There are usually 6 abilities to choose from during the ability phase and you can do up to two of them, including the same one twice if you want. At the Oracle’s Dreamery, there’s 2 new abilities, so you have 8 to choose from in total.

Rearrange is a tricky ability. If you do Rearrange, then Draw, that lets you get the best of 3 cards when a simple Draw, Draw would have only let you see 2 cards. Rearrange then Add acts similarly. You’ll choose which of 3 cards you want to add to the community cards, rather than only getting 2 options with Add, then Add. Furthermore, Rearrange then Add or Draw is better Draw+Draw and Add+Add for another reason: you get to see all three cards before you make your decision of which one you want. The normal way to do things means you have to decide each action as you go.

You also end up knowing the top TWO cards of the deck. Will the next player even bother to Draw or Add, when you already know what card is there and had some say about which card it is? If they Draw, you’ll know what’s in their hand! Being the Oracle really gives you an information advantage here! It’s likely that other players will have to Rearrange before Drawing or Adding just so they can dig deep enough in the deck to actually get to a new card.

Tie-break is another interesting ability. It’s fairly common to have players tied for the highest claimed hand in Pandante. For example, two players each claim they have a rainbow straight. When you really have the hand you claim, it’s sometimes pretty hard to get a better hand than that by using Draw or Add. But if you use Tie-break, you don’t need a better hand. You’ll automatically win against anyone with the same hand who didn’t use it. Also, if you really do have your hand, this gives you a big advantage against people who don’t have it but who are trying to draw into it. They’ll need to spend their ability slots on improving their hand, but you can use your abilities on powering up your Tie-break so that you win anyway, even if they do match your hand!

There’s a lot going on in the Oracle’s Dreamery. The abilities it offers are optional though, which makes it nice for new players who want to see how other Pandas use Rearrange and Tie-break.