Giant

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Giant
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Card text
Turn your Journey token over (it starts face up). Then if it's face down, +. If it's face up, +, and each other player reveals the top card of their deck, trashes it if it costs from to , and otherwise discards it and gains a Curse.

Giant is an Action-Attack from Adventures. It is either a trashing attack or a curser, depending on the cost of the card revealed from your opponent's deck. It is a powerful attack, but only hits every other time you play it, via the Journey token.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• At the start of the game, your Journey token (the one with the boot) is face up. When you play this, you turn it over.
• Then, if it is face down, you get + and nothing more happens.
• If it is face up, you get + and the attack part happens.
• The attack resolves in turn order, starting with the player to your left. The player reveals the top card of their deck, and either trashes it if it costs from to , or discards it and gains a Curse otherwise.
• If they have no cards (even after shuffling) they gain a Curse.
• Cards with in the cost (from Alchemy) do not cost from to .
• Cards with an asterisk or + by the cost that cost from to (such as Teacher, or Masterpiece from Guilds) do get trashed.
• Players can respond to Giant being played with Reactions that respond to Attacks (such as Caravan Guard), even if Giant will only be producing + this time.

Strategy

Giant becomes very powerful if you can consistently play multiples of them. A Throne Room variant would be the best support, particularly Royal Carriage or Disciple; doubling (or tripling) Giant ensures that the Attack will happen. If all players go for Giants, you'll want to grab as many as you can, because they will get trashed. Similarly to a Knights game, whoever has Giants left when all the rest are trashed will have a distinct advantage, perhaps even more pronounced since Giant gives an enormous amount of and hands out Curses.

Synergies and Combos

• In combination with Capitalism they can become a cheap Platinum.
• Pilgrimage lets you control your Journey token, not only to activate Giant faster but potentially to gain a second Giant after your first play.

Preview Analysis

Wow a big card! + and attack is very impressive even if you don't get it every time. This guy is certainly going to bring triumph and disaster. It will feel like a disaster if you play your giant for +, flip your journey token, but it gets trashed from your deck before you can play it again. You'll have to buy another one won't you, or maybe you should have bought a second giant already?

How bad is the attack? It would be trouble except that the giant is so slow. Unless your opponents can play a lot of giants you might be able to ignore it. When you have more than one opponent you might get more attacks on your deck and then you might need to worry.

Traders, Beggars, and Silver in general look like good defenses against a Giant. The defender will generally have some control of what the attack will do since it is the defender that puts most of the cards into the deck. If you buy a lot of Fool's Gold then the Giant will be giving you Curses. Even so the Giant attack will probably be quite random since, like a Jester, it only looks at one card. We'll see streaks of luck where the same sort of card is turned over again and again.

How good is the coin income? If you can use those + to buy key cards like Platinum then it is excellent. Of course, having to get + first is very bad but perhaps you can use those early turns to gain some cards with +Buy, ready for when the Giant gives you the real money. Maybe if you can play your Giants very often you can forget the bad start and look towards a healthy income of + coins from two plays.

I suspect there will be some interesting end game decisions on whether or not to play the Giant and flip the Journey token, especially if there's another action that could be played instead. I also suspect that these decisions will feel bad every time as you'll be weighing up income in the current hand against a gamble on what you need in a future hand. Triumph or disaster will be waiting.

—DG, Adventures Preview: Giant

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Turn your Journey token over (it starts face up). If it's face down, +. If it's face up, +, and each other player reveals the top card of his deck, trashes it if it costs from to , and otherwise discards it and gains a Curse.	Adventures	April 2015
		Turn your Journey token over (it starts face up). Then if it's face down, +. If it's face up, +, and each other player reveals the top card of their deck, trashes it if it costs from to , and otherwise discards it and gains a Curse.	Adventures (2017 printing)	August 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Reus			Draai je reisfische om (het start open). Ligt het nu gedekt: +. Ligt het nu open: + en iedere andere speler toont de bovenste kaart van zijn gedekte stapel. Kost deze kaart , , of, dan moet hij deze vernietigen. Anders legt hij de kaart af en pakt hij een Vloek.	(2015)
Finnish	Jättiläinen
French	Géant
German	Riese			Drehe deinen Reise-Marker um. Liegt die Rückseite oben: +. Liegt die Vorderseite oben: + und jeder Mitspieler deckt die oberste Karte seines Nachziehstapels auf. Kostet diese bis , muss er sie entsorgen. Ansonsten legt er sie ab und nimmt sich einen Fluch.	(2015)
	Riese			Drehe deinen Reise-Marker um (er beginnt mit der Vorderseite nach oben). Liegt dann die Rückseite oben: +. Liegt die Vorderseite oben: + und alle Mitspieler decken die oberste Karte ihres Nachziehstapels auf, entsorgen jene, wenn sie von bis kostet, und legen sie ansonsten ab und nehmen einen Fluch.	(Nachdruck 2021)
Japanese	巨人 (pron. kyojin)			旅人トークンを裏返す(開始時は表向き)。そして裏向きになった場合、+。表=向きになった場合、+、他のプレイヤーは全員、山札の一番上のカードを公開し、それがコストからであれば廃棄し、それ以外の場合、それを捨て札にし呪い1枚を獲得する。
Polish	Olbrzym				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Гигант (pron. gigant)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

This came about because I wanted a card called Giant. Some kind of slow attack. I already had the Journey token so I used it to make an attack that only hits every other time. At first it didn't do anything on the face down turn, but I eventually nudged it up. Giants don't have a flavor tie-in with Curses, but it gives them out just to make sure that the attack doesn't miss.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of Dominion: Adventures, April 2015

Donald X.'s opinion

The Ranger/Pilgrimage combos are not especially exciting. You might set up Pilgrimage with Giant. Hey you're at least getting a Giant.

Throne Rooms are a cute combo but not essential. I've seen Royal Carriage the most there, since it's in Adventures. Disciple, not bad. I've seen Lost Arts on Giant; let's play a lot of Giants.

Giant is a rare top-down card. I wanted a card called Giant. It's slow but hits hard. Late in the game you are sad to trash a card unless it's  ; early on either attack is good. Getting a lot of at once is good, but you knew that. It's not a tricky card.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Let's Discuss Adventures Cards: Giant, February 2016

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