Hermit

Hermit
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Claus Stephan
Card text
Look through your discard pile. You may trash a non-Treasure from it or from your hand. Gain a card costing up to . At the end of your Buy phase this turn, if you didn't gain any cards in it, exchange this for a Madman.

Hermit is an Action card from Dark Ages. It is a single-card trasher, letting you trash a card which is not a Treasure, and a gainer which gains a cheap card. If you do not buy a card on the turn you play a Hermit, you exchange the Hermit for a Madman, a powerful one-shot card.

FAQ

Unofficial FAQ (2022)

• When you play this, look through your discard pile, and then you may choose to trash a card that is not a Treasure, from either your hand or your discard pile.
• You do not have to trash a card and cannot trash Treasures.
• After trashing or not, you must gain a card costing up to .
• Then, at the end of your Buy phase, if you did not gain any cards during that Buy phase, you exchange the Hermit for a Madman. You return the Hermit to its pile, and you take a Madman from its pile (from outside the Supply) and put it into your discard pile.
• If you buy any cards, or gain a card during your Buy phase (e.g. if you buy Ball, or play a Hermit with March), you can't exchange the Hermit.
• If Hermit is not in play (e.g. it got trashed by Procession, or you played it with Band of Misfits), you can't exchange the Hermit.
• If there are no Madmen in the pile, you'll fail to exchange the Hermit.
• If you take multiple Buy phases in a turn (with e.g. Villa or Cavalry), Hermit will check each Buy phase to see if any cards were gained in it. So you can gain a Villa in your 1st Buy phase, and then gain nothing in your 2nd Buy phase, you'll exchange the Hermit.
• If you play Hermit after your Buy phase (e.g. you gain it at Night (with e.g. Vampire) or Clean-up (with e.g. Improve) and then play it with Innovation), you won't have the chance to exchange it this turn.
• If you Possess another player and make them play Hermit, they can't gain a card during their Buy phase, so they'll exchange it. But because they aren't gaining the Madman, it doesn't become yours.

Deprecated official FAQ (2020)

When you play this, look through your discard pile, and then you may choose to trash a card that is not a Treasure, from either your hand or your discard pile. You do not have to trash a card and cannot trash Treasures. After trashing or not, you must gain a card costing up to . Then, when you discard Hermit from play - normally, in Clean-up, after playing it in your Action phase - if you did not buy any cards this turn, you trash Hermit and gain a Madman. The Madman comes from the Madman pile, which is not in the Supply. It does not matter whether or not you gained cards other ways, only whether you did not buy a card. If there are no Madman cards left, you do not gain one. If you put Hermit onto your deck with Scheme (from Hinterlands), and did not buy any cards that turn, you will fail to trash Hermit but still gain a Madman.

Deprecated rules clarifications (2012 2017 2020)

Buying a card with Black Market prevents you from trashing this and gaining Madman, even if you don't buy anything during your Buy phase. During Clean-up, you can discard this from play before you discard the cards in your hand. This means you can use a Watchtower to topdeck a gained Madman.

Strategy

Hermit is a trasher, a gainer of cheap Kingdom cards, and the only way to access Madmen. As a result, it functions as a strong deck accelerant in the early game. The quintessential Hermit turn involves playing a Hermit, likely trashing an Estate, gaining a Hermit, and skipping your Buy. This effectively buys a Madman: a new Hermit replaces the Hermit you played and a Madman replaces your buy. Typically, this is an option that is very attractive at the start of the game, when your purchasing power is weak and your Hermits still have Estates to trash. There are also a number of situations in which gaining Madmen is better than usual, either because their benefits are higher (typically when drawing your deck early is rewarded, as with Crypt) or because the costs of gaining them are lower (as with many Events such as Alms). When gaining Madmen is a strong enough effect, Hermit becomes a centralizing card.

Hermit is generally a very strong choice in the opening when it can trash Estates or Shelters. In games with junking attacks, Hermit remains relevant as a trasher throughout the game: in fact, its ability to trash cards in the discard pile makes it a particularly strong counter to these, since you can often trash junk as it comes in, without having to draw it.

