Quick Rules

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• Players take turns playing one card face up onto a shared central pile.
• Slap the pile the instant it forms a valid pattern - doubles (two cards of the same rank in a row), a sandwich (matching cards with one different card between them), or a run of consecutive ranks.
• Face cards and Aces trigger a challenge when played: the next player must play a certain number of cards to try to beat it, or the pile goes to whoever played the face card.
• Correct slap wins the whole pile, added to the bottom of your own hand.
• Wrong slap ("burns") costs you a card, given to the bottom of the pile as a penalty.
• Last player holding any cards wins the game.

How to Play (Quick Overview)

1. 1

   Deal the entire deck out evenly to all players; keep your cards in a face-down stack without looking through them.

2. 2

   Players take turns playing the top card of their own stack face up onto a single shared pile in the center.

3. 3

   If the played card is a face card or Ace, it triggers a challenge: the next player must play a set number of cards trying to produce another face card or Ace (Ace = 4 chances, King = 3, Queen = 2, Jack = 1) - if they succeed, the challenge passes to them instead; if they run out of chances, the original player takes the entire pile.

4. 4

   Any player may slap the central pile at any time it matches a valid slap pattern - most commonly doubles (the top two cards match in rank) or a sandwich (the top and third-from-top cards match, with one different card between them).

5. 5

   A correct slap wins the whole pile for that player, who adds it to the bottom of their own hand face down.

6. 6

   An incorrect slap (slapping when no valid pattern exists) burns a card: that player must place one of their own cards face down at the bottom of the central pile as a penalty.

Objective

Be the last player left holding any cards, by winning central piles through fast slaps and by successfully following through on face-card challenges.

Setup

Shuffle a standard 52-card deck and deal it out entirely and evenly among all players. Each player keeps their dealt cards as a single face-down stack, without looking through them ahead of time.

How to Play

Play moves around the table in order. On your turn, play the top card of your own stack face up onto a single, shared central pile.

Face card and Ace challenges. If the card just played is a Jack, Queen, King, or Ace, it starts a challenge. The next player has a limited number of chances to play a face card or Ace themselves, beating the challenge and passing it to them instead:

• After an Ace: 4 chances
• After a King: 3 chances
• After a Queen: 2 chances
• After a Jack: 1 chance

If that player fails to produce a face card or Ace within their allotted chances, the pile goes entirely to whoever played the original challenging card. If they succeed, the challenge passes to the next player in the same way, based on the new card played.

Slapping. At any moment, any player may slap the pile if it currently matches a recognized pattern - the two most common are:

• Doubles: the top two cards of the pile match in rank.
• Sandwich: the top and third-from-top cards match in rank, with one different card between them.

Whoever slaps first when a valid pattern is showing wins the entire pile and adds it, face down, to the bottom of their own hand.

Burns. Slapping when the pile does not actually match a valid pattern is a mistake: that player must “burn” a card, placing one card from the bottom of their own hand face down onto the bottom of the central pile as a penalty.

Play continues, card by card, until one player has collected every card in the game.

Scoring

Egyptian Ratscrew has no point score - it’s a pure elimination-by-cards game. A player who runs out of cards is out of the round entirely, though house rules often let an eliminated player rejoin by successfully slapping a pile before their next turn would have come up.

Winning

The last player holding any cards at all wins the game.

Variations

• Additional slap patterns: many groups add extra recognized slap patterns beyond doubles and sandwiches, such as “marriage” (a King followed by a Queen, or vice versa) or runs of consecutive ranks - agree on which patterns are in play before starting, since these vary widely by group.
• Top-Bottom slaps: a pattern where the very top card of the pile matches the very bottom card.
• Speed variants: some groups play with two piles simultaneously, or remove the elimination rule entirely to keep everyone in for the whole game.

History

Egyptian Ratscrew (also called Egyptian War) developed in the United States as a faster, higher- energy variant of the simpler game War, most likely sometime in the mid-20th century, adding the slapping mechanic and face-card challenges that give the game its name and its reputation for occasionally drawing blood at enthusiastic game nights.

Fun Fact

Despite the name, Egyptian Ratscrew has no documented connection to Egypt at all - it’s generally assumed to be an evocative, slightly nonsensical bit of playground branding rather than a reference to any actual historical or geographic origin.

More to Explore

• Variations →
• History →
• Fun Fact →