Variegated Demon is Canfield scaled to its most complex form.

Core Variegated Demon tips

• Treat each suit as two parallel pipelines — feed both foundation stacks to avoid creating a bottleneck on one.
• With 104 cards and only 2 redeals, reserve clearance is the single most important early-game goal.
• Empty tableau columns (5 available) give you more staging room than single-deck variants — use them aggressively.
• Draw 3 means many cards are buried in the waste; plan 2–3 cycles ahead before locking in sequences.
• Duplicate ranks (2 copies of each card) are a resource: if one is stuck, the other may be playable sooner.
• Foundation plays on either of the two stacks per suit are equally valid — always choose the one that unblocks more.

Double deck, double the decisions

Every rank appears twice in Variegated Demon. This creates opportunities (if one copy is buried you still have another) but also risks (duplicates can clog the same tableau column or waste pile). Actively track both copies of key rank-suit combinations when planning foundation builds.

Common mistake

Players instinctively try to sort the tableau as neatly as possible with 5 columns available. But 104 cards means more cards in the stock and more redeals matter. Spending redeals on cosmetic tableau rearrangement instead of foundation progress is the most common way to run out of moves.