Alchemist

Alchemist
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Alchemy
Illustrator(s)	Simon Jannerland
Card text
+2 Cards +1 Action At the start of Clean-up this turn, if you have a Potion in play, you may put this onto your deck.

Alchemist is an Action card from Alchemy. It is similar to Laboratory, but can be put on top of your deck if you play a Potion; a stack of Alchemists which consistently draws your whole deck will thus be able to stay on top of your deck for the whole game.

FAQ

Unofficial FAQ (2022)

• At the start of your Clean-up phase, before you discard any cards from your play area, if you have at least one Potion in play you may move Alchemist from your play area to the top of your deck. This is optional.
• Since this happens at the start of Clean-up, under ordinary circumstances this means that the Alchemist will be in the new hand you draw at the end of Clean-up.
• If you have multiple Alchemists and a Potion, you can put any or all of the Alchemists on top of your deck.
• You do not have to have used the Potion to buy anything; you only need to have played it.
• You can topdeck all your Alchemists, and then topdeck your Potion with Herbalist.
• However, if you play a Potion but then remove it from the play area before Clean-up, such as by trashing it with Counterfeit, it is no longer in play and will not allow you to topdeck your Alchemists.

Deprecated official FAQ (2021)

When you discard this from play during Clean-up, if you have at least one Potion card in play, you may put Alchemist on top of your deck. This is optional, and happens before drawing your new hand. If you have multiple Alchemists and a Potion, you can put any or all of the Alchemists on top of your deck. You do not have to have used the Potion to buy anything, you only need to have played it. You choose what order to discard cards in Clean-up, and so can discard your Alchemists ahead of your Potion.

Strategy

As a non-terminal draw card, Alchemist is similar to Laboratory in that it allows you to build deck-drawing engines without a need for village support. Unlike Laboratory, however, Alchemist’s cost makes it slower to add multiple copies to your deck, and therefore Alchemist is best in Kingdoms that do not offer fast strategies but also reward engines that have lots of draw, typically with strong stop card payload such as Horn of Plenty. Other sources of draw are often more efficient to acquire, so Alchemist may be more skippable in their presence.

An important factor when considering Alchemist is its cost, for several reasons.

• Because most gainers cannot gain cards, most of the time the only way to gain Alchemists is to buy them, and to buy them you need a Potion. Because Potion itself is a fairly weak card, you’ll typically only have one, and therefore will only be able to afford one Alchemist per shuffle. This bottleneck is a fairly large limiting factor, as ideally you would add plenty of non-terminal draw to your deck as quickly as possible. Some effects that can help overcome this hurdle include Transport, Stonemason overpays, and Way of the Rat.
• Because the earliest you can afford an Alchemist is the shuffle after you buy your first Potion, you’ll need to decide early in the game if you plan to go for Alchemists. Otherwise, buying a Potion later typically won’t pay off, as you likely won’t have enough time to buy many Alchemists.
• Adding a Potion to your deck can be problematic. Buying a Potion often uses up an early game Buy, and thus can have a fairly large opportunity cost. Additionally, Potion itself is a stop card (thus working against the draw provided by Alchemist) and a completely different currency from normal , which means it has no use outside of buying Alchemists unless there are other worthwhile cost cards. It’s typically unwise to buy more than one Potion.
• Alchemist’s cost of can lead to awkward situations. For example, if you draw a hand with only you likely cannot buy anything useful, and will not be able to afford an Alchemist this shuffle. On the other hand, if your turn generates more than and only one Buy, buying an Alchemist effectively wastes whatever additional you generated; for this reason, it’s typically good to get a source of +Buy in the midgame if you plan to continue buying Alchemists.

