St. Patrick Review

boardgamequest.com:

We review St Patrick, a trick taking game published by Matagot. In St Patrick, players are trying not to take damage from snakes as they collect tricks.

Trick-taking games have taken the card gaming world by storm in recent years. The now classic mechanism of favored suits taking hands of cards has been adapted many times over. Typically, these systems involve players either following or not following suit with any number of unique layers added on to enhance the theme or provide a clever puzzle.

St. Patrick is a new trick-taking game for three to four players, designed by Haig Tahta and Sacha Tahta Alexander, and published by Matagot. It utilizes a must-follow system and adds new wrinkles to the classic round structure seen in other games in the genre. It’s themed around the lore of the titular historical figure and the banishment of snakes.

In St. Patrick players begin with twenty health and must avoid taking snake cards during trick taking so their health does not deplete to zero. There are three phases to each round of play and the deck of cards is made up of four suits: clover (green), cross (white), harp (orange), and snake (black). There are also snakes on the white and orange seven cards.

In phase one, all cards are dealt, and fifteen relic tokens are added to the middle of the table. Before moving on from this phase, players pass cards to their left as dictated by the player with the least amount of health. This can be from zero to two cards, though if there is a tie with health then this defaults to one card.

Phase two is about protection. The relic tokens provide defense against snake bites during phase three. Players analyze their hand of cards and either take a certain number of relic tokens or pass. This