My Top 10 Favorite Hand-Management Games

In this week’s video I focus on hand management games, which are games in which (a) you play cards in certain sequences or groups—timing and order of operations matters—and (b) you try to get the most value based on which cards you choose to play, keep, or discard. This sometimes includes multi-use cards, ways to gain more cards to better craft your hand, avoiding getting stuck, and your hand mattering at the end of the game.

In this video I mention Red Rising, Viticulture, Tapestry, Wingspan, and Pendulum, as well as honorable mentions Res Arcana, Battlestar Galactica, Ticket to Ride, Great Western Trail, Love Letter, Brass, Lewis & Clark, Downforce, Underwater Cities, Air, Land, and Sea, Hanabi, Kemet, Magic, and KeyForge.

1. Fantasy Realms
2. Dune Imperium
3. Libertalia
4. Hanamikoji
5. Watergate
6. Concordia/Flotilla
7. Bohnanza
8. Luxor
9. Root
10. Hierarchy

00:00 - Introduction
03:20 - Top 10

[Atlas-FM]

My favorite form of hand management is the Race for the Galaxy/Marvel Champions style where you must spend cards from your hand to play cards from your hand. It constantly leads to tough and interesting choices.

[northlakeghost]

The Red Rising series has been on my list forever, so when you announced I ordered all of them to catch up before the game is released. Love hand management, that art, your games... CAN'T wait!!

[dasaxman]

The way Spirit Island uses that mechanic to increase the asymmetry of the spirits makes it probably my favourite hand management game. I am yet to play Concordia though so maybe it will be my second after that.

[paulsalomon]

Fantasy Realms is absolutely marvelous. I can’t wait for the Cursed Hoard expansion this year. I’m also excited for Red Rising based on this mechanical similarity. And of course the pedigree.

Cant believe Arboretum isn’t on your list. Or Lost Cities. Also 12 days. They all do hand management really well. Arboretum is tense.

[Nic]

I agree Dune Imperium does something with deckbuilding that makes it cross into the territory of hand management. You essentially get 2 to 4 card plays and what's left is the real deckbuilding. The cards having different effects whether played or revealed really drives it home.
Just chatting about it makes me want ti play it again.

[Gidaio]

I really like Not Alone as a hand management game. Figuring out when to pick up your cards and which card you should be playing, combined with the bluffing of where the creature goes makes a great game.

[gaillardlionel]

Games I think would be good additions:
- Gloomhaven (where cards act as timers in the game, a pretty unique concept, and where you have to decide if you play the top or the bottom of cards played in pairs)
- Aquatica (similar to Concordia but without the resource and map aspect, so much more focused on cards. You also slide location cards for combo abilities)
- Arboretum (you constantly go through this recycling process of gaining, playing and losing cards, and what you keep in your hands is as important as what you play)
- Hats (two cards played, one has the potential to dictate how points are scored at the end, and one has the potential to give you points)
- Lost cities (cards to do expeditions)
- 6 Nimmt! (do you play low, medium or high cards in order to avoid taking rows of cards?)
- Terraforming Mars (where you must buy the cards you want to keep and play, pretty unique concept too)
- Valley of the Kings (where you need to decide if you're going to keep the cards you acquire or bury them for points)

[astevezimm]

I like the hand management in Nemesis. There's a push your luck aspect to it, where you decide how many cards you want to hold on to for end of round to avoid alien surprise attack. Then there's the aspect of spending cards on actions, deciding what to discard for that action. One of actions is playing a card, in which some cards you discard others with it. Then there's contamination cards that end up in your deck that clog up your hand that you can't get rid of until you pass. Lots of interesting things going on with hand management in Nemesis.

[tap]

I'm surprised Arboretum didn't even make your honorable mentions. I always find myself zugzwanged two turns into that game; the hand management is so tight. It was the first game that came to mind when you gave your definition of hand management, it embodies all elements so well.

[blackboardgaming]

I do love Luxor and Libertalia. Marvel Champions is my favorite now. Deciding which cards to play and which cards to use as resources to play those cards is really cool.

[bobcasabianca]

Another suggestion could be Amul. It really delivers the hand management aspect in a similar way to fantasy realms, with a little bit more structure and a wider player count. Great list, thanks for sharing!

[seanferguson]

There's a game I used to play with my son quite a lot a few years ago called Potion Making Practice. I don't know who made it but it's probably on a shelf here somewhere. I enjoyed it, although maybe it's not the best game in the world. It did have a pretty interesting hand management system, though. You had to combine raw ingredients to create different potions and put them in front of you. But you could also use some of the potions you created to combine with other cards to make even more powerful potions (elixirs, etc.). As I recall, each card had two different possible uses as a potion that you build or as a raw resource that you use to build other potions. What I enjoyed was the hierarchical building where you had to plan quite far ahead to decide whether you would use two cards to build a simple potion that you could then combine with another built potion to create the higher level ingredients for a more powerful card that you had in your hand. There's more to it and I'm not doing a great job of explaining it, but I really enjoyed it and I haven't seen other games with that multi-level recursive hand-management mechanic (although there probably are others).

[axj]

Surprised you don't have Race for the Galaxy!

I feel it's the go to hand management game almost given it's rank and popularity on BGG. Great list none the less and looking forward to Red Rising 🙂

[jeffreymishra-marzetti]

Really enjoyed the video. I like that style of hand management used in Sushi Go and Ohanami of pick one or two and pass the hand. Also, enjoyed seeing some games in your video that I was not familiar with. Thanks ☺️

[alexandertufano]

I've just played my first 2 games of Dune Imperium over the weekend, and loved it as well! Amul is a hidden gem where I really enjoy the hand management. You have a hand of cards, and each round you'll draw an additional card, place a card from your hand in a public offer, each player will draft one of those cards, and then each player will; play a card from their hand. The really satisfying tension comes in deciding which cards to play and which to hold onto. Certain cards stay in your tableau if you play them during the game, and others only stay in your tableau if you still have them in hand at the end of the game. It has a bunch of different ways points are scored among the cards, but the fact that you need to offer up one of your cards and play a card each round makes that tension really satisfying.

[drodroza]

Bohnanza is consistently and instantly popular with everyone we teach it to (mostly casual gamers and family). The hand management, like you said, encourages and necessitates trading (social bargaining) that lets everyone's personality come out for memorable, fun playthroughs. Getting to argue, woo, and barter over silly, cartoonish art cards make it even more enjoyable.

[ekillops]

One of my favorites is 51st State: Master Set, which is firmly in the multi-use card category of hand management, but does so in a very satisfying way for me. It's one of my favorites to play solo as well

[tonycorkpa]

So many good Hand Management games - the following comes to mind -
High Society, Lost Cities, King Arthur, Mate.

[zmollon]

Lost cities comes to mind as a game with agonizing decisions as to what to keep in your hand and what to play and where. I suspect RR will be similar except have a lot of other things to consider and make it a bit meatier with better replayability.

[JohnLudlow]

Fantasy Realms is a good one. There's a few games I like which have hand management in them

Spirit Island and Hostage Negotiator both spring to mind, and they both involve you having awesome turns interspersed with crummy turns because your hand's empty, with decisions revolving around how you refresh your hand.

In Hostage Negotiator this is you spending conversation points to buy back played card, while in Spirit Island it's about when you take the version of the Growth action which gives you the refresh