How to Play Azul: Drafting Tiles, Wall Scoring, and Penalties

Azul, designed by Michael Kiesling, is a game about picking colored tiles and arranging them on a wall. Its publisher, Next Move Games, lists it for 2 to 4 players, ages 8 and up, at 30 to 45 minutes, and notes that it won the Spiel des Jahres in 2018. Drafting takes a minute to learn; scoring is where new players need help.

Everything below comes from the official English rulebook.

1. What is in the box

The product page lists 100 resin tiles, 4 player boards, 9 Factory displays, 4 scoring markers, 1 starting player marker, a linen bag, and the rulebook. The 100 tiles are 20 of each of 5 colors.

Each player board has three working areas:

• Pattern lines on the left: five rows that hold 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 tiles.
• The wall on the right: a 5 by 5 grid where tiles score.
• The floor line along the bottom: where unwanted tiles land and cost points.

2. Setup by player count

The number of Factory displays depends on the number of players, and each display gets exactly 4 tiles drawn from the bag.

Players	Factory displays	Tiles drawn per round
2	5	20
3	7	28
4	9	36

Use the colored side of the player boards, and everyone uses the same side. The rulebook's tiebreak for starting player is a fun one: whoever most recently visited Portugal.

3. Phase A: taking tiles

On your turn, you must do one of these:

1. Pick all tiles of one color from one Factory display, then push the rest of that display's tiles into the center of the table.
2. Pick all tiles of one color from the center. If you are the first player this round to take from the center, you also take the starting player marker and put it on your floor line.

Then place the tiles in one pattern line, filling from right to left:

• A pattern line can only hold one color.
• You cannot add a color to a pattern line if that row of your wall already has that color.
• Any tiles that do not fit go to your floor line.

The phase ends when every display and the center are empty.

4. Phase B: tiling the wall

All players do this at the same time. Go through your pattern lines from top to bottom:

1. For each complete pattern line, move its rightmost tile to the matching color space in the same row of your wall, and score it immediately.
2. Remove the remaining tiles from that complete line and put them in the box lid.
3. Incomplete pattern lines stay exactly as they are for the next round.

5. How a wall tile scores

This is the heart of Azul.

• If the new tile has no neighbors above, below, left, or right, it scores 1 point.
• If it has neighbors, count the horizontal run it is part of, including itself, and score that many points.
• Then count the vertical run it is part of, including itself, and add that too.

The rulebook's examples: a tile that completes a horizontal run of 3 scores 3; a tile that joins a vertical run of 3 scores 3; and a tile that sits in a horizontal run of 4 and a vertical run of 3 scores 4 + 3, or 7 points.

So place tiles next to existing ones; a lone tile is worth only 1.

6. The floor line penalty

At the end of the wall-tiling phase, each tile on your floor line costs the number printed above its space. On the standard board those penalties are 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, and 3.

Tiles on floor line	Total points lost
1	1
2	2
3	4
4	6
5	8
6	11
7	14

The rulebook's example matches the table: 4 tiles plus the starting player marker cost 8 points. The starting player marker counts as a tile, but instead of going to the lid it stays in front of you, because you start the next round. Your score can never drop below 0. If all seven spaces are already full, any further fallen tiles go straight to the box lid.

7. Phase C: the next round

If nobody has completed a horizontal row of 5 on their wall, the player with the starting player marker refills every display with 4 tiles. When the bag runs out, refill it from the lid.

8. How the game ends

The game ends after the wall-tiling phase in which at least one player completes a horizontal row of 5 tiles. Then everyone adds end-game bonuses:

Goal	Bonus
Each complete horizontal row	2 points
Each complete vertical column	7 points
Each color with all 5 tiles on your wall	10 points

Worked example. A player who ends with 1 complete row, 2 complete columns, and all 5 tiles of one color adds 2 + 14 + 10, or 26 bonus points.

The highest score wins. Ties go to the player with more complete horizontal rows; if still tied, the victory is shared.

9. Common mistakes

• Taking only some tiles of a color. You must take all of that color from the display or center.
• Forgetting the penalty for the center. The first player into the center takes the marker and loses at least 1 point.
• Scoring incomplete pattern lines. Only full lines move a tile to the wall.

10. Key takeaways

• Each round, take all tiles of one color from a display or the center, and place them in a single pattern line.
• Only complete pattern lines move one tile to the wall, where it scores immediately.
• A wall tile scores its horizontal run plus its vertical run, or 1 point if it has no neighbors.
• Floor line penalties run 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, so a full floor costs 14 points.
• The game ends after any player completes a row; rows add 2, columns 7, and complete colors 10.