Uno Variation: Special Card Showdown

Cards: 1 or more Uno decks (any variety); List of Special Wild card effects

Players: 2+

Time: ~5-10 min/round

Rating: 7/10

This variation puts all of the Special Wild card effects from various Uno themes at your disposal. When any Wild card or Special Wild card is played, the player gets to choose any Special Wild card effect to use with the card (click here for a substantial list of Special Wild card effects). Players can either choose beforehand which effects will be available or they can use all of the effects by printing out the printable list of effects to use as a reference.

While players are getting used to new effects, it is helpful to start with just a few such as the Zar'Roc Card (look at a player's hand and exchange one of his cards for one of yours), Power Card (blocks Draw 2s and Draw 4s), Merlin Card (choose a color and all players draw until they get a card of that color), and Wild Downpour Card (all other players draw 2 cards). Check out the full list of Special Wild cards for more effects.

Advantages: This makes Uno a high-powered game. Wilds become paramount to the game and very unpredictable. The wide variety of effects available keep this interesting and always changing.

Disadvantages: Some games will simply be dominated by the person who has the most Wild cards as they can use the cards in the perfect way to suit their needs. The other minor disadvantage is that once the best effects are discovered, the others become unused and the variety is limited (this disadvantage can be removed by playing Special Card Roulette instead).

Overall: This is a fun variation that lets you try out a variety of new rules and adds a very different level of strategy to the game. Give it a try!

Note: As a slight variant to these rules, you can also make Draw 4s into Special Wild cards (in addition to making a player Draw 4) or can limit the Special Wild cards to either the actual Special Wild cards or the standard Wild cards (leaving any Special Wild cards to have the effect of the actual deck you are playing with).