Storyteller

Storyteller
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Adventures
Illustrator(s)	Claus Stefan
Card text
+1 Action Play up to 3 Treasures from your hand. Then +1 Card, and pay all of your and Card per you paid.

Storyteller is an Action from Adventures. It is a Lab variant that turns the you've generated so far this turn into card draw. It also lets you play up to 3 Treasures first to rack up some , which can allow for some interesting tricks with Kingdom Treasures.

FAQ

Official FAQ (2022)

• This lets you play Treasures in your Action phase. They go into play and produce , just like Treasures played in the Buy phase.
• Then you draw a card, and Storyteller turns all of your into +Cards; for each you have you lose the and get +1 Card. For example if you had , you lose the and draw 4 cards.
• This makes you lose all you have so far that turn, however you got it.
• You can track that the Treasures have been "spent" by putting them under the Storyteller.
• , produced by Potions from Alchemy, is not and so is not lost and does not get you any cards.

Other rules clarifications

• Treasures that have effects other than (or in addition to) giving you will still have their normal effects when played with Storyteller. For instance, Quarry will give you + and reduce the cost of Action cards; Storyteller will convert that into +1 Card, but the cost reduction will remain in effect.
• Treasures that play other Treasures (such as Counterfeit, Crystal Ball, and Tiara) will let you play more than three Treasures while resolving Storyteller.
  • However, since under ordinary circumstances you'll be playing Storyteller in your Action phase, this means that playing Crown while resolving Storyteller will cause you to double-play another Action card, not an extra Treasure card.
• Although Storyteller causes you to spend all your , the Treasures that gave you that remain in play. This means, for instance, that if you play Copper with Storyteller, you usually won't be able to buy Grand Market later in the turn.
• Playing this with Way of the Chameleon means that will pay all your just to get it back. This may still be useful just to get Treasures into play earlier than normal, without drawing any cards. Getting Treasures into play may be relevant for cards like Quarry and Sea Chart.
• In 2022, Storyteller got errata that removed its +, and it instead gives you +1 Card after you play Treasures.
• With the new rules to Coffers, you can spend Coffers at any time during your turn. This means that after you play your Treasures and get your first +1 Card, and before you spend all your , you may spend Coffers to increase the number of cards you draw.

Deprecated official FAQ (2021)

This lets you play Treasures in your Action phase. They go into play and produce , just like Treasures played in the Buy phase. Then Storyteller turns all of your into +Cards; for each you have you lose the and get +1 Card. For example if you had , you lose the and draw 4 cards. This makes you lose all you have so far that turn, including the you get from playing the Treasures, the + Storyteller gives you directly, and any you made earlier in the turn. You can track that the Treasures have been "spent" by putting them under the Storyteller. , produced by Potions from Alchemy, is not and so is not lost and does not get you any cards.

Strategy

Storyteller offers two primary things:

1. draw and/or sifting
2. Action-phase Treasure synergies

Storyteller is best in Kingdoms that reward good draw with strong engine payload. Compared to other draw options, Storyteller-based draw can more easily tolerate a lack of Copper thinning. Storyteller also works well in Kingdoms in which Treasures are easy to gain, or when there are Kingdom Treasures that have an important synergy with Storyteller.

Storyteller is a flexible card that lets you convert into draw as needed. In Kingdoms without a source of virtual coin, Storyteller can be thought of as a cantrip that converts Treasures it collides with into sifting or draw. More specifically, Coppers become cantrips, Silvers become Labs, and Golds become double Labs. Storyteller as primary draw is best in decks that can thin out Coppers and other junk and ensure Storyteller collides with more valuable Treasures, either by gaining those Treasures in bulk or through careful shuffle management and deck tracking. Compared to more standard methods of draw, Storyteller lags behind in two aspects:

1. dud potential: Laboratories don’t require collision to function, whereas Treasures are stop cards without a Storyteller and a deck with many Treasures has some potential to dud.
2. payload alternatives: Engines often have better payload options than Treasures, and would prefer to spend their and gains accordingly. If Storyteller is your primary source of draw, affording all of the Treasures needed alongside normal engine payload can be expensive, especially since you may need to add excess Treasures to reliably draw.

The first problem usually requires specific Kingdom support, with other sifting or topdecking effects being most effective. The second problem can be somewhat mitigated if Treasures are very cheap to gain, with Gold gainers such as Treasure Trove being most effective. If these problems are unaddressed, you might want to look to other options as your primary draw. In the absence of other alternatives, though, Storyteller can still be sufficient for deck control.

Storyteller also allows you to play Treasures outside of the Buy phase, which can lead to interesting synergies. Notably, Capitalism and Crown allow Storyteller to act as a village; Bank can generate large amounts of with Storyteller putting lots of Treasures into play; Horn of Plenty allows gain-and-play strategies, often around copies of itself; and Quarry can lower the of key Action cards for your gainers.

Storyteller is best in the mid- and endgame when you can use more valuable Treasures with it to draw, and usually it is not the first card you should gain. You should add more Storytellers to your deck as you add more Treasures and other cards, to keep your odds of collision high enough to keep your deck functioning.

