Tips & Strategies (28)

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Tips & Strategies (28)

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4
Gamer - Level 3
Amateur Advisor
Noble
18 of 19 gamers found this helpful
“Hang on to your sets”

It might be tempting to throw down your big sets early on, but they are much more valuable late in the game. If you have four sevens, all a different color, you can play on almost anything, keeping you out of the position of needing just the right color to win (someone else will usually figure out what color you need and try to keep from playing it).

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5
Zealot
18 of 19 gamers found this helpful
“Draw 2/4 Stacking”

My wife introduced stacking the Draw 2s or 4s. Person A would lay down a Draw 2. If Person B has a Draw 2, they can lay it down increasing it to Draw 4. If Person C, they can add it and increase to 6. As long as you can lay down another Draw card, it adds up. Otherwise, the person at the end of the chain draws the appropriate number of cards.

My wife likes playing that you can stack Draw 2 and Draw 4 together, but I prefer to only stack the same type of card.

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7
I play blue
Book Lover
Intermediate Reviewer
Smash Up: Ninja Faction Fan
9 of 9 gamers found this helpful
“For tiny hands holding lots of cards”

My nephew has a hard time holding all the cards and seeing them all. Rather than play open-handed, laying all the cards out face-up on the table, his parents held onto a 2X4-sized piece of packing styrofoam, cut a shallow slot along its length, and he sticks the cards into the slot, so he can spread out his hand without showing everyone his cards. Pretty simple solution to a “heavy-handed” problem. ;D

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6
Amateur Advisor
Strategist
Amateur Reviewer
9 of 9 gamers found this helpful
“Calvinball Uno”

Play exactly like normal Uno–But every time someone plays a 0, they get to make a new rule.

Specifically, you can make a new rule, change a rule, or get rid of a rule. Rules must be fair and affect all players equally (No “Bob draws four cards when it’s his turn”!)

Possible new rules.

-Instead of saying “uno” when you have one card left, you must say “unum” (Latin for “one”). You could also say “one” in French, German, for Icelandic.
-“Draw Four” is now “Draw Eight.”
-Skips are also reverses.
-You must stand up every time you play a red card that is a prime number, and stay standing until someone else stands up.

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4
Gamer - Level 3
Professional Grader
Sophomore
8 of 8 gamers found this helpful
“Stacking Draw Cards”

When someone plays a draw two, the next player can stack another draw two (Or any higher draw option) like a draw four on top, and the amount adds up until someone has to draw the total amount of acumulated cards.

Example:
Player 1: Plays draw 2
Player 2: Plays draw 2
Player 3: Plays draw 4
Player 4: Must draw 8 cards.

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3
Treasure Map
8 of 8 gamers found this helpful
“Stacking 'Draw 2' cards”

When someone plays a ‘draw 2’ card. you can respond by playing another ‘draw 2’ on top, however if the other player is unable to play another on top, they must draw 4.
This can continue, for example:
Player 1 plays Draw 2
Player 2 plays Draw 2
Player 1 Plays Draw 2 again on top
Player 2 has no card to play so must pick up 6 cards.

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4
I'm a Real Person
I play green
8 of 8 gamers found this helpful
“Reactive Uno”

We always play this way in our home, and anybody we introduce this method to love it. It makes Uno much more engaging and fun for all levels of players, plus adds a little dash of strategy into the game.

Warning: Playing Uno this way, makes the standard by the book method rather mundane.

There are 2 major changes to the rules to play this:

Rule 1: All special cards can be stacked upon each other (Color does not mater), and draws are cumulative. Also, the game does not end until there are no more reactions to a special card. This means if a player plays a plain wild as thier last card, if the players can react to that and get some draws back to the potentially winning player, that player ends up drawing and not winning the game, and play continues.

Example:

Bob, Sally, Jane and Frank are all playing. It’s Bob’s turn, he plays a Draw 2, It’s now Sally’s turn, and rather than drawing two, she plays a Draw 4 Wild. Now its Jane’s turn and she’s looking down the barrel of drawing 6 cards. Jane decides to play a Skip, which means her play counts, then the skip jumps over Frank and we are back to Bob. Bob has no more special cards and ends up drawing 6 cards.

