Rainbow rewards patience far more than its flexible tableau suggests.
Being allowed to build down in any suit creates options, but the stock only passes once. The result is a variant where every small decision has a clock attached: use the current card now, or accept that you may never see that opportunity again.
Last updated: May 2026
History and background
Rainbow is another Canfield-family variant on Solitaire.City, built by changing the two systems that most strongly shape Canfield difficulty: stock access and tableau building. Standard Canfield gives you draw-three stock and unlimited redeals, but Rainbow changes that to draw one with no recycling at all. At the same time, it relaxes the tableau so cards can build downward in any suit with wraparound.
Those changes pull in opposite directions. Any-suit building makes the board more forgiving in the short term because many cards have more possible homes. The single-pass stock makes the game harsher in the long term because every unplayed waste card becomes permanent history. Rainbow wins tend to come from players who use the flexible tableau to create immediate action rather than treating it as license to improvise indefinitely.
How the game is set up
The layout keeps the broad Canfield frame while replacing its stock rhythm:
- Reserve. Thirteen cards form a reserve pile, with only the top card available for play.
- Foundations. One dealt card establishes a shared base rank, and each suit builds upward from that rank with wraparound.
- Tableau. Four tableau columns build downward in any suit with wraparound, and individual cards or sequences may be moved.
- Stock and waste. The stock is drawn one card at a time. There are no redeals, so the waste is a one-way stream, not a recyclable resource.
- Goal. Move all 52 cards to the four suit foundations.
The main puzzle is timing each draw against the reserve
Rainbow is easiest to understand if you stop thinking of the stock as a source of help and start thinking of it as a schedule. Each waste card arrives once. If the tableau and reserve are not ready for it, the card leaves no matter how useful it might have been in some later state. That means the purpose of your tableau moves is not just to create immediate placements; it is to prepare the board for the cards still to come.
The reserve is what keeps this from becoming pure waste management. The more quickly you expose reserve cards, the more often a new waste card arrives to a board that can do something with it. If the reserve stays buried, the waste stream starts overtaking your ability to respond. Rainbow rewards players who convert tableau flexibility into reserve access before the single pass slips away.
In Rainbow, drawing is not neutral. Every click spends one future possibility, so draw only after you have asked the current board to do everything it can.
Strategic priorities in order
- Make every no-draw move before touching the stock. Foundation plays, reserve plays, and useful tableau transfers all deserve review before the next waste card appears.
- Feed the reserve continuously. Opening reserve cards turns hidden information into options and reduces the chance that a later waste card arrives to a locked board.
- Use any-suit building with purpose. Its best use is opening a route to a foundation or reserve card, not building long mixed sequences that you will have to dismantle later.
- Preserve a short receiving column. Four columns are roomier than Chameleon, but Rainbow still punishes players who let every stack become deep and inflexible.
- Watch the shared base-rank cycle. The earliest needed ranks after the base determine which cards are urgent. When one of them appears on reserve or waste, act if you can.
Decision walkthroughs
A legal waste play that buries your only short column
The waste top card fits on a tableau column, but playing it would turn your only short receiving pile into another deep mixed stack.
If the move does not immediately expose reserve progress or foundation progress, skip it. A wasted opportunity hurts, but losing your last flexible column can hurt more, especially when the next few waste cards need somewhere safe to land.
A reserve card and a waste card both move
You can either move the reserve top card now or play the current waste card to the tableau. Both are legal, but only one move can happen first.
Prefer the reserve unless the waste card itself is a next-needed foundation rank. The reserve move changes the board permanently by revealing a new card. The waste move may just postpone a choice while keeping the reserve blocked.
An apparent dead waste card
The waste top card seems unusable. Before drawing again, you notice a small tableau transfer that would create exactly one legal destination for it.
Make the transfer first. Rainbow rewards this kind of one-step preparation more than almost any Canfield variant, because you are not trying to set up a future stock pass; you are trying to rescue the one card already in front of you.
Common mistakes
- Clicking through the stock for information. In Rainbow, information gathering and resource spending are the same action.
- Building mixed columns without a plan to unwind them. Any-suit freedom is powerful, but tangled columns can still trap the exact rank you need next.
- Neglecting the reserve. Waste decisions matter most when they interact with reserve access. If the reserve is not moving, the board is usually falling behind.
- Assuming a missed card can be recovered later. That instinct comes from Klondike and Canfield; Rainbow does not forgive it.
Recognizing a losing position early
Rainbow usually becomes unwinnable in the middle game, not at the very end. The warning signs are clear if you look for them:
- The reserve has barely moved while the waste has advanced deep into the stock, leaving too many useful cards permanently behind you.
- Your tableau is full of mixed stacks, and none of the next-needed foundation cards can be reached without dismantling the only columns that still accept waste cards.
- The last few draws have all required hope rather than preparation. That usually means the board is no longer controlling the pace of the stock.
When that happens, rewind to the last point where you chose between a reserve-opening line and a tidier tableau line. Rainbow very often rewards the messier choice if it kept the reserve and waste interacting productively for longer.