War Game Rules

(In this round, the player with the 10 will win and take both cards)

Card Game Rules

War, or Battle, is a played with two players and a standard 52 playing card deck. In War, cards are ranked Aces high and 2s low. The objective of the game is to win all of the cards in the deck.

For more classic card games, check out our guides for Old Maid and Cribbage.

If you are looking for cards to play War with, check out a standard deck here or one of our war themed decks here.

A free online version of War may be found here. 

Set Up

Before gameplay can begin, a dealer must be selected. Each player draws one card from a shuffled deck. The player with the lowest card becomes the dealer. The dealer shuffles the deck and passes out all of the cards one by one to themselves and their opponent. 

How to Play

Both players place the top card of their deck onto the center of the table. The player whose card is higher in value takes both cards and places them in a separate pile next to their deck. Once a player runs out of cards in their deck, they shuffle all of the cards in their win pile and continue to play.

If players play cards of the same value, then there is a war. Players will place three of their cards faced down on the table and draw again. The winner of the war takes both pairs of played cards and the three cards faced down, winning five of their opponent’s cards. If both cards of the second draw are also equal, the process is repeated and three more cards are laid faced down.

The player who wins all of the cards, wins the game.

For more information of the game of war and its rules, check out Wikipedia's article here or Pagat's article here.

Looking for more card games to play?  Check out this article:

40+ Great Card Games For All Occasions

About the author: John Taylor is a content writer and freelancer through the company Upwork.com. You may view his freelancing profile here. He has a B. A. in English, with a specialty in technical writing, from Texas A&M University and a M. A. in English from the University of Glasgow. You may view his previous articles about card games here and his LinkedIn profile here.