Tracker
Tracker | |
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Info | |
Cost | |
Type(s) | Action - Fate |
Kingdom card? | Yes |
Set | Nocturne |
Illustrator(s) | Martin Hoffmann |
Card text | |
+ Receive a Boon. While this is in play, when you gain a card, you may put that card onto your deck. Heirloom: Pouch |
Tracker is an Action-Fate card from Nocturne. It's a terminal Copper that also gives you a Boon, and allows you to top-deck cards you gain. Games using Tracker include the Heirloom Pouch.
Contents |
FAQ
Official FAQ
- If you gain multiple cards with this in play, this applies to each of them - you could put any or all of them on top of your deck.
- This applies both to cards gained due to being bought, and to cards gained other ways with Tracker in play.
- Tracker is in play when you resolve its Boon, so if the Boon causes you to gain a card, for example a Silver from The Mountain's Gift, you can put that card onto your deck.
- In games using Tracker, replace one of your starting Coppers with a Pouch.
Other rules clarifications
Strategy
Article written by user zededarian, see this topic.
Tracker is a surprisingly good card. Two-cost actions tend to be situational, but Tracker works well in a surprising number of decks.
The Main Effect
Tracker's main effect is + and a Boon. This effect is OK, but not quite enough to justify putting Tracker in your deck by itself. Here's a list of what the + and Boon turns into with every possible Boon, in order from best to worst (by my subjective judgement):
The Flame's Gift -- +, you may trash a card from your hand. This seems pretty mediocre, but trashing is trashing. Compare to Catapult, which for 1 more is often also a discard attack or a curser. You feel good playing this on an Estate, though.
The Swamp's Gift -- +, gain a Will-o'-Wisp from its pile. Wisps are strong. In the early game, they play a lot like Magpie, and are often enough to push you over the top to a or buy. They get weaker late in the game, unless there are other good buys on the board.
The Earth's Gift -- +, you may discard a Treasure to gain a card costing up to . If you discard a Copper, then topdeck the card you gained, it's like you played an Armory, which costs .
The River's Gift -- +, +1 Card at the end of this turn. This is better than it seems, because it's usually good to have high hand variance. Getting a weak effect this turn in exchange for 6 cards next turn is great, especially if it puts you over the top for a buy.
The Field's Gift -- +, +1 Action. A little worse than a Silver. The only problem is that since you don't know you're going to get the action, you usually don't play Tracker and then play another action afterward -- you would've just played the better action first. So the extra +Action is almost never used.
The Forest's Gift -- +, +1 Buy. This is basically Woodcutter. You can often use the surprise +Buy to get another Tracker. Don't go overboard, though; usually two is enough.
The Sky's Gift -- +, you may discard 3 cards to gain a Gold. I think this is actually an underrated Boon. It looks bad on the surface because most of the time you can't buy anything else on the turn you use it, and you'd usually rather buy an engine piece or something. The reason I think it's underrated is that it's situational but *really* powerful in those situations. Sometimes it lets you turn a hand full of nothing into a Gold, which can put you noticeably ahead. It definitely isn't the most powerful boon, but it's a pretty reasonable effect. It's also kind of comparable to playing a Leprechaun and receiving Poverty, which is medium-bad as Hexes go, and Leprechaun costs .
The Sun's Gift -- +, look at the top 4 cards of your deck. Discard any number of them and put the rest back in any order. This is fairly similar to Night Watchman, which costs . It doesn't matter too much that you only get to look at 4 cards, it still lets you set up your next hand nicely.
The Wind's Gift -- +, +2 Cards. Discard 2 cards. This is a fairly weak effect. It's like Young Witch, but with no cursing, and a small coin gain. Young Witch costs , and cursing is worth something like 3 cost (e.g. Witch vs. Moat, Familiar vs. a weak cantrip). There are some games where it's amazing, but I'm usually not very enthused when I get it.
The Sea's Gift -- +, +1 Card. This is pretty good in the very early game, when it often just gets you another copper, and in an engine that has actions to spare, but annoyingly often the draw is just dead. It's hard to say whether or not this is better than The Wind's Gift.
The Mountain's Gift -- +, gain a silver. You basically played a Squire and picked Silver. This is rated so low because you can't choose not to receive the silver, and a lot of the time you don't want it.
