Peddler variant

Revision as of 04:25, 4 March 2022

Peddler, the archetype for this category.

Peddler variant, or cantrip money, is a catch-all term for cantrips that give +. They fit very easily into almost any engine, since, as long as they are not drawn dead by a terminal draw card with no actions remaining, they can always be played to increase buying power without obstructing your access to other engine cards.

The simplest possible Peddler variant—a card that simply gives +1 Card, +1 Action, +—does not exist; all Peddler variants carry at least one other bonus, penalty, or quirk aside from the cantrip-money effect. Donald X. Vaccarino has commented that leaving this niche unfilled gives him more flexibility in designing variants. Consensus among analysts was that such a card, if it existed, would be balanced at a cost of roughly ; however, Poacher was eventually introduced with a cost of , and is almost strictly worse than "vanilla peddler".

List of Peddler variants

The Peddler variants, and their differences from the notional "vanilla Peddler", are as follows. Cards in italics have been removed.

Unconditional Peddlers

These cards always give at least +1 Card, +1 Action, and + (or the equivalent).

• Dominion: Poacher — discards a card from hand if Supply piles are empty
• Dominion: Market — gives +Buy
• Seaside: Bazaar — gives +2 Actions instead of +1
• Seaside: Treasury — may be top-decked during Clean-up if you do not buy any Victory cards
• Prosperity: Grand Market — gives +Buy and + instead of , but cannot be bought with Copper
• Prosperity: Peddler — has a variable cost that enables tricks with +Buy and trash-for-benefit
• Hinterlands: Oasis — discards a card from hand
• Hinterlands: Highway — reduces costs by instead of giving +
• Dark Ages: Junk Dealer — trashes a card from hand
• Guilds: Baker — gives +1 Coffers instead of +
• Adventures: Caravan Guard — the + is delayed until next turn
• Adventures: Artificer — also a discard for benefit gainer
• Empires: Emporium — also has a potential on-gain +  bonus
• Menagerie: Fisherman — can cost less if you have an empty discard pile
• Allies: Skirmisher — performs a discard attack if you gain an Attack card after playing it

Conditional Peddlers

These cards have cantrip-money effects that are not always activated.

• Dominion: Merchant—is a Peddler variant on a turn on which you play Silver
• Intrigue: Conspirator—is a terminal silver if it is the first or second action played on a turn, but a cantrip later
• Intrigue: Mill—gives + only if you discard two cards
• Intrigue: Mining Village—is a village with an optional one-shot +
• Cornucopia: Tournament—may have its +Card and + blocked if an opponent has a Province in hand; can gain Prizes
• Dark Ages: Mystic—gives non-terminal + but only draws if you can guess the card it's going to draw
• Empires: Settlers—instead of giving +, can put a Copper in your hand if you have one in your discard pile.
• Empires: Chariot Race—only gives + if you reveal a more expensive card from your deck than the player to your left.
• Nocturne: Secret Cave—requires you to discard 3 cards first, and its + is delayed until next turn.
• Allies: Courier—allows you to choose a card from your discard pile to draw and plays it immediately instead of giving +1 Action—so it's not consistently non-terminal.

Marginal Peddlers

These cards are not normally thought of as Peddler variants.

• Dominion: Vassal—a terminal silver that can play the top card of your deck if it is an Action, which is kind of like giving +1 Card and +1 Action when it happens.
• Intrigue: Tribute—can give +2 Cards, +2 Actions, and + under rare circumstances depending on the top of the deck of the opponent to your left.
• Prosperity: City—acts as combination Village, Laboratory, Market if two supply piles are empty
• Prosperity: Venture—is a Treasure, which is like being a non-terminal Action, and digs for a Treasure and plays it immediately, which is similar to drawing a card
• Dark Ages: Ironmonger—is a cantrip that gives + if the second card of your deck (from the top) is a Treasure card

Lost Arts, Training, Pathfinding can all turn an Action card pile into a Peddler variant, depending on what else the card already does. All three on one Action ensure that it is a Peddler variant.

Donald X.'s remarks on the lack of Vanilla Peddler

In 2015, before the introduction of Poacher, Donald X. was asked why there was no "vanilla Peddler" costing . His answer

A Peddler (are we clear on what I mean here, yes, okay) would probably be fine. I mean it would be good, but it would be acceptable power-level-wise.

The Vanilla card problem is, vanilla cards limit what other cards can do (in games where cards can't naturally just be blatantly different in power level). For example Village at means Village-with-a-bonus has to cost +. Otherwise some people are unhappy. It is really about that unhappiness, not necessarily any other issues. If say Walled Village cost , there would be people who were pissed. It would have no other negative consequences; it's still worth avoiding.

So, again just in certain kinds of games, you want to ration out the vanilla cards. They're valuable for being very simple cards, but limit what other cards can do.

My feeling was that -Peddler was a good one not to do. I did it, right away, but didn't use it; the main set got Market instead. With Market I can replace the +1 Buy with a different bonus and get a parade of cards that aren't clearly better/worse across the board. And then at there are a couple cards that are some mix of better and worse than -Peddler, although that makes them more complex cards.

In the end, well the decision not to do -Peddler was an early one, and the years did not produce as many comparable 's as expected. It probably would have been fine to have had -Peddler exist all these years. Tournament is obviously both better and worse; Ironmonger has acceptable differences. And Peddler itself you are hoping to pay for.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.