UNO Dragon Ball Z Card Game: Rules and Instructions for How to Play

Objective of UNO Dragon Ball Z

The objective of UNO Dragon Ball Z is to be the first player to play all of the cards from your hand.

Setup for UNO Dragon Ball Z

Choose a player to be the dealer.
The dealer shuffles all of the cards and deals seven cards face down to each player. You may look at your own cards, but you shouldn’t show them to the other players.
Place the rest of the cards face down on the table to form the Draw Pile. Take the top card from the Draw Pile and flip it over to form the Discard Pile. Should you flip over an Action card (not a number card), ignore the card and flip over another one.
The player to the left of the dealer starts the game. Play will pass clockwise to start the game.

Playing UNO Dragon Ball Z

On your turn you will try to play a card from your hand to the Discard Pile. In order to play a card it must match at least one of the following criteria of the top card from the Discard Pile.

Color
Number
Symbol

Playing A Card

If you have a card that matches at least one of the criteria, you can play it to the top of the Discard Pile. You may only play one card to the Discard Pile each turn. If you play an Action card (any card other than a number card), you will get to take a special action. See The Cards of UNO Dragon Ball Z section below for more details.

Options of cards to play to match the UNO Dragon Ball Z Discard Pile — The top card on the Discard Pile is a red one. Along the bottom are five potential cards that the next player could play on their turn. The red four could be played because its matches the color. The yellow one could be played because it matches the number. The last three cards could be played because they are wild.

Playing a Draw Two card to match another Draw Two card. — The top card on the Discard Pile is a Draw Two card. The current player can also play a Draw Two card to match the symbol of the top card on the Discard Pile.

Drawing A Card

Should you not have any cards in your hand that you can play, you will draw the top card from the Draw Pile. If the card you just drew can be played, you may play it immediately. Otherwise you will add the card to your hand.

Should you have a card that you can play, you can choose not to play it. If you choose not to play a card, you will draw a card from the Draw Pile. The card you just drew is the only card that you can then play to the Discard Pile (if you can play it).

Should the Draw Pile ever run out of cards, you will shuffle the Discard Pile to form a new Draw Pile.

Once you have played or drawn a card, your turn ends. Play passes to the next player in turn order.

The Cards of UNO Dragon Ball Z

Number Cards

The number cards have no special abilities in the game. You can only play them if they match the color or number of the top card on the Discard Pile.

Draw Two

When you play a Draw Two card, the next player in turn order has to draw two cards and add them to their hand. They will also lose their next turn.

Reverse

The Reverse card changes the direction of play. If play was moving clockwise, it will now move counter-clockwise. If it was moving counter-clockwise, it will now move clockwise.

Skip

Whenever you play a Skip card, the next player in turn order loses their turn.

Wild

The Wild card matches every other card in the game. Therefore you can play it at any time. Whenever you play a Wild card, you get to choose the color of the Discard Pile.

Wild Shenron’s Wish

When you play the Wild Shenron’s Wish card, you will flip over the top card from the Draw Pile.

If the card you flip over has the Dragonball icon on it, you will get to take a special action. You can choose one of the following actions to take:

Force the next player in turn order to draw two cards.
Reverse the direction of play.
Select any player who will skip their next turn. This does not need to be the next player in turn order.
Choose another card from your hand to play to the Discard Pile.

Getting to use Shenron's Wish cards special ability — The revealed card features a Dragonball on it. Therefore the player gets to choose one of the Wild Shenron’s Wish card’s special abilities to use.

If there is no Dragonball icon on the card that you flip over, you do not get to take a special action.

No special ability with Wild Shenron's Wish card — The revealed card does not feature a Dragonball on it. Therefore the player does not get to take one of the special actions.

In either case since the card is wild, you will also get to choose the color for the Discard Pile.

Wild Draw Four

Like the normal Wild card, the Wild Draw Four is wild so it can be played on top of any other card. You also get to choose the color of the Discard Pile after you play it.

There is one catch with the Wild Draw Four though. While it matches every other card, there is a limitation on when you can play it. You may only play the Wild Draw Four when you do not have another card in your hand that matches the current color. Other Wild cards are considered matches.

After you play a Wild Draw Four card, the next player in turn order has two options.

First they can accept the play of the card. In this case they will draw four cards and skip their turn.

Challenging the Card

Otherwise they can choose to challenge. In this case the player who played the card has to show all of their cards to the challenging player. The players will check to make sure that there are no cards in their hand that match the current color.

If the card was played correctly (there were no cards with a matching color), the challenging player loses the challenge. The challenging player has to draw six cards and loses their next turn.

Playing A Wild Draw Four card correctly — This player did not have any blue/Wild cards in their hand. They played their Wild Draw Four correctly. The player that challenged now has to draw six cards instead of four. They will still lose their turn.

If the card was played incorrectly (there was a color match in the player’s hand), the player that played the Wild Draw Four has to draw the four cards instead of the challenger. The challenger also doesn’t lose their turn.

Playing a Wild Draw Four card incorrectly — This player had a blue card in their hand when they played the Wild Draw Four. They played the card incorrectly. The player who played the Wild Draw Four has to draw four cards. The challenger does not have to draw anything.

Calling UNO

When you only have one card left in your hand you must call out “UNO” as quickly as possible. You will do this to alert the other players that you are close to winning the game.

If you don’t call out UNO, you risk facing a penalty. If another player catches you not saying it before the next player takes their turn, you will have to take two cards from the Draw Pile.

Winning UNO Dragon Ball Z

The first player to play their last card to the Discard Pile wins the game.

Keeping Score in UNO Dragon Ball Z

If you want to play multiple hands you may want to consider playing using the scoring variant.

The winner of each hands collects all of the cards left in the other players’ hands at the end of the game. They will then score points for each card. Points are scored as follows:

Number cards – face value
Draw Two, Reverse, Skip – 20 points
Wild, Wild Draw Four, Wild Shenron’s Wish – 50 points

An example of how you score cards in UNO Dragon Ball Z. — At the end of the game these nine cards were left in the other players’ hands. The winner of the round scores points as follows. They will score 15 points from the three number cards at the top. The Draw Two, Reverse, and Skip scores them 60 points (20 points each). Finally the three wild cards at the bottom score a total of 150 points (50 points each). The player will score a total of 225 points.

You will keep track of players’ scores between hands. The first player to score 500 or more total points, wins the game.

UNO Dragonball Z

Year: 2022 | Publisher: Mattel Games

Genres: Card, Family

Ages: 7+ | Number of Players: 2-10 | Length of Game: 5-15 minutes per hand

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

Components: 19 blue number cards (1 – 0 card, 2 – 1-9 cards), 19 green number cards (1 – 0 card, 2 – 1-9 cards), 19 red number cards (1 – 0 card, 2 – 1-9 cards), 19 yellow number cards (1 – 0 card, 2 – 1-9 cards), 8 Draw Two cards (2 of each color), 8 Reverse cards (2 of each color), 8 Skip cards (2 of each color), 4 Wild cards, 4 Wild Draw Four cards, 4 Wild Shenron’s Wish cards, instructions

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