Special Cards Explained: Skip, Reverse, Wild, +4 and More

2026-09-18

Special cards do one of three things: they change who plays next, make a rival draw cards, or change the color everyone must match. Color Match has three tables. Skip, Reverse and Wild are the core cards, and each table adds cards of its own: the Bomb on the Classic Table, Turnover and Midnight Clock on Day & Night, and the Shield on Siege.

The core cards: Skip, Reverse and Wild

A card is playable when it matches the active color or the value on top of the pile. Wild cards are the exception. On Day & Night, Skip and Wild appear on the day face only. The night face has All Pass and Color Hunt instead.

• Skip: the next seat loses its turn. With two players the turn comes straight back to you.
• Reverse: the direction of play flips and the turn passes on. With two players there is nobody to turn around, so you simply play again.
• Wild: playable at any moment when no penalty is waiting for you. You choose one of the four colors, and the next player must match it or play another Wild.

Draw cards: +2, +4 Wild, +1 and +5

A draw card does not deal cards on the spot. The penalty is queued on the next seat. That player either answers with a card the table allows, or takes the whole pile and ends their turn. While a pile is waiting for you, nothing but an answer can be played. What answers what depends on the table:

• Classic Table (+2 and +4 Wild): only a +2 answers a +2, in any color. A +4 Wild cannot be answered at all.
• Siege (+2 and +4 Wild): a penalty card of equal or higher rank answers. +2 on +2, +4 on +2 and +4 on +4 are allowed; +2 on +4 is not. A Shield answers any pile.
• Day & Night (+1 on the day face, +5 on the night face): only the same card answers, so +1 on +1 and +5 on +5.

A +4 Wild can be played at any time, even when you hold a card of the active color, and nobody can challenge it. For the full chain rules, read can you stack draw cards.

The Bomb on the Classic Table

The Bomb is a colored action card that lights a fuse of 3 (banner FUSE LIT). The fuse counts hand-offs, meaning turns passing to the next seat, never seconds. The hand-off straight after the lighting play does not count; the next three do, and a Skip counts as one. The player handed the turn on the third takes the blast (banner BOOM): they draw 4 cards at once, then play their turn as normal.

• The blast is dealt, not queued. Nothing can answer it, and a Shield does not stop it.
• A second Bomb played on a burning one adds powder: the blast grows by 2 (4, 6, 8) and the fuse is relit to 3.
• After a plain round of turns the bomb lands on the seat after you at a 3-seat table, and on you at a 2-seat or 4-seat table. Skip and Reverse change who gets it.

Day & Night: Turnover, Midnight Clock, All Pass and Color Hunt

Every card in this deck has a day face and a night face, paired at random, so a card's far side tells you nothing about its front. The table starts on the day face.

• Turnover: turns the whole table over. The draw pile, the discard pile and every hand swap to their other face, and the active color follows the new top card. It also cancels a running Midnight Clock.
• Midnight Clock: winds a clock of 3 hand-offs, counted like the Bomb's fuse. At 0 the table turns over by itself: MIDNIGHT if it was day, DAWN if it was night. A second Midnight Clock played while one runs stops it.
• All Pass (night face): every other seat is skipped and the turn returns to you.
• Color Hunt (night face wild): you choose a color, and the next seat draws one card at a time until that color appears, at most 12 cards. Nothing can answer it.

You see the far side of every rival's cards and of the top card of the draw pile, but never the far side of your own cards.

The Shield on Siege

• A pile is waiting for you: the Shield answers it in any color and at any size. The whole pile is gone, nobody draws, and the turn passes on.
• Nothing is waiting: the Shield stands in front of your seat for everyone to see (banner SHIELD UP). The next pile handed to you hits the shield instead (banner BLOCKED). The pile is cancelled and you play your turn as if nothing came.

Each seat has one standing shield, and a second Shield adds nothing. The standing shield breaks on the first pile that reaches you.

Every special card at a glance

The Classic Table is free for everyone. Day & Night and Siege are premium tables: the host opens one for the room and everyone who joins plays it. Cards left in your hand when someone goes out lower your final score by the points in the last column.

A special card as your last card

The first player to empty their hand wins at once, before the card's effect runs. A +2, a +4 Wild, a Bomb or a Shield played as your last card never takes effect, so nobody draws. A Wild still asks for its color first, and then you win. The board shows a ONE CARD! banner by itself, so you never need to call it.

Using special cards well

Keep a Skip or Reverse to steer a Bomb away from you, and keep a +2 to answer a +2 on the Classic Table, where nothing answers a +4 Wild. On Day & Night, check your rivals' far sides before you play a Turnover, because that is what they will hold afterwards. On Siege, save the Shield for a big pile. Read the full rules in how to play Color Match, compare the tables in what makes Color Match different, and find more advice in Color Match tips.

Frequently Asked Questions