Sage

Sage
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Dark Ages
Illustrator(s)	Harald Lieske
Card text
+1 Action Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal one costing or more. Put that card into your hand and discard the rest.

Sage is an Action card from Dark Ages. It is a cantrip that digs for a card costing or more thereby allowing you to skip past your Copper, Curses, Estates, and Shelters.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If you run out of cards while revealing cards, shuffle your discard pile (not including the revealed cards) and continue.
• If you run out of cards to reveal and have no cards in your discard pile, stop there; discard everything revealed, and you do not get a card.
• If you find a card costing or more, put that one into your hand and discard the rest.
• For example you might reveal Copper, then Copper, then Curse, then Province; Province costs , so you would stop there, put Province in your hand, and discard the two Coppers and the Curse.

Strategy

Sage is a weak cantrip that can sift past junk to help you find a more valuable card. It can therefore improve your deck control in the face of your starting cards, Curses, and Ruins, but it's likely to provide no benefit in a well-thinned deck and often fails to deliver if too many of the cards that you'd prefer to skip cost at least , which is especially likely once you start greening.

Sage is occasionally a good early game purchase because it can help you cycle very quickly to find your opening buys and shuffle in your other early-game purchases sooner. This is most likely to be an attractive prospect if your main objective in the early game is to play an eligible Sage target, such as Witch or Bounty Hunter, as early and often as possible. In this stage of the game, it’s usually a good idea to use deck tracking to know what cards your Sage can draw, and where they are. If, for instance, the only card your Sage can draw is in your discard pile, you should be aware that Sage will always trigger a reshuffle, no matter how many cards are currently in your draw pile.

In later stages of the game, Sage's value often falls off rapidly, particularly if your deck is under such good control that you would draw a high cost card with any other cantrip. Multiple copies are not often useful, as a Sage that draws another Sage does little or nothing to advance your turn; and although your deck control may fall off again later still during greening, Sage generally can't help with this, as it will draw your Provinces and Duchies. Occasionally, Sage’s effect can retain more value outside the early game, notably when your deck contains a high density of cheap cards, as in the case of weak thinning or a continued influx of junk, such as with a junking attack. As a cheap cantrip, it can also be useful in conjunction with effects that often benefit from these, such as Throne Room variants and bonus tokens.

One notable use case for Sage is with Travellers: while both Peasant and Page cost and can be discarded by Sage, all the later iterations of each line do cost at least , so a mid-game Sage has the potential to accelerate your advancement.

Sage usually anti-synergizes with cost reduction and cards with unusual costs. For example, while reducing costs by may be helpful in skipping past Silvers, reducing costs by even more may leave your Sages unable to draw anything at all. Similarly, Sage is unable to draw important -cost cards such as City Quarter or cheap cards such as Chapel or Scrying Pool.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Action Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal one costing or more. Put that card into your hand and discard the rest.	Dark Ages 1st Edition	August 2012
		+1 Action Reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal one costing or more. Put that card into your hand and discard the rest.	Dark Ages 2nd Edition	September 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Mudrc			+1 akce Ukazuj karty z vršku svého dobírací balíčku, dokud neukážeš kartu s cenou alespoň . Vezmi si ji do ruky a ostatní ukázané karty odlož.
Dutch	Wijsgeer
Finnish	Tietäjä
French	Sage
German	Weiser			+1 Aktion Decke Karten von deinem Nachziehstapel auf, bis du eine aufgedeckt hast, die oder mehr kostet. Nimm jene Karte auf deine Hand und lege den Rest ab.	(2019)
Japanese	賢者 (pron. kenja)			+1 アクション コスト以上のカード1枚が公開されるまで、山札の上からカードを公開する。それを手札に加え、残りを捨て札にする。
Korean	현자 (pron. hyeonja)
Russian	Мудрец (pron. mudryets)
Spanish	Sabio

Trivia

Official card art.

The cover of one of the books in the art has a "D" printed on it in the same font as the Dominion logo.

Preview

There’s a tendency to want to show off the most exotic cards, but I don’t want people to think the set will just be non-stop confusion. So I’m also showing off a simpler card, Sage. Dig for a card costing or more, that’s all there is to it. It will turn into something good for a while; then eventually it will start reminding you about those Provinces you bought. And of course sometimes a Sage just wants you to talk to another Sage.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dark Ages Preview #1: Graverobber, Poor House, Sage

Secret History

The initial version was +1 Action, name a card, draw the next card that you haven't named for Sages yet this turn. So with multiple Sages it would get more selective. I pared that down to just drawing you a +.

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

Retrospective

I don't buy this much. The basic idea of drawing your good cards more often sounds good, and maybe the game will end once you have any Provinces, so you're never sad. I dunno, mostly I think of Sage as something to Procession on my way to better things.

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