Explorer

Explorer
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Seaside
Illustrator(s)	Dennis Lohausen
Card text
You may reveal a Province from your hand. If you do, gain a Gold to your hand. If you don't, gain a Silver to your hand.

Explorer is an Action card from Seaside. It is a gainer which can let you gain Silver directly into your hand—and sometimes Gold, if you collide your Explorer with a Province.

It was removed from the second edition of Seaside and replaced with Pirate which is a more flexible gainer for Treasures and ties into the set's Duration theme.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You do not have to reveal a Province if you have one.
• If you do reveal one you gain a Gold, otherwise you gain a Silver.
• The gained card comes from the Supply and is put into your hand; it can be played the same turn.

Strategy

Before it was removed, Explorer was a weak terminal gainer of Silver or Gold that usually had a prohibitively high opportunity cost. Silver and Gold are both stop cards and often not the most efficient forms of payload, and therefore adding one of these to your deck per play is generally neither good value for a card costing (which is itself another stop card) nor an efficient use of terminal space.

Explorer is occasionally worthwhile when you do value the Treasure gaining highly and have no better way to achieve it. In a Kingdom with weak options for additional gains and payload, Explorer can be a reasonable way to keep adding payload to your engine once you have achieved deck control, or to provide fodder for trash-for-benefit effects such as Bishop. If a Gold is significantly better than a Silver (which is usually the case with trash-for-benefit), it may be worth buying a Province slightly earlier than you would otherwise.

Even in extremely weak Kingdoms where you might pursue a money strategy, Explorer’s Silver-gaining compares poorly with many other Treasure-gaining alternatives despite its advantage of allowing you to use the Treasure immediately. Many other effects gain stronger Treasures (Bandit), are cheaper or more accessible (Delve), or have useful secondary effects (Jack of All Trades).

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.

• gman314's 2012 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		You may reveal a Province card from your hand. If you do, gain a Gold card, putting it into your hand. Otherwise, gain a Silver card, putting it into your hand.	Seaside	October 2009
		You may reveal a Province from your hand. If you do, gain a Gold to your hand. If you don't, gain a Silver to your hand.	Seaside (2017 printing)	July 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	探險者 (pron. tànxiǎnzhě)
Czech	Objevitel
Dutch	Ontdekkingsreiziger
Finnish	Tutkimusmatkailija
French	Explorateur
German	Entdecker			Du darfst eine Provinz aus deiner Hand aufdecken. Wenn du das tust: Nimm ein Gold auf die Hand. Wenn du das nicht tust: Nimm ein Silber auf die Hand.	(Nachdruck 2018)
Italian	Avventuriero (lit. adventurer - Esploratore was already taken by Adventurer)
Japanese	探検家 (pron. tanken-ka)			手札の属州1枚を公開してもよい。公開した場合、金貨1枚を手札に獲得する。公開しなかった場合、銀貨1枚を手札に獲得する。
Korean	탐험가 (pron. tamheomga)
Polish	Zdobywca (lit. conqueror)			Możesz odkryć z ręki kartę Prowincji. Jeżeli to zrobisz, dodaj kartę Złota na rękę. W przeciwnym wypadku dodaj kartę Srebrników na rękę.	(2016)
Russian	Исследователь (pron. isslyedovatyel')			Вы можете раскрыть Провинцию из руки. Тогда получите Золото в руку. Иначе получите Серебро в руку.
Spanish	Exploradora (Note: explicitly feminine, due to Explorador already being used for Scout)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

At first this did nothing unless you revealed a Victory card. If it was a Province you got Gold, otherwise Silver. That version wasn't good enough, and eventually I dropped the requirement - you get Silver even if you don't reveal anything.

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

Retrospective

Explorer is fine, why do people even complain about Explorer. They can’t all be the best ever.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, What Donald X. Might Do With a Dominion Time Machine

Second Edition Removal

Explorer is fine. It's been complained about a lot over the years, but well, it's really not so bad. But it was borderline, it was a contender for going, and then I wanted to add Pirate, which is similar. So, out with Explorer.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Seaside 2E Previews 3

I can tell you that Explorer was the card that came closest to surviving, and it's the only one where I think, if I have to keep one of these, okay I keep that one. It's bad whichever card I pick 2nd.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.