The 7-Player Beginner Deck — Roles and Rules
What trips up werewolf beginners first is not the rules — it's not knowing what to say when their turn comes.
When you're new
- Your speech doesn't land
- You can't follow what others are arguing
- Someone criticizes your play
- You get voted out on day one
So MAFIA ships a standard deck built so that speech and reasoning still work when everyone at the table is new.
The lineup
| Role | Count | Faction |
|---|---|---|
| Twins | 2 | Village |
| Delegator | 1 | Village |
| Knight | 1 | Village |
| Seer | 1 | Village |
| Werewolf | 2 | Werewolf |
7 players total (village 5 : werewolves 2). Every seat has a role — there is no plain villager.
What makes this deck beginner-friendly
Even when your own reads stall, you can cooperate. Every role here has a useful move for its side from day one.
- The Twins know each other from the start — a partner who is confirmed friendly — and share a night chat, so "I don't know what to say" never quite happens.
- The Delegator can hand their vote to someone else. Low confidence still participates — "I'll trust this player" is a real move, and it is not the same as abstaining.
- The Knight and the Seer are the classics with a clear nightly job from night two (on night one, the Seer is automatically told one player who is not a Werewolf).
- The Werewolves are two. A lone wolf has nobody to consult — the harshest seat in the game for a beginner — so this deck never deals it.
And the only seats that can talk on night one are the Twins and the Werewolves. The seat that truly freezes on night one is the plain villager's — which is exactly why this deck doesn't have one.
How each role plays
Twins (×2)
You know who your partner is, and at night you share a Twins-only chat.
One rule matters above all: when one Twin dies — executed or attacked — the other follows. They are one unit in two seats: bite one Twin and the village loses two players at once.
How heavy is that, concretely —
| Board | State |
|---|---|
| 7 alive (start) | Play on |
| Twins fall — 5 alive | Still on (village 3 : wolves 2) |
| One more villager bitten — 4 alive | Werewolves win |
In effect: the night after the Twins fall, a missed guard ends the game. While the Twins live the village leans ahead (see below); the moment they drop, the slack is gone. Knight — that is the night to cover.
In exchange, while you live you stand on the strongest footing in the game: one player you can trust absolutely. That footing is why we deal beginners the Twins — werewolf is hard because nobody's words can be trusted, and the Twins are excused from the worst of it, right at the start.
Delegator (×1)
In the day vote, you entrust your one vote to another player (your trustee). Your vote is added to whatever they vote.
- If your trustee abstains, you abstain too.
- You cannot delegate to yourself.
- If no valid trustee exists (a runoff can shrink the choices), your vote becomes a normal one.
No night action. Nothing to do at night — and a guaranteed part in the day's biggest moment.
Knight (×1)
Each night, guard one player from the werewolves' attack. You cannot guard yourself.
Seer (×1)
Each night, check one player: 'Werewolf' — or not.
Werewolves (×2)
Each night, choose one player to attack. The wolves know each other and share a night-only chat.
Why zero plain villagers
Opinions split here, so let's state the reason plainly.
Instead of a plain villager, every seat in this deck carries its own rules — so the variety of things the table must learn is actually at its maximum. The Twins and the Delegator in particular are rare outside MAFIA.
We chose it anyway, because "nobody's hands stay idle" beats "less to memorize". A table with one plain villager has less to learn — but if that one player goes quiet, their first game is simply over. Role rules can be read in-game; having nobody to talk to can't be fixed by reading.
The village leaning ahead is also on purpose
Five village against two wolves — with a Seer, a Knight, and both Twins. This is a village-favored lineup.
An unfair loss in your very first game converts straight into "never again". So the first table tilts toward the side where new players can find the winning line. Once the group is used to it, move on to lineups where the wolves have room to play.
How hard the wolf seats land on beginners is something we'll keep tuning from real games.
How to pick it
In the room-creation settings, open 'Choose Deck Preset' and pick '7P Beginner Room'. That's all.
Capacity is derived from the role total automatically (7 for this lineup) — there's no separate player-count field. The game starts when the room is full.
To edit the lineup yourself, choose 'Custom (Free Selection)' and set each role's count.
The next step: the 6P Knight Room
Comfortable with this deck? The next step is the '6P Knight Room' (Villager 2, Knight 1, Seer 1, Werewolf 2). One seat fewer — and the plain villager enters the game.
What do you say from a seat that holds nothing? That is werewolf's real question. The 6P Knight Room is the shortest road into it, with the Twins-and-Delegator scaffolding removed.