One advantage Alchemist has over other forms of non-terminal draw is that it is potentially more reliable. If you have a Potion in play, Alchemist can be topdecked instead of discarded from play, guaranteeing a good start to your next turn and allowing for very consistent draw assuming you can find your Potion. There is a dilemma, however: with good thinning, Alchemist is usually too slow, while a complete lack of thinning can make it difficult to get the reliability boost of the topdecking effect. While you may get lucky and be able to find your Potion even with some junk in the deck, your engine may completely fall apart if you don’t happen to find it. If Alchemist is the best available draw, sifters can increase your reliability by helping you to find your Potion, and even weaker thinning options such as Way of the Goat might be helpful to reduce some of your starting junk. If heavy thinning is impossible, Alchemist may be useful as supplemental draw to other draw that is more efficient but less reliable (e.g., a Village/Smithy engine with no thinning). A helpful synergy is with Herbalist, which provides important +Buy and allows you to topdeck a Potion together with the Alchemists. Effects that reward you for having a nonterminal draw card in your starting hand such as Outpost and Mastermind also work well with Alchemist.

A deck that relies on topdecking Alchemists can be particularly vulnerable to certain Attacks. If you topdecked enough Alchemists at the end of your last turn, a handsize attack such as Militia may force you to discard Alchemists, which can greatly hinder your ability to draw; if you anticipate such an attack, you may opt to topdeck fewer Alchemists than usual and hope to draw the others. Similarly, Minion can completely negate the topdecking effect and Masquerade may force you to give away an Alchemist. Junking attacks are also problematic, as they make it more difficult to find your Potion and thus threaten your deck’s reliability. On the other hand, some trashing attacks such as Knights cannot trash Alchemist due to the cost.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+2 Cards +1 Action When you discard this from play, you may put this on top of your deck if you have a Potion in play.	Alchemy	May 2010
		+2 Cards +1 Action When you discard this from play, if you have a Potion in play, you may put this onto your deck.	Alchemy (2018 printing)	December 2018
		+2 Cards +1 Action At the start of Clean-up this turn, if you have a Potion in play, you may put this onto your deck.		June 29, 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	煉金術士 (pron. liànjīnshùshì)
Czech	Alchymista
Dutch	Alchemist
Finnish	Alkemisti
French	Alchimiste
German	Alchemist			+2 Karten +1 Aktion Wenn du diese Karte aus dem Spiel ablegst und du einen Trank im Spiel hast, darfst du diese Karte auf deinen Nachziehstapel legen.	(2019) one or more other versions listed here
	Alchemist			+2 Karten +1 Aktion Zu Beginn der Aufräum­phase dieses Zuges darfst du diese Karte auf deinen Nachzieh­stapel legen, wenn du einen Trank im Spiel hast.
Italian	Alchimista
Japanese	錬金術師 (pron. renkinjutsu-shi)			+2 カードを引く +1 アクション これを場から捨て札にするとき、場にポーションがある場合、これを山札の上に置いてもよい。
Polish	Alchemik				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Алхимик (pron. alkhimik)			+2 Карты +1 Действие Когда вы сбрасываете эту карту из игры, если у вас есть Зелье в игре, можете положить её на верх колоды.
Spanish	Alquimista			+2 Cartas +1 Acción Cuando lo descartes, si tienes alguna Poción en juego, puedes poner esta carta encima de tu mazo.	Errata: Spanish version wrongly omits "from play" (When you discard this from play / Cuando lo descartes [del juego]). (2010)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

The obvious combo is Herbalist. Put your Alchemists on your deck via having a Potion; then put the Potion on your deck via Herbalist. Nothing puts the Herbalist on your deck though. I don't know what to tell you there. There are other ways to try to make sure you've got a Potion handy of course. You can look around in your Cellars for a Potion. You can trash things with an Apprentice, madly looking for Potions. And of course you can just buy a bunch of Potions.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion: Alchemy Preview

Secret History

This replaced another unrelated card late in the going. I tried a card that just increased your hand size for the rest of the game, but that would have required a playmat, and the set couldn't have any. This is the next best thing, and more interesting due to the Potion requirement. I tried a few variations that also attacked, but Scrying Pool ended up being the wordy extra attack I needed. As we shall see!

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Alchemy Cards

2E Rewording

Herbalist and Alchemist both do a thing in the middle of discarding cards in Clean-up; these days I like to limit that to topdecking the card doing the thing. Just, to avoid having you worry about the order of discards in Clean-up. So now Herbalist doesn't care what order you discard it and the Treasure, and Alchemist doesn't care what order you discard it and the Potion.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Why of the Errata