Hermit’s gaining ability effectively gives you three options when you play it:

1. You can gain a card and buy a card as normal. This option is strong when there are good cheap cards that you want many of in your deck, such as Lackeys: you gain one of those cards and keep a Hermit around that can gain more.
2. You can gain a Hermit and skip buying a card, effectively buying a Madman instead.
3. You can gain a non-Hermit card and skip buying a card, trading in your Hermit and gaining a Madman. This effectively removes Hermit from your deck, and is useful when you anticipate no longer needing Hermit’s abilities.

The typical use for Madman is to play it on an early turn that would otherwise leave most of your cards un-drawn. Decks with Madman are more likely than usual to make good use of early payload, including gainers and especially +Buy, since you will have big turns that draw many cards and generate a lot of . Additionally, Madmen can act as temporary (and unsustainable) villages, allowing you to slightly overterminal your deck. Typically, you will not want to skip your Buy phase on turns in which you have played a Madman, so often your Hermit plays end up alternating between Madman turns where you don’t gain a Madman and non-Madman turns where you do.

The costs of gaining Madman are reduced in games that feature Events and Projects, which don’t count as buying a card (even if they cause you to gain one) and thus don’t stop your Hermits from becoming Madmen. Particularly notable examples include

• Events that let you gain cards, e.g. Demand.
• Mission, which lets you play Hermit on extra turns where you can’t buy cards anyway.
• March, which lets you play a Hermit to gain a Hermit then March that Hermit to gain another one, etc., eventually turning all Hermits in play into Madmen.

Madman can also occasionally be gained without losing your Hermit if you can move the Hermit before it can be trashed, causing it to lose track of itself. Scheme, Prince, and Way of the Frog all can do this, the last of which has been dubbed “Kermit the Hermit”. This won't work now that hermit isn't trashed anymore but exchanged instead.

The benefits of Madman are increased when the Kingdom rewards an early big turn, perhaps to hit a high price point (e.g. for Citadel) or collide cards (e.g. for Magic Lamp). The benefits can also be greatly increased in games where it enables a megaturn strategy. To execute this strategy, rather than playing your Madmen when you happen to draw them, you try to keep a number of them in deck until you’ve built up enough payload and then unleash them all at once. The best of these strategies is the combo with Market Square, but you can also attempt it with Storeroom, Artificer, or any other cards that turn draw into payload. Note, however, that these strategies typically require many Madmen and thus are often easy to counter: your opponent just needs to get a few Madmen of their own. This is because, unless there are ways to gain Hermits from the trash or avoid trashing Hermit when gaining Madman (as described earlier), the game is limited to ten Madman plays, one for each Hermit that is trashed from play.

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.