Rule 2: When any player plays a 0 card, all players pass their hands to the next player in the direction of play. As soon as a 0 is played, any other player, outside of turn order, may play another 0 to stop the rotation. As long as a 0 is on the top of the pile, any player may play a zero to start/stop the rotating of hands. Once the 0 plays have stopped, the person next next in line according to the direction of play, from the last person to play a 0 goes.

Example:

Bob, Sally, Jane and Frank are all playing. It’s Bob’s turn, he plays a 0, Frank would be passing his hand to Bob, and he only has 2 cards left (one of which is a 0) so he plays that 0 card to stop the rotation of hands (Remembering to say “Uno!”). Bob was prepared for this, and plays a second 0 card, nobody else elects to play a 0 card, and so hands pass Bob gets the new hand from Frank, but forgets to say “Uno!” and somebody catches him on it and he draws his cards. Play now continues at Sally, since Bob was the last to play a 0.

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5
USA
I play blue
Copper Supporter
7 of 7 gamers found this helpful
“Sit next to whoever you find most threatening”

If someone is next to you, you can use your reverse cards to take away their turns, or use skips and + cards on them. So I try to sit next to people who are usually lucky and/or really good at Ameritrash type games.

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4
Viscount / Viscountess
Advocate
BoardGaming.com Beta 1.0 Tester
20 of 22 gamers found this helpful
“Save one Wild card”

If you can.

Try to work things so that your ‘Uno’ card is a wild. If you have two cards and one is a red 2 and the other is a green 7 you might get something to let you dump one or the other.

But then you’re holding a red 2, it’s not super likely the card that comes to you at the end will be something you can play it on. So if possible, hold on to that Wild card, so if you’re lucky & skilled enough to get down to one, you’ll be able to get rid of it on your turn, no matter what.

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8
BoardGaming.com Beta 1.0 Tester
Mythic Kingdoms Backer 2020
Platinum Supporter
Advanced Reviewer
25 of 28 gamers found this helpful
“Uno on the go!”

I’ve always found that Uno is a good game to travel with. I bring it with me on just about every road trip I’ve ever taken and I have a deck in my bowling bag as well. Throwing the deck in your travel bag gives you a nice quick diversionary game when you and your friends are waiting for your plane or train, you’re at a hotel before heading out for dinner or have some time before crashing for the night. Then there’s Bowling allies. In my many years of bowling, be it as a kid at birthday parties, something to do on a Saturday night or later on when I played in leagues, I’ve found that bowling allies are good places to play cards while you’re waiting for your turn since, in my experience there’s usually a bunch of people bowling, and a bunch of people sitting up top watching… moms, siblings, friends who are there the same Saturday you are, etc. Uno being a deck of cards obviously makes it small and easy to carry too. Of course the other thing I bring is a regular deck of playing cards because Egyptian Rat Screw is the ultimate social public party game, but that’s a discussion for another time. 🙂 So grab a deck of Uno House Rules (or write down your own) and have fun travelin’!

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7
Gamer - Level 7
Guardian Angel
12 of 13 gamers found this helpful
“Playing the Draw 4 at any time”

Is it cheating if the rules say you can do it?

The rules officially say you can only play a Draw Four “can only be played when the player holding it does not have a card in his/her hand to match the color on the DISCARD pile.”

However, the rules also say “A player holding a Wild Draw Four may choose to bluff and play the card illegally, but if he/she is caught certain rules apply.”

Here’s the penalty:

“If a Wild Draw Four card is played illegally (that is, if the player holds a matching color to one that’s on the DISCARD pile) and the person who plays it is challenged, the hand must first be shown to the player who has made the challenge. If the Wild Draw Four card has been played illegally, the offending player must draw 4 cards. If the card has been correctly played, the challenger must draw 2 cards in addition to the 4. The challenge can only be made by the player who is required to pick up the 4 cards after the Wild Draw Four card is laid.”

You can use this rule to your advantage in two ways:

1. If you want to play a Draw Four, but have the discard pile color in your hand, you can still choose to play that card without actually cheating. You are taking a calculated risk, but it’s in the rules that you are allowed to bluff.

2. If someone else plays a Draw Four on you, you can challenge them and force them to show you their hand. If you are correct, you don’t have to draw the cards; if you are wrong (and they played the Draw Four legally), you have to draw 6 cards, but you were already drawing 4 anyway, so what’s another 2? Either way, you get to see the other player’s hand, which can be very useful information if they are close to going out.

