How to Win Cards Against Humanity

Co-authored by Eric McClure

Last Updated: April 22, 2020

Cards Against Humanity is a social card game where you use black cards with words and phrases on them to fill in blank spaces and answer the questions on white cards. To win, you need to convince the “Card Czar” that your black card was the funniest answer or way to complete the sentence. The Card Czar changes every round. To succeed, find clever ways to use boring answers. Hold your best cards as long as you can, and pay attention to what everyone else thinks is funny to customize your answers based on the Card Czar. Keep in mind that Cards Against Humanity can get offensive if you don’t find dark humor funny, so it’s not a great game to play with kids or people that you don’t know very well.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Finding Funny Combinations

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Combine mundane white cards with absurd questions. While some of the white cards are funny on their own, many of them are quite boring. Find goofy ways to use the boring cards in unexpected ways to strike a quick laugh and score with the less interesting cards in your hand.^{[1]
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- For example, “Magnets” isn’t particularly funny on its own, but if the black card is “What never fails to liven up the party?” everyone else is going to expect some crazy, over-the-top answer. You can steal rounds by playing an unexpected card this way.
- Another example might be using the card “Men” for the black card “MTV’s new reality show features eight celebrities living with ________,” which has some humorous undertones but is a clever way of using a boring white card.
Tip: The Card Czar is essentially a judge that looks at all the answers and selects a winner. The Card Czar changes every round, so knowing the Card Czar’s personality is essential to scoring every turn.
2
Go for the shock factor by finding gross or absurd combinations. A common way to get a good laugh out of the Card Czar is to create racy images in their mind. As you’re looking through your cards, find a way to create some risqué images with your white cards. This is often a popular way to try and make the Card Czar laugh, so it may not work out on every round if your opponents have better cards. Sometimes, simply being random is a good way to score depending on the Card Czar.^{[2]
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- For example, answering “What is Batman’s guilty pleasure?” with “Chunks of dead hitchhiker” is disgusting, but it is highly likely to get a laugh at the table.
- For cards that are designed to draw sexual answers, like “Why am I sticky?” sometimes it’s better to just be random. Go against the grain and play “Court-ordered rehab,” or “Classist undertones,” to create bizarre connections.
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3
Cycle through every card in your hand before selecting your answer. As soon as the black card is flipped over, read through every single white card in your hand to assess the best answer. Since there are so many funny combinations in Cards Against Humanity, it’s easy to find a good option in the top 2-3 cards. This doesn’t mean it’s your best chance at winning the round though!^{[3]
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- Categorize your hand based on the types of answers you’ve got. To make it easy to flip through your cards, it may help to group celebrities, food items, sexual answers, and complete sentences in separate parts of your hand.
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Look for cards that reframe one another in unique ways to win the “pick 2” cards. Some of the black cards have “pick 2” on the bottom because they have 2 different blanks in the prompt. For these cards, look for funny combinations in your white cards that reframe one another in a macabre or ridiculous way.^{[4]
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- For example, “Silence” and “A mime having a stroke” are a funny combination because mimes don’t make noise and the image of a mime dying silently is funny in a dark sort of way.
- Another example may be, “Geese” and “Fancy ducks,” which is funny because it conjures the image of geese walking around ducks like a bunch of snobbish birds.

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Applying Common Strategies

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Hold on to your best white card until an extremely funny prompt comes along. To optimize your odds of winning the game, it may help to hold your best white card until an outrageous black card comes along. With hilarious black cards, everyone else at the table will play their best card, but they’ve likely played most of their strong cards over the course of the past couple of rounds. Holding your best option as long as you can means that you’ll have the best card at the table when everyone else has already played their stronger cards.
- A good way to tell if a black card is going to draw the best white cards out of everyone’s hand is if everyone laughs when the black card is flipped over.
- Killer white cards tend to be funny on their own because they conjure specific ideas and images. Examples include “A windmill full of corpses,” “Women in yogurt commercials,” and “The Tempur-Pedic Swedish Sleep System.”
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Burn your worst white card on a round you know you can’t win. If a black card gets flipped over and you don’t have a good card that aligns with the prompt, simply throw out your worst card. All answers are not created equal, and if a card just doesn’t seem very funny, you’re never going to win with it. If a card has been in your hand for the entire game, it may also be a sign that it simply isn’t a winner.
- The “dad joke” cards tend to not be very popular unless you’re playing with an older crowd. Cards like “Barack Obama,” “Consultants,” and “Growing a pair” tend to draw an eye roll from most players.
Tip: The over-the-top gross cards might seem like they’re great, but unless you’re playing with a younger group, they probably won’t do very well. Examples include “Boobs,” “Flying sex snakes,” and “The Blood of Christ.”
3
Avoid offensive answers unless they’re a hit with the Card Czar. While being rude or offensive may work every once in a while, for most people it’s just going to make them roll their eyes. The Card Czar may even simply be ashamed to admit that they think it’s funny. Sometimes this will be unavoidable though. There’s no funny way to use the card that reads “Auschwitz,” for example, without being offensive.^{[5]
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- There are usually better ways to use offensive answers anyway, since they can be used to create certain unexpected answers. For example, “The Holy Bible” is a great answer for “Coming to Broadway this season, ________: The Musical.”
4
Use the celebrity cards in unexpected ways to avoid cliché answers. Many of the cards in Cards Against Humanity reference actual musicians, presidents, and actors. These cards often get used in obvious ways, so play them on apolitical or unassuming black cards to get an unexpected laugh. If0 the answer fits too perfectly, it usually doesn’t win, and these celebrity cards fit too cleanly into a lot of obvious prompts.^{[6]
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- For example, “Barack Obama” is an obvious answer for “What’s George W. Bush thinking about right now?” and isn’t likely to win the round. It’s a clever and random answer for something like “What helps Obama unwind?” though.
- There are lots of expansion packs for Cards Against Humanity, and some of them reference obscure musicians or politicians. If you don’t know the celebrity on your card, treat it like the worst card in your hand and burn it when you don’t think you’ll win a round.

Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Reading the Room

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Pay attention to how other players react to your answers. If you’ve been relying largely on political humor and you aren’t getting a ton of laughs, switch your strategy. Since everyone at the table takes turns as the Card Czar, it helps to have a good gauge for what everyone at the table finds humorous. Hold on to certain cards that fit another player’s sense of humor to use them when they’ll be most effective.^{[7]
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- For example, if another player responds strongly to dark humor, hold on to “Kamikaze pilots” or “Teenage pregnancy” until it’s their turn.
2
Identify the type of answers that get frequently used to stand out. Different types of people have different senses of humor. If you’re playing with a group that loves playing offensive answers, playing offensive answers yourself makes it hard to stand out. You have a better chance of winning each round if you can find other ways of making the players at the table laugh.^{[8]
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- The odds are high that there will be multiple answers that get a laugh for every round. A clever laugh almost always beats an obvious laugh though.
3
Customize your answers based on the Card Czar’s personality. When the player that loves sex jokes is up to judge, play your most sexual card. If the reserved player that hates sex jokes is judging, stay away from the risqué answers. Customizing your responses based on the judge is a good way to consistently score.^{[9]
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- Be sensitive to serious events in the Card Czar’s personal history. For example, if their father died of cancer, playing an answer like “Terminally ill” or “Your dad” isn’t going to go over well.
Tip: Most players play the card that they personally find funny. Being able to tune out your own sense of humor and consider the Czar’s personality is a good way to score points.

Warnings

Cards Against Humanity can get offensive and dirty. Be careful about pulling it out at a party and playing with people you don’t know very well. It’s not a game for everyone and you may end up alienating people.

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