There are a number of tactical decisions to keep in mind when playing with Storyteller. First, given the tradeoff between drawn cards and your economy, it’s important to keep track of how much draw is left in your deck to avoid accidentally overdrawing with Storyteller. Second, when deciding how many Treasures to play for your Storyteller, you should consider your shuffle situation and whether you’re looking for a particular card. If neither is a concern and you’re simply trying to maximize generated, you should generally play as many Treasures as possible, while still avoiding accidental overdraw. Third, play order of your other -generating Actions is important. For example, playing a Festival before your Storyteller may draw you more cards or be necessary (e.g., to play your terminal gainers), but you might also waste that by accidentally overdrawing. As such, you may prefer to play your Action-based payload after your Storytellers where possible.

Notable synergies

• Capitalism
• Commerce
• Conquest
• Raid
• Bank
• Crown
• Horn of Plenty
• Quarry
• Scepter

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.

• Pre-lesson notes from #coaching's 2021 session

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Action + Play up to 3 Treasures from your hand. Pay all of your ; +1 Card per paid.	Adventures	April 2015
		+1 Action + Play up to 3 Treasures from your hand. Then pay all of your (including the from this) and draw a card per you paid.	Adventures (2016 printing)	August 2017
		+1 Action Play up to 3 Treasures from your hand. Then +1 Card, and pay all of your and +1 Card per you paid.	Adventures (2022 printing)

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Dutch	Verteller			+1 Actie + Speel maximaal 3 geldkaarten uit je hand. Betaal al je : +1 Kaart per betaalde .	(2015)
Finnish	Tarinankertoja
French	Conteuse (Note: explicitly feminine)			+1 Aktion + Jouez jusqu'à 3 cartes Trésor de votre main. Dépensez tous vos  (y compris le de cette carte) et piochez une carte par dépensé.	(2021)
German	Geschichtenerzähler			+1 Aktion + Spiele bis zu 3 Geldkarten aus deiner Hand aus. Zahle alle und du erhältst: +1 Karte pro gezahltem . (Du hast jetzt ).	(2015)
	Geschichtenerzähler			+1 Aktion + Spiele bis zu 3 Geldkarten aus deiner Hand. Dann zahle alle deine (inklusive der von dieser Karte) und ziehe 1 Karte pro gezahltem .	(Nachdruck 2021)
	Geschichtenerzähler			+1 Aktion Spiele bis zu 3 Geldkarten aus deiner Hand. Dann +1 Karte, zahle alle deine und +1 Karte pro gezahltem .
Japanese	語り部 (pron. kataribe)			+1 アクション + 手札から3枚以下の財宝カードを使用する。その後、所持をすべて支払い、払ったにつき1枚カードを引く。
Russian	Сказочник (pron. skazochnik)

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

I tried paying for cards long ago, in Prosperity. Prosperity at the time had a few ways to pay for things. It didn't work out then, and in fact I dropped that sub-theme. In the intervening years I have done that type of thing as discarding cards or treasures, because it's simpler. A couple things in this set approached being something like Storyteller, and one day it congealed. I tried a few different sizes of it, including a Reserve version, before settling on this one.

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

Relevant outtakes

There was "Discard X Silvers, +2X Cards." It somewhat survives as Storyteller.

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

Why +1 Coin instead of +1 Card?

Donald X. playtested a version where Storyteller gave +1 Card instead of +, and discovered that it was much stronger than the + version.

Instead it's the difference between "draw cards based on how many cards you have and what they are" and "+1 card then that." It turns out +1 card gets you more than one card there. Consider the extreme case of just having Storyteller in hand, with a deck of all Platinums. I play the + version, draw one card, it's Platinum, I've got to spend this turn. Or, I play the +1 Card version, draw one card, it's Platinum, play it, draw 5 cards, I've got 25 to spend this turn. I have 25 instead of .

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Preview: Storyteller

Rewording

This had "draw" when everything should say "+1 Card" in case something like Way of Chameleon ever exists (oops, there's one, Way of the Chameleon). Then, I was changing it anyway, why does it make + and then immediately cash it in, that could be simpler.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Why of the Errata

Paying coins

Originally Prosperity tried out paying as a sub-theme, although the specific cards didn't work out. Other sets avoided it to let Prosperity have it, although later I had Black Market and an Alchemy (large version) card that let you buy a card to hand (revived and then fixed as Artificer).

Also, originally there was no Buy phase, and buying meant being able to play Treasures. This is why Black Market has a messed-up phrasing that assumes you can play Treasures.

Black Market confuses some people, though again part of that is just a bad phrasing. Also you need extra text to allow Treasures to be played. After Black Market I decided I would just do "discard a card" or "discard a Treasure" in place of "pay ," depending on how generous I was feeling.

"Pay to draw" started out in Prosperity; the card as I had it seemed crazy and I didn't try to fix it up. Stables does it, in a version that only lets you pay once. Then in Adventures I tried "discard Silvers for +2 Cards per," which seemed promising for a bit, and then somehow convinced myself to go for playing treasures and spending again.

So, it was initially a thing, but for the most part I personally find "discard some cards/Treasures" to be simpler and close enough.

Paying has tracking issues, but often you can turn the spent sideways. And there's doing it in the Buy phase.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.