Collision

Revision as of 11:17, 12 March 2015

A terminal collision occurs when you draw two or more terminal Action cards into your hand without enough actions to play them both. One of the two Action cards is essentially a dead card, reducing your effective hand size. This is particularly bad when two powerful cards are drawn together, as one of the cards will have to wait for another reshuffle before it can be used.

Preventing collisions

When buying cards, care must be taken to avoid overloading your deck with too many terminal Action cards, as this will increase the likelihood of a collision. Cards that can give multiple actions are essential to preventing a terminal collision by allowing you to play both Action cards in one turn. If no such cards are available, you may have to buy terminal Action cards sparingly and opt for a Big Money strategy or a Non-terminal Draw Engine.

Dealing with collisions

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, collisions are unavoidable. The simplest way to deal with them is to play the most beneficial Action card and let the other go dead. However, there are many preferable ways to salvage a hand with a terminal collision.

• Haven can be used to move one of the terminal Action cards to your next hand, thereby avoiding the collision (at least for the current hand).
• Soft terminals allow you to use the other colliding card for some other purpose, most often one of these:
  • Putting it on top of your deck to save for next turn (like Courtyard, Mandarin, or Count)
  • Discarding it to get some value from it in or cards (like Vault or Cellar)
  • Using it as fodder for trash for benefit cards (like Bishop and Salvager) if the colliding terminal is no longer needed, or if the benefit from trashing it now outweighs its continued presence in your deck
• Buy a village. A terminal collision is often a sign of an unbalanced strategy. If a village is in the Kingdom, this is often a sign to buy one. Unfortunately, there are not always villages available.