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I would like to identify the name of a certain gameplay mechanism. It is fairly commonly seen but probably best illustrated with card games:

A game played with a pack of cards usually has card values ordered in the following way: A>K>Q>J>10>9>8>7>6>5>4>3>2.

Sometimes the lowest-ranked card (in this case 2) is specially ruled to trump the highest-ranked card (in this case A), is there a proper name for such a mechanism?

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2 Answers

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It sounds like you are describing an extension of the rock-paper-scissors mechanic whereby every piece/card/token can defeat at least one other piece/card/token.

(Your question made me think of Stratego, and specifically of the few pieces like the low-ranked Spy who can defeat the otherwise-top-ranked Marshal and the Miner who can defuse bombs.)

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yes, I believe you described something similiar as featured in Stratego, but I did not consider what I had in mind as an extension of that (rock-paper-scissors). An interesting perspective however. – prusswan Jul 26 '11 at 16:07
"Exception" might be the word you're looking for; I'm not aware of any game-specific term that describes this particular situation. – Bill Jul 26 '11 at 23:17
up vote 3 down vote

It may be that it really is just referred to as trumping, and that the mechanism would simply be "having a trump", or trump rule variation as AttackingHobo suggested.

This Wikipedia article discusses the idea, but it seems to usually refer to suit trumping.

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"Trump" usually refers to a card that beats everything that is not that card - So 2 is not a trump in the proposed rule of "A>K>Q>J>10>9>8>7>6>5>4>3 and K>Q>J>10>9>8>7>6>5>4>3>2 and 2>A". – Joe Wreschnig Jul 26 '11 at 19:11

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