Scrying Pool
| Scrying Pool | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
  |
| Type(s) | Action - Attack |
| Kingdom card? | Yes |
| Set |
Alchemy |
| Illustrator(s) | Klemens Franz |
| Card text | |
|
+1 Action Each player (including you) reveals the top card of their deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice. Then reveal cards from your deck until revealing one that isn’t an Action. Put all of those revealed cards into your hand. | |
Scrying Pool is an Action–Attack card from Alchemy. When you play Scrying Pool, you first do a Spy-like attack on your opponents and on your own deck, and then draw all the Action cards off the top of your deck. If all you have is Action cards, a single Scrying Pool will draw your whole deck.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- First each player reveals their top card, and discards it or puts it back, with you choosing separately for each player.
- If people care about the order, go clockwise, starting with yourself.
- After that, reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal a card that is not an Action card.
- If you run out of cards without revealing a [non-]Action card, shuffle your discard pile and keep going. If you have no discard pile left either, stop there.
- Put all of the Action cards you revealed from your deck into your hand, plus that first non-Action card.
Other Rules clarifications
- There is a typo in the official FAQ; it says "Action card" where it should say "non-Action card". That error is corrected above.
- Cards with multiple types, one of which is Action, are Actions.
- The only cards that go into your hand are the ones revealed as part of revealing cards until finding a non-Action; you do not get discarded cards from the first part of what Scrying Pool did, or cards from other players' decks.
Strategy
Scrying Pool is a powerful card because, in the right Kingdoms, it offers potentially unlimited draw. In decks that are mostly Action cards, Scrying Pool can allow you to draw your entire deck relatively easily, allowing you to reliably play all your stop card payload (such as Coven), enabling gain and play scenarios, and synergizing well with discard for benefit cards such as Artificer. Scrying Pool’s strength, therefore, is largely tied to whether the rest of the Kingdom allows you to get to that kind of deck. Junking Attacks can make that goal nearly impossible, while strong thinners such as Steward often make it feasible. Kingdoms with lots of cheap Actions, especially cantrips such as Harbinger, can also allow you to easily flood your deck with cards that Scrying Pool can draw.
Scrying Pool’s cost has several repercussions. First, you’ll need to buy a Potion before buying a Scrying Pool. This means you need to plan in advance whether you want Scrying Pools or not. If Scrying Pool is good in a particular Kingdom, you’ll often want to open with a Potion to start getting Scrying Pools as soon as possible. Second, you’ll need to keep the Potion in your deck to get more Scrying Pools. This is an additional non-Action card that may get in the way of Scrying Pool’s draw, and exacerbates Scrying Pool’s struggles in Kingdoms with no thinning. Third, because Potion is useless for affording other non- cards, you’ll usually only have one, limiting you to gaining one Scrying Pool per shuffle.
Scrying Pool’s initial reveal and optional discard of the top card of all players’ decks is a relatively small component of the card’s overall strength. Revealing the top card of your own deck is useful sifting, as you can discard non-Action card junk to make it miss the shuffle and increase your odds of drawing more cards, or keep an Action card on top to guarantee you draw at least two cards. As an attack, Scrying Pool is low-impact. It can sometimes cause duds for your opponents if you can leave a junk card such as an Estate on top of their deck, trigger bad shuffles for them, or cause their good cards to miss the shuffle, but oftentimes if you’re able to play enough Scrying Pools to cause that to happen, they will also have Scrying Pools to discard the topdecked junk, or simply draw to their own good cards. Sometimes, Scrying Pool can allow you to more precisely use cards that care about the top of your opponent’s deck, such as Swindler, Chariot Race, and Jester.
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.
