Ambassador

Ambassador
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Seaside
Illustrator(s)	Alejandro Gutiérrez Franco
Card text
Reveal a card from your hand. Return up to 2 copies of it from your hand to the Supply. Then each other player gains a copy of it.

Ambassador is an Action-Attack card from the first edition of Seaside. When played, it lets you return up to 2 copies of a card from your hand to the supply, and makes all opponents gain a copy of that card; it thus clears out your deck like a trasher while filling your opponents' decks with junk. It is an extremely powerful opening when setting up an engine in a 2-player game.

It was removed from the second edition of Seaside.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• First you reveal a card from your hand.
• Then take 0, 1, or 2 copies of that card from your hand and put them on top of their Supply pile.
• Then each other player gains a copy of that card from the Supply.
• If there are not enough copies to go around, deal them out in turn order, starting with the player to your left.

Other Rules clarifications

• If you reveal a card which is not from the Supply, such as Spoils, Madman, Mercenary, or Shelters, Ambassador does nothing. Similarly, because none of the cards bought through Black Market are in the Supply, if you reveal a card bought through Black Market, Ambassador does nothing.
• If you reveal a card which is part of a Supply pile with differently named cards, such as Ruins or Knights, you can only return two cards to the supply pile if they have the same name. Other players will only gain cards with that name, and only if they are on the top of the deck (no digging).
• If you empty either the Province pile or a third Supply pile, then use Ambassador so that the pile is no longer empty at the end of your turn, the game does not end.
• If you return the bottom card of a Split pile when there is a top card on top, you still put the returned bottom card on top, not under the remaining top cards.

Strategy

Before it was removed, Ambassador was an extremely powerful card that simultaneously thinned your deck and junked your opponents. It is frequently an important purchase in the opening, since getting rid of your starting cards and slowing down your opponents are both high priorities initially; a few early victories in the 'Ambassador war' have great potential to create a snowball effect, allowing your deck to take off much more quickly than your opponents'. Depending on the Kingdom, it can even be reasonable to open with Ambassador on a / or / split, or to open with two Ambassadors, despite the risk of terminal collision.

All else being equal, it's typically preferable to use Ambassador to return Estates over Coppers. However, it's common to face a choice in the early game between returning one Estate and returning two Coppers; in this case, the latter is likely to be better, even if this slows you down in the short term by preventing you from buying a card. This is both because thinning two cards is better than thinning one, and because it increases the chance that you’ll collide Ambassador with two Estates on a future turn.

If you manage to obtain deck control in the face of your opponents' attacks, you'll probably need to continue using Ambassador to keep returning the junk they're likely to send you each turn. However, if you're sufficiently far ahead that you can keep your deck clean with Ambassador plays to spare, while your opponents can't consistently play their own Ambassadors, you can consider keeping a piece of junk (or even gaining a Curse) to reveal repeatedly without returning it, allowing you to continue attacking them. Deck control is more likely in a two-player game; in a multiplayer game, unless you can play more Ambassadors than your opponents, you’ll be receiving at least as much junk as you’re able to return. This ratio is skewed further with each additional player.

In the endgame, Ambassador can sometimes help you control the state of the Supply piles. Revealing cards without returning them may enable a pile-out win; you can even do the same with the Province pile, if this allows you to end the game while ahead on   despite gifting your opponents one or more Provinces.

Ambassador is considerably less powerful than usual in Kingdoms with Shelters: these can't be returned (and your opponents won't gain extra copies), as they have no Supply pile to return to. Ruins are another type of junk that Ambassador doesn't handle so easily, as you can't return two with a single Ambassador play unless they happen to be copies of exactly the same card. When a very strong trasher such as Chapel is present, Ambassador is unneeded for thinning, and its attack is less damaging; it can also be weakened or neutralised by defensive cards in general, or cards with a relevant Reaction like that of Watchtower. Finally, if Possession is present, Ambassador can become a liability, as your opponent can use it to return your good cards and gain them for themselves.

External strategy articles

Note: Article(s) below are by individual authors and may not represent the community's current views on cards, but may provide more in-depth information. Caveat emptor.

