Relic

Relic
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Treasure - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Ryan Laukat
Card text
Each other player puts their –1 Card token on their deck.

Relic is a Treasure–Attack card from Adventures. It uses the –1 Card token to stymie opponents' drawing.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• This is a Treasure worth .
• You play it in your Buy phase, like other Treasures.
• When you play it, you also make each other player put their –1 Card token on their deck, which will cause those players to draw one less card the next time they draw cards; see the Tokens section.
• Relic is an Attack despite not being an Action; it can be blocked with Moat and responded to with Caravan Guard and so on.
• A player responding to Relic with Caravan Guard first plays Caravan Guard, including drawing a card, and then puts their –1 Card token on their deck.

Strategy

Relic is roughly equivalent to a Silver with an Attack that is most impactful against unreliable engines and in Kingdoms with weak draw.

Relic’s attack typically has two consequences. First, it slows down your opponents’ cycling, thus reducing both how frequently they are able to play their good cards and how soon they can play their newly gained cards. Second, it increases the chances that your opponents’ engines dud by reducing by one the number of cards they are able to effectively use to start their turn. For example, if your opponent is using a Village/Smithy engine, they normally have their starting five card hand to find a Village so that they can begin playing Smithies. With Relic’s -Card token, either they’ll have drawn one less card for their starting hand, or they’ll draw one less card at the start of the turn with an Action card such as a cantrip. Both of these possibilities are unlikely to be impactful if there is strong sifting or draw available, as your opponents can likely still cycle through their decks and easily draw past one additional “card”, but Relic does still force them to acquire more draw than they would otherwise need to support their deck.

The red player's –1 Card token.

Relic is a payload stop card, and thus a single copy is typically best added to your engine in the midgame, when you have some deck control to begin trying to play it every turn, your opponents’ decks are still fragile enough to be affected by Relic, and you can make good use of the of payload. If the Kingdom does not offer much deck control, it may be worth gaining a Relic relatively early, as slowing down your opponents’ early game cycling is impactful. Additionally in such Kingdoms, you may need to add a second copy of Relic to consistently apply the attack, though this is likely to have a high opportunity cost given Relic costs .

Relic is unlikely to be an effective attack against most draw-to-x decks, as cards such as Cursed Village which specify a hand size to draw up to will simply draw through the -Card token.

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.

• 2016 forum discussion

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		When you play this, each other player puts his -1 Card token on his deck.	Adventures	April 2015
		When you play this, each other player puts their –1 Card token on their deck.	Adventures (2017 printing)	August 2017
		Each other player puts their –1 Card token on their deck.	Adventures (2021 printing)

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Relikwie
Finnish	Reliikki
French	Relique			Quand vous jouez cette carte, tous vos adversaires placent leur jeton -1 Carte sur leur pioche.
German	Relikt			Wenn du diese Karte ausspielst, muss jeder Mitspieler seinen –-Marker auf seinen Nachziehstapel legen.	(2015)
	Relikt			Alle Mitspieler legen ihren –-Marker auf ihren Nachziehstapel.	(Nachdruck 2021)
Japanese	遺物 (pron. ibutsu)			他のプレイヤーは全員、山札の上に自分の-1カードトークンを置く。
Polish	Relikt				Although Polish version is not released, this card is referred to in the Polish version of Empires rulebook
Russian	Реликвия (pron. ryelikviya)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Somewhat late in the going, I tried to steer a few of the remaining slots towards particular card names. Relic started out as a treasure that gave you a bonus based on the card types you had in play. First it just counted types, but that went too far; then it cared about specific types: it attacked if you had an Attack in play, gave + if you had a Duration card, and gave +1 Buy if you had a Reserve card or Reaction card. The varying functionality was cute, but quick, what did it do again? Only the Attack part was memorable. While I like the idea of needing a dude to wield the Relic, I ended up simplifying it down to just always attacking. Then it could be a Treasure - Attack, so it is.

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

Relevant outtakes

When I introduced the –1 Card token, it was on a card that just gave + and gave out the token and cost . It was somewhat like Fortune Teller; only, as with Bridge Troll being a Cutpurse that never misses, it was a Fortune Teller that never missed. It moved to Soldier and then I did Relic instead.

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