Filch 2026

Filch is a short, compact lane-battler for two players that rewards tactical thinking and clever card play. All you need is an enemy and a standard deck!

You and your opponent will battle for majority control of five regions, represented as columns of opposing cards facing each other. You will each take turns drawing from your own shuffled deck composed of the same 11 cards: Two copies each of A-5 (Aces are 1), and a single Joker. Each of you gets all the cards of one color, and suits don't matter.

The first player opens the game by drawing a single card and playing it into a new region. Then, alternate turns drawing two cards from your deck to perform any combination of two actions: Either play a card to your side of a new or existing region, or discard to steal ("Filch") an opponent's topmost card of lesser value from their side of the board. Once filched, a card can never be filched again. And: Only one card of each value is allowed in each region. So think carefully!

The Joker is a true wild card that counts as the highest value still missing from the region it's played into. You can alter the Joker's value dynamically by playing more cards into that region. Jokers cannot filch or be filched.

To close the game, the second player will take a final single action with their last remaining card.

Once all cards have been played, add up the value of the cards on your side of each region and compare them against your opponent's. The higher total wins the region. Ties go to the player with the highest card in the region. The player who wins the most regions wins the game!

-description from designer