Merchant

Merchant
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Base
Illustrator(s)	Joshua Stewart
Card text
+1 Card +1 Action The first time you play a Silver this turn, +.

Merchant is an Action card from the second edition of the base set. It is a cantrip that gives you extra money if you are able to play a Silver after it.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you play Merchant, you draw a card and get +1 Action.
• If you end up playing a Silver later in the turn, it comes with +.
• If you play more than one Merchant, each gives you + when you play that first Silver; but if you play more than one Silver, you only get the + for the first Silver.

Other rules clarifications

• If you play the same Merchant multiple times (e.g. with Throne Room), each of the plays will give you + when you play the first Silver.
• If you play Merchant after you play your first Silver (e.g. you played a Silver to buy a Villa, and then play a Merchant), you do not get + for the Silver you already played; you also do not get + if you play another Silver since it's not the first one you played.
• However, if playing a Silver causes you to play a Merchant (e.g. you trash a Catacombs with Sauna, gain a Merchant, and play it with Innovation), you'll get +. [1]

Strategy

Merchant is a Peddler variant, a cantrip which gives an extra . In order to get the extra , however, it must be combined with a Silver. As a cheap cantrip, Merchant is typically a passable, if sometimes unreliable, source of .

It is common when building an engine to get 1-2 Silvers in the early game in order to increase the likelihood of hitting higher price points. Later, however, buying more Silvers is often a bad idea, because they are stop cards which interfere with your ability to draw your deck. Merchant becomes a card that you can obtain cheaply to increase your economy without harming your deck’s draw capabilities, so you will often choose to buy one on turns when you can only afford something cheap. It is also a common target for gainers like Workshop and a good low-cost card to get with an extra Buy. Once you are drawing a substantial portion of your deck, you will likely find it easy to line up your Merchants with Silver, and Merchants become a reliable source of .

Merchant is generally much less useful in a money strategy due to a lack of deck control, but can be a reasonable purchase in those focused on flooding the deck with Silver, where the chance of colliding the two cards becomes sufficiently high.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date	Notes
		+1 Card +1 Action The first time you play a Silver this turn, +.	Dominion 2nd Edition	October 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Chinese	商人 (pron. shāngrén)			＋1 卡片 ＋1 行動 此回合第一次打出銀幣的時候+。
Dutch	Koopman
French	Marchand			+1 Carte +1 Action La premiére fois que vous jouez un Argent ce tour-ci, +.
German	Händlerin (Note: explicitly feminine)			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Spielst du in diesem Zug das erste Mal ein Silber aus: +	2. Edition (2019)
	Händlerin (Note: explicitly feminine)			+1 Karte +1 Aktion Spielst du in diesem Zug das erste Mal ein Silber: +	2. Edition (Nachdruck 2022)
Japanese	商人 (pron. shōnin)			+1 カードを引く +1 アクション このターン初めて銀貨を使用するとき、+。
Polish	Kupiec
Russian	Купец (pron. kupyets)			+1 Карта +1 Действие Первый раз, когда вы играете Серебро в этот ход, +.
Spanish	Tendera

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

A card that rewards you for having some Silvers. I tried something that gave the + on having an Action in play (and another version that wanted an Action in hand), and that was nice, but I didn't want something too much like Conspirator. So, Silver. Then for a long time it said "the next time" instead of "the first time." "First" is simpler except with Black Market, Storyteller, and Villa. Simpler is better and people with just the main set do not have those cards (a promo, a card from the 9th expansion, a card from the 10th expansion).

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Dominion 2nd Editions

Donald X.'s opinion

It's easy enough to connect that you tend to get some. It doesn't stand out but I mean it gets in on the action, and sometimes you have to worry, man do I have enough Silvers for this, I'm not drawing my deck, maybe I need another Silver.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, $3 Cost Card Rankings Bottom Half

Wording

Merchant really really wants to be not confusing, being in the main set. So, changing it to "the next time" is not to be done lightly. Normally for casual players, Merchant works perfectly, they are not somehow playing it off of playing a Silver. So there's that; I don't like to make cards more confusing to deal with exotic cases. But, it might be a better wording; I don't really know if casual players would ask "wait how could I already have played Silver" or what. There's also e.g. "once this turn, if you have a Silver in play, +." If I had cleverly had separate phases for "play treasures" and "buy cards" (it's as easy as ATBNC!) then it could just be timed for the B phase.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2021