Council of Secrets was fairly easy once I understood the rules. I settled on a strategy of ignoring the secret cards until I've arranged the main cards into 4 stacks of 2 suits each, ranks 4-10. Then, it's easy to identify the secret Jacks, then each suit's Queen and King.
The game would be trickier if it always auto-stacked, requiring you to continually work on deducing the secret cards. I think I'd have to get out pen and paper for that.