• slides from 2021 coaching session

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Look through your discard pile. You may trash a card from your discard pile or hand that is not a Treasure. Gain a card costing up to . When you discard this from play, if you did not buy any cards this turn, trash this and gain a Madman from the Madman pile.	Dark Ages	August 2012
		Look through your discard pile. You may trash a non-Treasure card from your discard pile or hand. Gain a card costing up to . When you discard this from play, if you didn't buy any cards this turn, trash this and gain a Madman from the Madman pile.	Dark Ages (2017 printing)	September 2017
		Look through your discard pile. You may trash a non-Treasure card from your discard pile or hand. Gain a card costing up to . When you discard this from play, if you didn't buy any cards this turn, trash this and gain a Madman.	Dark Ages (2020 printing)	2020
		Look through your discard pile. You may trash a non-Treasure from it or from your hand. Gain a card costing up to . At the end of your Buy phase this turn, if you didn't gain any cards in it, exchange this for a Madman.		June 29, 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Poustevník			Prohlédni si svůj odkládací balíček. Můžeš zahodit na smetiště kartu z odkládacího balíčku nebo z ruky, která není kartou peněz. Vezmi si kartu s cenou až . Pokud odkládáš Poustevníka ze hry v tahu, kdy jsi nekoupil žádnou kartu, zahoď ho místo toho na smetiště a vezmi si Šílence z balíčku karet Šílenců.
Dutch	Kluizenaar
Finnish	Erakko
French	Ermite
German	Eremit			Sieh deinen Ablage­stapel durch. Du darfst eine Karte, die keine Geldkarte ist, aus deinem Ablage­stapel oder aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Nimm dir eine Karte, die bis zu kostet. Wenn du diese Karte aus dem Spiel ablegst und in diesem Zug keine Karte gekauft hast, entsorge diese Karte und nimm dir einen Verrückten.	(2012)
	Eremit			Sieh deinen Ablage­stapel durch. Du darfst eine Nicht-Geldkarte aus deinem Ablage­stapel oder aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Nimm eine Karte, die bis zu kostet. Wenn du diese Karte aus dem Spiel ablegst und du in diesem Zug keine Karte gekauft hast, entsorge diese Karte und nimm einen Verrückten vom Verrückten-Stapel.	(2019)
	Eremit			Sieh deinen Ablage­stapel durch. Du darfst eine Nicht-Geldkarte aus deinem Ablage­stapel oder aus deiner Hand entsorgen. Nimm eine Karte, die bis zu kostet. Am Ende deiner Kaufphase in diesem Zug, falls du in ihr keine Karte genommen hast, tausche diese Karte in einen Verrückten ein.
Japanese	隠遁者 (pron. intonsha, lit. recluse)			捨て札置き場のカードをすべて見る。手札か捨て札置き場から財宝カード以外のカード1枚を廃棄してもよい。コスト以下のカード1枚を獲得する。 これを場から捨て札にするとき、このターン何もカードを購入していない場合、これを廃棄し、(狂人の山から)狂人1枚を獲得する。
Korean	은둔자 (pron. eundunja)
Polish	Pustelnik				Although Polish version is not released, this card is referred to in the Polish version of Empires rulebook
Russian	Отшельник (pron. otshyel'nik)
Spanish	Ermitaño

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Hermit is another. He's normally content to just trash certain cards and gain some Silvers or something. But if you don't make enough trips into town, he loses it. He goes mad. And then he blows up one day in a fit of card-drawing. Which is my way of saying, well it's all there on the card. That stuff.

Hermit turns into Madman, a card that isn't in the supply. You can't buy a Madman; if you want one, you have to get a Hermit and then not buy something. And then you only get it once! Somehow it's worth the trouble.

Turning a card into a specific new non-kingdom card requires a pile of ten of those cards. Yes do you really need ten, I know. But you do. And well how much of the set wanted to go to that stuff, rather than say new kingdom cards? So in the end I just did two of those. Now you know one of them.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dark Ages Preview #3: Squire, Hermit, Madman

Secret History

I quickly tried four variations on the top before settling on what it has. The premise was to let you trash cards that weren't in your hand; it had to also hit them in your hand so you didn't curse your luck on drawing those opening Estates / Shelters too often. Some of the versions trashed cards from the supply, a mechanic I'd first tried on a Seaside outtake, but it hadn't worked then and didn't work this time. And originally it trashed cards from your deck, but your discard pile gives you a similar selection faster.

I tried the bottom on another card that didn't survive, then put it here. Originally I thought I would have several cards that upgraded into specific non-supply cards, but each one both requires 10 extra cards to handle it, and gives me a card with a ton of text on it. So there are only two. The premise originally came from thinking about Pirate Ship, at a point when it was too late to change it. I realized that I could have made it that Pirate Ship either attacked or upgraded, and it upgraded into a Retired Pirate that made money. This change wouldn't have addressed any problems, it was just a cute thing I could have done, if I'd thought of it in time and had been willing to give up a card slot for it. So after that I planned on one day doing such cards. "If you didn't buy anything" was an obvious simple trigger, and a nice fit for a Hermit. If he doesn't go into town often enough, he goes mad.

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

Errata

Nerfing just isn't a motivation behind the Hermit changes. The idea is to not have it matter what order you discard your cards in in Clean-up, to not have it be that any effect in Dominion can happen in-between discarding some and the rest.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2021

I was changing this anyway to deal with when-buy. I went the distance and also made it an exchange; it seemed simpler. It's not a slam-dunk that it's simpler; you have to know what "exchange" means. That was the call I made here though. In playtesting we liked the change.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Why of the Errata