Mancala Avalanche - Chain Your Sowing Across the Board in the Avalanche Rules

Mancala Avalanche Online

Mancala Avalanche is the version of mancala where a single move can sweep around the board again and again. You play it on the usual wooden board, 6 pits a side with 4 stones in each, against a friend by invite link or against the computer. When your last stone lands in a pit that already has stones, you scoop all of them up and keep sowing. There are no captures at all, so the game is about chains: the player who builds the longest ones fills their store first.

The mode is best known from the iMessage game pack, where many people first meet it next to the classic rules. On Foony you pick Avalanche from the Rules list when you create a room, or pick its card in the Play Bots window.

How Avalanche Mode Works

On your turn, choose one of your pits with stones in it. Its stones are dropped one at a time into the next pits, counterclockwise. You drop one into your own store as you pass it and skip your opponent's store. Where the last stone lands decides what happens next:

• A pit that already had stones: pick up everything in that pit, including the stone you just dropped, and keep sowing from there. This can happen on either side of the board.
• Your own store: you get another turn and can pick any of your pits.
• An empty pit: your turn is over.

The game ends when one side has no stones left in its pits. Each player then keeps the stones on their own side, and the bigger store wins. The host can change that to give every leftover stone to the player who ran out.

Long chains are hard to follow on a real board, where stones get dropped in the wrong pit. Here every stone moves on its own and every pit shows its count, so you can watch a chain loop round the board and see exactly where it stops.

Mancala Avalanche vs Capture

Capture mode is the classic game. A move there sows once and stops, and you take stones from your opponent by ending in an empty pit on your side across from a pile. Avalanche throws that out. Nobody captures anything, but a move that would end a Capture turn early can keep going for a dozen pits or more.

That changes how you plan. In Capture you mostly count one move ahead and guard the pits across from your empty ones. In Avalanche you look for the pile that sends your last stone into another pile, and the one after that, until a stone lands in your store or an empty pit. Your opponent can't take stones away, so stones you leave on your side are safe until the end.

Why Going First Matters in Avalanche

The first turn in Avalanche is powerful. From the normal start, a perfect first turn can chain extra turns until 43 of the 48 stones sit in the first player's store, and the second player never really gets to play. Most people never find that line, but some learn it by heart.

Two things keep Foony's games fair. Turn on Random Start in the room settings and the stones start spread at random, the same on both sides, so no memorized opening works. And the computer opponents in Avalanche look at most two moves ahead, so a bot that moves first takes a good lead but leaves you plenty of game to win back. When you play a friend, take turns going first.

Avalanche Strategy

• Look for pits whose last stone lands in another pile. That's the start of every chain. A pit whose last stone hits an empty pit ends your turn on the spot.
• Finish chains in your store. An exact count into your store gives you a fresh turn. Use it to start the next chain from the best pit you have.
• Don't feed your opponent's chains. Stones you drop on their side make their piles bigger and their chains longer. When you can, end your turn on your own side.
• Count the end. Near the finish, check which side will run out first and what that means for the leftover stones under the room's rule.

Play Avalanche with Friends or the Computer

Create a room with the Avalanche rules and share the link, or press Play Bots to practice against Beginner, Easy, Normal, Hard, or Expert. Avalanche has its own achievement, Rockslide: win a game on the usual board in which one of your moves picked stones up 18 or more times. For the classic rules and the other three rule sets, see Mancala online.