Tournament

Tournament
Info
Cost
Type(s)	Action
Kingdom card?	Yes
Set	Cornucopia
Illustrator(s)	Taylor Bennett
Card text
+1 Action Each player may reveal a Province from their hand. If you do, discard it and gain any Prize (from the Prize pile) or a Duchy, onto your deck. If no-one else does, +1 Card and +.

This article is about the card Tournament. For Dominion tournaments, see Tournaments.

Tournament is an Action card from Cornucopia. Depending on whether players have Provinces, it can be a Peddler variant, non-terminal stop card, and gainer of Duchies and Prizes, unique cards which cannot be gained any other way.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• First you get +1 Action.
• Then each player, including you, may reveal a Province card from their hand.
• Then, if you revealed a Province, discard it, and you gain a Prize of your choice, or a Duchy, putting whatever card you took on top of your deck.
• There are five Prizes, set out at the start of the game.
• You cannot take Prizes from the trash or from other players; you can only take Prizes that no-one has taken yet this game.
• You can take any Prize from the Prize pile; you do not have to take the top one.
• You can take a Duchy instead, whether or not the Prizes have run out.
• You can opt to take a Duchy even if the Duchy pile is empty, or a Prize even if no Prizes are left; in these cases you gain nothing.
• After gaining your card or not, if no other player revealed a Province, you draw a card and get +.
• So this card will play out one of four ways:

1. if you do not reveal a Province and no-one else does either, you will get +1 Action +1 Card +;
2. if you reveal a Province and no-one else does, you will gain a Prize or a Duchy onto the top of your deck, as well as get +1 Action +1 Card +; the card drawn will always be the Prize or Duchy just placed on top of your deck;
3. if you reveal a Province and so does someone else, you will get +1 Action and gain a Prize or a Duchy, which will be on top of your deck;
4. if you do not reveal a Province but someone else does, you will just get +1 Action.

• You can look through the Prizes that players have not gained yet at any time.

Strategy

Tournament is a Peddler variant that is often centralizing because it provides access to the Prize pile. In most Kingdoms, exclusive access to at least one of the Prizes is highly desirable, so it's almost always important to contest them by gaining Tournament and aiming to collide it early with a Province.

In the early game, before anyone has a Province, Tournament is equivalent to a Peddler, which makes it a useful card in the opening. However, other cards may be better for quickly establishing deck control or allowing you to buy an early Province, so it can often be preferable to add Tournament later. It is rare for Tournament to be entirely skippable, but this may sometimes happen if a rush is available, e.g. Groom and Gardens. Beyond the early game, Tournament often turns into a stop card that generates no as an opponent can reveal a Province when you play it, meaning that it will be a weaker card later in the game, especially in multiplayer games or if there is a way for your opponent to ensure they reliably have Province in hand such as with Save. This means it's usually best to avoid taking too many copies even if they are useful at first.

To make full use of Tournament, you need a Province and some way of colliding the two. Getting the first opportunity to gain a Prize can give you a decisive advantage for the rest of the game, so achieving this is typically a high priority. Even though doing so often involves some luck, it is important to position yourself as well as possible to gain Prizes. Good deck control, including strong draw and thinning, helps with both affording Province and achieving collision, so it is generally even more important than usual. Gear and Church are especially noteworthy: in addition to providing deck control and transferring Province or Tournament between hands, they can also help you spike to afford Province in the first place. Despite the importance of deck control, in Tournament games it is also often worthwhile to add strong payload cards early on, even where you might otherwise delay this in favor of further solidifying deck control and building your engine more. However, if you can rely predominantly on draw and/or sifting, allowing you to use your existing Coppers and Tournaments for rather than adding extra stop cards for payload, this is generally preferable, because it makes the collision of Tournament and Province much easier afterwards. On the way to affording a Province, it's usually best to add one or two copies of Tournament to ensure you can quickly gain a Prize once you have the Province.

Once you have a Province, topdecking and sifting effects like Courtyard or Dungeon can be helpful to increase your chance of using it to activate Tournament. Saving a card between turns, e.g. with Haven, can also work well; setting Province aside does have the disadvantage of guaranteeing that it won't be in your hand during your opponent's turn to block their Tournaments from drawing, but blocking them is typically less important than gaining Prizes yourself. If you do have Province in hand during an opponent's turn, revealing it in response to their Tournament play is almost always worthwhile, as it has minimal downside and may impede their turn significantly. However, when you are facing a discard attack (which is possible in any Tournament game given the availability of Followers) it may often be preferable to discard Province even if you had hoped to block their Tournaments.

The choice of which card to gain with Tournament depends greatly on both the nature of the Kingdom and the stage of the game. You will often be able to gain-and-play your choice, which can mean the decision is somewhat situational, but some of the Prizes tend to be stronger than others in most Kingdoms. Generally, the relevance of a given Prize is tied to the exclusivity of its effect—if the Kingdom offers a comparable alternative, the Prize is less likely to be a priority.

