Survival Playing Cards

How can survival playing cards save lives? Prepper, what is the most important thing during hard times? Right! Maintain hope and high morale. That’s why a card game is your first aid tool in the field or during mountaineering. It’s essential to know how to perform survival skills — make knots, store food, gain water. But often, wilderness and hardships can increase tension. Playing cards will relieve stress and bring lots of positive energy. Learn about the best survival deck of cards from our article, and remember to keep it in your bug out bag.

Today we are going to discuss the ways how to entertain yourself when you are camping. Of course, you might think that backpacking is actually quite a serious event, and people are usually not up to play games—they have to think of important things, like how to provide the first aid and which items to take. Of course, you are right… But not exactly.

You see, having games or other relaxation practices is important for keeping morale high. In some situations, survival may put appreciable pressure on the shoulders of the prepper and his soul. This activity might become dangerous, might become scary, and here is one of my survival tips—find something to amuse yourself and your team.

For sure, wilderness survival skills, experience, and first aid kit are essential, but, please, think of having survival playing cards in your bag—they are more useful than you might think.

Now you can ask me a reasonable question—are you sure we have enough place and “free weight” in the survival kit to carry your playing cards? Well, yes, you do. At least you do have enough place for one deck of playing cards. I know that many of you prefer ultralight backpacking. I am this kind of person as well. And when constructing a bug out bag, I always care about its weight. And yet, I cannot leave my house without having at least one survival game in the bag.

There are numerous camping games for you to choose from, and there are as many reviews of them as there are games. Many of these products require no equipment at all. Survival playing cards are my personal number #1, as they are light and multi-functional.

I believe you have a question: “How are playing cards multi-functional?”. I will answer: besides such obvious games as poker or gin rummy, you can also do other things with them. For example, use your deck to build a card house. Or, learn some basic card “magic” tricks to surprise the audience. The choice is yours!

But, of course, I don’t pick the first deck of playing cards I see. Like a professional survivalist, I choose those which can serve several purposes—that is why I have informational cards and playing cards.

Let me now show you a list of my favorite survival playing cards.

Here you can get a free copy of our Ultimate Survival Gear Checklist.

Survival Playing Cards

There is a huge variety of decks, and you can choose any of these products. Perhaps, some of them will even become your favorites. I do have some favorites as well, and they all are so great that sometimes it takes some time for me to pick one and put it in my bag.

Urban Surviving

You might be a huge fan of survival and know multiple survival tips, but when an emergency situation happens, you will probably be in the urban area.

This is the reason for you to obtain the Urban Survival Playing Cards.

There is no secret why they are called like that—their purpose is to help with urban survival. This deck contains details on how to use the superglue from your suture kit or how to purify the water. It can also help you answer the question, “how to preserve the food in case you run out of electric power?”

As for its characteristics, the Urban Survival Deck has a weight of 111 grams and a size of 20 mm (the size here refers to deck thickness).

In other words, this card game is a suitable and useful deck of cards you should keep in your bug out bag.

Card Game For Mountain Tourism

This deck of cards will be useful for those who are active mountain tourists or those who are interested in this topic and want to be prepared for any survival situation. It is called Freedom of the Hills, and it will help you learn more about how to help yourself or your family members in the high mountains.

I was really surprised when I found out that this product by The Mountaineers is based on a great book, Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills. I strongly recommend this book for those who are for now just beginners in backpacking.

This deck of cards is slightly thicker than the previous one – 25 mm in comparison to 20 mm. That is why it is 5 grams heavier than the Urban Surviving Deck – its weight is about 116 grams. But don’t worry – it is worth the weight because it contains numerous survival tips for those who are stuck in the mountains. For example, it has a survival tip for those who don’t know how to build an emergency snow shelter. Another playing card will tell you how to perform avalanche rescue.

You will also find info on water or food stockpiling for survival. A quarter of the deck has no details about shelters, but it can tell you about the best survival aid tips for mountain tourists.

Yes, these playings cards are quite heavy, especially in comparison to the Discover Wilderness Survival cards, which I will tell you about in the next section. But, they are highly useful!

Playing Cards For Wilderness Survival

When it comes to wilderness survival, hardly will you find a more informative product to keep in the bug out bag than this deck. Called Discover Wilderness Survival, it has as much info as can be placed on a card. Can you name any card games that are as substantive as a book can be? Well, here is the answer to this question!

Although it does have some disadvantages, like a small font or little amount of illustrations (just three: useful knots, animal tracks, Morse codes), all of these can be covered by its weight (only 98 grams) and size (the deck is 19 mm thick) and the info it contains.

This product will teach you how to deal with various natural disasters (like a forest fire, for instance), how to find food and water, how to build a shelter.

Every person, who considers himself to be a survivalist, should obtain this deck!

