Haunted Woods

Haunted Woods
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack - Duration
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Kurt Miller
Card text
At the start of your next turn: +3 Cards. Until then, when any other player gains a card they bought, they put their hand onto their deck in any order.

Haunted Woods is an Action-Attack-Duration from Adventures. It provides duration draw and slows your opponents' cycling by forcing them to return to their deck, rather than discard, any cards they still have in hand at the end of their turn if they buy a card.

FAQ

Unofficial FAQ (2022)

• Playing this sets up two effects for the future: you will draw 3 cards at the start of your next turn; and until then, other players will put the rest of their hand on their deck whenever they gain a card they bought.
• A player may have no cards left in hand when buying a card; typically cards left in hand will include Victory cards, Curses, and unplayed Actions.
• A player may intentionally avoid playing Treasures and Actions in order to take advantage of having to put his hand on his deck.
• Players who do not buy any cards can discard their hand normally.
• Buying Events is not buying cards and so does not trigger this.
• If you play Haunted Woods and then take an extra turn immediately, such as with Mission or Outpost (from Seaside), you will draw the 3 cards at the start of that turn and discard Haunted Woods that turn, and other players will never be affected by it.
• If you want to use a Reaction card like Moat against Haunted Woods, you have to use it right when Haunted Woods is played.

Other rules clarifications

• Gaining cards without buying them, such as by playing Workshop or Sunken Treasure, does not trigger Haunted Woods' effect.
• Buying cards with Black Market does trigger Haunted Woods' effect, even though it usually happens in the Action phase.
• In 2022, Haunted Woods got reworded so that the attack triggers after players gain the card they bought, instead of before. This means that if you buy a card that gets gained to your hand (e.g. Ghost Town), Haunted Woods will make you put it onto your deck.
• Some cards have on-gain abilities that affect your hand; these may be ordered before or after Haunted Woods. For instance, if you buy a Cavalry while subject to Haunted Woods, you can choose to use Cavalry's ability to get +2 cards either before topdecking your hand (in which case the 2 cards you drew will go back to your deck) or after (in which case you may draw back 2 of the cards you topdecked).

Deprecated official FAQ (2021)

Playing this sets up two effects for the future: you will draw 3 cards at the start of your next turn; and until then, other players will put the rest of their hand on their deck whenever they buy a card. A player may have no cards left in hand when buying a card; typically cards left in hand will include Victory cards, Curses, and unplayed Actions. A player may intentionally avoid playing Treasures and Actions in order to take advantage of having to put his hand on his deck. Players who do not buy any cards can discard their hand normally. Buying Events is not buying cards and so does not trigger this. If you play Haunted Woods and then take an extra turn immediately, such as with Mission or Outpost (from Seaside), you will draw the 3 cards at the start of that turn and discard Haunted Woods that turn, and other players will never be affected by it. If you want to use a Reaction card like Moat against Haunted Woods, you have to use it right when Haunted Woods is played.

Deprecated rules clarifications (2015, 2016, 2021)

Gaining cards without buying them first does not trigger Haunted Woods' effect. Gaining happens after buying, so when-gain effects (such as Inn's deck-shuffling) occur after you topdeck your hand. When-buy effects happen at the same time as Haunted Woods' effects; the Attacked player chooses in which order to resolve them. If you buy a card that gets gained to your hand (like Ghost Town), you topdeck your hand (even if it's empty) before the Ghost Town goes to your hand.

Strategy

Haunted Woods provides useful terminal Duration draw and a topdecking Attack that can slow your opponent’s cycling and may even cause duds. Drawing cards at the start of your turn is very helpful for increasing engine reliability and reducing the risk of a dud. If there is no engine to be built, Haunted Woods is also a worthwhile substitute for terminal draw for a money strategy: although being on the receiving end of the attack can pose a serious problem to this type of strategy in the greening phase, an advantage is that Haunted Woods cannot draw Action cards dead, so gaining some additional Action cards (e.g. cantrips) is much less risky than with other terminal sources of draw in cases where you lack deck control.

In terms of draw, Haunted Woods provides no immediate benefit on the turn you play it. This means it is slow to improve your deck when you obtain and play your first copy, and it is also a potentially turn-ending stop card when you draw it. While the former is likely less of an issue if you can gain-and-play it, either with overdraw and a gainer or with an effect like Innovation or March, these factors mean Haunted Woods lacks the tempo boost provided by other draw cards. Additionally, as it's a Duration card, you need twice as many copies as you would need Smithies to draw the same number of cards every turn. In sum, while Haunted Woods can be serviceable as your primary source of draw, it is often best used as a supplement to other sources if the Kingdom offers these, likely in the form of a single pair of alternating copies. This has the benefit of providing consistency both in increasing your starting hand size without excessive investment, and in applying the attack.

