Blind Ranking

Ten artists, revealed one at a time, drawn at random from a pool of 181 across seven genres. Each one goes into a slot from 1 to 10 before you see the next, and a filled slot stays filled. Play as many rounds as you like. Nothing is recorded and nothing is scored.

It is the same mechanic as Daily Blind Ranking, minus the daily limit and the crowd comparison. This is the version for a room with an argument in it.

Why the reveal order ruins everything

Ranking ten artists you can see is a sorting problem and it is not very interesting. Ranking them one at a time is a betting problem, and it is.

Every placement is a bet on what has not arrived yet. Slot an act at 2 and you are claiming that at most one of the nine unseen artists beats them. When artist eight turns out to be someone you would have put first, your list stops being your opinion and becomes a record of when you learned things. That is the entire appeal, and it is also why finished lists are worth showing people.

Playing it with other people

• Everyone ranks the same ten, then compare. Pass one phone round, or have everyone open the page and call the artists out loud so the reveal stays synchronised. The disagreements are the point.
• Agree what you are ranking first. Best discography, biggest influence, most played in this room. All three produce different lists and the argument afterwards is much better when nobody can retreat into “I meant a different thing”.
• Defend slot 10. Making someone justify their last place is reliably funnier than making them justify their first.

Tactics, such as they are

Fill the middle early. Slots 4 to 7 cost little and are painful to still hold at the end. Keep 1 and 10 back as long as you sensibly can, because those are the two that look worst when the wrong name turns up late.

Beyond that there is not much technique available, which is deliberate. The game is built to make you commit without enough information and then live with it.