The Moon's Gift -- +, look through your discard pile. You may put a card from it onto your deck. This is like a very weak Scavenger. It turns out not being able to put your deck into your discard pile before topdecking is a big drawback. A lot of times this boon just does nothing, and it usually isn't that amazing when it does hit.
Topdecking
You probably noticed a pattern in those descriptions: Tracker tends to be a little bit worse than a mediocre card. This seems reasonable at first, except for two things: the fact that you don't know what effect you're going to get makes it considerably weaker, and there's opportunity cost to putting a weak effect like this into your deck, since it isn't guaranteed to replace itself in your hand when you play it.
What really pushes Tracker over the edge is its topdecking ability. If Tracker didn't have topdecking, I don't think I would buy it for . I probably wouldn't even buy it for in most games.
To see how powerful the topdecking is, remember that Royal Seal is a silver with an identical ability. That's the same cost difference as, say, Bandit Camp and Village. So we should expect this ability to be pretty strong. (This comparison isn't quite fair, since Bandit Camp is unusually strong and Royal Seal is unusually weak, but even after adjusting for that, you should still be valuing the topdecking ability pretty highly.)
On top of that, Tracker's topdecking ability is often *stronger* than Royal Seal's, because it happens during your action phase, which means you can use it to topdeck cards from gainers. The topdecking ability is most useful early and late, when your deck is bad.
In the early game you can use the topdecking to get a crucial card onto your deck without a reshuffle. Depending on how strong the cards on the board are, this can put you almost a turn ahead. The good case is something like open Tracker/Silver, get tracker on your third draw, topdeck a Sentry. You get an extra shuffle of trashing, which matters a lot.
In the middle game the topdecking is less important, because you're probably going to draw good cards anyway. It gets better again if there's bad trashing and junking. It can also be good in an engine that has consistency problems, especially if you're being responsible about keeping track of what's in your deck so that you know what engine piece your next hand might be missing.
In the late game, the topdecking can be used to help you hit crucial cost thresholds by topdecking good cards. Some decks buy out the Provinces in one turn or can churn through the chaff just fine, but any deck which starts to slow down when greening will appreciate the extra little boost.
You can also use the topdecking ability for shenanigans with cards that look at the top of your deck, but this isn't useful as often as you'd think.
When to get Tracker
One of the most astonishing things about Tracker is how many decks it's good in. In fact, it's easier to enumerate the few situations where it's bad.
Tracker tends to be bad when:
- You don't want a lot of terminal actions.
- There's bad drawing.
- There's really good trashing, like Chapel or Donate, and no power cards for Tracker to topdeck in the very early game.
- There are other 2 buys that are better on the board, like Courtyard on a money board or Lighthouse on an attack board.
Other than that, though, if I have a spare I'll pretty frequently pick up at least one Tracker.
It's hard to justify forgoing an early or buy to get Tracker, but there are some boards that warrant it. Generally if you're skipping an early buy to get Tracker, you should have a specific plan for which power card you're hoping to topdeck with it in the early game. As the game goes on, it's fine to trash Tracker if it's clogging up your engine, but I usually end up holding on to it the whole game.
Since Tracker comes with Pouch, you'll often have the option of getting two buys instead of your buy. It usually isn't worth getting two Trackers, but if there's another powerful 2 cost card on the board then this can be a very strong opening.
Synergies/Combos
Versions
English versions
Other language versions
Language | Name | Digital | Text | |
---|---|---|---|---|
French | Traqueur | |||
German | Fährtensucher | + Empfange eine Gabe. Wenn diese Karte im Spiel ist und du eine Karte nimmst, darfst du die genommene Karte auf deinen Nachziehstapel legen. Erbstück: Beutel | ||
Japanese | 追跡者 (pron. tsuisekisha) | +。 祝福を1つ受ける。これが場にある問、カード1枚を獲得するとき、それを山札の上に置いてもよい。(家宝: 革袋) | ||
Russian | Лямочник (pron. lyamochnik) |
Trivia
Secret History
Tracker started out giving +2 Cards +1 Buy and a Boon on top, for . We had many long games with it. Eventually I came to my senses; it was simply not reasonable to put card-drawing on Fate cards. I tried out not always giving you the Boon, then dropped it down to + for . Then I tried some variations that twisted the Royal Seal part again, to set aside cards for next turn instead of putting them on your deck, but in the end it was back to Royal Seal and + for .