• theory's 2010 article
• theory's 2013 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Reveal a card from your hand. Return up to 2 copies of it from your hand to the Supply. Then each other player gains a copy of it.	Seaside	October 2009
		Reveal a card from your hand. Return up to 2 copies of it from your hand to the Supply. Then each other player gains a copy of it.	Seaside (2017 printing)	July 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	大使 (pron. dàshǐ)
Czech	Velvyslanec
Dutch	Boodschapper (lit. courier)
Finnish	Suurlähettiläs				translation error: it says, "then each other player gains a copy of the returned card", instead of the revealed card
French	Ambassadeur
German	Botschafter			Decke eine Handkarte auf. Lege bis zu 2 dieser Karten aus deiner Hand zurück in den Vorrat. Jeder Mitspieler nimmt sich eine Karte mit gleichem Namen.	(Nachdruck 2018) Note: Rulebook 2009 (p.1) and rulebook 2014 (p.6) incorrectly determine game end with empty but at the end of your turn no longer empty Province or third Supply piles.
	Botschafter			Decke eine deiner Handkarten auf. Lege bis zu zwei dazu gleiche Karten aus deiner Hand in den Vorrat zurück. Dann nimmt jeder Mitspieler eine gleiche Karte.	(Nachdruck 2021)
Italian	Ambasciatore
Japanese	大使 (pron. taishi)			手札1枚を公開する。公開したのと同じカード2枚以下を手札からサプライに戻す。他のプレイヤーは全員、それと同じカード1枚を獲得する。
Korean	대사 (pron. daesa)
Polish	Ambasador			Odkryj kartę z ręki. Zwróć do Zasobów maksymalnie dwie jej kopie z ręki. Następnie każdy z pozostałych graczy dodaje kopię tej karty.	(2016)
Russian	Посол (pron. posol)			Раскройте карту из руки. Верните до двух её копий из руки в Резерв. Затем каждый другой игрок получает её копию.
Spanish	Embajador			Revela una carta de tu mano. Devuelve hasta 2 copias de dicha carta, de tu mano al Suministro. Después, cada jugador (menos tú) gana una copia de esa misma carta.

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Originally this had you pass cards directly to the other players (or they took them from the supply if you didn't have enough). It was simpler to have them go to the supply first. That version also let you get rid of one card per player, but that was too much in 4-player games, so now it only lets you get rid of two cards at once.

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

Donald X.'s opinion

Ambassador can endlessly generate junk; it's a unique nightmare that goes on forever... In multiplayer, sometimes the Ambassadors completely bury you. It's a long game of nothing turns for you... The premise of Ambassador is Witch plus trasher, which is just asking for trouble.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020

Second Edition Removal

Ambassador! It's such a classic old Dominion card. At first it just looks silly; later you find out it's a powerhouse. It's not necessarily a problem in 2-player, though you get a sub-game of trashing down with Ambassadors before you get to the main game after that. But in multiplayer, it can just shut you out. As with Ghost Ship, you don't get to see your deck.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Seaside 2E Preview 3

This mostly left due to multiplayer. In 2-player it's a unique experience, and it's cool that it starts out looking silly and then turns out to be powerful. It's not so great in 2-player; every game with it starts out with a sub-game of dealing with Ambassador. But you know, some people may cherish it. But well in multiplayer, it can just shut you out. The early shuffles don't go your way and you are drowning in Coppers and Estates and in for a long game of that. It's a really unpleasant experience, and I could get rid of it. It may feel weird that this time I also got rid of some powerful cards, but well. I think the game is better without Ambassador. There is no card trying to be the fixed Ambassador here, but there still might be one someday.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Seaside 2E

Let's be clear! Call me a casual player if you want, but Ghost Ship and Ambassador were both unusable for me personally, in games I play with my friends and playtesters. The game supports multiplayer and we play with 2-4 players. With e.g. 4 players and Ambassador someone is having a truly awful time, whatever their rating is. It's not up to play skill.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Seaside 2E Preview 3

A Dominion card can easily be overpowered. It doesn't matter that we have equal access to it; a card can be so strong that it shuts out most of the other cards on the table, meaning we're having less fun than with a weaker card.

The nature of the card matters a lot. King's Court is strong, but always interacts with other things. The game ends up super-powered, but cards aren't shut out. Similarly Chapel is strong, but all it shuts out is other trashers (and not quite all of those).

Ambassador and Mountebank both are out of print because in multiplayer they would just shut some players out of the game. You bottom-deck your Ambassador and now you are wading through so much junk, with no hope of getting rid of it, with so many turns of this to come. It was an awful experience. That we all had equal access to. My fix for Ambassador is Shaman; my fix for Mountebank is Charlatan.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Reddit, 2024