Devious

In Devious you don't collect sets, you build the strongest alliance of fairies at the table. Over five rounds you try to get exactly one fairy from each fairy tribe, preferably with the highest rank you can find. The player with the greatest favour at the end may claim the crown. But watch out: if you have two fairies from the same tribe, that tribe is suddenly worth nothing. And if you collect even more, your score slides into the red. Each tribe also has its own power that lets you move fairies all around the table, including your own. That makes things wonderfully chaotic and sometimes mean. The clever part is in the dealing: the cards you get are not for you, but for your neighbour. You decide in which order they come across them and try to lure them into the worst choice. You are dealt exactly such a little pile yourself and have to gamble: do you keep the top card, or do you hope for something better hidden deeper down? For each game you pick six of the thirteen available tribes from the box, so no game is the same. After the fifth round you add up your alliance and see who manoeuvred best. Then swap the tribes and their powers, and the next adventure feels completely new again.