Ritual

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Ritual
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Empires
Illustrator(s)	Joshua Stewart
Event text
Gain a Curse. If you do, trash a card from your hand. +1  per it cost.

Ritual is an Event from Empires. It allows the buyer to trash a card in exchange for   tokens equal to its cost, but offsets the potentially large   payoff by replacing the trashed card with a Curse

FAQ

Official FAQ

• This does nothing once the Curse pile is empty.
• This only gives you +1  per the trashed card cost; it does not give anything for or in costs.

Other rules clarifications

• Unlike similar cards (like Enhance and Salvager), Ritual cares about the cost of the card at the instant it is trashed, rather than checking it later, when its cost may have changed. For example, if you trash a Wayfarer (which costs from the Curse), then discard a Market Square to gain a Gold, Ritual will still give 0  and not 6 , even though Wayfarer now costs .

Strategy

One seemingly obvious target for this is victory cards, but the gain in VP tokens is almost entirely offset by the loss of VP the card represented (plus -1 and continued dead wood from the Curse). A Ritual applied to an Estate or Colony leaves you back where you started. Doing it to a Duchy or Province will net exactly 1 VP. Compare to Monument, a card that costs the same as this Event but will give you 1VP every time you play it.

It could be useful if you have an engine with strong trashing that can easily get rid of the curses but a low tolerance for greening, since this allows you to get VPs without clogging up your deck.

Instead, this is best used near the end of the game to squeeze a final use from cards that don't otherwise provide VP, such as Gold or an unused Prince. Note that Peddler is usually not a good target for Ritual -- since you buy Ritual in your Buy phase, Peddler's cost is decreased when it is trashed, so this is only effective if you only played 0-1 actions on your turn.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain a Curse. If you do, trash a card from your hand. +1  per it cost.	Empires	June 2016

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Ritueel
Finnish	Rituaali
French	Rituel
German	Ritual			Nimm einen Fluch. Wenn du das tust: Entsorge eine Handkarte. +1 -Marker pro , das die entsorgte Karte kostet.	(2016) "…Karte kostet dabei kostete."
German	Ritual			Nimm einen Fluch. Wenn du das tust, entsorge eine deiner Handkarten. +1  pro , das jene Karte kostet.	2. Edition  (2021) "…Karte kostet dabei kostete."
Japanese	儀式 (pron. gishiki)			呪い1枚を獲得する。獲得した場合、手札1枚を廃棄する。廃棄したカードの廃棄前のコストにつき+1 。
Polish	Rytuał			Dodaj Klątwę. Jeżeli to zrobiłeś, wyrzuć na śmietnisko kartę z ręki. +1  za każde w koszcie wyrzuconej karty.	(2017)
Russian	Ритуал (pron. ritual)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

I tried an Event that gave you a Curse in exchange for +1  per 2 Actions in play. It was a dud, then I tried trashing a card for  , and there it is.

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

Why use past tense?

There's no good reason. Some cards refer to the current cost and some to the past cost, and it's just, what words fell out onto the card, what sounded good that minute. In general it's probably simpler to refer to the current cost so they should all do that.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.