Rummy Runners is a card-melding territorial game for The Mystique Deck and a standard Hexpack, in which 2–4 players compete to claim 3 hexes in a straight line, or any 4 contiguous hexes.
Taking advantage of the nature of the hexpack, the board is modular, and the setup can be completely different every time you play.
Each turn, you may meld a set, you must draw a card. Valid sets are as follows:
a group of three or more of the same number
a flush of three or more of the same suit
a swatch of three or more cards of the same color
As the "Rummy" part of the name implies, you may scavenge cards from other players' melded sets in order to flesh out the set you are melding from your hand. After melding a set, if you have two or three of the three colors of a suit-number combo, whose matching hex has not yet been claimed, you claim it permanently. Furthermore, if you control a majority of the hexes 1–5 of that suit, you immediately (and permanently) claim the null.
The game features several variants, as well:
Controlled Zoning — Setup is not random; instead, players take turns adding hexes to the board.
Border Disputes — Hexes claimed with just two colors can be stolen; however hexes claims made with all three colors are still permanent.
The Hard Way — Groups and flushes are no longer valid. They are replaced by these two sets:
a sequence of five cards: 1–5.
a suite of four cards: one each of suns, moons, arms, crowns.
Piecepack — Play the game with a standard piecepack, instead of a standard hexpack.