Way of the Pig

Way of the Pig
Info
Type	Way
Set	Menagerie
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Way text
+1 Card +1 Action

Way of the Pig is a Way from Menagerie. It allows any Action card to be used as a simple cantrip.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• Way of the Pig is considered so simplistic, it does not have an official FAQ.

Strategy

Because Way of the Pig allows you to play any Action card as a cantrip, it is extremely useful for resolving issues with terminals and, less commonly, with Actions that are stop cards.

The most common use case is when you have terminal collision. By playing the less important card using Way of the Pig, you can convert what would be a dead card into a small benefit, which might be a chance to find a useful card such as a village, or just a card’s worth of cycling through your shuffle. This makes the worst case outcome of opening with two terminals less detrimental, and so Way of the Pig slightly encourages such openings.

Another somewhat similar case for Way of the Pig is with Throne Room variants playing terminals. If, for example, you have to start your turn by Throning a Smithy and draw an Action card on your first Smithy play, you can play the Smithy the second time using Way of the Pig, giving you +1 Action and allowing you to continue playing more Action cards.

Way of the Pig is very useful for dealing with junk Action cards (i.e. Ruins) or cards that are no longer of use (such as a Moneylender in the late game or a Stonemason bought for its overpay effect). Most of the time these are stop cards, but by playing them with Way of the Pig you can effectively thin them from your deck, as cantrips do not typically impede your ability to draw through your deck and play your payload. As a result, Marauder and Cultist are unlikely to be effective attacks in Kingdoms with Way of the Pig. Likewise, Way of the Pig can allow you to use Rats as thinning, converting your starting cards into Rats which are then played as plain cantrips.

Way of the Pig can also be useful with while in play effects, as it means you can get those effects on a cantrip, possibly allowing you to have more in play than you would otherwise given terminal space and draw constraints. The cost reduction of Bridge Troll and the scoring effect of Goons are two notable examples.

With Shelters, and more specifically Necropolis, Way of the Pig allows you to trigger an early reshuffle, likely altering your original opening split and possibly enabling earlier plays of your opening buys. Way of the Pig also provides the option of effectively thinning Necropolis from your deck on an ad hoc basis: whenever the extra terminal space it provides is unneeded, you can play it as a cantrip, replacing it with another card in your hand.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Card +1 Action	Menagerie	March 2020

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
German	Weg des Schweins			+1 Karte +1 Aktion
Japanese	豚の習性 (pron. buta no shūsei)

Trivia

Official card art.

The name is a reference to Enchantress, whose effect is represented on Dominion Online by the pig in its artwork.

Preview

What is there to say, that wasn't said better by the cards?

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Menagerie Bonus Previews