What does "opposite dragon" mean on the card?
An opposite dragon is a Dragon that does not match the suit of the numbers beside it. Each Dragon pairs with one suit, Red with Crak, Green with Bam and Soap (White Dragon) with Dot, and the card shows an opposite dragon by printing it in a color that none of the line's number groups wear. If your numbers are Bams, an opposite dragon is Red or Soap, never Green.
Answered by Prim. Last reviewed 2026-09-20.
Every Dragon has a suit
Start with the pairing, because the phrase makes no sense without it. There are three Dragons and three suits, and each Dragon belongs to one of them: Red goes with Crak, Green goes with Bam, and Soap (White Dragon) goes with Dot. That pairing holds on every American card, every year. A Dragon sitting with its own suit is the matching dragon. A Dragon sitting with a suit that is not its own is the opposite dragon.
So opposite does not name one particular Dragon. It names a relationship. The same Green Dragon is matching beside Bams and opposite beside Craks or Dots. The one exception is a Soap serving as a zero, which takes no suit at all and plays no part in this.
How the card tells you
Colors on the card tell you how many suits a line takes and which groups share a suit, never which suit. Dragons are read through the same lens. A Dragon printed in the same color as a number group on the line is married to that group's suit, so it must be the matching dragon for whatever suit you choose. A Dragon printed in a color that no number group on the line wears is the opposite dragon: it must come from a suit you are not using for those numbers.
Picture a line with its numbers in one color and a Dragon in a second. Choose Craks for the numbers and the Dragon may be Green or Soap, whichever you hold, but not Red. Choose Dots and Soap is ruled out, leaving Red or Green. Between the two that remain, the choice is yours.
When the words overrule the colors
Words printed on the card say exactly what they say, and they outrank the colors. A note that reads Any Dragon means any of the three, whatever color it is printed in. The card's own phrase for the pairing is Matching Dragons, meaning the Dragon that belongs to the suit. We say matching dragon and opposite dragon to keep the two ideas apart, and we never use opposite for the matching pairing, because at the table the two words mean the reverse of each other.
Winds and Flowers take no part in any of this. They are printed in a color but belong to no suit, so they never tell you which Dragon a line wants.
The mistake to avoid
The usual error is reading a Dragon's printed color as its identity, as though a Dragon printed in red must be the Red Dragon. It need not be. The printed color only tells you which other groups the Dragon travels with. Read a line in order: the colors first, then the note beside the line, then the value and whether it is exposed or concealed, and only then the groups themselves. Read that way, an opposite dragon announces itself before you have looked at a single number.
Practice reading a line
Reading the colors before the numbers is what makes an opposite dragon obvious. Read the Card drills exactly that habit.
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