The Art of the Claim: Proving the Unbeatable

Claiming is a proof, not a guess

A stone is not yours because your formation looks strong. It is yours the moment it becomes provably unbeatable — when no card the opponent still holds or could still draw would let them build a better formation on their side.

That word provably is the whole game. The engine that resolves a claim doesn't ask whether you're probably ahead; it asks whether the opponent's single best possible hand — assembled from every card you can't yet see — still falls short. If it does, the stone is yours. If even one winning hand remains reachable, the claim is denied. Learning to run that proof in your head is the deepest skill in the game.

How to prove a stone

The claim check is a fixed sequence. Run it exactly like the engine does:

1. Can you even claim? It must be your claim step, the stone must be unclaimed, and your side must be full — three cards, or four on a Mud stone. An unfilled side can never be claimed.
2. Read your formation — its rank and its card total. Say you hold 7-8-9 in mixed colours: a run, total 24.
3. If the opponent's side is also full, just compare. You claim only if you strictly win the head-to-head — and an equal rank and total goes to whoever completed first, so a tie is yours only if you finished your side before they finished theirs.
4. If their side isn't full, build their hidden pool: take the whole deck, remove every card you can see — both sides of every stone, every tactic or combat card, the whole discard — and remove the cards in your own hand. Everything left is a card they could still hold or draw.
5. List what beats you — any higher rank, or your rank with a higher total. Against a 7-8-9 run: any colour run, any three of a kind, any colour, or an equal run that resolves as a colour run.
6. Check each threat against the pool. If the cards a threat needs are all still hidden, it lives. If even one is on the board or in your hand, that threat is dead.
7. If every threat is dead, claim. If one survives, wait — more cards will be revealed and counted out later. An exact tie counts in your favour, because you completed first.

Ties go to whoever finished first

The tiebreak is a tactic in disguise. When two formations match on rank and total, the stone goes to the side that completed it first — so the order you lay your cards matters as much as the cards themselves.

This has two faces. Against an opponent whose side is already full, a tie is theirs unless you completed before them. But against an opponent who is not yet full, a tie is yours: you're already done, and their best hypothetical hand would only finish later. So racing to complete a strong-but-tieable formation one turn early can flip a coin-flip stone permanently into your column.

How Mud and Fog change the proof

Two tactic cards rewrite the check on a single stone:

• Mud raises that stone to four cards a side — you can't claim until you've placed all four — but a four-card side still scores as its best three. It's four cards placed, three cards judged; don't count it as a four-card formation.
• Fog makes the stone total-only: formation ranks are ignored entirely, and the claim turns purely on whether your card sum can't be beaten. A colour run carries no weight under Fog — only the numbers.

And a subtle one the engine never forgets: when it builds the opponent's best possible hand, it will use both wild cards if they're still unseen. Never assume they can only reach one wild.

When to claim — and where to fight

• Proof gets easier late. Early on, few threats are counted out, so few stones are claimable. As the discard and board fill, beating cards vanish and stones fall. Patience here is not passivity — it's waiting for the proof to close.
• Never claim on a feeling. A stone you believe is winning can still hide an unseen colour run. The only claimable stone is one you've counted to impossibility. Claims are irreversible and cost nothing to delay.
• Two win conditions run at once: five stones total, or three adjacent. Adjacency is the faster path, so it dictates where to fight — press three neighbours, and on defence contest or claim the middle stone of any threatened trio to break it.