Feodum
Feodum is a Victory card from Dark Ages. It gains value as you get more Silvers in your deck, and it also allows you to gain many Silvers by trashing it!
Feodum | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Victory |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Dark Ages |
Illustrator(s) | Matthias Catrein |
Card text | |
Worth 1 for every 3 Silvers in your deck. When you trash this, gain 3 Silvers. |
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- This is a Victory card. Play with 8 for games with 2 players, or 12 cards for games with 3 or more players.
- At the end of the game, each Feodum is worth 1 for every 3 Silvers in your deck, rounded down. For example, if you have 11 Silvers, your Feodums are worth 3 each.
- If a Feodum is trashed, you gain 3 Silvers. The Silvers come from the Supply and are put into your discard pile.
- If there are not enough Silvers left, gain as many as you can.
Other Rules clarifications
Strategy Article
Feodum is a very different card than many other Alt-VP, and since Dark Ages is somewhat new, there isn't a strategy article for it. If you think you know how to play Feodum, let us know on the forum!
It may seem at first to be similar to cards like Gardens, Vineyard, or Silk Road, which also count the cards in your deck. Howevever, Feodum differs in an important aspect — the size of the Silver pile. Gaining more Silvers does not bring the game much closer to an end (at least in 2 player games), because it is rare for Silver to be one of the three depleted piles. Thus, Feodum is often better suited for long slogs instead of rushes, where you aim to get lots and lots of Silvers and make your Feodums worth as much as Provinces. With all those Silvers, you'll have enough cash to dip into Provinces yourself at times.
Feodum is great with Trader or Masterpiece which can gain a lot of Silvers quickly. Other Silver-gainers also work, but slower gainers aren't nearly as strong. Examples include Bureaucrat, Explorer, Hermit, and Squire. Since you can trash Feodum to gain Silvers, Feodum works somewhat better when you have a trash for benefit card. Combined with either Graverobber or Rogue, you can even get your Feodums back from the trash. Since Jack of all Trades both gains Silvers and trashes, it has exceptionally good synergy with Feodum.
Feodum is a lot stronger in games with more than 2 players. The Silver pile drains a lot more quickly, Attacks prolong the game more, and having 12 Feodum in the Supply instead of 8 allows for more liberal trashing. It is surprisingly easy to get close to 18 Silvers, enough for Feodum to be worth 6 , in a long multiplayer game with good trashing or Silver gaining. Feodum is essentially worthless in Colony games.
Feodum + Rats
Below is a description of Feodum + Rats. The strength of this combo is disputed. More specifically: this combo has A LOT of trouble with 3-piling, doesn't gain that much points, and ends up with a mediocre deck full of dead Rats.
Feodum can be combined with Rats for a Feodum rush. With other trashers you would need time to setup a trashing engine that can handle the large amounts of Silver and Feodum. Rats on the other hand multiply themselves along with the growth of your Silver collection, so you don't have to buy any additional ones. This should give you the freedom to buy Feodum nearly every turn while still frequently drawing a trasher+Feodum hand. For this strategy you should buy just one Rats in the first or second turn, and from then on make simple quick turns: whenever you draw a Rats and a Feodum together, trash the Feodum for 3 Silver and another Rats. Whenever you draw Rats without Feodum (which shouldn't happen very often after the first few turns) trash an Estate (if you have no other choice perhaps a Copper) so that a Rats takes its place in your deck. Whenever you draw Rats and only Silver, don't trash anything. Whenever you have at least , buy a new Feodum - the large amount of Silver in your deck will make this possible quite often. Whenever you have , buy a Silver. Early in the game you might have to choose between trashing a Copper + gaining a Rats + buying a Silver, or keeping the Copper + using it to buy a Feodum. (The correct choice will depend on your Rats/Feodum ratio at that time, but if you're not sure pick the Feodum to avoid getting too many Rats.) This strategy should automatically make your deck converge to a mix likely to give you ideal hands of 1 Rats, 1 Feodum, and 2 Silver. If Workshop or Bureaucrat is present it would be a good fifth card, since it would be the only terminal Action (not interfering with anything) and would provide a guaranteed Feodum/Silver whenever drawn. Once you have gained enough Silver (typically 15 in a game with 12 Feodums, from 4 Feodum trashes and 3 direct purchases) stop trashing and focus on emptying the Feodum pile. Next, make use of all the Silver in your deck to empty another pile of or or cards that the other players have already bought from (or the Workshop pile). Perhaps the other players will panic and make a run for the Duchies, which you could help finish. If the game is not over by now, you could consider forcing it by playing Rats until that pile too is empty, but if you destroy more than 2 additional Feodums this will start bringing down your VP count. An end by Rats is thus most viable when another player is also playing Rats. If you can't end the rush while keeping the VP lead, it should be relatively safe to transition to buying Duchies and Provinces instead - you have a deck with thrice as many Silver as Rats that is pretty resistant to greening due to the sheer amount of Silver. Just don't play any more Rats!
Synergies/Combos
- Silver-gainers: Bureaucrat, Explorer, Hermit, Squire, Trader, Masterpiece
- General gainers, such as Workshop and Talisman
- Tournament, if you're able to grab the Trusty Steed
- Trash for benefit, particularly when combined with Graverobber or Rogue
- Jack of all Trades
- Cursers or Looters to slow the game down and give you an excuse to get lots of Silvers anyway
- Buying (and Trashing) a Feodum with a Watchtower in hand can guarantee a hand next turn, or even more this turn if you have an enough actions and an appropriate Gainer.
Antisynergies
- King's Court, Bridge, and other mega-turn enablers
- Wharf and other enablers of reliable engines
- Platinum / Colony games.
Trivia
In other languages
- Finnish: Sarka (lit. field)
- French: Fief
- German: Lehen
- Japanese: 封土 (pron. hōdo)
- Spanish: Feudo
Preview
Feodum is the victory card that counts treasures that you always knew I’d make. What you didn’t know is that it would only count Silvers. If Coppers count, man, that’s like a Gardens deck, we built that one already. I mean it’s different but whatever. If Golds count, man, I already wanted a deck with a lot of Gold. So it only counts Silvers. And to help that out, it’s a Silver piñata. You might even buy one just to crack it open, with no plan of really going for Feodums.
Feodum does something when you trash it. There are a bunch of cards like that in this set. There’s really only so much you can do with the trash directly, like Graverobber, but you can do tons of things based on cards getting trashed. And if you are the kind of person who likes card combos, these cards are for you. For example you can just Remodel a Feodum into a Feodum, for the 3 Silvers. Look at that.
Secret History