Barbarian

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Barbarian
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Allies
Illustrator(s)	Julien Delval
Card text
+ Each other player trashes the top card of their deck. If it costs or more they gain a cheaper card sharing a type with it; otherwise they gain a Curse.

Barbarian is an Action–Attack card from Allies. It is a trashing attack and sometimes junking attack similar to Locusts: it trashes opponents' cards and replaces them with cheaper ones. If the trashed card is cheap enough, the replacement is a Curse; otherwise it must be of the same type as the trashed card.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• For example, if a player trashes Contract to this, they could gain a Royal Galley, as they share the Duration type, or a Silver, as they share the Treasure type, or a Sycophant, as they share the Liaison type.
• If the trashed card costs or more, they have to gain a cheaper card if they can; if there are no cheaper cards that share a type, they simply fail to gain a card.
• The attack hits each other player in turn order, starting with the player to your left; this can be important.

Other rules clarifications

• The player who trashes a card is the one who gets to decide which of the available options they gain to replace it.
• Cards that cost only cost more than another card if both the and amounts are larger, or one is larger and one the same. For example, a Barbarian that trashes your Alchemist means you can gain either an Apothecary or an Underling. However, a Barbarian that trashes your Underling means you can't gain an Apothecary.
• Unlike Locusts, which checks whether the trashed card is Copper or Estate, Barbarian checks the cost of the trashed card (ignoring and ). This leads to several differences:
  • If Locusts trashes nothing, the player gains nothing. If Barbarian trashes nothing, the player gains a Curse (similar to Giant).
  • If Locusts trashes a card costing or less (such as Bauble or Curse), the player gains a cheaper card sharing a type if possible (Copper is cheaper than Bauble, while there's nothing cheaper than Curse). If Barbarian trashes a Bauble, the player gains a Curse.
  • If Locusts trashes a Apothecary or Engineer, the player gains a cheaper card sharing a type if possible. Barbarian will give out Curse in both scenarios.

Strategy

Barbarian is vaguely similar to the retired Saboteur, which was generally agreed to be weak, but it addresses several deficiencies of that card, providing less cycling benefit to opponents, and acting as a terminal Silver. It also provides more influence of skill, and its strength is more variable depending both on the board and the choices other players make.

The effect of Barbarian is wildly different based on the card type it hits. In the absence of alt-treasure or alt-VP, it results in a downgrade of worth of value whenever it hits a victory or treasure card, whereas it usually only results in a downgrade of when it hits actions. Furthermore, when it hits actions, it is likely that the opponents have multiple choices of which card to gain, whereas with treasure or victory cards, there is no such choice. Both of these factors make Barbarian more effective against decks with few actions, and make it dramatically weaker against action-heavy decks. It also makes the card strong if you are able to buy it early, such as on a / opening where it is most likely to hit a Copper or Estate.

The combination of strong trashing with gainers tends to be an effective counter as it gains cards, typically actions, faster than Barbarian can trash them, and the trashers can rid your deck of any curses Barbarian doles out. Trail is a particularly effective counter to Barbarian, and it also tends to synergize with the type of action-heavy decks packed with gainers and trashers, that Barbarian is already weaker against. Secret Passage can counter Barbarian in that it can allow you to choose what card will be on top of your deck during your opponent's turn.

Barbarian becomes stronger when the lowest-price-point actions are otherwise desireable, but pricier actions are weaker or undesireable on the particular board. This makes it more likely that it turns a useful card into a curse, and makes it harder to build an engine resilient to its attack. The presence of alt-VP and alt-treasure at price points between the default cards, on the other hand, weakens Barbarian's attack, and may also make money-based strategies more viable.

Barbarian, especially when multiple players are playing them, can increase the likelihood that the game will quickly end on piles, both through directly trashing cards, and by incentivizing other players to buy or gain lots of actions. This factor produces an interesting conflict, in that usually the sort of action-heavy engines that Barbarian is strongest against, are only a winning strategy if they are able to prolong the game enough that they can execute double-VP buys in the endgame, and they can sometimes be defeated by a rush strategy. Barbarian tends to slow down the game, but less dramatically than direct cursing attacks like Witch or Sea Hag. The combination of a slower game, but one that may end relatively quickly on piles, necessitates carefully watching and predicting the pace of the game, which can make Barbarian a card that rewards skill more than other junk attacks.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+ Each other player trashes the top card of their deck. If it costs or more they gain a cheaper card sharing a type with it; otherwise they gain a Curse.	Allies	March 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
German	Barbar			+ Jeder Mitspieler entsorgt die oberste Karte seines Nachziehstapels. Kostet sie oder mehr, nimmt er eine billigere Karte, die mit der entsorgten Karte mindestens 1 Kartentyp gemeinsam hat; ansonsten nimmt er einen Fluch.

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

An outtake from Dark Ages! Some guys from dominionstrategy.com briefly playtested Dark Ages (theory, rrenaud, and Captain Frisk, hey guys), and were aghast at how easy it was to lose a Duchy. I decided to scale back the quantity of Duchy-trashing, and took this card out. It was the same except it gave out a Ruins instead of a Curse. Well, I always liked it, and here it is at last. It also tried out for the Clashes pile, but I preferred it as its own pile.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Allies

Previous outtake

For a long time there was an attack which in its best form was "+, they trash the top card of their deck and gain a cheaper card that shares a type with it, or a Ruins if they can't." I liked it. Eventually I decided though that there was enough hatred of trashing attacks out there that I should just stick with the Knights (plus Rogue, but it's only a fractional attack).

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

Donald X.'s opinion

People hating trashing attacks got Barbarian to come out in Allies instead of Dark Ages. There are also people hungry for those cards though, and they can't play with them if I don't make them. And Barbarian, man. It's not a card to be scared of.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2022

I Workshop a Action. Barbarian turns that into a ; a 2nd play of Barbarian turns the into nothing (no Action this game). One play of Workshop dealt with two plays of Barbarian. To fight Barbarian, you have to be gaining stuff faster than they're trashing it... and this is very doable, as Barbarian takes so long to eat cards.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Reddit, 2022