Lost City
Lost City | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Adventures |
Illustrator(s) | Julien Delval |
Card text | |
+2 Cards +2 Actions When you gain this, each other player draws a card. |
Lost City is an Action from Adventures. It is a combination village and Lab variant; because of this, it has an on-gain penalty that makes all other players draw a card.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- When you gain this, each other player draws a card. This applies whether you bought it or gained it some other way.
Strategy
Lost City provides non-terminal draw and extra terminal space at the cost of letting your opponents draw a card when you gain it. Its on-play effect is similar to playing both a Laboratory and a Village; this is powerful when you can make good use of the draw and village effect in an engine context.
While Lost City is a strong card, its on-gain penalty can be very helpful for your opponents. Drawing a card for them for free increases their hand size by one without using up any terminal space. This increases the chances they have a good turn and helps them cycle through their deck. When you gain a Lost City, they get these benefits immediately, while you must wait to shuffle and draw your Lost City before you get any benefit out of it; this may give your opponents a tempo advantage.
When you consider Lost City, you should first consider whether it’s worth building an engine, and then if so, what alternatives there are for villages and draw, as you would prefer to avoid drawing cards for your opponents for free. If there is something missing for building an engine (such as +Buy or thinning), Lost City might not pay off, since the opportunity cost ( and a Buy) is high for a reduced benefit to most money strategies. If there are no alternatives, but your other engine pieces are stop cards and/or terminals that appreciate draw and village support, you likely cannot avoid using Lost Cities. If there are alternatives, it may be worthwhile to jump-start your engine by getting one or two Lost Cities as early as possible (thus increasing both your early draw and terminal space at the same time), then focus on other draw cards such as Smithy.
The extra card for your opponents is least useful to them when they have a consistent engine and can reliably draw their deck anyway. Waiting for your opponents to achieve complete deck control before you start gaining Lost Cities is unlikely to be a good option in a Kingdom where you’ll need them for your engine; however, this does mean that an extra Lost City gained later in the midgame often has a smaller downside. When gaining Lost City during your Action phase, you can sometimes counteract the benefit to your opponents by following up with a discard attack, e.g. Militia. The on-gain penalty can also be mitigated by Exiling Lost City from the Supply with Camel Train or Transport, or by playing Lost City without gaining it (as with Overlord or when using a Throne Room variant instead of an extra copy of Lost City).
Versions
English versions
Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
---|---|---|---|---|
+2 Cards +2 Actions When you gain this, each other player draws a card. |
Adventures 1st Edition | April 2015 | ||
+2 Cards +2 Actions When you gain this, each other player draws a card. |
Adventures 2nd Edition | August 2017 |
Other language versions
Trivia
Preview
Secret History
Why does it cost 5?
Really the competition is the +Buy card you could have instead. Say there's Woodcutter. You have . Well what you want is Lost City but maybe it's time for that Woodcutter. But maybe you drew all but one card in your deck - your Woodcutter. Okay, for Lost City.
The penalty lets the card cost , and is fun. Of course you would pay more. And sometimes you will. The cards aren't costed based on the maximum amount you would pay for them.