Watchtower

Watchtower
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Reaction
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Prosperity
Illustrator(s)	Rick Hershey
Card text
Draw until you have 6 cards in hand. When you gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand, to either trash that card or put it onto your deck.

Watchtower is an Action–Reaction card from Prosperity. It is useful in certain engines and as a defense against many attacks—its Action effect defends against handsize attacks and its reaction against junking attacks. It reacts any time a card is gained, including when you gain one during your or another player's turn, allowing you to trash the card or put it on top of your deck.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you play this, you draw cards one at a time until you have 6 cards in hand.
• If you have 6 or more cards in hand already, you don't draw any cards.
• When you gain a card, directly afterwards, you may reveal Watchtower from your hand, to either trash the gained card or put it on top of your deck (with Watchtower staying in your hand).
• You may reveal Watchtower whether you gained the card due to buying it, or gained it some other way, such as with Expand or Mountebank.
• You may reveal Watchtower each time you gain a card, and each gain is a separate decision; for example if another player plays Mountebank, you may reveal Watchtower to trash both the Copper and Curse, or just one, or trash one and put the other on your deck, and so on.
• Cards trashed with Watchtower were still gained; they were just immediately trashed afterwards.
• If a gained card is going somewhere other than to your discard pile, such as a card gained with Mine, you can still use Watchtower to trash it or put it on your deck.

Other Rules clarifications

• Trashing a card with Watchtower does not prevent on-gain effects from happening.
• Watchtower's topdecking happens after the gain happens; the card still visits the discard pile, or whatever location it was gained to.
• Watchtower's topdecking has the same timing as on-gain effects, so for example you could choose to topdeck Death Cart before gaining the 2 Ruins.
• If you gain a Watchtower to your hand (with e.g. Artisan), you can react with that Watchtower to either trash or topdeck itself.

Strategy

Watchtower serves three separate functions, all of which can range from unhelpful to extremely helpful, depending on the context. Watchtower is at its best when you can make use of multiple of its effects, but sometimes it can still be worth getting for just one of them (for instance, if there are powerful draw-to-X enablers in the Kingdom).

When played, Watchtower draws until you have six cards in hand. This means that it can be a potent way to draw when your hand size is small—for instance, because your opponent played a handsize attack, or because you just played a discard-for-benefit card such as Vault. But, if Watchtower is your primary way to draw cards, then your hand size can’t ever go higher than six, which makes it very hard for your deck to use Treasures as payload in an engine since they take up space in your hand. Watchtower draw is strongest when you can thin your starting Coppers and Estates, get your from Action cards (since you can play Watchtower after playing them), and use villages to allow you to play multiple Watchtowers in a turn. If you’re planning to use Watchtower to draw, it’s usually fine to start getting them early—Watchtower in the opening is +2 cards which is moderately useful cycling, and if it collides with another terminal and you wish to play that action instead, you can still make use of Watchtower's topdecking reaction to topdeck whatever you buy that turn. This slightly lowers the downside of the terminal collision

Watchtower’s reaction has two parts—it can trash gained cards that you don’t want, or topdeck ones that you do. Topdecking cards is usually not integral to any strategy, but it can often be nice to increase your tempo in the early game, or give reliability by topdecking engine pieces in the middle or late game, possibly enabling gain and play scenarios, e.g. with University. The trashing reaction can be used as a defense against junking attacks, but this is somewhat unreliable as the Watchtower must be in your starting hand for this to work. However, this reaction can also be used on your own turn against effects that give you junk (e.g. Desperation or Wild Hunt), or on cards with on-trash benefits (e.g. Feodum or Squire). For this reason, if Watchtower is in the Kingdom, it’s important to check carefully for one of these things, as the resulting interaction could end up being very important.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• theory's 2011 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Draw until you have 6 cards in hand. When you gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand. If you do, either trash that card, or put it on top of your deck.	Prosperity	October 2010
		Draw until you have 6 cards in hand. When you gain a card, you may reveal this from your hand, to either trash that card or put it onto your deck.	Prosperity (2016 printing) Prosperity (Second Edition)	February 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	瞭望台			手牌抽到六張。 當你獲得卡片時，你可以展示手上的這張卡，將獲得的卡移除或放到牌庫頂上。
Czech	Strážní věž
Dutch	Uitkijktoren			Trek kaarten tot je er 6 in handen hebt Als je een kaart pakt, mag je de Uitkijktoren uit je hand tonen. Doe je dat, dan vernietig je de gepakte kaart of leg je deze op je trekstapel.
Finnish	Vartiotorni
French	Mirador			Piochez jusqu'à avoir 6 cartes en main. Quand vous recevez une carte, vous pouvez dévoiler cette carte de votre main, pour écarter ou placer sur votre pioche la carte reçue.
German	Wachturm			Ziehe solange Karten nach, bis du 6 Karten auf der Hand hast. Wenn du eine Karte nimmst oder kaufst, darfst du den Wachturm aus deiner Hand aufdecken. Wenn du das machst: Entsorge die neue Karte oder lege sie sofort auf deinen Nachziehstapel.	(2010)
	Wachturm			Ziehe, bis du 6 Karten auf deiner Hand hast. Wenn du eine Karte nimmst, darfst du diese Karte aus deiner Hand aufdecken, um jene Karte entweder zu entsorgen oder sie auf deinen Nachziehstapel zu legen.	(Nachdruck 2021) 2. Edition (2022)
Italian	Torre di Guardia
Japanese	望楼 (pron. bōrō)			手札が6枚になるようにカードを引く。 カード1枚を獲得するとき、手札からこれを公開してもよい。公開した場合、獲得したカードを廃棄するか、山札の上に置く。
Polish	Strażnica			Dobieraj karty, aż będziesz miał ich 6 na ręce. Kiedy dodajesz kartę, możesz odkryć Strażnicę z ręki. Jeżeli to zrobisz, wyrzuć dodaną kartę na śmietnisko albo połóż ją na wierzchu swojej talii.	(2016)
Russian	Сторожевая Башня (pron. storozhevaya bashnya)
Spanish	Atalaya

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

This showed up late in development, after another card left. Dale complained that the set had no reaction, and this was one I'd been meaning to try. The first version, which lasted only a couple days, also let you put the card into your hand. Destry pointed out the Ironworks combo and so much for that.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Other Secret History of the Prosperity Cards