Artisan

Artisan
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Base
Illustrator(s)	Harald Lieske
Card text
Gain a card to your hand costing up to . Put a card from your hand onto your deck.

Artisan is an Action card from the second edition of the Base set. It is a potent gainer.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• The card you gain comes from the Supply and is put into your hand.
• You cannot use to increase how expensive a card you gain; it always costs from to .
• After gaining the card, you put a card from your hand onto your deck; that can be the card you just gained, or a different card.

Other rules clarifications

• Artisan cares about the costs cards have when you play the Artisan. For example, if you play Highway and then Artisan, you can gain a Gold since it now costs .

Strategy

Artisan is a strong but expensive gainer that lets you gain cards, which are often rather powerful, to your hand. While the topdecking requirement is typically a drawback because it decreases your hand size and slows down drawing your deck, it can sometimes be used to your advantage.

Artisan has a rather high cost, being priced at . Because of the strength of its effect in many games, it can be worth thinking about whether there's a way to buy an early Artisan.

Artisan shines in Kingdoms with strong villages and draw. If you have plenty of draw, the downside of putting a card back on your deck doesn't hurt as much as usual, and multiple villages can allow you to play multiple Artisans per turn. Even without strong draw, villages can still make Artisan worth playing: decreasing your hand size by one is often worth gaining a and possibly playing it right away.

If the gain-and-play strategy isn’t possible, it can still be worth using Artisan as the last Action card of your turn and putting something onto your deck to set up your next turn (which might be what you just gained). Even though this usually isn't as powerful as gain-and-play, it's still a great way to add strong cards to your deck quickly.

Since Artisan can gain any card in the Supply, it can sometimes be worth gaining Duchies or other Victory cards with it. Although this usually isn't the primary reason that you'll want to gain Artisan, it can often be a prudent move toward the end of the game and may be crucial if there isn’t a source of +Buy in the Kingdom enabling you to purchase multiple Victory cards in one turn.

Artisan's topdecking ability synergizes with cards and effects that care about that top card, such as Vassal.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain a card to your hand costing up to . Put a card from your hand onto your deck.	Dominion 2nd Edition	October 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	藝術家 (pron. yìshùjiā, lit. artist)			獲得一張價值至多的卡片到手中， 從手牌中選擇一張卡片放回牌庫頂。
Dutch	Ambachtsman (lit. craftsman, explicitly masculine)
French	Artisan
German	Töpferei (lit. pottery)			Nimm eine Karte auf deine Hand, die bis zu kostet. Lege eine deiner Handkarten auf deinen Nachziehstapel.	2. Edition (2019) one or more other versions listed here
Japanese	陶芸家 (pron. tōgei-ka, lit. potter)			コスト以下のカード1枚を手札に獲得する。 手札1枚を山札の上に置く。
Polish	Rękodzielnik
Russian	Мастеровой (pron. mastyerovoy)			Получите в руку карту не дороже . Положите карту из руки на верх колоды.
Spanish	Artesano

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

For a while this was, cost , discard down to 2 cards in hand, gain a card costing up to . The idea was that the ability was strong enough that it was worth jumping through hoops for. But in games without combos, it wasn't very good, and when you did have the combos, Library was better. I gave it + and still wasn't impressed. Meanwhile I had had a card in Empires (gain a Gold to your hand, put a card from your hand on your deck, each other player gets +1 ) that hadn't worked out but had seemed promising, and I tried versions of it with different penalties. Finally one day I realized that costing would be more fun than having a (second) penalty. Which means the set still has a card for , hooray.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dominion 2nd Editions

Relevant outtakes

In the Artisan slot, I tried a reusable Feast. It was Feast but you could either trash it or discard down to one card. You know, I kind of liked it, but "better Feast" wasn't such a claim to fame, and being strictly better than a dead card might still bug some people, and then I had a better idea.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dominion 2nd Editions