December Game of the Month
Dive into the cutthroat chaos of Mantis, a card game of strategy, stealing, and rainbow revenge! 🌈
Steal or score...it's that simple. Don't let the colorful cartoon shrimp on the box fool you! This is a "cutthroat card game of rainbows and revenge" 🌈
I have played this game at many events. Several people I know have purchased their own version after we play. It is easy to learn and entertaining for all ages. Hard to go wrong with a game that promotes attacking other players and stealing their cards. I nearly lost my nieces and nephews from the game table after I mentioned “probability” and “strategy”. Thankfully the chance to target their siblings for attack kept them engaged.
The game comes with a fun little book with the story (potentially exaggerated) of the mantis shrimp; a deadly and powerful creature.
Hard to go wrong with a game from the creators of Exploding Kittens! Also highly recommend! In Mantis you will plot to take the shrimp from another player’s “tank” and put them in your own to hopefully match them up with a deck card on your turn to score.
Gameplay (super easy)
Shuffle the deck of cards.
Pass 4 cards to each player to display face up in front of them (this is their “tank’).
The remaining cards become the Draw pile.
Pick a player to go first and then gameplay goes clockwise - welcome to come up with your own criteria.
The player looks at the card on top of the draw pile and determines based on the character colors on the back if they would like to steal from another player or try to score from their own tank. Don’t touch the card until steal or score is decided.
If the player decides to steal, they have to say out loud precisely who they are stealing from. When they turn the card over, if the character matches a card in the tank they are stealing from, they take ALL of the cards from that tank that match and places the pile face up in their own tank. If the steal attempt is unsuccessful due to the character not matching, the card goes face up in the tank of the player who was being attacked.
If the player decides to try to score the top card on the draw pile, they must have one of the character colors in their own tank in order to make a match that scores. You cannot try to “score” a card if it will not match with any of the mantis in your tank. If the score attempt is successful, all of the matching cards are turned over and considered “scored” for the round. If the score attempt is unsuccessful, the card is placed face up in the player’s tank.
When your tank is empty, your only option on next turn is to try to steal from other players. Also, don’t let your tank overfill because you will be ripe for the picking. While it is fun to steal from other player’s, those cards don’t count towards winning the game unless you score them.
Gameplay continues until either someone has scored the pre-determined number of cards or until the deck runs out. The game goes pretty fast and there is not nearly enough chaos for my taste if you don’t play through the entire deck. Only scored cards count towards your total. Player with the most cards wins!
This is a simple and entertaining game. You can easily get caught up in desire for revenge when cards are stolen from your tank and lose so stay focused on the odds. Mantis will quickly become a game night favorite!
