How to Play Strip War

Co-authored by wikiHow Staff

Last Updated: February 26, 2023

If you have a deck of cards, you have everything you need to play War. It’s an incredibly simple card game, with the sole goal of accumulating all the cards in the deck. War is typically considered a children’s game because of its simplicity, but with one tweak to the rules it can turn into a very adult card game.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Stripping after Losing a Hand

1
Pick your opponent. This is a raunchy game, so you’ll want to play with someone you’re comfortable with! War is typically played with just two people, but feel free to play with more.^{[1]
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Research source} While regular War isn't much of a party game, Strip war is an excellent one!
- War also pairs nicely with your significant other and a bottle of wine. Consider making your next date night a game night.
2
Count your articles of clothing. Make sure you and your opponent are wearing the same number of items so you have the same amount of pieces to lose. It’s also important to determine which pieces of clothing are fair game. For example, it’s a pretty uneven (and boring) game if one person is removing socks and jewelry while the other is taking off their shirt and pants!
- Figure out what people realistically will and will not take off. If not everyone feels comfortable removing everything, indicate that now.
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3
Shuffle the deck and deal each person 26 cards. Keep the cards facing down so neither you nor your opponent knows which cards you have.^{[2]
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Research source} Arrange your cards into a neat stack in front of you.
- The cards that you're flipping over should be a surprise to both you and your opponent. It makes the game much more exciting when neither of you know what to expect.
4
Determine the hierarchy of all the cards. The numerical cards are self-explanatory. The royal cards rank King, Queen, and then Jack from highest to lowest. The card typically in question is the ace. Decide with your opponent if it should be the very lowest card (1) or the highest card, above the King.^{[3]
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5
Flip over the top card in your stack as your opponent does the same. Whoever has the highest card of the two takes both cards and places them in a separate stack next to them. Continue doing this as you go through your entire stack of cards.^{[4]
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- Once you run out of cards in your deck, pick up the stack of cards you’ve won and continue with that deck. This continues until someone has won the entire deck.
6
Remove an article of clothing when you lose a hand. In other words, you strip when you've completely run out of clothing to remove. It's up to you and your opponent to decide which articles of clothing are removed, and in what order. You can plan the order in which articles of clothing are removed, i.e. shirt, then pants, then undergarments. If you’re feeling trusting, you can let the winner choose what article of clothing the loser has to remove.
7
Play until someone has removed all of their clothing. Because only one article of clothing is removed per hand, this method of Strip War requires lots of time. It is guaranteed to be raunchy, however, because you play until someone is completely naked!

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Stripping after Losing a Tiebreaker

1
Set up as if you were playing a normal game of war. Shuffle the deck and deal each person 26 cards. Count your articles of clothing to ensure that you and your opponent are wearing the same number of items. With your stack of cards face down, begin playing by flipping a card. Whoever has the higher card takes both.
2
Go to “war” if you and your opponent play cards of the same rank. Anytime you put down equal cards, e.g. if you both put down Queens or both put down sevens, you have to play War to break the tie. You and your opponent both put down the next card in your stack face down, and the following card face up. Whoever has the higher face-up card takes all six cards that are now on the table.^{[5]
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- If the face-up cards are the same, play War again until someone has a higher card.
3
Remove an article of clothing if you lose a War tiebreaker.^{[6]
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Research source} You and your opponent can either plan which articles of clothing are removed in which order, or you can let the winner of the tiebreaker decide which article of clothing the loser must remove. If the first tiebreaker face-up cards match and there has to be a second tiebreaker, the loser has to remove two articles of clothing. The same goes for three consecutive tiebreakers, and so on.
4
Play until someone has won all of the cards in the deck. This goal of this version of Strip War is the same as regular War, and it takes less time than the first method of Strip War because only one game is played. Because you do not know how many tiebreakers you may have in a game, you may end up stripping off multiple articles of clothing or none at all. This may be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on how you look at it.

Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Playing with Multiple People

1
Shuffle and deal the cards evenly among the players. Because there are 52 cards in a deck, they can't always be perfectly divided among multiple players. Make sure that everyone is starting with the same number of cards, and put whatever spare cards to the side.^{[7]
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- If there are three players, everyone gets 17 cards and there is one spare. With four people, everyone gets 13 cards. With five people, everyone gets 10 and there are 2 spare cards.
2
Count the articles of clothing everyone is wearing. Everyone needs to be wearing the same amount of clothing in order to start off on an equal playing field. As a group, decide the order that clothes will come off.
3
Flip the top card over. Whoever has the highest card gets to keep every single card on the table. Additionally, the person to win the first play gets to take the spare cards, if there are any. With more people playing, the more cards you can win. There is also a higher chance of having to go into a War tiebreaker with multiple players.
4
Go to “war” if you and anyone else plays cards of the same rank. Everyone goes to War, not just the players with matching cards. Each player places a card face down, and the following card face up. Whoever has the highest face-up card takes all the cards in play.^{[8]
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- The losers of the tiebreaker all have to remove one article of clothing, either predetermined or chosen by the winner. Everyone other than the one winner of the tiebreaker ends up stripping.
5
Play until someone has won all of the cards in the deck. Odds are that there will be multiple tiebreakers needed with several cards being played at once. However, you may want to play multiple games so that you can guarantee everyone gets sufficiently nude!
- Players that run out of cards are removed from the game.