Rules
Minus One is a card game for 3 to 7 players about guessing what everyone else will keep. The lowest card wins, but only if nobody else kept the same card.
Setup
Each player has a deck of eight cards, numbered 1 to 8.
A round
- Every player chooses two cards from their deck and shows them. All pairs are revealed at once.
- Seeing every pair, each player secretly chooses one of their two cards to keep.
- The kept cards are revealed. Any number kept by two or more players is cancelled.
- The lowest card left wins the round. Its owner scores points equal to the card and a victory token. If every card was cancelled, nobody wins.
Cards
- The card you kept is spent.
- The card you showed but did not keep rests for one round: you cannot show it in the next round, then it comes back.
- Every 6 rounds, all players get a fresh deck of 1 to 8.
Winning
After the last round (18, or 6 in a short game), each player’s score is their points plus 1 per victory token. The highest score wins.
Our version
- The show ran the match as a survival game: at set rounds the leader escaped, everyone else’s points went back to zero, and each token added a bonus point. Here the whole game is scored once, at the end, with the same value per win: the card plus 1.
- Ties go to more tokens, then to the player who won a round most recently, as on the show.
- Showing has a 30-second timer and keeping a 20-second timer. If time runs out you show your two lowest playable cards, or keep the lower card.
- Every player’s remaining deck is public, because every card is seen when it is shown. The “Cards left” helper lists them, with the resting card in brackets.
- Choose 18 rounds (three decks, as on the show) or 6 rounds (one deck).
- Against the computer you choose 3 to 7 players in total. The AI players take turns at three styles: the sniper wants wins and keeps low cards, the steady player weighs the score of a win, and the greedy player chases high-scoring wins. Easy AI shows low cards and mostly keeps the lower one; medium works out the chance each card wins; hard also predicts how the others will keep and saves its 1 and 2 for later in each deck. They only know what you would know.
- Online rooms take 3 to 7 players, and the host can fill seats with AI players.
Sources: The Devil’s Plan Season 2 episode recaps and fan wikis.
Strategy
The pair is a question, the keep is the answer. Showing a low card and a middle card gives you a choice once you see the table. Two low cards give you no escape if others show them too.
Look for empty spaces. Once the pairs are up, find the lowest number that only you showed. Keeping it cannot be matched; only a lower unique card can beat it.
Low cards collide. Everyone wants the 1 and the 2, so they get cancelled often. A 3 or 4 that nobody else showed is a good win.
Count the decks. Each deck lasts 6 rounds and every card is public. Late in a deck you can see exactly which cards each player still has.
Points, not just wins. A win with a 1 scores 2, a win with a 6 scores 7. A player far behind needs a high card to slip through.