The impact of the Haunted Woods attack mostly depends on the amount of junk in your deck and the degree of control you have over it. Having to topdeck multiple Victory cards or Curses, for instance, can make your next turn significantly worse while also slowing down your deck cycling and delaying your next shuffle. Junking attacks, early greening, and a lack of Estate thinning all therefore increase the impact of Haunted Woods. Conversely, the impact of the attack can be reduced by the availability of sifters, Exilers, and other discarding effects (such as Mill) which can remove bad cards from a hand to avoid topdecking them, or the presence of strong Events that are desirable purchases in place of a card (such as Summon or Dominate). Under some circumstances, the Haunted Woods attack can be harmless (most commonly during the midgame with good trashing and therefore junk-free decks) or even helpful, if it enables topdecking of excess sifters, for example.

Even in the presence of such mitigating effects, Haunted Woods also strongly counters anything you would like to play after buying a card. Most notably, this includes Night cards (such as Den of Sin) and effects that allow you to buy cards before continuing your turn (such as Villa and Black Market). While it is still possible to play around the attack with these cards, most commonly by not buying anything, this does greatly hamper their appeal, especially if you could otherwise engage in gain-and-play with them.

To best defend against the attack, it’s usually a good idea to keep your deck free of junk as much as possible, including avoiding greening too early, since Victory cards can clog up your deck much more easily than usual. Ensuring that you play all of your Treasures even if you don't need the full amount of generated can also be important; conversely, you may wish to avoid playing draw or villages, if you can spare them, in order to topdeck useful cards for your next turn. Occasionally, your hand may contain enough cards that would be undesirable for your next starting hand that you would be better off not buying a card in order to avoid topdecking them.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Until your next turn, when any other player buys a card, he puts his hand on top of his deck in any order. At the start of your next turn: +3 Cards	Adventures	April 2015
		Until your next turn, when any other player buys a card, they put their hand onto their deck in any order. At the start of your next turn: +3 Cards	Adventures (2016 printing)	August 2017
		At the start of your next turn: +3 Cards. Until then, when any other player gains a card they bought, they put their hand onto their deck in any order.		June 29, 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Spookbos
Finnish	Kummitusmetsä
French	Bois hantés			Jusqu'à votre prochain tour, quand un adversaire achète une carte, il place sa main sur sa pioche dans l'ordre de son choix. Au début de votre prochain tour, +3 Cartes
German	Geisterwald			Bis zu deinem nächsten Zug: Jeder Mitspieler muss, sobald er eine Karte kauft, seine restlichen Handkarten in beliebiger Reihenfolge auf seinen Nachziehstapel legen. Zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges: +3 Karten	(2015)
	Geisterwald			Bis zu deinem nächsten Zug legen alle Mitspieler, wenn sie eine Karte kaufen, ihre Handkarten in beliebiger Reihenfolge auf ihren Nachziehstapel. Zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges: +3 Karten.	(Nachdruck 2021)
	Geisterwald			Zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges: +3 Karten. Bis dahin legt jeder Mitspieler, wenn er eine von ihm gekaufte Karte nimmt, seine Handkarten in beliebiger Reihenfolge auf seinen Nachziehstapel.
Japanese	呪いの森 (pron. noroinomori, lit. cursed forest)			あたの次のターンまで、他のプレイヤーがカード1枚を購入するとき、そのプレイヤーは手札をすべて好きな順番で山札の上に置く。あなたの次のターンの開始時に、 +3 カードを引く。
Russian	Призрачный Лес (pron. prizrachny lyes)

Trivia

Haunted Woods is one of the available backgrounds in Dominion Online.

Official card art.

Preview

Haunted Woods reminds me of Rabble in many ways. There’s the +3 cards, but the attack parts feel similar as well. The attack can be weak for much of the game, and there’s often ways to avoid it. I’ll let all of you talk about the different ways. But if you green without preparing your deck for a constant Haunted Woods barrage you might be in for a bad time. It’s also possible for the attack portion to be friendly interaction, letting you put good cards back on top of your deck. A lot of nice player interaction to be had in this card.

As a duration you won’t be able to play Haunted Woods as often as other card drawers, but getting +3 cards at the start of your turn is, like, the best time to get them! Sometimes people underestimate this fact.

Moat must be revealed (or Lighthouse be in play) when Haunted Woods is played to block the attack effect.

—Mic Qsenoch, Adventures Preview: Haunted Woods

Secret History

I wanted more Swamp Hag-style attacks and came up with this take on the Rabble family. It never changed.

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