Summon

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Summon
Info
Cost
Type	Event
Set	Promo
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Event text
Gain an Action card costing up to . Set it aside. If you did, then at the start of your next turn, play it.

Summon is a promotional Event. It lets the buyer gain a cheap Action card and play it immediately at the start of their next turn.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• When you buy this, you gain an Action card costing up to from the Supply and set it aside face up.
• If you did set it aside, then at the start of your next turn, play that Action card. This doesn't use up your default Action for the turn.
• In order to remember to play the card on your next turn, you may want to turn it sideways or diagonally, turning it right side up when you play it.
• If you move the Action card after you gain it but before you set it aside (e.g. by putting it on top of your deck with Watchtower from Dominion: Prosperity), then Summon will "lose track" of it and be unable to set it aside; in that case you will not play it at the start of your next turn.
• If you use Summon to gain a Nomad Camp (from Dominion: Hinterlands), Summon will know to find the Nomad Camp on your deck, so you will set it aside in that case (unless you have moved it elsewhere via another ability).

Other Rules clarifications

• The Summoned card is discarded during your Clean-up phase once its effects are resolved like a typical Action card, as it has been brought into play by the effect of Summon.
• If you are being Possessed, and the player to your right tells you to Summon a card, they gain the card, which does not get set aside, nor played at the start of their turn, instead staying in their discard pile.
• If you Summon a Hireling, you will draw a card when you play it, since it will still be the start of your turn.
• Summon will also fail to move a card if it moves away, and then moves back to the same place. For example, if you gain an Experiment, exile it to Gatekeeper, then gain the second Experiment and discard the first Experiment from Exile, Summon will still fail to set aside the Experiment, even though it's still in your discard pile.

Strategy

There is no strategy article for Summon yet, as it has only recently been released! Plese share your ideas on the forum!

Synergies and Combos

• Smithy
• Opponent's Swamp Hag

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Gain an Action card costing up to . Set it aside. If you do, then at the start of your next turn, play it.	Summon 1st Edition	November 2015
		Gain an Action card costing up to . Set it aside. If you did, then at the start of your next turn, play it.	Summon 2nd Edition	February 2017

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Date
French	Convocation (lit. meeting)
German	Einladung (lit. invitation)			Nimm eine Aktionskarte, die bis zu kostet und lege sie zur Seite. Spiele sie zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges.	2015
	Einladung (lit. invitation)			Nimm eine Aktionskarte, die bis zu kostet. Lege sie zur Seite. Wenn du das tust: Spiele sie zu Beginn deines nächsten Zuges.	2019
Japanese	召喚 (pron. shōkan)			コスト以下のアクションカード1枚を獲得する。それを脇に置く。脇に置いた場合、あなたの次のターンの開始時に、それを使用する。
Russian	Зов (pron. zov, lit. call)

Trivia

Official card art.

First reveal image for Summon.

Summon was revealed in an advertisement for the German edition of Adventures, which mentioned the Event's inclusion if you bought the expansion. In any language, Summon was supposed to be sold in a package that includes an updated version of Pathfinding where the art actually fills the entire space available for it on the card, but the updated Pathfinding was not ready by the time Summon was up for publication. For a time it was included in Empires during that set's playtesting, but ultimately was removed and became a promotional card. It was designed by playtester LastFootnote, who also wrote the official FAQ.

Art

The artist drew a sketch of a wizard in a forest shooting out a stream of butterflies. I said looks good. Then he did another sketch, the woman in that place, conjuring the weird thing from Transmogrify. I said well it's fine but I also liked the first sketch. Then he did a polished version. I said well the weird thing is weird and mentioned the butterflies again. He replaced it with a butterfly.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, 'Promo Event card in Germany'

There was no special thing to commemorate with this promo, so we decided to pick a symbol that we could reuse if there were ever more promos. Something that said this was something special in some vague generic way. So: a flag.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, 'Interview with Donald X.'

Secret History

Altenburger, the German publisher, wanted a promo. I said, how about an Event? They said great. The Event actually promotes Adventures, the set with Events. A first for our promos.

Playtester Matt Engel, aka LastFootnote, is a big designer of homemade cards. I said, do you want to make this promo? He said meh. A bad day. He did end up making it and trying to sell me on its virtues. It all worked out.

His initial premise was, "+1 Buy. Set aside the next Action card you buy this turn. At the start of your next turn, play it." I moved the buy into the functionality - "You may buy an Action card..." I initially was more interested in immediately playing the card, rather than next turn, but that turned out to be a dud.

Playtester Stef Meijer determined that "buy an action, play it next turn" was broken at . It turns out you should just do it every turn. I fixed that by changing it to "Gain an Action card costing up to ." Or if you prefer, that direction meant the card didn't need a prohibitive price. It still conservatively cost at first, but we weren't buying it all that much and Matt pushed for it to go down to . It seemed fine at and there it is. It's even better than the original on 's, but you probably want some cards costing at some point.

It has an unusual wording to deal with some of the weird things that can happen in Dominion. There are various ways for the card to vanish (e.g. Watchtower), so to make sure you have the physical card around to tell you what to do next turn, it gets set aside and then makes sure it was.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, 'The Secret History of the Dominion Promos'

Retrospective

Lose track has to exist due to ways you can actually lose track of cards. It needs a straightforward rule for what it means to lose track and well there it is. Summon meanwhile had to check for the card, because otherwise it might play a card that was hidden away, which is bad multiple ways.

Summon could have changed the gain-destination of the card to set-aside-land, rather than gaining it and setting it aside. That would be way more wordy and confusing, just to improve a small number of interactions.

Summon could not exist. There, now are you happy?

—Donald X. Vaccarino, summon + death cart vs. summon + nomad camp

I don't like gaining without gaining, that's creating more rules questions than Summon / Death Cart stuff. But, aha: "At the start of your next turn, +1 Action and gain to your hand an Action card costing up to ." Villa and Cobbler technology. Since we don't actually play it we don't need to worry about where it is, and since we delay the gain we don't need to set it aside. You do need to remember that you bought this. And of course it's dangerous with low piles.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, summon + death cart vs. summon + nomad camp