Let’s Talk About Stacking

Every so often we get a question about how to deal with Drug-Disorder stacks in Side Effects.

What we mean by stacks…

Here we have a Psyche with an Anxiety drug on an Anxiety card.

But look! This person is vulnerable to Depression and another player is about to give it to them…

Upon receiving the new Depression card, this player decides to STACK the card on top of the Anxiety drug…

This is "stacking"

This is not the way it works

In the rulebook, you’ll see that we kindly ask you to place the new card to the side of the rest, like this…

This allows you to see the other disorders you’re vulnerable to receiving from that same Anxiety drug. You’ll also find that other action cards (from expansion packs) will make more sense when your Psyche is positioned this way.

And of course, this is the correct way to play Hex Effects, as well.

It's wack to stack

Please, don’t stack. It's not permitted in the rules and it's not the optimal way to play the game. If you simply place new disorders to the side of the rest, everything will be wonderful in ‘Effects land!

Have you stacked in the past? Got questions about the rules?

Let us know in the comments!