10 best 2-player card games

When it comes to card games, it’s easy to get bogged down thinking that it only applies to a standard 52 card deck involving royalty and numbers, but there’s a whole world of card-based games out there that can prove hilariously enjoyable with only two players. 

While most of the entries on this list can be played with more than two players, they’re also very fun to play with just one other person – I know, because I’ve tried. I’ve got a soft spot for card-based games, especially ones that make me laugh, so here are some recommendations.

Pokémon Trading Card Game

As far as two-player card games go, there’s none more iconic than Pokémon. The rules are simple and easy to grasp, your decks are ever growing and evolving, and you aren’t ever committed to a single set of cards. The replayability of Pokémon makes it a game that you can go back to time and time again and with new cards coming out regularly, there’s no end to the combinations. Whether you spend all of your time building the perfect deck or simply love collecting the cards, the Pokémon card game is one of the best available. 

Poetry for Neanderthals

Imagine being a neanderthal who only knows words of one syllable, trying to explain things like “Pink Panther” to a friend while being unable to use any of the words on the card, or use bodily actions to emphasize a point. On top of all this, imagine your opponent being armed with an inflatable “no” club which they can use to bonk you over the head if you break the rules.

Poetry for Neanderthals is that, and it can also become a hilarious drinking game. Used a word with more than one syllable? Drink. Tried to use your hands to emphasize what you’re saying? Drink. The more you drink, the more Neanderthal-ish you become and the harder it gets to figure out what on earth your opponent is trying to describe. Cue blank staring and hilarity.

How do you describe Pink Panther in this way, you ask? Well, “red and white mix big cat go roar start with P” was my attempt.

Dumb Ways to Die

The hit mobile game created by Metro Melbourne to encourage people to be safe around trains has taken on a life of its own, and now Dumb Ways to Die can be played in card format. The aim of the game is to draw cards, with the hopes of avoiding a gruesome death. With cards like ‘Psycho Attack’ and ‘You Died’, you’re never more than a couple of cards away from being out of the game. 

May Contain Butts

Like snap, but with butts involved. You deal cards for each player and then have to match the adorable butt to the face of an equally adorable cartoon animal. Each player gets a draw pile, taking turns to place them around the ‘poop patch’. If the butt and the face of the same animal appear face-up at the same time, the first player to slam their hands down over both butt and face wins those cards, which then get added to their draw pile. 

Just be careful not to get too slappy, or hand injuries and bruised egos may occur. 

New Phone Who Dis

Technically New Phone Who Dis is better played with more people, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not possible to enjoy it with only two people. It just means you have to get creative – like adding two cards each to a pile, shuffling them and voting for a winner. If one card is voted for by both people, that player gets 2 points, if the vote is split, each player gets one point. 

Okay, so playing with two people means bending the official rules a little, but New Phone Who Dis still results in some hilarious text conversations that definitely don’t ever need to happen in real life. 

Trash Pandas

A card game in which you are a Raccoon and you must stash away the most trash-based items, such as leftover pizza and fish in order to have the most points at the end of the game. When all the cards are gone from the deck, the game is over and players compare their points. The player with the most stashed trash wins. 

It gets a little complicated when you consider the tokens and dice rolls, but there are six tokens which correspond with the sides of the dice. Each token has an action associated and, ultimately, they help you to gather as much trash as possible. Each card also has its own associated ability. 

Danger Danger

Danger Danger is a fast-paced card game with each round lasting only sixty seconds. The aim of the game is to end up with more cases than your opponent (or opposing team). There are two colored decks of cards, one yellow and one pink. In order to win Danger Danger, you have sixty seconds to draw as many cards from your pile as you can and add them to any stack (yours or your opponents), as long as the number on the existing top card of the stack is one higher or one lower than the one on the card you’re trying to place down. 

The issues arise when both teams are trying to place cards on the same stack pile, meaning that things get a little messy and a whole lot of infuriating. On top of that, you have to guess-timate how long sixty seconds actually is, because while you can use your phone to time a round, you’re not allowed to look at the timer and if you’re still flipping cards when the timer goes off, you instantly lose no matter how many cases you have on display. 

No pressure, then.

Swear Snap

If you ever played Snap as a child, then you’ll know the rules of this game without any trouble. Swear Snap is, basically, just Snap, except the entire deck is a collection of curse words and rather than yelling “SNAP” when you get a matching pair, you yell out the curse word that you’ve just matched. 

I honestly can’t recommend playing this one around children or particularly prudish relatives, but it’s definitely a good option if you have a lot of pent-up frustration and need to vent it using expletives. You might also get some funny looks if you decide to play this in public, and you’ll need to answer some concerned questions from those who overhear you.

Man Bites Dog

Let’s be honest here, tabloid headlines can be a little absurd at the best of times, but Man Bites Dog takes it to a whole new level. 

Each player begins the game with five cards and the aim is to compile the most ridiculous headline possible from the cards you’ve been dealt. Each card contains one word and has a fixed number of points associated, so you need to balance making a headline that makes sense while trying to score the most points. The first player to reach 500 points is the winner.

Power Hungry Pets

In Power Hungry Pets, you only ever have two cards to play and you must decide which card you’re going to use to backstab your opponent(s). Each card carries a number between 1 and 10, with each card also having an ability to use when you play the card. You have to play one card each turn and the player holding the card with the highest number at the end of the round wins. So yes, while it may be tempting to play your 10 cards in order to reap the benefits of the vicious ability, you need to quell that desire for chaos while remembering to hold on to a high number card for the end of the round. 

A game of Power Hungry Pets is over when the draw pile has been diminished and the player who won the most rounds wins the game.