How to Play Triple Triad

Triple Triad is a two-player card game played on a 3×3 board. It takes a minute to learn and much longer to master. This guide covers every rule you'll meet on Triple Triad Online, where you can play it free in your browser against other players or the computer. Play, Collect and Trade!

The basics

Each player brings a hand of 5 cards. Players take turns placing one card into an empty space on the 3×3 board until all 9 spaces are filled.

Reading a card

Every card has four numbers, one for each side: top, right, bottom and left. They run from 1 (weakest) to A, which stands for 10 (strongest). A card's level tells you roughly how strong it is overall.

Capturing cards

When you place a card next to an opponent's card, the two touching sides are compared. If your number is higher, you capture their card: it flips to your colour and counts as yours, though it stays where it is. A single card can capture up to four neighbours at once.

Winning

When the board is full, whoever owns more cards wins, counting the cards on the board and the one card left in the second player's hand. An equal count is a draw, unless Sudden Death is on.

Advanced rules

Whoever hosts a table, or sends a challenge, picks which of these rules are on. All of them are optional.

Same

If two or more sides of the card you place are equal to the numbers facing them, every enemy card among those neighbours is captured, whichever numbers are higher. Your own cards count towards the match but can't be captured, so at least one of the matching cards has to be an opponent's.

Same Wall

With Same on, the edge of the board counts as an A. A side showing A against the edge is a match, so an A against the wall plus one other match triggers Same. Other numbers against the edge don't count.

Plus

If two or more touching pairs add up to the same total, every enemy card among them is captured, whichever numbers are higher. As with Same, your own cards count towards the total as long as at least one card is an opponent's. With Same or Plus, your card's other sides still capture weaker enemy cards by the normal rule in the same move.

Combo

Cards captured by Same or Plus check their own neighbours straight away using the normal higher-number rule. Each card they flip does the same, so one placement can chain across the whole board.

Open, Random and Sudden Death

• Open: both hands are visible to both players for the whole match.
• Random: each player gets 5 cards drawn at random from their own collection instead of a chosen hand.
• Sudden Death: a drawn match restarts at once with the cards each player ended up owning, until someone wins outright.

Trade Rules

The Trade Rule decides which cards the loser hands over to the winner. Win cards from other players to grow your collection.

• None: no cards change hands.
• One: the winner takes one card of their choice from the loser's hand.
• Direct: win or lose, each player keeps every opposing card they own on the board when the match ends.
• Difference: the winner takes as many cards from the loser's hand as the difference in the final score.
• All: the winner takes the loser's whole hand.

Playing on Triple Triad Online

• Free in your browser: nothing to download or install, on desktop or phone.
• Real-time matches: host a table, join one, use Find Game to be matched with the next open table, or challenge a friend directly.
• Computer opponents: practise at four difficulty levels.
• Collect and trade: open booster packs, win cards with the Trade Rules, and buy and sell on the Auction House.
• Quintra Triad: a bigger variant on a 5×5 board with 13-card hands, dealt at random or picked by you, and up to 5 blocked spaces.