There are five Prizes to choose from:

• Followers is often the best Prize because it is a strong Attack. The handsize attack can be particularly useful for impeding your opponent's efforts to win their own Prizes, or to more generally encourage duds. The Cursing is especially devastating if trashing is weak or missing from the Kingdom, though it is worth noting that because it also gains an Estate it can junk you as much as your opponents; in some scenarios, these can be useful fodder for trash-for-benefit effects, and they sometimes provide a helpful   swing in the endgame. When deciding whether to gain Followers or another Prize it is also important to consider the impact of being attacked yourself if you leave the card to your opponent.
• Trusty Steed can be a very good Prize, most frequently because it can be played like a Lost City, providing both a village effect and draw; this can give you a decisive advantage if those effects are otherwise hard to come by. Due to these effects, Trusty Steed is also good at maintaining deck control, so it can be important to help you get another Prize quickly. Indeed, taking it first may sometimes enable you to get a second Prize on the same turn if you have a second Tournament in hand and playing Trusty Steed will allow you to redraw the Province. Aside from its Lost City mode, Trusty Steed offers useful flexibility: if you already have one of these effects in abundance, it can be used to generate or as a Silver gainer instead.
• Princess is a strong payload card and is especially worthwhile if you have very good deck control, enabling you to use its cost reduction every turn and in conjunction with gainers. In particular, it may be extremely desirable if there are no other sources of +Buy, in which case it gives you a lot of flexibility to outmaneuver your opponent in the endgame or to possibly gain two Provinces per turn.
• Diadem is usually weak compared to the other Prizes but can be worthwhile in certain specific circumstances. First, its ability to convert a surplus of terminal space into can occasionally be a worthwhile form of payload, e.g. if you are using a lot of villages for effects other than +Actions, or if you have a Champion in play. Second, it is a unique Treasure, which makes it significantly better than a Duchy for scoring with Keep.
• Bag of Gold is a weaker Prize but can be a worthwhile addition when a good trash-for-benefit effect (such as Apprentice or Remodel) is available and you don't already have a good way to continuously provide fodder for it. Occasionally it can also be appealing as a way to add payload to your deck, particularly if the alternatives for doing so are not very good but you have overdraw, so you can reliably play Bag of Gold and draw the Golds you gain.

If the game is almost over because only a few Provinces remain, it may be worthwhile to gain a Duchy instead of a Prize. As unique cards, Prizes themselves are also occasionally relevant for effects that care about the variety of cards in your deck. For example, they score extra   with Museum or Fairgrounds but cause a   penalty with Wolf Den. In such Kingdoms, however, the on-play effect of the Prize will usually be of far greater importance than its direct scoring potential.

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.

• theory's 2011 article

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		+1 Action Each player may reveal a Province from his hand. If you do, discard it and gain a Prize (from the Prize pile) or a Duchy, putting it on top of your deck. If no-one else does, +1 Card, +.	Cornucopia	June 2011
		+1 Action Each player may reveal a Province from their hand. If you do, discard it and gain any Prize (from the Prize pile) or a Duchy, onto your deck. If no-one else does, +1 Card and +.	Guilds & Cornucopia (2017 printing)	March 2018

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
Czech	Turnaj
Dutch	Toernooi
Finnish	Turnajaiset
French	Tournoi			+1 Action Tous les joueurs peuvent dévoiler une Province de leur main. Si vous le faites, défaussez-la et recevez sur votre pioche un Prix (de la pile des Prix) ou un Duché. Si personne d'autre ne le fait, +1 Carte et +.
German	Turnier			+1 Aktion Alle Spieler dürfen eine Provinz ablegen. Wenn du das tust: Nimm einen Preis vom Preisstapel oder ein Herzogtum vom Vorrat. Lege die neue Karte sofort auf den Nachziehstapel. Wenn das kein Mitspieler tut: +1 Karte, +	(2014) translation error: "…Provinz ablegen aus ihrer Hand aufdecken." one or more other versions listed here
	Turnier			+1 Aktion Jeder Spieler darf eine Provinz aus seiner Hand aufdecken. Wenn du das tust: Lege deine Provinz ab, nimm eine beliebige Preiskarte (vom Preis-Stapel) oder ein Herzogtum und lege die genommene Karte auf deinen Nachziehstapel. Wenn kein Mitspieler eine Provinz aufgedeckt hat: +1 Karte und +.	(2019) "...und lege die genommene Karte auf deinen Nachzieh­stapel."
Italian	Torneo
Japanese	馬上槍試合 (pron. bajōyarijiai)			+1 アクション プレイヤーは全員、手札の属州1枚を公開してもよい。あなたが公開した場合、それを捨て札にし、(褒賞の山から)褒賞カード1枚か、公領1枚を山札の上に獲得する。他のプレイヤーが誰も公開しなかった場合、+1 カードを引く、+。
Polish	Turniej Rycerski (lit. knights' tournament)			+1 Akcja Każdy gracz może odkryć ze swojej ręki kartę Prowincji. Jeśli ty to zrobisz odrzuć tę kartę i dodaj kartę Nagrody (ze stosu nagród) lub Powiat, kładąc dodaną kartę na wierzchu swojej talii. Jeśli odkryjesz kartę Prowincji, a nie zrobi tego nikt inny, +1 karta, +.	(2011) BARD translation error: "…If you reveal Province and no one else does, +1 Card, +."
Russian	Турнир (pron. turnir)
Spanish	Torneo

