

Whether you have to play the card you stole to trigger the redraw comes down to how you want to interpret the rules. The rules specifically say that you get to draw new cards if you play all five cards in your hand. In this case you would have so you meet the requirements to draw new cards. At the same time though you could interpret playing all five of the cards in your hand as you no longer have any cards in your hand. I personally would go with having to play the card that you stole as well to trigger drawing new cards, but I could see either interpretation being fine. I would go with whichever rule that the players agree to use.

I am sorry I couldn't give you definitive answers to either of your questions. Unfortunately for these type of edge cases, when there is no specific rule for the situation you basically have to try interpret what the designer was intending. That is not totally clear for either of your questions so I would go with what the players playing the game feel is fair.

Mike Kosidowski

Wednesday 26th of July 2023

When playing a block card, does the player get to choose another card from pile to get back to 5 cards in their hand? What about a steal card? Is the person who loses the card stuck with 4 cards until their turn or can they pick another to get to 5 cards? Don’t see any definition on these circumstances so would appreciate any wisdom from you. Thanks.

Thursday 27th of July 2023

Those are interesting questions as the official rules don't seem to address them.

Since the Steal card is played on your own turn, I think you won't draw a replacement card until the end of your turn. The rules don't specifically state this, but since it doesn't state otherwise I would treat them like every other card. In that case you don't draw a replacement card until the end of your turn (unless you happen to play all five cards from your hand). As for the player who has a card stolen, I would probably handle it the same way. I would handle it this way as part of the power of a Steal card is that it puts another player at a disadvantage for their next turn. You can steal a good card from them, but I think part of the card's power also comes from them having less cards for their next turn.

The Block card is more interesting as you can play it on other players' turns. The rules say nothing about drawing cards before the end of your turn so I am guessing you shouldn't draw back up to five cards until the end of your turn. This feels kind of unfair though as you will have to spend your next turn with only four cards instead of five. The Block card is quite powerful though so maybe only having four cards for your next turn is meant to offset its power some. As for the player whose Sequence is blocked by the Block card, I also don't think they should draw a replacement card until the end of their turn.

I personally would handle it where you don't draw replacement cards in any case until the end of your turn. In cases where the rules don't specifically address what should happen though, I am a strong believer in using house rules as long as all of the players agree to them. As long as they don't break the game, I see no problem with players tweaking the rules if it makes the game more fun for them. If your group agrees to letting players draw replacement cards right away in these situations, I see no issue with the rules being interpreted in that way.