Festival

Festival
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Base
Illustrator(s)	Marcel-André Casasola Merkle
Card text
+2 Actions +1 Buy +

Festival is an Action card from the Base set. It gives +2 actions, and so is a village.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You get +2 Actions, +1 Buy, and +.

Strategy

Festival fulfills multiple important roles in a deck-drawing engine, giving a village effect of +2 Actions and also +Buy for extra gains. However, it is a stop card, meaning that it does not draw any cards (unlike, e.g. Village). If put into a deck that cannot effectively use the +Actions and +Buy, it is usually no better than a fancy Silver.

Festival synergizes well with draw-to-X cards like Library by helping you to reduce handsize before playing your next draw card. A deck using Festival and Library will use as few Treasures as possible (often none at all) in order to maximize card draw from Library—in this case, Festival’s + and +1 Buy is the driving force that enables the deck’s buying power. This deck will still need to find a Library in the starting hand, however. Such a deck might be unreliable without trashing or removing non-Action card junk (e.g. Coppers and Estates).

Festival is usually a decent or good source of economy. Being Action-based virtual coin also allows for useful interactions with many other Action cards, such as Vassal and Throne Room.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+2 Actions   +1 Buy +	Dominion	October 2008
		+2 Actions +1 Buy +	Dominion (Second Edition)	October 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	慶典 (pron. qìngdiǎn, lit. celebration)
Czech	Jarmark
Dutch	Festival			+2 Acties +1 Aanschaf +
Finnish	Juhlat
French	Festival
German	Jahrmarkt			+2 Aktionen +1 Kauf +
Hungarian	Fesztivál
Italian	Fiera (lit. fair)
Japanese	祝祭 (pron. shukusai)			+2 アクション +1 購入 +
Korean	축제 (pron. chugje)
Norwegian	Festival
Polish	Festyn (lit. picnic)			+2 akcje +1 zakup +
Romanian	Festival
Russian	Ярмарка (pron. yarmarka, Smart Ltd) Фестиваль (pron. fyestival, Dominion Online)			+2 Действия +1 Покупка +
Spanish	Festival			+2 Acciones +1 Compra +	First Edition (2008)
	Festival			+2 Acciones +1 Compra +	Second Edition (2016)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

When the set went (back) up to 25 cards, it needed another Village-type card, and this was a simple one from the 6th expansion. It was originally called Circus. I think Dale suggested the name Festival. This is the only other name change that occurred during development (besides Bureaucrat / Militia). If I had it to do again, I might put a little more work into these names; a lot of them are fine - Thief steals treasures, Moat stops attacks, and while at first you figure, I guess the Thief can't swim, later you see the Moat art and realize it's not the kind of Moat that's swimmable - but some are odd - Feast is a big Workshop that only works once? See, you're talking shop at the feast. Names were just not an issue we looked at. Everything seemed fine because it had been called whatever for so long. It's the Raiders of the Lost Ark phenomenon. Raiders of the Lost Ark? Some thieves robbing a boat? But once you get used to it, it's Raiders, that movie. Anyway I have spent more time on expansion card names since.

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