Highwayman

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Highwayman
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Duration - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Allies
Illustrator(s)	Eric J Carter
Card text
At the start of your next turn, discard this from play and +3 Cards. Until then, the first Treasure each other player plays each turn does nothing.

Highwayman is an Action-Duration-Attack card from Allies. It offers duration-draw and an attack that nullifies the first Treasure each opponent plays (this is similar to what Enchantress does to Action card plays).

Unlike most Duration cards, Highwayman is discarded from play at the beginning of your next turn rather than the end, meaning you might be able to draw and play the same copy on consecutive turns.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You draw the 3 cards even if Highwayman can't be discarded from play; for example, if you Throne Room a Highwayman, you'll only discard it once but will draw 6 cards.
• Discarding Highwayman happens first, so it's possible to even draw that Highwayman with the +3 Cards.
• The attack stops each other player's first Treasure from doing anything, each turn; if they take extra turns, every turn is affected. For example, if their first played Treasure is Copper, it produces no .
• This isn't cumulative; if multiple players play copies of Highwayman, or one player plays multiple copies of it, still only one Treasure per turn does nothing.
• The Treasure does nothing even if it's also an Action, e.g., Crown (from Empires).
• This stops the Treasure from doing what it does when played, but doesn't stop abilities below a dividing line, like Capital's (from Empires).
• If the Treasure is also an Action, a Way (from Menagerie) can still be used on it, and Enchantress (from Empires) can still work on it; the player who played the Treasure decides which effect applies.

Other Rules clarifications

• If you play this with Throne Room, then when Highwayman discards itself from play, Throne Room still remains in play until Clean-up.
• If you play a Scheme at the start of your turn (with e.g. Royal Galley), you may put Highwayman onto your deck when you discard it from play with its own ability (and you will immediately draw the Highwayman back). [1]
• Highwayman does not change anything about the Treasure, just prevents on-play instructions on the card from being carried out. So a blocked Fool's Gold will still let your other Fool's Gold make +, and it can still be replayed by Specialist. [2]
• However, Highwayman overrules effects that change the values of Treasures, such as Envious and Coppersmith. If you play a Silver or Gold that does nothing, Envious has no effect on it. And if you play a Copper that does nothing, Coppersmith has no effect on it. [3]
• Unlike Enchantress, this can affect a Treasure that another player plays during your turn. So if you have Capitalism, and play Highwayman and then another Attack, and another player reacts with a Caravan Guard to the second Attack, their first Caravan Guard does nothing, and they discard it during your Clean-up phase.
  • However, if you have Capitalism and other players react with Caravan Guards to the first Highwayman you play, they get full value from all their Caravan Guards, because the reaction takes place before Highwayman resolves.
• If you play an Action card that gives +, and then buy Capitalism later the same turn, that Action card you already played will become a Treasure, but it doesn't count as the first Treasure you played this turn because it wasn't a Treasure when you played it. [4]
• If you play a Treasure and then an opponent somehow plays Highwayman on the same turn, Highwayman missed its chance; the first Treasure you played has already had its effect and doesn't get revoked, and future Treasures you may play on that turn aren't affected by Highwayman because they're not the first.

Strategy

Highwayman is like a delayed Smithy paired with an attack that (usually) reduces opponents' purchasing power. The delayed card draw tends to result in a weakened current turn (-1 card) followed by a much stronger turn (net +3 cards as opposed to net +2 if the cards were drawn on the current turn), and in most cases this asymmetry is beneficial, allowing you to reach higher price points than you would with simple card draw alone.

In most decks, the attack is more reliable, and harder to block or counter than discard attacks, but at most it can affect a single card. The attack is strongest against thinned decks that still rely on treasure for buying power as it becomes more likely to reduce buying power by or more. In most cases however it will just hit a Copper and reduce buying power by . In addition to being stronger against thinned decks, the attack is also stronger than a discard attack against decks full of junk such as Estate or Curses. Playing Highwayman against an opponent whose deck is full of junk can be crippling, leading to turns in which a player can only make a weak buy. Highwayman thus can counter alt-VP strategies such as Gardens that lead to early greening.

A thinned, treasure-free deck that relies on virtual coin is effectively immune to Highwayman's attack. Against such decks, Highwayman is heavily overpriced for its draw power. However, Highwayman can become particularly attractive when you are playing such a thinner, action-based deck against opponents opting for a money-based strategy. The presence of Highwayman on the board is thus a factor that can shift the balance towards a treasure-free strategy in a kingdom where such a strategy might not otherwise be dominant. Usually the presence of villages, virtual coin, and good trashing are necessary for such an approach to win. Because of its higher price point, you will often have some clues as to what strategy your opponent is pursuing, before you are presented with the choice of whether to buy Highwayman or some other card.

Highwayman can also be a component in a deck-drawing engine, but its high cost and delayed effect makes it less desireable to this end.

Highwayman can also be combined with a handsize attack, in a way that these attacks usually cannot be combined with each other. The combination of Highwayman with Militia can also be crippling, in many circumstances leading a player to end up with only two usable treasures. The synergizing with other attacks, both junk or discard, contrasts to how these cards usually interact: most junk attacks tend to weaken the effect of a handsize attack, because players will have junk to discard in most hands. But Highwayman's attack still hits just as hard in the presence of either junk or discard attacks.

This unusual synergy can lead to games where there is a strong pressure to win the race to gain the upper hand in terms of junking, drawing, buying power, and playing attacks, and in these cases a player who is able to get ahead and play attacks more often can keep the other players unable to do much of anything.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		At the start of your next turn, discard this from play and +3 Cards. Until then, the first Treasure each other player plays each turn does nothing.	Allies	March 2022

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
German	Wegelagerer			Zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges: Lege diese Karte aus dem Spiel ab und +3 Karten. Bis dahin hat die erste Geldkarte, die jeder Mitspieler in jedem Zug spielt, bei ihrem Spielen keine Auswirkungen.

Trivia

Official card art.

In Dominion Online, disabled Treasures are drawn using the card art for Abandoned Mine.

Preview

Highwayman is the Duration draw card that you can play every turn - draw your deck, and at the end you'll find the Highwayman.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Allies Preview 4: Recursion

Secret History

I messed with the language, but this is what it always did. Playing into the recursion theme by being Duration draw you can play every turn.

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