Official Mercyless table guide
Know the chaos.
Players: 2–10 total seats. A room may start with one human and at least one bot. Everyone receives seven cards.
Your turn
- Play one legal card, or draw voluntarily from the deck.
- A voluntary draw adds exactly one card. It does not auto-play and does not end your turn.
- You may play after drawing, or draw again if you want.
- If a draw stack is aimed at you, either stack an allowed equal-or-higher draw card or take the full penalty. Taking it ends your turn.
- Empty your hand to win, or become the last non-eliminated player.
Legal matches
A card can be played when it matches the top discard by:
- colour;
- printed number;
- action symbol; or
- being a wild card.
A colour-changing power card pauses until its player confirms a colour. Cancel returns the unplayed card to the hand.
Stacking
Draw penalties add together. The response must be an equal-or-higher Draw 2, 4, 6, or 10. A normal matching card cannot escape an active stack. If no valid stack is played, click the deck to accept every pending card.
The four signature laws
| Rule | Server behaviour |
|---|---|
| 7s Swap | Playing any 7 requires swapping your full hand with another active player. |
| 0s Pass | Every active hand moves one seat in the current direction. |
| Stacking | Equal-or-higher draw cards combine into one penalty. |
| Mercy elimination | Reaching 25 or more cards immediately eliminates that player. |
Action and wild cards
| Card | Effect |
|---|---|
| Draw 2 / coloured Draw 4 | Starts or extends a draw stack and sends it to the next active player. |
| Skip | The next active player loses their turn. |
| Skip Everyone | Every other player is skipped and play returns to the card owner. |
| Reverse | Changes direction. With two active players it behaves like a skip, so the owner plays again. |
| Discard All | Discards the acting player’s other cards that match the played card’s colour. |
| Wild Reverse Draw 4 | Reverses direction, chooses a colour, then sends four cards in the new direction. |
| Wild Draw 6 / Draw 10 | Chooses the continuing colour and sends the printed penalty. |
| Wild Color Roulette | The target chooses a colour and draws until a non-wild card of that colour appears. |
UNO, elimination, and recovery
UNO and Catch
Call UNO when you reach one card. If you leave yourself exposed, another player can use Catch during the allowed window and give you two cards.
Disconnected players
A human normally has 100 seconds to return using the reconnect token on the same device. If a disconnect interrupts an unresolved power-card choice, the server safely resolves the pending action rather than leaving the match locked.
Room and rematch
A completed game stays in its room. The host can start a rematch with the existing group instead of creating a new code. Room snapshots are temporary and expire after inactivity.
The 168-card deck
Each colour has two copies of every number 0–9, three Draw 2, two coloured Draw 4, three Skip, two Skip Everyone, three Reverse, and three Discard All. The wild set adds eight Reverse Draw 4, four Draw 6, four Draw 10, and eight Color Roulette cards.
Need help with a specific situation? Read the FAQ or visit support.