Curse
| Curse | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type(s) | Curse |
| Kingdom card? | No |
| Set |
Base |
| Illustrator(s) | Claus Stephan |
| Card text | |
-1  | |
Curse is a basic card from the Base set that costs and gives the player possessing it –1 
. Their chief function in gameplay is to weaken a player's score and deck composition as a result of other players playing certain Attack cards.
FAQ
Official FAQ
There is no official FAQ for Curse.
Other Rules clarifications
- The number of Curses in the Supply is 10 for each player beyond the first—10 for two players, 20 for three players, 30 for four players, and so on.
- Curses are always in the supply, even when there is no card which explicitly mentions them.
- Curse isn't a Victory card, even though (like most Victory cards) it is a dead card that affects your score.
- In games using Charlatan, Curses behave differently than usual: they are still worth -1 , but in these games they also function as Treasures that can be played for +
. This applies for the entire game and in all situations; it's just like the bottom bar says "Curse - Treasure."
Strategy
Curse's most obvious penalty is that it gives you –1 at the end of the game. However, the negative tends to be the lesser of its two drawbacks. Much more significant is that Curse is a junk card, which does nothing for you but takes up space in your deck. Filling your opponents’ decks with Curses will substantially weaken their decks’ quality. For this reason, Attacks that distribute curses are usually best acquired very early in the game: a Curse that has been in an opponent's deck since turn 3 will bog down their deck all game, while one that is given out on the final turn will have minimal impact.
Likewise, Curses will often be worth giving out even if trashing cards exist. Your opponents might be able to trash the Curses before the game ends to avoid the loss, but the short term damage of slowing down their draws by filling them with Curses will already be done. As an example, Old Witch gives out Curses but also gives your opponents an opportunity to trash them, with your opponents frequently having few Curses left in the deck by scoring time. Old Witch is a strong card that players tend to acquire early into the game, because the immediate effect of putting Curses into your opponents’ early shuffles is so highly valued, even if the harm dissipates later.
Curse counts as a pile when determining the end of the game. In games with a Cursing attack, the Curse pile often empties or is brought low, bringing the game closer to a three-pile ending. Sometimes, a player with a large lead and ample +Buy may buy out the remaining Curses to end the game. Players may also gain Curses intentionally in certain other restricted situations: for instance, Defiled Shrine gives a bonus for gaining one during your Buy phase; and Curse can constitute an additional differently-named card to get from Fairgrounds or Museum.
Cards that interact with Curse
Most effects that interact with Curses are Cursers, i.e. Attacks and other effects used to make other players gain Curses. For a list, see here.
Some effects give Curses to the user as a drawback or penalty:
- Ritual
- Defiled Shrine
- Cursed Gold
- Hideout
- Desperation
- Locusts and Plague can be received both from attacks or as a penalty.
- Cursed
Some effects interact with Curses in other ways:
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
-1 |
Dominion | October 2008 | |
 |
never implemented | -1 |
Base Cards | June 2012 |
|
 |
-1  |
Dominion (Second Edition) | October 2016 |
 |
never implemented | -1 |
Base Cards (2018 printing) | June 2018 |
| never implemented |  |
 -1 |
Prosperity (Second Edition, online version by TGG) |
June 1, 2022 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese | 詛咒 (pron. zǔzhòu) | ||||
| Czech | Kletba | ||||
| Dutch | Vloek |  |
-1 |
Eerste editie (2008) | |
| Vloek |  |
-1 |
Tweede editie (2017) | ||
| Finnish | Kirous | ||||
| French | Malédiction | ||||
| German | Fluch |  |
-1 |
(2008) | |
| Fluch |  |
 |
-1 |
(2019) | |
| Greek | Κατάρα | ||||
| Hungarian | Átok | ||||
| Italian | Maledizione | ||||
| Japanese | 呪い (pron. noroi) | ||||
| Korean | 저주 (pron. jeoju) | ||||
| Norwegian | Forbannelse | ||||
| Polish | Klątwa |  |
-1 |
(2009) | |
| Klątwa |  |
-1 |
(2016) | ||
| Romanian | Blestem | ||||
| Russian | Проклятие (pron. proklyatiye) |
||||
| Spanish | Maldición |  |
-1 |
First Edition Base (2008) | |
| Maldición |  |
-1 |
First Edition Intrigue (2009) | ||
| Maldición |  |
-1 |
Second Edition Base (2016) |
Trivia
Curse is the only card in Dominion that gives negative victory points. Until Empires, with the addition of Landmarks, it was also the only effect in the game that gave negative victory points.
Curse is the only card type with a single representative, the only card with the Curse type, and the only card whose name is also a type.
Secret History
Pre-development, you could get Curses from the trash. Also treasures. I forgot all about that when doing that BGN interview; this is another change Valerie and Dale made. They changed it to, once trashed, gone forever. My original thought was, I would have an infinite pile of Silvers if I could, but it's a physical game so what can you do. Getting them from the trash stretched out the supply just slightly. But it's simpler not to, nice to have those piles count towards the end condition, and man getting hit 10 times with Witch (the maximum if there's no Moat) is plenty.
The total number of Curses also changed. For a while there were 45. You could really get Cursed bad. Also you didn't always vary the pile size with the number of players. That's there of course to stop Witch from getting ridiculous with 2 players (or from being negligible with 4, if you fix it for 2).The Curse type
