Changeling

Changeling
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Night
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Nocturne
Illustrator(s)	Jason Slavin
Card text
Trash this. Gain a copy of a card you have in play. In games using this, when you gain a card costing or more, you may exchange it for a Changeling.

Changeling is a Night card from Nocturne. It's a one-shot gainer that copies any card that you have in play, making it one of the few gainers in the game with no cost or type restriction. It also has an ability that lets you swap any card you gain (that costs at least ) for a Changeling.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When Changeling is in the Supply, any time you gain a card costing at least , you may exchange it for a Changeling from the Supply.
• You can only do this if you can actually return the card you gained, and there is at least one Changeling in the Supply.
• The Changeling goes to your discard pile, no matter where the gained card went.
• Things that happen due to gaining the gained card still happen.
• So for example you could gain Skulk, exchange it for a Changeling (returning Skulk to the Supply and putting Changeling into your discard pile), and still gain a Gold from Skulk's ability.
• Exchanging for a Changeling is optional.
• You cannot do it if the gained card costs less than , even if it normally costs or more, and you cannot do it if the cost is neither more or less than (such as Transmute from Alchemy).
• When you play Changeling, you trash it and gain a copy of a card you have in play; that can be any card you have in play, including Actions, Treasures, and Night cards, and including Duration cards you played on a previous turn that are still in play.

Other rules clarifications

• Changeling cannot gain a copy of Changeling, since it is not in play when the effect happens - it's either in the trash (in normal turn) or set aside (when played in a Possessed turn).
• You can choose any card you have in play, but if that card's pile is empty, or its name does not match the name of the top card on that pile (e.g. it's a split pile), or that card's pile is not in the Supply (e.g. Imp), or that card has no pile (e.g. an Heirloom, you gain nothing.
• You can exchange for Changeling when gaining non-Supply cards, as long as they come from a pile, such as Ghost. You cannot exchange for non-Supply cards that do not have an associated pile, such as the Zombies.
• Remember that you can choose the order in which simultaneous effects happen. When you gain a card that either gains other cards (like Skulk above) or moves itself (like Villa), and you allow that gaining or moving effect to happen first, Changeling will lose track of the card and not be able to exchange with it. If you want to exchange, make sure you do that first.
• This checks the cost of the card as you're gaining it, not after. So if you gain a Fisherman with an empty discard pile, you cannot exchange it for a Changeling, because Fisherman cost when you gained it.
• If you gain a Loot and exchange it for a Changeling, the Loot goes back on top of the pile, face down.
• Exchanging is not gaining, so exchanging a card for a Changeling will not allow you to take Changelings out of exile.

Strategy

Changeling is a one-shot gainer and Night card that is largely characterized by two aspects:

1. First, it can acquire extra copies of cards you have in play. This means that, as a gainer, Changeling has several constraints:
   • It can only gain copies of components you already have, which may not be what you most need (e.g., you might have plenty of deck control, but lack payload).
   • It requires sufficient deck control to set up collisions with the card you want to gain.
   • It usually cannot help you score by gaining Victory cards.
2. Second, you can exchange it for other cards you would normally gain, provided those cost at least . This means that, with the right enablers, Changeling can be very cheap to acquire, counterbalancing some of its drawbacks as a gainer. The best sources of Changelings tend to be those that gain moderately expensive junk that you don’t want. Most commonly, gainers that are otherwise restricted in what they can gain (e.g., Treasure gainers for Silver, Horse gainers, and Rats) are very good for this purpose. Changeling can also help Workshop variants such as Sculptor sidestep their restrictions. In this role, Changeling effectively converts restricted gainers such as Paddock and Jack of all Trades into more general sources of additional gains. In such Kingdoms where Changelings are a frequently-used intermediate step for gaining cards, pileouts are a likely occurrence. Less commonly, Changelings can come from sources other than your own gainers; this includes unwanted Silvers from Governor, junk from Swindler, or cards that you primarily buy for the on-gain effect such as Farmland. Changeling may anti-synergize with cost reduction if the price of a card you would like to exchange drops below .

