Like a Dragon: Ishin! — Koi-koi, All Scoring Hands and How to Win

Like a Dragon: Ishin! — Koi-koi, All Scoring Hands and How to Win The first thing to understand about Koi-koi is that matching two cards doesn't necessarily score anything. Matching cards lets you collect them. You score when those collected cards make a particular combination. This covers the 2023 remake. Go to the Gambling Den in Rakugai with at least 200 wooden tags. Your completion target is 7,500 tags won, and losses don't take away from the total recorded for that objective. What you're looking at The deck has 48 cards divided into twelve months, with four cards in each month. The plants help identify the month. You match months, not necessarily identical pictures. The game highlights available matches, so you don't have to memorize every flower before playing. Each player starts with eight cards, and eight more sit face up on the table. On your turn, play a card from your hand. If its month matches a table card, collect the pair. If it doesn't match anything, leave it on the table. Then draw a card from the deck and do the same thing with that card. Your opponent gets a turn afterward. Your captured cards are sorted into junk, ribbons, variety and lights. The labels referring to 1-, 5-, 10- and 20-point cards describe those categories. They aren't the actual score you receive for collecting a single card. Taking one light doesn't put twenty points on the scoreboard. Every scoring combination • Junk: ten junk cards, worth 1 point. Each extra junk card adds another point. • Poetry Ribbons: five ribbon cards, worth 1 point, plus another point for each extra ribbon. • Variety: five variety cards, worth 1 point, plus another point for each additional variety card. • Red Poetry Ribbons: the three red ribbons with writing, worth 5 points. Three plain red ribbons won't do it. • Blue Poetry Ribbons: all three blue ribbons, worth 5 points. • Boar, Deer, Butterfly: those three animal cards together, worth 5 points. • Cherry Blossom Viewing: the cherry blossom curtain and the sake cup, worth 5 points. • Moon Viewing: the full moon and the sake cup, worth 5 points. • Season: all four cards belonging to the month of the current round, worth 4 points. • Three Lights: three light cards excluding the Rain Man, worth 6 points. • Rainy Four Lights: the Rain Man plus three other lights, worth 7 points. • Four Lights: all four lights other than the Rain Man, worth 8 points. • Five Lights: all five lights, worth 10 points. There are also two special starting hands. Four cards from one month, or four separate pairs of matching months in your opening hand, end the round immediately for 6 points. The Rain Man is the man under the willow in the rainy scene. He doesn't count toward Three Lights. The other lights are the crane with the sun, cherry blossom curtain, full moon and phoenix. Different scoring combinations can contribute to the same result. For example, owning both the full moon and the curtain along with the sake cup gives you both viewing combinations. You don't need two copies of the cup. When to call koi Once you make a scoring hand, you can end the round and take the points, or call koi to keep playing. Calling koi means you're gambling the points you already have on improving your result. You must make another scoring combination or improve an existing one before you can bank again. If your opponent scores first and ends the round, you get nothing from the hand you kept playing. If the cards run out without another scoring result, you can also end up with a draw instead of the points you could have taken earlier. A five-point viewing hand is often worth banking. If your opponent is one card away from finishing something, don't call koi just because the button is available. Likewise, calling it with almost no cards left can turn a perfectly good win into nothing. Settings and difficulty Turn on the Hand Guide while learning. It helps you spot near-complete combinations and winning cards. Three-round matches make it easier to finish a session without spending ages protecting a lead. The game starts you at Beginner. Five wins unlock the next difficulty, continuing through Intermediate and Advanced to Master. Back out between matches to check what has opened, and look at Change Settings for the wager available at that level. The optional rules matter. The 7+ double rule doubles a qualifying score of at least seven. Viewing hands and Season can be switched off. The Junk Modifier affects whether the sake cup can count as junk; with it disabled, the cup stays a variety card. Check those settings before assuming the cards in front of you should score a particular way. A practical way to play The sake cup is useful because it works with either the moon or the curtain. Try to collect it when you can, then watch for the other half of a viewing hand. Also keep an eye on what your opponent already owns. Taking the deer when they have the boar and butterfly can stop their five-point combination even if you don't immediately score yourself. You can sometimes leave a valuable card alone temporarily. There are only four cards in a month. If one is on the table and the other three are in your own hand, your opponent can't take that table card. Use the turn on something they actually could steal. At the end of the match, the score difference is multiplied by the wager to determine the payout. A higher table can make the completion target faster, but it also makes mistakes more expensive. Learn the hands first, then raise the stakes when you're comfortable reading the table.