10 Great Card Games For Adults (Ranked)

When thinking of card games, you might either think of simple children’s card games or a traditional deck of cards. However, there are proper card games out there for grown-ups, too, that’ll provide a fun time no matter your interpretation of “adult.” Here are the best card games for adults.

10. Monikers

Monikers is a low-stakes game that can be played to occupy a small portion of the evening, say before or after dinner, but it offers great replayability. Two teams go head to head, with one player drawing someone the rest of their team needs to name. The team with the most won monikers wins!

This simple card game provides harmless fun that takes on the general structure of many other party games. There are various expansions out there, too, if you want to increase the pool of potential people and characters you can pull from.

Monikers is a simple game that’ll provide some moderate enjoyment to break up the evening, but anyone can get behind it and play a few rounds.

9. Up For Debate

Up For Debate is a brilliant ice-breaking game. As topics become available for debate, players pick contrasting opinions (typically wacky or silly) to verbally fight over. It’s up to everyone else to decide who won the debate.

To win Up For Debate, someone must win enough debates to clear their hand of items to debate with. Although the game is fun and harmless, you could replace the item cards with an edgier set of prompts to up the ante, such as the Cards Against Humanity white cards. It can be hilarious to argue over what become truly ludicrous debates.

If you want to get to know your compatriots a little better, I would suggest forcing them to argue over trivial and ridiculous topics. You’ll find out their true colors soon enough.

8. Exploding Kittens

Exploding Kittens is a simple game with a unique theme. Putting all the cats (and goats) aside, what you’re left with is a quick game of drawing cards until you get the wrong one. With increasing tensions and cards with which to sabotage your friends, you’ll find a rather explosive time in this small package.

Upon drawing an Exploding Kitten from the deck, you’ll need to play a Defuse card to insert the game-ending kitten back into the deck anywhere you want for another player to stumble into. Other cards with special abilities also help players in their bid to avoid the Exploding Kitten, or at least have a Defuse card handy.

It’s quick, simple, and ripe for a quick game whenever someone suggests it. Exploding Kittens also comes with many expansions to kick things up a notch.

7. Scout

Scout is probably one of the most unique card games I’ve ever played. It’s a game of throwing down sets of cards that beat the set before it. You’re not allowed to rearrange your hand, however, and any cards you play must be adjacent to each other.

This may be difficult to grasp at first, but what this leads to is a series of combos if you’ve delicately pruned back your hand into a sharp and devastating collection of values. As a set of cards leaves the middle of your hand, you can croon in satisfaction as the other cards come together to form a nuke of a set.

Players will keep “scouting” by taking cards from the set in the middle to formulate their hand and “showing” by placing their superior sets. The game ends when no one can beat the current set after a whole round of scouting or when someone runs out of cards. The players then count up their points and reduce their total by the number of cards they have left to determine the winner.

6. Cockroach Poker

I’ve never had a game of Cockroach Poker that everyone didn’t enjoy. If your guests are audacious, conniving, and relish in the thrill of lying to your friends’ faces, then they’re perfect candidates to play.

The deck of cards in Cockroach Poker is divided into suits, and it’s up to the players to hand one of their cards to someone else while telling them what suit it’s from. The other player must guess whether they’re telling the truth. Whether that player is right will determine who that card gets placed in front of. The player with four cards of the same suit loses.

There’s nothing funnier than handing a card to someone with three frogs laid in front of them, looking them in the eye, and saying, “This is a frog.” The confusion and chaos that erupt from devious and outrageous plays never gets old.

5. Bohnanza

Bohnanza may look like an ancient game, but it’s the closest anyone will get to a stock exchange composed entirely of different varieties of beans.

Players in Bohnanza will be planting beans in front of them, but you can only have two bean types at any time. You’ll want to gather more of the same type of bean to increase their worth for more points when you harvest them, but to get what you want, you’ll need to perform well on the crux of the game: the trade phase.

Bohnanza comes to life with the trading phase, with everyone begging, bargaining, demanding, and even promising to get the beans they need to score points. With the right people, Bohnanza is a hilarious game that you’ll find hard to turn down.

4. Love Letter

Love Letter is a card game that comes with a lovely felt bag and some little cubes. This is a totally unnecessary addition, but it does elevate the enjoyment.

Players will be given a small hand of cards, and in one round, each player will try to burn the cards of others so that they’re the only ones left with cards, at which point they win the round and earn an affection point from the princess you’re all fighting over.

Theme aside, Love Letter is a tight card game that may play a little more seriously than you may think, but the small scale of it makes it easy to comprehend and enjoy.

3. The Crew

For a more serious time, you and your friends may appreciate The Crew. You can either play a typical trick-taking card game with the deck provided or take on a scenario in the campaign to add unique elements to make the game more challenging and tense.

Of course, there are many other trick-taking card games out there, most of which can be played with a standard deck of cards. However, the art styles alone make a case for The Crew, but the campaign it provides is the most important. If your friends take to it, then you can slowly whittle it down one scenario at a time every time you’re together.

The Crew is a fantastic card game that so many have come to love, and it isn’t too innately “gamey” for those who may shy away from such things.

2. Wits and Wagers

For a more raucous time, Wits and Wagers is a party game that involves everyone at all times. An embodiment of “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” Wits and Wagers is a trivia game where the closest answer wins.

Players will be presented with questions that you’ll either have to provide an estimated answer to or bet on another player’s answer, whichever you’re more confident in. Having others place their trust in you in electric, and is a fun moment whether you’re right or wrong.

Wits and Wagers is an easy game that anyone can pile in on, even if they’re not a trivia buff.

1. Coup

The top spot of this list belongs to Coup, the social deduction game of utmost guile and deceit. In what’s a surprisingly quick and rich experience, Coup provides a more involved ruleset that will also appeal to those who aren’t really into board or card gaming otherwise.

Everyone playing Coup gets two cards, each with their own action and/or counteraction. This information is secret, so players can lie about them to benefit themselves or disrupt their opponents. Lying could backfire if you get challenged, however, so be careful.

Coup is a quicker game than you’d expect and yet provides a thrilling experience where you’re constantly distrusting everyone around you. It’s simply a fantastic time.

Now that you know about these fantastic card games, you can bring your friends around to have an easy pick of fun and engaging options.

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