Quick answer
The League has not announced a 2027 date yet. The 2026 card came out in April 2026, so expect the 2027 card in spring 2027, most likely April, with orders opening over the winter.
The National Mah Jongg League prints a new card every year, and the hands on it change. Here is what is actually known about when the 2027 card will arrive, what is only expected, how to get one, and how to learn it quickly once it is in your hands.
When will the 2027 card come out?
The League has not announced a date. As of late September 2026 its website is still selling the 2026 card, so any exact 2027 date you see before the League publishes one is a guess.
The last cycle is the best guide. Sharsheret, one of the organizations that took orders for the League, closed its 2026 pre-sale on January 26, 2026 and told buyers the League would mail the cards directly in April 2026. One published guide to the 2026 card dates its release to April 17, 2026.
So expect orders to open over the winter and the 2027 card to arrive in the spring, most likely in April. If you order through a group, ask when its orders close, because a group's deadline can fall months before the cards arrive.
How do you get the new card?
From the National Mah Jongg League, which sells it on its website and also takes orders by mail. Organizations collected orders for the League over the winter for the 2026 card too, Sharsheret and NCJW Sacramento among them.
Every player needs a card of their own. You read it all game, and it sits on the table in front of you, so one card cannot serve the whole table.
Shops stock it once it is out. Check that what you are buying is the League's card for the right year, because the hands differ from year to year and an old card describes hands that no longer count.
What changes on a new card, and what stays the same?
The hands change. Some are replaced, some move to a different section, and some get easier or harder to make. Nobody outside the League knows which until the card is out.
The system stays. The notation, the colours that tell you which groups must be in different suits, and the grouping of hands into sections by kind all carry over. Someone who reads the card well is learning new lines on a new card, not a new game.
The year hands are built from the digits of the year, so the 2027 ones will be made from 2s, 7s and soaps, the white dragon, which stands in for the zero on card lines that need one. They are the most visible sign that the card is new.
How do you learn a new card quickly?
Read it by section before you play. Find the hands whose shape you already know from last year, then the ones that are new, so you know where your attention needs to go.
Count which numbers and which dragons appear in the most hands. Tiles that fit many hands are the ones worth keeping through the Charleston while you learn, because they leave you the most ways to go.
Play the first weeks with the card beside you, and do not try to memorise it. Read the lines rather than reciting them. The notation is the part that does not change, and the card guide covers it.
What do Club members get when the 2027 card lands?
The week the card lands, members get a walkthrough of it here, section by section and hand by hand: what changed from 2026, which hands are harder than they look, and which tiles the new card makes worth keeping. You get an email the day it is up.
We never reprint the League's card. The walkthrough refers to each hand by its section and its place on the card, so read it with your own copy beside you.
Everything else in the Club carries on through the change: the coach on call for your own hands, a fresh hand every morning, the lessons and the drills.
Put it into practice
Reading about it is one thing. Have the coach read a real dealt hand for you, free. It names the direction the hand goes for, what to keep, what to pass, and the reasoning behind each call.
Want that every morning? The Club adds a fresh coached hand daily, the coach on call for your own tiles, all 10 lessons and the 14-day course, for $14.99 a month, cancel anytime. See what the Club includes
The card changes in the spring. Reading a rack does not. Mei, our AI coach, reads your actual tiles and says which direction they go for and which tiles are doing nothing for it, free.