The best targets for Changeling are those that are otherwise hard to gain, and cards that you do not mind having in bulk. The former is one advantage Changeling has over other gainers, and includes expensive cards such as Grand Market, as well as cards with a high cost such as Overlord or City Quarter or cost such as Scrying Pool or Alchemist. The latter means that you usually want to target cards that do not stress your draw and terminal space, with non-terminal draw, villages, and cantrips being some good examples. If sufficiently good targets are available, it may even be worth buying Changelings directly; doing so is effectively equivalent to buying an additional copy of your ultimate target for only at the cost of having to wait a shuffle.

There are a couple of repercussions to Changeling being a Night card. It’s effectively non-terminal and cannot be drawn dead, which can be useful for gain-and-playing a Changeling, for example with terminal draw. On the other hand, you’re unlikely to be able to gain-and-play the card you Changeling for.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Trash this. Gain a copy of a card you have in play. In games using this, when you gain a card costing or more, you may exchange it for a Changeling.	Nocturne	November 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text
Dutch	Wisselkind
French	Changelin			Écartez cette carte. Recevez un exemplaire d'une carte que vous avez en jeu. Si le Changelin est dans le royaume, lorsque vous recevez une carte coûtant ou plus, vous pouvez l'échanger contre un Changelin.
German	Wechselbalg			Entsorge diese Karte. Nimm eine Karte, von der du eine gleiche im Spiel hast. In Spielen mit dieser Karte: Wenn du eine Karte nimmst, die oder mehr kostet, darfst du sie in einen Wechselbalg eintauschen.
Japanese	取り替え子 (pron. torikaeko)			これを廃棄する。場のカード1枚と同じカード1枚を獲得する。 取り替え子を使用するゲームで、コスト以上のカード1枚を獲得するとき、それを取り替え子と交換してもよい。
Polish	Odmieniec			Wyrzuć tę kartę na Śmietnisko. Dodaj kopię karty, którą masz w grze. W rozgrywkach z tą kartą, ilekroć dodajesz kartę kosztującą lub więcej, możesz wymienić ją na Odmieńca.
Russian	Подменыш (pron. podmyenysh)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

For strumphf's 2022 advent calendar, Donald X. went in-depth on the development of Changeling.

For a while this was just the top, a sleek simple classic card. We liked it but Matt's group not so much. I tried putting the gained card on your deck, but I like to go light on that as it's easy to forget and a more complex concept. Then I thought of the bottom as a way to hit the flavor harder; your Skulk is swapped at birth for a Changeling.

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

Relevant outtakes

An early Night attack gained you a copy of a card/Action you had in play, and discarded Actions from their top 3 cards. It was interesting as a card you didn't want right away. Once I had Changeling they felt like they were in competition. Changeling was sleek and perfect, so it won. Then I grafted another ability onto Changeling to make it more exciting and less sleek and perfect.

Before Changeling, some other cards tried out for that name. One was a choose-one that could turn into a cheaper card in your hand; one revealed your top card and could turn into it and be played. It was never quite there, and the tangentially related Night version was way better.

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

Why have the exchange ability?

Changeling started out as just the top, and I liked it. The bottom half gave it more flavor (which comes at a cost in complexity), but also made it way more interesting. It comes up plenty, mostly with ways to gain Silver but certainly with other cards. There's that game Mic won due to taking Changeling instead of an Ambassador'd Province, for example.

Changeling is pretty fun. For people who know the published card, I think any positive feelings they have are due to the bottom half. They can't compare the simple card that doesn't exist, and it can't sound that great. But Nocturne is too complex over all and Changeling does its part there. So, it's really still a question, should it have been the simpler card. It's hard not to go with the more fun thing and Nocturne is full of that decision going that way.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Changeling's on-gain ability

Online implementations

Well zero cards are designed for online. These days I do worry a little about online, because of e.g. Changeling. Which I mean, made it out with no regard for online whatsoever; online would deal with it somehow. But you know, I might think, will this card make you click pointlessly a bunch, can I fix that without really sacrificing anything.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.