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
 |
+1 Action Each player (including you) reveals the top card of his deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice. Then reveal cards from the top of your deck until you reveal one that is not an Action. Put all of your revealed cards into your hand. |
Alchemy 1st Edition | May 2010 |
|
 |
+1 Action Each player (including you) reveals the top card of their deck and either discards it or puts it back, your choice. Then reveal cards from your deck until revealing one that isn't an Action. Put all of those revealed cards into your hand. |
Alchemy 2nd Edition | December 2018 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese | 占卜 (pron. zhānbǔ, lit. divination) | ||||
| Czech | Vidění (lit. vision) |  |
+1 akce Každý hráč (včetně tebe) ukáže vrchní kartu svého dobíracího balíčku a ty vybereš, zda ji odloží na odkládací balíček, nebo zda ji vrátí zpět. Poté ukazuj vrchní karty ze svého dobíracího balíčku, dokud neodkryješ kartu, která není akční. Všechny své odkryté karty si přidej do ruky. |
||
| Dutch | Visioen (lit. vision) | ||||
| Finnish | Ennemalja (lit. omen bowl) | ||||
| French | Bassin divinatoire |  |
+1 Action Tous les joueurs (y compris vous) dévoilent la carte du haut de leur pioche et la défaussent ou la replacent (votre choix). Ensuite, dévoilez des cartes de votre pioche jusqu'à dévoiler une carte qui n'est pas une Action. Prenez en main les cartes dévoilées. |
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| German | Vision (lit. vision) |  |
 |
+1 Aktion Jeder Spieler (inklusive dir) deckt die oberste Karte seines Nachziehstapels auf. Du entscheidest bei jedem, ob er die aufgedeckte Karte ablegt oder zurücklegt. Decke dann Karten von deinem Nachziehstapel auf, bis du eine Nicht-Aktionskarte aufdeckst. Nimm alle so aufgedeckten Karten auf deine Hand. |
(2019) |
| Italian | Divinazione (lit. divination) | ||||
| Japanese | 念視の泉 (pron. nen-shi no izumi, lit. fountain of thought-inspection) | +1 アクション プレイヤーは全員、山札の一番上のカードを公開し、あなたの選択により、捨て札にするか山札の上に戻す。その後、あなたはアクションカード以外のカード1枚が公開されろまで山札を上かち公開する。公開したカードをすべて手札に加えろ。 |
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| Russian | Гадательная Чаша (pron. gadatyel'naya chasha, lit. oracle bowl) |
 |
+1 Действие Каждый игрок (вы тоже) раскрывает верхнюю карту своей колоды и по вашему выбору либо сбрасывает её, либо кладёт назад. Затем раскрывайте карты с вашей колоды до тех пор, пока не раскроете карту, не являющуюся картой Действия. Положите все раскрытые карты в руку. |
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| Spanish | Hidromancia (lit. hydromancy) |  |
+1 Acción Cada jugador (incluso tú) revela la carta superior de su mazo, para descartarla o ponerla de nuevo encima del mazo, lo que tú decidas. A continuación, levanta cartas de tu mazo hasta que reveles una carta que no sea de Acción. Pon todas las cartas reveladas en tu mano. |
Trivia
Preview
Card Art
Secret History
For strumphf's 2022 advent calendar, Donald X. went in-depth on the development of Scrying Pool.
, without the Spy part. That version was ridiculous. It seemed like it would work with potion in the cost though. And it did! Then an attack in the set didn't work out, and the card I wanted to replace it with wasn't an attack. The names had already been sent to the artists, due to the tight schedule; I had to pick something else in the set and graft an attack onto it, and it had to be something where the name made some sort of sense with that. Scrying Pool was that card. I grafted Spy onto it and well there it is. It's a decent fit, as the rest of the card cares about the top of your deck, and it's Spy with the spying before the drawing, which is something. It's pretty wordy though, and I didn't realize that some people would look at this and think "oh it's a Spy variant" rather than "oh it draws you lots of actions and I guess also spies." It's not just a Spy variant guys. There is a mistake in the FAQ for this card. There's the bit where it explains what happens if you run out of cards before finding your non-action, only it says "action" instead. The card itself has it right. The Korean translator found this mistake; you other translators could learn a lot from that guy. Actually I think the German translator also found something, but he found his thing in time for us to fix it. The Korean translator could learn a lot from him.Retrospective
