Skulk

Skulk
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack - Doom
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Nocturne
Illustrator(s)	Elisa Cella
Card text
+1 Buy Each other player receives the next Hex. When you gain this, gain a Gold.

Skulk is an Action-Attack-Doom card from Nocturne. It's a +Buy card, and hands out the next Hex to each other players. It also comes with a Gold when you gain it.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• You gain the Gold whether you gained Skulk due to buying it, or gained it some other way.

Strategy

Skulk is moderately useful in a variety of situations, providing an unreliable Attack alongside +Buy and a Gold gaining effect that combines well with trash-for-benefit. Although it’s a terminal stop card and none of its effects individually is especially potent, each of them can provide value; in games where more than one or two prove relevant, Skulk can be fairly important.

First, Skulk’s on-gain effect of additionally gaining a Gold means that it offers a cheap way to add payload to your deck. Since Skulk only costs , it effectively makes Gold available at that price (with a Skulk thrown in, which might be a small bonus or a somewhat junky card). This isn’t always useful, as many Kingdoms provide better payload options, but Gold is often significantly more attractive at this pricepoint than at the usual . Additionally, Skulk’s presence makes it easy to gain Gold early in the game and with Workshop variants. This doesn’t necessarily make Skulk a good opening, but there are occasional cases is which an early Gold can provide the chance of spiking an especially high pricepoint, e.g. for Inheritance. Skulk’s Gold-gaining is particularly useful, perhaps encouraging multiple Skulks, in several other cases: for example, if the Kingdom lacks good alternatives to Treasure-based payload in general; if Gold specifically is a desirable card (e.g. because of Encampment); or if it constitutes useful trash-for-benefit fodder. This last case can be an especially strong one for Skulk, in part because Skulk can itself make for useful fodder as well: for example, you could use Remodel to turn the Gold into a Province and the Skulk into a more useful or Action card.

Second, Skulk provides a terminal +Buy and Hexing Attack when you play it. As with other Doom cards, the strength of the Attack is highly variable in nature; the Hexes are more likely to have a significant impact if you can stack up several by playing multiple Skulks, which will often require a prohibitive amount of village and draw support for a card that likely isn’t doing much else for you. Notably, Envy may be more likely than usual to hurt in a Kingdom with Skulk, since Gold is likely to be important. Skulk’s +Buy is typically its more valuable effect, especially if it’s the only source of this in the Kingdom; in this case, playing multiple copies of Skulk is likely to be worthwhile, which in turn strengthens the Attack as well.

Because Skulk fulfils several unrelated functions only to mediocre effect, it’s relatively easy for another card to outshine it when you’re primarily interested in just one of its abilities. For example, the Kingdom may offer a more convenient source of +Buy (e.g. in non-terminal form, or with a more powerful accompanying effect such as that of Bridge); if you have no particular need for Gold, this is likely to be enough to extinguish your interest in Skulk, especially if terminal space is limited. Similarly, if you do need plenty of Golds, you’re likely to prefer a card that can gain them on play (e.g. Courtier), if one is available. Even if one of Skulk’s abilities would be useful and there isn’t another way to access it (e.g. there’s no other Gold gainer), there might not be enough trashing or draw available to support the Skulk self-junking. Even in these cases, however, Skulk’s low price means that a single copy to jump-start your economy can still be useful, especially if you can trash it easily later.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Buy Each other player receives the next Hex. When you gain this, gain a Gold.	Nocturne	November 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Skulk
French	Malandrin (lit. brigand)
German	Attentäter (lit. assassin)			+1 Kauf Jeder Mitspieler empfängt die nächste Plage. Wenn du diese Karte nimmst, nimm ein Gold.	(2017)
Japanese	暗躍者 (pron. an'yakusha, lit. one who acts in secret)			+1 購入 一番上の呪詛を捨て札にする。他のプレイヤーは全員、その呪詛を受ける。 これを獲得するとき、金貨1枚を獲得する。
Russian	Бездельник (pron. byezdyel'nik, lit. deadbeat)

Trivia

Official card art.

Preview

Skulk costs , is all upside, and comes with a Gold, wait what? Somehow, having a Skulk in your deck weighs down the Gold sufficiently to make this all okay.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Nocturne Previews #4: Werewolf, Skulk, Cursed Village

Secret History

The idea of a weak card that comes with Gold came from Guardian. I very briefly tried it on a Night card that Hexed, but that was too strong. So it's an Action that gives you +1 Buy. And you get a Gold with it! How could that be, someone out there is still wondering. Well uh. Like, what if the Hex is Poverty. That's a good Hex. Then Skulk was Militia, but instead of + you got +1 Buy. Sometimes you really need the +1 Buy, I see that, but when you don't, man, + is a lot more than +. Skulk is at its best when you have a way to Remodel it or something.

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