Spices
| Spices | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Info | |
| Cost |
 |
| Type(s) | Treasure |
| Kingdom card? | Yes |
| Set |
Renaissance |
| Illustrator(s) | Elisa Cella |
| Card text | |
 +1 Buy When you gain this, +2 Coffers. | |
Spices is a Treasure card from Renaissance. On-play, it is a Silver with +Buy. On-gain, it gives +2 Coffers.
FAQ
Official FAQ
- This is a Treasure that makes
and +1 Buy when played; when gaining it, you get +2 Coffers.
Strategy
Spices is a good payload card whose main strength is the two Coffers it gives on gain. Without the Coffers, Spices are equivalent to a Silver with a +Buy attached, so the extra that you pay to buy Spices rather than Silver can be thought of as being directly converted into Coffers. The Coffers from Spices typically serve one of three purposes.
First, a single Coffers gives you a form of “money smoothing”, or the flexibility to ensure your 
production is consistent, and two Coffers is much better than one. Spices, therefore, is often a strong enabler of money strategies, as the Coffers can allow you to afford Province consistently during the greening phase. A very simple baseline is to only buy Silver, Spices, and Province, aiming to amass many Coffers and score on every turn during your last couple of shuffles. This can sometimes beat weaker engines, and can often be improved by other cards in the Kingdom, such as terminal draw. Another, much stronger, money strategy uses Banquet and Spices to flood your deck with Treasures and gain many Coffers, driving up your money density and ability to buy Provinces.
The second purpose of Spices’ Coffers is for spiking. Because Coffers generate economy without taking up a card in your hand, Spices can help you hit high pricepoints, such as that of Inheritance, that your limited early handsize would not otherwise allow. Similarly, on a / opening, Spices and Banish work together very nicely, allowing you to Exile three Estates on turn 2.
The third purpose of Spices’ Coffers is the large temporary boost it gives your economy if you use a gainer. For example, if you play an Altar to gain a Spices, you immediately have more available, or 
if you can also draw the Spices.
While the Coffers are the primary source of Spices’ strength, Spices’ +Buy is often useful, as it’s often convenient to have your +Buy in non-terminal form and attached to your payload. Additionally, with Coffers, you often have the flexibility to buy multiple things at once.
When to get a Spices depends on your deck. Generally, the money-smoothing and mass Coffer accumulation can make Spices an attractive early buy for money strategies, while Spices is still a stop card for engines and as such should be gained later, when you can tactically utilize the Coffers and most need the +Buy.
Versions
English versions
| Digital | Text | Release | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
 |
+1 Buy When you gain this, +2 Coffers. |
Renaissance | November 2018 |
Other language versions
| Language | Name | Digital | Text | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese | 香料 (pron. xiāngliào) |
||||
| Dutch | Specerijen |  |
+1 Aanschaf Als je deze kaart pakt, +2 Geldkisten. |
||
| French | Épices |  |
+1 Achat Quand vous recevez cette carte, +2 Coffres. |
||
| German | Gewürze |  |
 |
+1 Kauf Wenn du diese Karte nimmst: +2 Taler. |
(2019) |
| Japanese | 香辛料 (pron. koushinryō) |
+1 購入 これを獲得するとき、+2 コイントークン。 |
|||
| Russian | Специи (pron. spyetsii) |
||||
| Spanish | Especias |  |
+1 Compra Cuando ganas esta carta, +2 Arcas. |
Trivia
Secret History
that gave you +2 Coffers and +1 Buy mat token when gained; this was somewhat inspired by a card of Matt's. Then I got rid of the +Buy mat, but moved the +Buy to the top of the card.Why does it cost 5?
.
What's the effect of costing 
instead of ? You can't* open with it; not an issue here, it's fun to consider opening with Spices. It delays how soon you can get it - not important here. And it means you just see the card less often, because you have to have to get it, in addition to wanting it over other options. So, I'm not seeing the pull of charging here.Does Spices need errata?
With the Coffers rules change, Merchant Guild got errata to preserve its original functionality, but Spices did not.
