7 Wonders Track: Card Memory and Hate-Drafting

Welcome to Level 3, and to the 7 Wonders track lesson for this level. The two lessons after this one are on the Duel track.

At Level 2 you learned to read your neighbors’ cities. Now you read the cards themselves: what is in the Age, where it is, and where it is going. 7 Wonders feels like a game of surprises, but much less is hidden than it looks.

Every card in the Age is dealt

The second edition rulebook has you keep only the cards marked for your player count or fewer, then deal 7 to each player. The numbers fit exactly. Age I and Age II each have 49 cards, which is 7 hands of 7 at seven players. Age III has 40 cards plus 10 guilds; at seven players you add 9 guilds (players plus 2), for 49 again.

So at your count, every card kept for that Age is dealt to someone. The List of cards and chains sheet in the box tells you which cards those are. Read it for your count, and you know every card that will appear in each Age, in some hand. The only unknown in Age III is which guilds were drawn, and those show up as the hands go round.

Which hands you will see

Hands move one seat each turn, and there are six turns. That means:

At three to five players, you see your first hand again. Anything you leave in it can come back to you, if nobody takes it. At seven players, there is one hand you never see at all in an Age: the one dealt to the neighbor you pass to.

What a missing card tells you

When a hand reaches you, one or more cards are gone. Some of them you can name, because players reveal what they build. The rest were sold, tucked under a Wonder stage, or discarded, and those go face down.

At three and four players, this becomes a puzzle you can solve. You saw the hand when it was full. When it returns, every missing card was taken by someone. Match the missing cards against the cards that appeared in each city. A card that is missing and appears in nobody’s city was sold or tucked, and you know exactly which one it was.

Why bother? Because it tells you what was denied and by whom. A neighbor who tucked the only remaining glass card is fighting you for glass. A neighbor who sold a green card is watching your science.

Planning around the wheel

At three players, a hand you see on turn 1 comes back on turn 4. If it holds two cards you want, take the one your neighbors want more now, and hope the other one survives two picks. Read your neighbors’ cities: if neither needs the second card, it has a fair chance of coming back.

At four and five players, the same idea works with more risk. At six and seven, assume you will never see a passed card again.

Hate-drafting: when the numbers say yes

Hate-drafting means taking a card mainly to keep it from the neighbor you pass to. The midgame lesson covered how. Here is when.

Compare two numbers: what the best card in your hand is worth to you, and what the card you would deny is worth to the next player.

• At three players, that neighbor is one of only two rivals. A point you keep from them matters almost as much as a point you score. Hate-draft often.
• At seven players, that neighbor is one of six rivals. Keeping 5 points from them helps you against one player and does nothing against the other five. Hate-draft only when the card is very large for them, or when they are the player you must beat.
• In Age III, the guilds and big science cards often swing the most. Read each one from your neighbor’s side, as the scoring lesson showed.

And look at your cost. Tucking a card under a Wonder stage costs only the stage’s price, and you get the stage. Selling gives 3 coins. Building it yourself might be worth something. A hate-draft that also builds your next stage is nearly free. One that wastes your turn on a sale while your own best card goes past is expensive.

Tracking the passing direction

One last detail. Ages I and III pass left, Age II passes right. The neighbor you feed changes twice a game. Before Age II, look right: that city is now the one your choices feed. Before Age III, look left again, and remember that guilds score from neighbors, so the cities beside you matter more than ever.

Our 7 Wonders strategy guide has a short section on reading the draft that pairs well with this one.