Mission

Mission
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Martin Hoffmann
Event text
Once per turn: If the previous turn wasn't yours, take another turn after this one, during which you can't buy cards.

Mission is an Event from Adventures. It gives the buyer an extra turn in which they can't buy cards.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You can only buy this once per turn.
• When you do, if the previous turn was not yours - if it was another player's turn before this turn - you take another turn after this turn ends.
• The extra turn is completely normal except that you cannot buy cards during it.
• You can still buy Events, and play cards, and gain cards in ways other than buying them (such as gaining a Silver from Amulet), and exchange Travellers.
• Buying Mission during a turn granted by Mission will not give you another turn, because the previous turn was yours.

Other rules clarifications

• During a Mission turn, you will be unable to buy cards from the Black Market.
• If you buy Mission the same turn you play Outpost, and the previous turn wasn't yours, then you will get two extra turns and can choose whether the Mission turn or the Outpost turn happens first. Either way, the first extra turn will start with a 3-card hand, and the other will start with a 5-card hand.
• Buying Mission does nothing if you were Possessed on your previous turn.
  • If the previous player played multiple Possessions, and tells you to buy a Mission on your first Possession turn, you get to decide whether to take the Mission turn first, or one of the other Possession turns; Possession does not grant control between turns, making the choice your decision.

Strategy

Even a restricted extra turn is often a very powerful effect, making Mission a strong Event. Although buying cards is an important objective of many turns, and the restriction on Mission turns is therefore significant, there are often many other ways to make meaningful progress during a turn, including thinning your deck, cycling through a shuffle, gaining cards by other means (e.g. using gainers), and attacking your opponents. Thus, Mission's value in a particular Kingdom hinges on the availability of such opportunities and the benefits of engaging in them. These benefits need to be weighed against the opportunity cost of buying Mission itself, since doing so eliminates another chance that you would otherwise have had to buy a card. This means that Mission is typically more viable if you have a source of +Buy which allows you to buy something alongside Mission on your non-Mission turns.

The value of an extra turn from Mission is heavily dependent on how much you can do without buying cards, as the more your turns center around these types of effects, the closer Mission is to simply providing a full extra turn and doubling your deck’s capabilities.

• The most common way to improve your deck is by adding strong cards to it without buying them. Gainers (e.g. University) often fulfill this purpose, while some Events (e.g. Alms or Summon) can also work. Hermit is a particularly notable example, as it can gain both cheap cards (likely more Hermits) and Madmen.
• Mission can be bought regularly in the endgame to amplify several alt-VP effects. This can include Events such as Dominate or Triumph, or cards such as Bishop.
• Extra turns means more opportunities to play key cards sooner. For example, if you are able to play a thinner on both your Mission and non-Mission turns, you are thinning twice as fast as a player who does not buy Mission. In the early game, playing thinners, Attacks (especially Cursers, where winning the Curse split can be important), and Travellers in this way will allow you to rapidly snowball into stronger overall turns (Mission or otherwise).
• Later in the game, Mission can double some types of payload. While this can include Attacks which stack, such as Knights, the most common use case is to double your total number of gainer plays, which can both rapidly improve your deck and allow you to more easily threaten a pileout.
• Other opportunities Mission can provide that are typically less powerful but may still be worthwhile include the chance to accumulate resources such as Villagers or Coffers or pay back .
• Occasionally, the value of Mission lies largely in the fact that it offers relatively cheap access to an extra turn, even if you can do little or nothing with that turn itself. For example, if you've played Outpost but anticipate difficulty drawing from a three-card starting hand, you can buy Mission and use up the weak starting hand on a turn that is restricted in any case, creating an entirely unrestricted Outpost turn afterwards. Similar considerations might apply if you anticipate a dud for other reasons (e.g., by using deck tracking and noting that the remainder of your shuffle is mostly junk) and wish to cycle past it, or simply want a chance to set up your next turn, e.g. by playing Duration draw.

When and how often to buy Mission mostly depends on which of the above options you’re using it for. If an early Mission can accelerate your deck control or advance another high-priority early-game goal, it may be worth buying over another card. If, however, Mission’s main effect will be to amplify your payload, you’ll likely have to build up your deck first, as in the early game you likely lack both the specific type of payload you want and the deck control to reliably find it on your Mission turn. Once you have key payload options and sufficient deck control, you may then want to buy Mission consistently throughout the midgame or even the endgame, depending on how valuable and flexible the extra payload on your Mission turns is.

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
		Once per turn: If the previous turn wasn't yours, take another turn after this one, in which you can't buy cards.	Adventures	April 2015
		Once per turn: If the previous turn wasn't yours, take another turn after this one, during which you can't buy cards.	Adventures (2016 printing)	August 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Missie
Finnish	Tehtävä
French	Mission			Une fois par tour : si le tour précédent n'était pas le vôtre, jouez un tour supplémentaire après celui-ci pendant lequel vous ne pourrez pas acheter de carte.
German	Mission			Einmal pro Zug: Wenn der vorangegangene Zug nicht deiner war, spielst du nach diesem Zug einen weiteren Zug, in welchem du keine Karten kaufen darfst.	(2015)
German	Mission			Einmal pro Zug: Wenn der vorangegangene Zug nicht deiner war, spielst du nach diesem Zug einen weiteren, in dem du keine Karten kaufen kannst.	(Nachdruck 2021)
Japanese	使節団 (pron. shisetsu-dan)			1ターンに1度のみ:直前のターンがあなたのものでない場合、このターンの後に、カードの購入ができない追加の1ターンを得る。
Polish	Misja				Although Polish version is not released, this card is referred to in the Polish version of Empires rulebook
Russian	Миссия (pron. missiya)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Finally we have Mission, a trickier one. You get an extra turn, but, this seems like some kind of joke, you can't buy cards on that turn. What good is it then? Well. There are things you can do. You can gain cards without buying them, such as with Remodels and Workshops. You can play Duration cards, setting them up for your next turn. You can get Reserve cards onto your mat. You can play Attacks, it can be that kind of Mission. You can trash cards; you can just be getting through your deck to get back to your good cards; you can turn that Hero into a Champion. And hey you can buy other Events, that's not buying a card. That may seem weird - what do we call that rectangular object then - but you didn't buy a card, you bought an Event, a thing that happened once and didn't come with a card, and so that doesn't trigger Swamp Hag and it's not cheaper due to Bridge and so on. Event cards give you something to buy; that thing is not a card. There will be a rulebook and it will say stuff just like this.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Adventures Previews #4 - Expedition, Trade, Mission

Secret History

This one seems a little more complex, but it had no issues.

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

Rewording

Adventures has Events; it doesn't have other landscapes. There's only so much space on the cards. The danger of clarifications is people immediately thinking e.g. "oh why doesn't it list Projects" but odds are those particular people will check the rulebook. In general I've cut clarifications and possibly I'll cut this one, dunno. This year's printing of Adventures doesn't actually have that parenthetical, it came up after the files went out.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, TGG Discord, 2022