A “Decisions & Consequences” Card Game

The next product called Conflicted: The Survival Card Game, is my favorite. It is not that much devoted to the survival tips (I would even say it is not about it at all). Hardly will this deck help you with snake bites—after reading what is written on the cards, your first aid skills will most likely remain on the previous level. And yet, you should add this high-quality product to your go-bag.

Why are these cards so unique? Because they will help you learn more about your and your friends’ “morals and ethics.” Some brief product info: the cards will put you in some debatable situation, where you will have to make a difficult choice and face the consequences. Every person in the company has the right to express his opinion and after that everyone votes for the best decision.

One of the cards states the following conditions:

The world collapsed. Food and water are in a lack. But you have prepared some reserve to survive. And once you find out that several kids from the orphanage are stealing from you. You have a choice: either to help them with food and continue helping (become, in some sense, their new parent), but then you will quickly run out of products, and you don’t know where to get more. Or, you can get rid of these kids, which means they will probably die. What would you choose?

You can stick to the original rules, but you don’t have to. You can use it as a conversation starter—no need to vote.

Anyway, this is one of the best items I have ever met. It helped me a lot to get to know my family and my friends, and I managed to learn more about their characters and personalities. That is why I recommend you add it to the cart when choosing the card game for yourself.

Besides, the “Conflicted” is pretty thin and low-weighted, having a 17 mm-thick and 92 grams-weight deck.

For Identifying Edible Plants

The last deck of cards I intend to tell you about today is Wild Cards: Edible Wild Foods. This product explores the relationship “man vs. wild plants.” It will be highly useful if you don’t know much about plants—which of them are “eatable” and which are dangerous. The cards are full of information about wild edibles in North America.

This is what they look like:

Briefly, every card contains a short “review” on the separate plant. Many of them you can actually meet next to your house (like mallow or thistle, for example). The picture of the plant is placed on the backside of the card. Flip it, and you will get a description of the edible you’ve just seen.

I have no questions about the quality of the information provided on the cards—it is helpful and precise. But, if we talk about the “playability” of these cards—there are some doubts. The reason is that All the backsides of the cards are “marked” with a unique plant, which means that if you spend a lot of time playing this deck, you will probably remember them. I mean that the Queen of Hearts is “chickweed,” for instance.

And yet, this deck is a wonder in the world of surviving. It develops self-reliance in the food, which is of high importance when you lack the real products.

You, as a potential customer, will most likely benefit from adding this deck to your cart. This unique card product reviews plenty of edible plants to keep you safe from death from starvation. Besides, this is the lightest deck of all items I discussed today—its weight is 91 grams and thickness is equal to 17 mm.

Become a Real Prepper — Go Get It

Here we are—I provided you with the 5 best survival playing cards. I, personally, tried all of those mentioned above. I have the most favorites, and I have the least favorites. But still—all of these items are the ones you definitely should get!

I strongly recommend you putting such a deck in your go-bag. There are multiple ways to use these cards—they are multi-functional. You will not only manage to learn more about people around you but also make your brain work, make it think, make it solve problems. And, you will get useful advice on how to help a person when he got hurt, or which plants to use for “the dinner.”

All these decks are not that thick and heavy to displace all the other items you have in your bag. And you definitely should add them to your go-bag essentials list. I would even suggest you put a deck in your bug out bag (just in case!).

You, as a customer, have to add at least a couple of these decks to your next list of online orders. Check more reviews, make your research, but these products must appear in your cart for sure!

FAQ

Why do I need survival cards?

Such sort of cards can serve two main functions: entertainment and knowledge. Most reviews will tell you so. These products are used to play games, to show tricks, and so on. But, besides, you can also learn many new things connected to survival: how to find or build a shelter, where to get food and water, and many more helpful things.

Are survival cards biodegradable?

In general, it depends on the material of the playing cards. But the majority of them are biodegradable and recyclable. Sometimes you might need to separate a plastic basis of the cards to enhance recyclability.

What are the best survival playing cards?

Tastes differ. My favorite playing deck is “Conflicted” because it has psychological motives. It is always interesting to track the flow of thoughts of your relatives and friends when they try to make a decision. But, overall, you should always choose cards that can serve at least two purposes—”playability,” when you can actually play games or show tricks, and “knowledgeability,” when the cards can help you, give advice in a survival situation.

Where do I buy the best survival playing cards?

There are two main ways to get survival playing cards. The first one is old-fashioned: you can check the shop selves and try to get a deck you want. Or, you can buy them online—I prefer this way better because the variety of cards you can notice on the sites is more diverse. I included several links, which you can follow to get your own survival playing cards.

What do I need to know to make DIY survival playing cards?

Of course, you can create your own, personal, exclusive deck of cards. But will it be worth it? You will require a lot of free time, materials, and the Internet to check for survival advice. It will be much more beneficial to buy a survival playing deck online. Check the links above to make sure I was right.