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8
Gamer - Level 8
Guardian Angel
Platinum Supporter
“Uno for two”

So we found a way that playing two person Uno works for us, change how special cards work.
Draw 4: Player 1 plays Wild Draw 4 card picks new color, then player 2 draws 4 cards and plays his/her turn.
Draw 2: Player 1 plays Draw 2 card, then player 2 draws 2 card and plays his/her turn
Reverse: Player 1 plays reverse card, then Player 2 draws 1 card and plays his/her turn
Skip card: keep as the same, a skip is a skip after all
Wild Card: no change in how it’s played.
Played a couple of games like this and played to 250, the games lasted about 10 hands each and didn’t seem as one sided if someone got heavy on special cards.

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5
Gamer - Level 5
Sophomore
Bard
10 of 11 gamers found this helpful
“At games end”

When my girls play they have a nice little variant they taught us to end the game. It also makes coming in second a big deal.

As soon as someone goes out, the game ends and they get the win. But, the second place goes to the player who can get rid of all or most of their cards by themselves. Goes like this . . .

Using the last card played, each player plays the cards in their hands in front of them in separate piles. Each player plays cards that can legally be played on the previous card. If one player can get rid of all their cards, they get a point (we give 2 points for a win). It is amazing to see someone with 6 or 8 cards be able to play them all and someone with 2 not!

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6
The Gold Heart
Canada
9 of 10 gamers found this helpful
“Speed UNO”

I’ve tried many different modifications of the game, and always come back to one that requires quick reflexes but doesn’t go overboard in allowing a ton of cards to be played at once.
My favourite version includes these changes:

1) You may play two identical cards at once. They must be the same colour and number. For special cards, a doubling of the effect occurs.

2) If you are fast you can interrupt the regular progression by laying your card down, out of turn, as long as it is identical to the one just played. You must lay the card down before the player whose turn it is gets theirs played.

3) If someone plays a Draw 4, any other player may interject and play theirs on top. The last one played dictates who picks up all of the cards. For example: a player lays a draw 4, and two others play on top. The following player must draw 12 cards.

Try it out!

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5
USA
I play blue
Copper Supporter
9 of 10 gamers found this helpful
“First player to win 3 rounds is the winner”

Kinda basic, but when you win you only win that round, instead of winning the entire game. To win the entire game you need to win 3 rounds total (not in a row).

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3
BoardGaming.com Beta 1.0 Tester
Zealot
Critic - Level 1
Strategist
23 of 28 gamers found this helpful
“Don't be monochromatic”

While it’s tempting to try to get rid of all of a specific color first it’s a good idea to keep some of each in your hand. More often then not if you get rid of all of one color you’ll end up with nothing to put down at some point and be stuck drawing until you can. If you keep a decent selection of colors you can avoid that situation and keep your opponents guessing.

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4
My First Game Tip
8 of 9 gamers found this helpful
“Hot Potato (so to speak)”

A continuation to the stack draw two’s, my family plays a variant where not only can you stack draw twos, but you can also stack draw fours! these aren’t interchangeable, you can’t place a draw two on a draw four and let the next player draw six. the other piece to this variation is if you can’t play, you draw till you can or want to.

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5
Canada
Rated 50 Games
Tinkerer
17 of 21 gamers found this helpful
“Allow Playing of Multiple Cards of the Same Number”

Let players play multiple cards of the same number all at once.

For example: if a player is holding four 3s, of any variety of colors, and one of the threes can be played, they may play all the 3s to the discard pile. This is best balanced by the optional rule that if you can’t play you pick up cards until you can.

This method of play makes the game less predictable and adds a few new strategies. It’s also not as clear who is winning, and lets players who end up with a large hand get back in the game faster (they’re more likely to have pairs).

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5
Novice Reviewer
Novice Advisor
Knight
Baron / Baroness
17 of 21 gamers found this helpful
“"Jump-In" Uno”

This is a house rule I read about online that I thought was a great idea. Basically if someone has the same card in their hand that is on top of the pile, they can take control of the game.

For example, if a 4-Red is showing and was just played by the person to your left, and you have another 4-Red, you can play it instead of play continuing as normal.

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5
I play purple
Australia
6 of 7 gamers found this helpful
“Dance Card - HSM flavour UNO”

Don’t ask, but I ended up playing High School Musical UNO with some friends, and decided that the blank “cast” card would become the dance card – the player decides which other person has to draw four. This added a whole new layer if Take That fun to the game.

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