Conspirator

Conspirator
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Intrigue
Illustrator(s)	Matthias Catrein
Card text
+ If you’ve played 3 or more Actions this turn (counting this), +1 Card and +1 Action.

Conspirator is an Action card from Intrigue. It is a terminal Silver if you play it as your first or second action, but it becomes a cantrip if you've already played two or more Action cards first.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• This counts Actions played this turn, rather than Action cards in play.
• For example if you start a turn with Throne Room on a Conspirator, you get + for the first play of Conspirator, but + +1 Card +1 Action for the second play of Conspirator. You only have two Action cards in play, but the second play of Conspirator is your third Action played this turn.

Other Rules clarifications

• Conspirator does count one-shots and other Actions that have been played but left the play area, but does not count Durations that are still in play left over from the previous turn, or Reserves called into play that were not played this turn.
• When you play a Command variant, you are playing two actions. The Command variant is the first action, and the card it plays is the second action.

Strategy

Conspirator is a great way to add payload to an engine. In a well-functioning engine, meeting the conditions to turn Conspirator into a cantrip is frequently trivial, so it becomes a cheap, reliable source of virtual money.

In the early game, Conspirator is just a terminal silver with no benefit. So often, you will want to start by building your engine as normal, establishing deck control by trashing your starting cards, getting draw cards, and ideally gaining a source of +Buy before buying many Conspirators. One Conspirator early may be useful to help you hit pricepoints, without being a stop card later as a Silver would. If you plan to gain Conspirator, Peddler variants, sifters, weak cantrips, and other non-terminal Actions will all be slightly more attractive than usual. The right time to start gaining Conspirator is when your deck is starting to function reliably, with most turns starting with several Actions. If the Kingdom lacks +Buy, you will probably want only a couple of Conspirators, but in a Kingdom that supports spending a lot of , your deck will be able to support gaining many more. You should be careful, of course, not to buy so many Conspirators that they interfere with your ability to find at least a couple of other non-terminal Actions at the start of each turn. Conspirator’s reliability can worsen in the endgame if the greening period is extended, as it becomes more difficult to line your Conspirators up with non-terminal Actions.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+ If you’ve played 3 or more Actions this turn (counting this): +1 Card, +1 Action.	Intrigue 1st Edition	July 2009
		+ If you’ve played 3 or more Actions this turn (counting this), +1 Card and +1 Action.	Intrigue 2nd Edition	October 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	共謀者 (pron. gòngmóuzhě)
Czech	Spiklenec
Dutch	Samenzweerder			+ Als je deze beurt 3 of meer acties hebt gespeeld (inclusief deze): +1 Kaart, +1 Actie.	Eerste editie (2009)
Finnish	Vehkeilijä
French	Conspirateur
German	Verschwörer			+ Wenn du in diesem Zug 3 oder mehr Aktionskarten (inklusive dieser) gespielt hast: +1 Karte und +1 Aktion.	2. Edition (2021)
Hungarian	Összeesküvő
Italian	Cospiratori (note: explicitly plural)
Japanese	共謀者 (pron. kyōbō-sha)			+ このターンに (これも含めて)3度以上アクションカードを使用した場合、+1 カードを引く、+1 アクション。
Korean	공모자 (pron. gongmoja)
Norwegian	Renkesmed (lit. schemer)
Polish	Spiskowiec			+ Jeśli w tej turze zagrałeś co najmniej 3 akcje (wliczając tę akcję): +1 karta, +1 akcja.
Russian	Заговорщик (pron. zagovorshshik)			+ Если вы сыграли 3 или больше Действий в этот ход (включая это), то +1 Карта, +1 Действие.
Spanish	Conspirador			+ Si has jugado al menos 3 Acciones este turno (contando esta carta): +1 Carta, +1 Acción.	First Edition (2009)
	Conspirador			+ Si has jugado al menos 3 Acciones este turno (contando esta carta): +1 Carta y +1 Acción.	Second Edition (2016)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

The "broken" card that Donald X. describes used to say "+ per Action card you played this turn," which later evolved into Horn of Plenty.

This was the last card added to the set, replacing a horribly broken card. The broken card had its admirers. Two of Valerie & Dale's playtesters wrote essays defending the card. But the card was often unplayable and then sometimes dominated. So some games it made worse by being a dead card, and some games it made worse by making other cards dead. Now what it did was cool, and it's fun to sometimes get turns where you make 50+ , which is how it got defended. It's fun to do something you don't often get to do. But it just didn't make sense to put out such a messed up card. I'll try to fix it up for a later set and well that's why I'm not telling you what it did. There was no time to fix it up when I came to my senses though. So instead it got replaced. With this card. I like it.

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

Why wasn't it changed to count cards in play instead of cards played?

I did consider that change, plus changing Mining Village somehow to get rid of Throne / Mining Village confusion. [And those were the only other changes really considered.]

Changing Conspirator would have mattered constantly, rather than rarely; the idea was not to really change cards. The situations that make the other changes matter are rare to essentially nonexistent; Conspirator would have been different in game after game, due to duration cards and reserve cards.

Also I didn't get to it in a timely fashion; I remembered it one day and LF said, well we'd have to test that, and he was right, it was enough of a buff to need testing, and that testing wasn't happening.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.