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Picking

Drawing a tile from the wall on your turn — the primary way to add tiles to your hand.

Definition

Picking (also called drawing) is the act of taking the next available tile from the wall at the start of your turn. After picking, you add the tile to your hand, decide if it helps your strategy, and then discard one tile you don't need. Picking is the standard way play progresses around the table.

How It Works in Gameplay

On each turn, you pick one tile from the wall (unless you called a discard from another player, which replaces your pick). You briefly assess whether the new tile fits your target hand on the NMJL card. If it does, great — swap out a less useful tile as your discard. If it doesn't, you can discard it immediately. The rhythm of pick-and-discard drives the pace of the game. As the wall shrinks, each pick becomes more consequential because fewer tiles remain.

Example

It's your turn. You reach to the wall and pick a 5 Bam. You're building a hand that needs 5 Bams — perfect. You slot it into your rack alongside your other Bams and discard a Flower you've been holding. Play passes to the next player.

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