Trivia

Official card art.

Secret History

Long ago, when working on what at the time was going to be the 4th expansion, with a player interaction theme, I hit on the idea of caring about whether or not people had bought Provinces. I made two cards with this concept. The first turned into Trade Route, and migrated into Prosperity when I split up the player interaction cards (every set needed those cards). The second soon became , "Each player may reveal a Province from his hand. If you do, +3 Cards. If no-one else does, +3 Cards." So you got 0, 3, or 6 cards, depending. I moved it into Alchemy, then moved it from there to Prosperity, where revealing a Province was an extra-cute condition.

It had a certain charm, but was a dud for some people. The problem was, a lot of the time, it was Smithy. It just didn't play differently enough from Smithy to be interesting. So it left Prosperity and was consigned to the limbo of promising ideas to work on later.

When I started working on Cornucopia, I tried it again, as something that fit the hand theme. The dull part was the card-drawing, so I had to replace that. The version I tried cost , and was, "Each player may reveal a Province card from his hand. If you do, gain a Treasure. If no-one else does, gain an Action card." It's fun to just say "gain an Action card," no qualifiers, but it doesn't work. We played one game with this and Possession. I got six Possessions and lost. Possession was typically not as good as Workshop, as everyone crammed their decks full of   cards. Another insane thing was using it to gain copies of itself and Golems, then using the Golems to dig it up and do this more. You would have turns where you gained a pile of cards and then played them all. Anyway these games are fun once, but that's that. I killed the card again.

So a while later, I was working on the set, and realized I could push variety by actually adding more cards to the game. I had cards that cared if you had variety, and some cards helped you get that variety, but nothing increased the total amount of variety possible.

The first thing to try was a Black Market variant. Black Market came up a lot as a card that was cool with this expansion. Why not make a new one? And I could fix all of the problems Black Market had. Instead of buying a card in your Action phase, it would gain you a card directly. Instead of having to build a Black Market Deck, it would just come with one pre-built. Then that deck could be new cards, which was nice too, especially for a small expansion, although it could only be five cards, because that's how much space there was.

Tournament's Province-revealing mechanic was perfect for this. And so it came to pass. I made a Black Market variant, that came with the cards you gained from it, that gained you the cards directly, via revealing a Province. There were still some things to work out though.

You got your Prize for revealing Province yourself, so that it wouldn't happen right away, and it went on your deck, so you'd draw it before the game was over. What did you get if they didn't stop you? At first it was a Silver, which was obviously bad. Steve Wampler suggested that it be something involving drawing a card, so that you'd get your Prize that turn if you had Province and no-one else did. I went with Peddler - +1 Action +1 Card +. That had the problem though of, if someone revealed Province, you didn't get +1 Action, and couldn't play another card. You'd have turns where you stared at your hand, deciding whether or not to risk playing Tournament. That was no fun, so, you always get the +1 Action.

Another thing was the booby prize. Originally it was Silver. That was unimpressive, but was there for a bit before turning into Duchy.

Originally you didn't discard the Province you revealed, but winning multiple Tournaments in a turn was too much. It's still possible of course, just harder.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, The Secret History of the Cornucopia Cards. This is continued in the secret history of Prizes.

Retrospective

Aside from being so complex that it has a 2x2 payoff grid and then requires you to read five other cards to know the whole story, I think of Tournament as a slam dunk, the kind of card every set is desperate to have. I did not expect any complaints about the rich-get-richer aspect of it; there is so much rich-get-richer in Dominion.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Which is the card you hate the most?

Tournament is the champ of making people resign; that has to count against it. For me its biggest problem is just being so over-the-top complex. And lots of people love it too.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Dominion Discord, 2020

I still like the premise. Tournament has a way way better love/hate ratio than e.g. Possession. And I mean it's fun, there, I said it. Tournament as implemented is crazy complex - consider a 2x2 payoff grid, now read 5 more cards. The two concepts should have been on different cards. And then the Prizes themselves are of course imbalanced.

—Donald X. Vaccarino, Interview with Donald X.