The best hands, the tiles that run the board, and how to play the pivots. Built to read on your phone.
If you remember one thing about this card, make it this.
It's a "6-and-Flower card."
The 6 tile and Flowers are the most useful tiles on the whole card, and 2+6 is the single strongest number pairing. Quints came back after a year away, the Winds shrank to NS and EW pairs, and the easiest hands to finish live in 2468 and Consecutive Run. The biggest score is the closed Singles & Pairs "Big Hand" at C75.
These are counts of how often a tile or hand appears, not win rates. No 2026 win-rate data has been published yet.
Every section of the 2026 card. F is a Flower, D is a Dragon, NEWS are the four winds.
How often each tile is used across every playable hand. The 6 is in a league of its own; the winds barely register.
Counts from Eight Bam (April 2026); Katie Poulsen's independent count agrees. These show how often a tile could appear, not how often it is drawn or wins.
Where to aim when you want to finish, and what to leave alone unless your tiles point there.
2468 and Consecutive Run. Both let you expose tiles and take jokers in every group, with 1- and 2-suit versions that need fewer specific tiles. Consecutive Run #4 alone has 54 ways to make it.
Any Like Numbers #1 (Flowers don't fight opponents for tiles) and 2026 #1, which takes jokers everywhere.
Singles & Pairs (all closed, no jokers, build it yourself), tight three-suit 369 hands, and Winds-Dragons hands locked to specific winds. Quints are all-or-nothing without early jokers.
Singles & Pairs #6 (C75) is the top payout, but don't force it. Quints #1 still takes jokers everywhere, and 2468 #7 is the easiest path to 30 points.
Point value doesn't track difficulty. Flexible 25-pointers finish far more often than rarer hands worth the same.
Charleston choices, jokers, and the pivots that turn a stuck hand into a winning one.
If you played last year's card, these are the habits to unlearn.
| Element | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Quints | gone | back; jokers matter more |
| Year section | inside Winds & Dragons | its own section again |
| Year hand shape | 222 0000 222 5555 | 222 000 2222 6666 |
| Winds | full NEWS common | NS / EW pairs; NEWS only twice |
| Flowers | normal use | pungs and two sextets |
| Carryover | n/a | six hands carried over |
The biggest shift: the easy 2026 and 2468 hands are now pung-pung-kong-kong (3-3-4-4), not the back-and-forth of some past years.
The most reliable wins. Keep Any Like Numbers as your all-purpose backup.
They feed the whole card. Holding them is the heart of every good Charleston.
With Quints back, hold jokers, settle on a Quint by mid-game, don't spend them early.
A flexible 25-point hand finishes far more often than a rare high-scorer you force.
C75 is a thrill, but only chase Singles & Pairs #6 when your tiles already point that way.
Worth knowing before you quote a "fact," because a lot of the error talk online is about last year's card.
Two real, NMJL-confirmed misprints: the standard card's 2468 Line 4 printed in one color instead of three suits, and the large card's Consecutive Run Line 3 printed all green. The League mailed corrected cards.
Any "error notes" you saw almost certainly describe this 2025 card, not 2026.
One online shop claims a 2026 2468 Line 4 color error, described exactly like the 2025 one. It is not confirmed by the NMJL, I Love Mahj, or Tom Sloper.
Treat it as unverified until the League posts a 2026-specific notice.
Sources: American Mah Jongg Association cheat sheet, Tom Sloper's 2026 FAQ, Eight Bam tile counts (via Missy Mahjong), Katie Poulsen / Salt Lake Mahjong Club, I Love Mahj, MahjongBank, Lara's Mahjong Edit, majbydaron.com. Card-composition data, not measured win rates. Compiled June 2026.