Soothsayer

Soothsayer
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action - Attack
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Guilds
Illustrator(s)	Alayna Danner
Card text
Gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Curse, and if they did, draws a card.

Soothsayer is an Action–Attack card from Guilds. It is a Gold gainer, as well as a Curser whose attack is mitigated by increasing the hand size of anyone who receives a Curse.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If there is no Gold left, you do not gain one.
• If there are not enough Curses left to go around, deal them out in turn order, starting with the player to your left.
• Each player who gained a Curse draws a card. This is not optional.
• A player who did not gain a Curse, whether due to the Curses running out or due to some other reason, does not draw a card.
• A player who uses Watchtower (from Dominion: Prosperity) to trash the Curse did gain a Curse and so draws a card; a player who uses Trader (from Dominion: Hinterlands) to gain a Silver instead did not gain a Curse and so does not draw a card^†.

Other rules clarifications

• If you gain a Curse and draw a Reaction like Sheepdog or Horse Traders, it's too late to use it.
• Each affected player gains a Curse and draws a card before the next affected player does so. This is a change from the first version of Soothsayer.

^† Trader now exchanges the Curse, so players that react with Trader will draw a card.

Strategy

Soothsayer is a mediocre Curser and Gold gainer. Compared to other Cursers such as Witch, it is generally weaker for three reasons:

1. It lets your opponent draw a card upon gaining a Curse.
2. It provides no immediate benefit (such as draw or ) on the turn that you play it.
3. It slows down your deck control as much as your opponents’ because a Gold—while much better—is a stop card just like a Curse.

These factors combine to make Soothsayer’s junking easier to counter, usually by using trashers, meaning that its role is particularly heavily dependent on other characteristics of the Kingdom.

In Kingdoms with weak or non-existent Curse thinning or Attack immunity, Soothsayer performs similarly to other junkers, and playing it early and often can reduce your opponents’ deck control, money density, and overall  . Gaining a copy early can be a good idea in such situations, and if the deck control tools are weak this can lead to a slog. Sifting, such as with Warehouse, can be particularly effective, because the difference between your best and worst cards is large due to the Gold gaining, and the associated cycling can allow you to play your Soothsayer more frequently.

If it’s relatively easy to deal with Soothsayer’s Curses, it functions as a Gold gainer with a minor attack. In this role, Soothsayer can be used to ramp up your payload, and is most effective if you have some overdraw to gain-and-play the Gold. Aside from use as payload, the gained Golds can also be used to feed trash-for-benefit effects such as Remodel. When used in this way, Soothsayer is best added in the midgame, after you have established some deck control and can handle an influx of stop cards. While giving your opponent free draw to gain your Gold is undesirable, this is somewhat offset by the Curse which your opponent will likely have to draw to trash, and can be mitigated by using a discard attack such as Militia.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Curse. Each player who did draws a card.	Guilds	June 2013
		Gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Curse, and if they did, draws a card.	Guilds & Cornucopia (2017 printing)	March 2018

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Helderziende
Finnish	Manaaja (lit. exorcist)
French	Devin			Recevez un Or. Tous vos adversaires reçoivent une Malédiction, et dans ce cas, piochent une carte.
German	Hellseherin / Wahrsagerin / Wahrsager			Nimm dir ein Gold. Jeder Mitspieler nimmt sich eine Fluchkarte. Wer eine Fluchkarte nimmt, zieht eine Karte vom Nachziehstapel.	(2013) Note on the card text: "Fluchkarte nimmt genommen hat," Note on the card name
German	Hellseherin / Wahrsagerin / Wahrsager			Nimm ein Gold. Jeder Mitspieler nimmt einen Fluch und wenn er es tut, zieht er eine Karte.	(2019) Note on the card text: "wenn er es tut das getan hat," Note on the card name
Japanese	予言者 (pron. yogen-sha, lit. prophet)			金貨1枚を獲得する。他のプレイヤーは全員、呪い1枚を獲得し、呪いを獲得した場合、1枚カードを引く。
Korean	예언자 (pron. yeeonja, lit. prophet)
Polish	Wieszcz (explicitly masculine)				Although Polish version is not released, this name is referred to in Polish Dominion 2E rulebook.
Russian	Предсказатель (pron. pryedskazatyel')

Trivia

Official card art.

It is notable in being the only Curser card that does not reflect the theme of its expansion.

Secret History

I had tried "gain a Gold, they gain a Curse" in Alchemy, but it was a poor fit for a card with potion in the cost. I tried it out again here with the Council Room penalty. It worked fine, but some people complained about how bad the card got when the Curses ran out. Wei-Hwa suggested having it not give them a card unless they got a Curse, and there you have it.

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

Retrospective on complexity

I'd drop the "who did" on Soothsayer. "Gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Curse and draws a card." The "who did" is there because there were complaints about the card going dead eventually. The apparently tiny amount of simplicity to be gained is worth way more to me than getting rid of the feeling that eventually you will want to stop playing Soothsayer.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, What Donald X. Might Do With a Dominion Time Machine

As an experienced player, it's easy to see the benefit of a card being at a slightly better power level, and easy to see the benefit of a card being slightly more interesting. It's hard to see the benefit of a card being slightly simpler. Being simpler is just drastically more valuable to the game though. Dominion is played by normal people. This case is particularly crazy and well I struggle not to discuss strategy. The extra text wasn't possibly worth it, that's how I see it.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, With my Dominion Time Machine...

Soothsayer has no obligation to max out how good it is in all situations. If you stop wanting to play it with no Curses left, due to the card still going out, that's fine. I want the card to be simpler; if I didn't care about that, the game would be unplayable. We can endlessly do this for any situation; it's Dominion. Of course there's nonzero value to that clause for players of Soothsayer. That has nothing to do with why that clause is a mistake.

Yes there will be a certain amount of complexity. That bit on Soothsayer was a poor place to spend complexity points. It did not make the card all that complex, and was still a mistake. It's the natural way of all cards, to become more complex during playtesting. This card isn't fun enough; add some text! It's a little too weak... some text to make it more powerful! Or too strong, make it weaker with text. You can't just change the big numbers; there's a huge gulf between + and + and so on. So, complexity. And it all adds up to unplayable complexity. You have to rein it in everywhere you can.

Soothsayer was totally fine. One person complained. I thought sure and changed it. It was a mistake; it doesn't happen enough to justify the extra text. There's a chart and everything.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020

Retrospective on power level

I think the power level of "Gain a Gold. Each other player gains a Curse and draws a card" is fine. It's weak for a Witch and man, it's nice to have some of that in the game.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020