The Emperor's Suit

The Emperor's Suit is a trick-taking game played with a standard 52-card deck. Each hand the deck is dealt into a hand for each player plus an extra hand plus an extra hand; each player in turn has the option of trading their hand for the extra one. If anyone does this points for the round are doubled. Card play is must-follow, but when someone cannot follow their suit becomes trump and also becomes the suit to follow. The trick winner is the player who played the highest card in the last-played suit. Won tricks must be stored with the lead card on top. At the end of the hand a single-suited trick scores nothing; any other trick scores the number of cards in the lead suit multiplied by the number of suits. A player taking no tricks scores 12. After a number of hands equal to the number of players the player with the lowest score wins.