Familiar

Familiar
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Alchemy
Illustrator(s)	Alex Drummond
Card text
+1 Card +1 Action Each other player gains a Curse.

Familiar is an Action-Attack from Alchemy. It is both a cantrip and a curser. Its non-terminal Curse distribution can be very strong; however, its cost makes it slower to gain than most other Cursers.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You draw a card, get +1 Action, and each other player gains a Curse.

Strategy

Familiar is a Cursing attack which is easy to play in multiples due to its cantrip nature but expensive and particularly hard to gain in multiples due to its cost. It integrates easily into any kind of deck and distributes Curses very quickly once you have a few copies, but doing this may or may not be worth the set-up opportunity costs, depending on the nature of the Kingdom.

Although it is non-terminal and not itself a stop card, Familiar does not provide any benefit to you when you play it (compared to the draw or that some similar attacks offer), and it does slightly increase your need for draw because it usually requires you to gain a Potion first. A related problem is that a pair of opening purchases tailored towards buying Familiar as early as possible (e.g. Potion and Silver) is often rather vulnerable to the possibility of an unlucky shuffle in which you cannot afford , further delaying your plan for your deck. Since these issues mean it is slow to get online and doesn’t help you further build, Familiar is much less impactful than most Cursers against even moderately fast trashers (such as Forager), heavily countered by the fastest trashers (such as Chapel or Masquerade), and may not have time to pay off in a fast-paced game even if the Curse trashing is mediocre. Nevertheless, Cursing your opponents is still a strong effect, and focusing on buying and playing multiple Familiars as early as possible is often a reasonable choice if there is no way to trash the Curses.

Because it's most impactful when multiple copies are played as early as possible, Familiar is especially disadvantaged by the downside shared by all cards costing , namely that they are slow to acquire because you can generally buy only one per shuffle per Potion in your deck, and adding multiple Potions is not likely to pay off. Effects that let you gain early Familiars in other ways can therefore make the card significantly more attractive. For example, trashing Squire lets you gain any Attack, while Lurker or Transport can also allow you to acquire early Familiars without the need to buy a Potion.

Once the Curses run out, Familiar no longer provides any useful effects, making it a good target for trash for benefit effects (such as Advance, Salvager, or notably Apprentice).

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Card +1 Action Each other player gains a Curse.	Alchemy 1st Edition	May 2010
		+1 Card +1 Action Each other player gains a Curse.	Alchemy 2nd Edition	December 2018

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	使魔 (pron. shǐ mó, lit. magic messenger)
Czech	Alchymistův poskok (lit. alchemist's underling)
Dutch	Oude bekende (lit. old friend)
Finnish	Apuolento
French	Familier
German	Vertrauter (lit. confidant)			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Jeder Mitspieler nimmt einen Fluch.	(2019)
Italian	Famiglio
Japanese	使い魔 (pron. tsukaima)			+1 カードを引く +1 アクション 他のプレイヤーは全員、呪い1枚を獲得する。
Polish	Chowaniec				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Фамильяр (pron. famil'yar)			+1 Карта +1 Действие Каждый другой игрок получает Проклятие.
Spanish	Familiar			+1 Carta +1 Acción Cada jugador (menos tú) gana una carta de Maldición.

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

It's free (it gives you back the card and action it cost you), it hands out Curses, what's not to like. When the Curses run out, it essentially vanishes from your deck; move along, Familiar, your work here is done. Free attacks can be scary things and well it does cost .

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion: Alchemy Preview

Secret History

This started out at . It seemed like it would be fine at , so I lowered it. Then we tried a version where you picked a card and everyone else gained it. That would sometimes be political (as Wei-Hwa pointed out), where you picked a victory card to end the game and not everyone got one. So I changed it to "non-victory card." But then it was like, once the Curses ran out, you emptied however many piles you had to to end the game. It was not something the card needed. So, back to the original.

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

Retrospective

Maybe Familiar should be cheaper, that's plausible.

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

Familiar is too good at ; it should cost .

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020