Beggar

Beggar
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Reaction
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Garret DeChellis
Card text
Gain 3 Coppers to your hand. When another player plays an Attack card, you may first discard this to gain 2 Silvers, putting one onto your deck.

Beggar is an Action-Reaction card from Dark Ages. When played as an Action, it gains three Coppers, putting them in your hand, so you get an effective + this turn at the cost of gaining three Coppers. When revealed and discarded as a Reaction, it gains you two Silvers, putting one on top of your deck.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you play this, you gain three Coppers, putting them into your hand.
• If there are not three Coppers left, just gain as many as you can.
• When another player plays an Attack card, you may discard this from your hand.
• If you do, you gain two Silvers, putting one on your deck and the other into your discard pile.
• If there is only one Silver left, put it on your deck; if there are no Silvers left, you do not gain any.

Strategy

Beggar is a very weak card that is rarely relevant, mostly because adding three Coppers to your deck is antithetical to getting good deck control, and also generally decreases your money density. Beggar is a powerful enabler of a few very specific combos:

• Beggar gaining three Coppers with one terminal Action play is relevant for scoring with Triumph.
• Beggar can amass Coffers rapidly with Guildhall.
• Beggar can quickly fatten your deck for Gardens (Combo: Beggar and Gardens).

Very uncommon (but possible) use cases for Beggar include:

• In some fast money strategies that just want to hit a few times, Beggar can act as a very cheap terminal Gold.
• In decks with sifters but no draw options, Beggar can increase your hand size by two, increasing the amount of cards you can collide at once.
• With a Monastery in hand, Beggar’s self-junking is not a concern, and it can act as a terminal +. By playing Monastery on the same turn as the Beggar and trashing the Coppers gained immediately, you avoid putting those Coppers into your shuffle.
• In the endgame, when you won’t have to draw through the Coppers gained (because the game will be over), Beggar may be useful as a cheap source of payload.
• In a slog on very slow Kingdoms, Beggar and Tower can score a lot of  . However, many Kingdoms are fast enough that the game will end before this scores any  .

It is almost never worth it to gain Beggar for its defensive Reaction. Adding a Silver to the top of your deck slows down your cycling. Even against Attacks such as Knights that attack the top of your deck, adding an otherwise junk card in Beggar to your deck and reducing your usable hand size by one to stop a single Knight attack is usually not worth it.

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 or give historical perspective. Caveat emptor.

• Schneau's 2012 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain 3 Coppers, putting them into your hand. When another player plays an Attack card, you may discard this. If you do, gain two Silvers, putting one on top of your deck.	Dark Ages 1st Edition	August 2012
		Gain 3 Coppers to your hand. When another player plays an Attack card, you may first discard this to gain 2 Silvers, putting one onto your deck.	Dark Ages 2nd Edition	September 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	乞丐			獲得三張銅幣並放入手牌。 當其他玩家打出攻擊卡時，你可以先棄掉此卡，獲得兩張銀幣，將其中一張放到你的牌庫頂。
Czech	Žebrák			Vezmi si do ruky 3 Měďáky. Pokud jiný hráč zahraje kartu útoku, můžeš Žebráka odložit. Když to učiníš, vezmi si 2 Stříbrňáky a jeden z nich polož na svůj dobírací balíček.
Dutch	Bedelaar			Pak 3 koper en neem deze in je hand. Speelt een andere speler een aanvalskaart, dan mag je deze kaart afleggen. Doe je dat, dan pak je 2 zilver, waarvan je 1 op je trekstapel legt.
Finnish	Kerjäläinen
French	Mendiant
German	Bettler			Nimm dir 3 Kupfer. Nimm diese sofort auf die Hand. Wenn ein Mitspieler eine Angriffskarte ausspielt, darfst du diese Karte ablegen. Wenn du das machst: Nimm dir 2 Silber. Lege eines davon sofort auf deinen Nachziehstapel.	(2012)
German	Bettler			Nimm 3 Kupfer auf deine Hand. Wenn ein Mitspieler eine Angriffskarte ausspielt, darfst du zuerst diese Karte ablegen, um 2 Silber zu nehmen und eins davon auf deinen Nachziehstapel zu legen.	(2019) "..., um 2 Silber zu nehmen und…, wobei du eins davon direkt auf deinen Nach­zieh­stapel legst."
Japanese	物乞い (pron. monogoi)			手札に銅貨3枚を獲得する。 他のプレイヤーがアタックカードを使用するとき、その解決前に、これを捨て札にしてもよい。捨て札にした場合、銀貨1枚を山札の上に、銀貨1枚を捨て札置き場に獲得する。
Korean	거지 (pron. geoji)
Russian	Попрошайка (pron. poproshayka)
Spanish	Mendigo

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

I had the reaction on the original card, with "gain a Silver" as the top. Long ago I had had a straight "gain a Silver" action for , and it wasn't good enough, but it seemed like a reaction might prop it up sufficiently. Then it got "+" for good measure. And well the card was fine, if not exciting. Then I decided to change Squire, as told in its story, and it took the cheap Silver-gaining, leaving me to replace the top here. Three Coppers seemed flavorful and interesting.

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